Farewelling the Alleluia
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Saturday Evening before this Septuagesima/EF Sunday, at Vespers, we farewell the Alleluia till Easter. We also change from green to purple on Sunday. Inspired by suggestions from Jeff Tucker's essay Catholics Give The Best Parties, we're having a party & farewelling the Alleluia at my humble abode. Burying it in the back yard, in fact, in a new tomb (just built by me). Till Easter. According to the ancient tradition.

    The schedule for the evening writes itself, really...
    6.30 pm Green cocktails (Mojitos)
    7.00 pm Vespers (trad.)
    7.45 pm Burial of the Alleluia.(Hymn: Alleluia, Dulce Carmen)
    8.00 pm Purple cocktails, dinner & singing till late.
    Dress formal, but a purple item is de rigeur.

    Attached is the vespers & hymn I've hastily put together. Others might find it useful in future years.

    Cheers, & thanks again, for your inspiration, Jeff.

    Jeff's essay here
  • Gilbert
    Posts: 106
    I don't have any experience with the Extraordinary Form of the Office. I have a question about it though, since I was going through the Vespers pdf. How come on the first psalm, the Antiphon is different on each end of the psalm? It seems like at the end of the psalm, it is the full antiphon, but at the beginning it is only the first word, and then it goes directly into the psalm, which also shares the same first word? Is this how it usually works? The other antiphons for the psalms don't appear to do this.

    Gilbert
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 431
    Weren't the reforms that called for doubling the antiphons on all occasions implemented before 1962?
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Gilbert, all the antiphons are sung in their entirety - as Bruce notes (thanks, B). But when the psalm or canticle begins with the same words as the antiphon, those words are not repeated when you come to sing the psalm or antiphon - you begin the psalm or antiphon with the word that follows those of the antiphon (except when there's an alleluia in the antiphon). So here that's in the first psalm and the fifth psalm. I've set it out this way to remind me (and partly for reasons of space.)

    Sorry for any confusion there.
  • Gilbert
    Posts: 106
    I'm still a little confused. The first psalm's antiphon at the end is "Benedictus Dominus susceptor meus et liberator meus." Are you saying the antiphon's text and notes are sung at the beginning, just as at the end? And then, the psalm begins as written, "Benedictus Dominus Deus meus, ..." with the word Benedictus sung on the same notes as it was for the antiphon?

    The 5th psalm makes more sense, since the whole antiphon is the same text as the first verse. It looks like "Fidelis Dominus" is sung to the notes of the antiphon, like at the end, and then the rest of the antiphon is sung to the psalm tone. Is this correct? Then at the end, the whole antiphon is sung as written?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    The Alleluia party is too funny! What I would like to do is have a party to bury the Celtic Alleluia. Then get everyone so tipsy that no one could recall its location to resurrect it.
    Thanked by 3bhcordova Carol ClemensRomanus
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    I shall enjoy your Alleluya party from afar! How nice that you are having it. Burying the Alleluya is still done in some Anglican churches. I even ALMOST got some Lutherans to do it once... but, you know, they have this problem with adiaphora.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    I can't attest to this, but a Benedictine friend told me about some old custom of taking a carved Alleluia off the choir wall so that a server could roll it out of the chapel, having mounted it in a wooden hoop.
  • Gilbert
    Posts: 106
    Hugh,

    Is this "Alleluia, Dulce Carmen" hymn text usually put to this tune? I'm just wondering.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Though I am very fond of 'Picardy', I think Alleluia, Song of Gladness is more fitting sung to "Dulce Carmen', found at no.54 in The Hymnal 1940. If one is to sing it in Latin, any of a number of 87.87.87 plainsong tunes would be, I think, more appropriate.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Hugh,

    Was hoping to host an Alleluia party this year, but I can't seem to find a link with the vespers on it. Could you either reprint it or send me a message with the file?
  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    Before anyone else contributes to this thread, I would kindly draw your attention to the fact that this is a five year old thread, so the original participants may or may not still be around.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Attached is the Septuagesima Eve Vespers booklet I prepared a few years back and seems to have gone missing. I've updated so the antiphons are doubled throughout.
    VespersseptuagesimaEve2014.pdf
    690K
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Thank you, Dr. Henry. Our "A------ Aloha" party went very well, although with the amount of snow we've gotten up here, we decided to give 'Al' the Chopin treatment and leave him in a makeshift mausoleum covered with hand-fulls of dirt from his 'homeland'. We also decided to substitute grasshoppers and mulled wine for the green and purple drinks, respectively.
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,100
    anyone planning an Alleluia Farewell party this year?
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores tomjaw
  • Chrism
    Posts: 872
    Not to be a killjoy, but in places where the funeral backlog is still not drained, it might be best to bury the 2021 Alleluia quietly among a small group of friends, and share photos via text rather than on the parish Instagram account.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,890
    We are going to do it for the first time this year. Haven’t cemented the musical form yet though (hymn vs chant of Alleluia song of gladness).
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Good for you, Serviam.
    Why, we don't even do this at Walsingham - but I'm working on it.
    Maybe next year.

    I first heard of this way back in the sixties and never understood why it was 'history'.
    Just another part of our liturgical patrimony that has been jettisoned.
    Thanked by 3tomjaw CHGiffen marymezzo
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    We process out of the church after Mass singing Alleluia Dulce Carmen, place the Alleluia in a pre-prepared hole, bless the Alleluia, cover and return in silence.
    Thanked by 4M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen sdtalley3 ServiamScores
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    This has other things that could be sung if we could find the music including a sequence,
    https://archive.org/details/V04TheLiturgicalYear/page/n121/mode/2up
    Thanked by 2mmeladirectress M. Jackson Osborn
  • Carol
    Posts: 856
    I taught first grade for many years in Catholic school and I would have my students color Alleluia banners on Shrove Tuesday and then we would roll them up and tie them with purple ribbon. Just before Easter recess, I would give them back to the students to take home and for "homework" they would tape them up in their home on Easter Sunday. I haven't thought of this in a few years.

    I also see Chrism's point above. There have been too many funerals around here this month for an actual burial of the Alleluia to seem appealing to most parishioners. I do get the symbolism and realize that IS the point, but still... We will bury my brother in law tomorrow.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,890
    I suspect we will end up chanting Alleluia Dulce Carmen as my pastor has said he doesn't want any hymnody right now. (Recent diocesan guidelines state we can sing again, but only sotto voce, and preferably "chant-like".)
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Serviam,

    Take the victory where you've been handed it! Chant gloriously!
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    Cantemus cuncti >
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeTZ7dFsFO4

    And translations into Englsh : https://tosingistopraytwice.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/the-strain-upraise-of-joy-and-praise/
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn Chrism
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,890
    Chris, we’ve been chanting for months and I love it. I had hoped to throw one bone to the congregation after all these long months, however. But I confess Rona has done more for congregational chanting and propers than the last three decades combined (at least insofar as the average N.O. parish is concerned).
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen tomjaw marymezzo
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    If Gueranger is right to say that the sequence Cantemus cuncti was used to bid farewell to the Alleluia, this may be the tune in the attachment : The alleluiatic sequence : Cantemus cuncti = The strain upraise : with the ancient, and only appropriate, melody : reprinted from the Hymnal noted. Author: J M Neale
    Neale says he got it from Über Die Lais, Sequenzen Und Leiche; Ferdinand Wolf so it may be in this https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10812855_00461.html
    cantemus_cuncti.pdf
    524K
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    We will do so in Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile, this Saturday, after First Vespers.
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