With polyphony, it's acceptable to sing it as written The sanctus stops after the 1st "hosanna", and is continued with "benedictus" only after the consecration of the wine.

Other than that, it's basically the same.

Thank you! I'm glad the Benedictus was mentioned-I had meant to ask about that, too.

Indicted? Will the liturgy police be there?

Over the past few years, we have performed some of the Byrd Masses here. We once did the "Mass for 3 Voices" with only the written "Kyrie.., Christe.., Kyrie..", but more recently we discovered an edition (probably not original) where a schola did the first "Kyrie", echoed by the full choir; ditto for the "Christe"; then the schola repeated the first "Kyrie" before the choir sang the final "Kyrie". Our Pastor was OK with both performances.

We don't sing Credo III... I,II, & IV normally, VI occasionally.

I have heard suggestions that the Credo should be in chant so everybody can join in, but we usually sing the Credo written for the Mass setting.

Who knows about the tropes? I feel most comfortable filling in the Kyrie with a chant setting from the Liner Usualis, like Mass IV.

Since I am not super familiar with the EF, do we have to sing the Vidi aquam and Victime paschali laudes as well, since it is in Easter? It's not the principal Mass of the day, per se, but it is a Sunday Mass....
If so, when?? I am researching, but thought I may as well ask. Thanks!

Jackson,

What does Latin sound like in the mouth of a Glaswegian?

Angelina, if it is on a Sunday in Easter, but not on Easter Sunday or Low Sunday, you do not have to sing the VPL (if it is one of those days, it follows the 2nd Alleluia verse, omitting the repeated "Alleluia"), but the Vidi Aquam would be the appropriate chant for the asperges.

My choir (not church choir-but a local Chorale) is coming to my parish in May to sing a polyphonic mass

An interesting exercise. I wonder what proportion of the participants don't actually believe in the existence of the God they will be singing to.

I wonder what proportion of the participants don't actually believe in the existence of the God they will be singing to.

Once upon a time there was a singer who got a job in an Anglican Catholic Church. He was not a Christian, but he figured that part of professionalism was being silent about his opinions. Oh, there was a somebody across the loft whom he would roll eyes at whenever Father talked about abortion or women priests, but otherwise... Eventually a funny thing happened: he converted, and eventually swam the Tiber.

And so... I'd rather have people singing who can sing, even if they have unshriven mortal sin. Because if they show up where God talks, they might eventually listen.

It's the only EF Mass that Sunday. We have two OF Masses in the morning, and the EF at 5pm.

I'm excited to use the opportunity as an evangelization tool. Many members are Community of Christ. In fact, our director is, too, and is converting this year to Catholicism!
We just got beautiful new artwork, too, so the whole affair will (hopefully) be a transcendent experience. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, all!

I would venture to disagree slightly with Dr Mahrt, not on musical grounds but historical ones. English Catholics were finding it very difficult to circulate missals. Priests would not commonly carry a missal on their travels, much too difficult to conceal, but would use the missal available in situ, whether Sarum or Tridentine. Apart from that English Catholics had a strong attachment to the old ways, and there is much recorded hostility between the modernising Jesuits and the secular clergy. Byrd would have been 50, or over, in 1593.
Although it is true that the Tridentine Missal was introduced at Douai from 1577, Sarum Use (which was licit) persisted in some places for at least another century.

We now just sing the three, understanding that when three voices sing, you have nine invocations, perhaps a bit sophistical reasoning, but I think that is how Byrd might have done it.

We also sing Byrd's Mass for 3 Voices and alternate it with the chant (prior to that we sang each part 3 times). In our experience with another Mass setting where the tropes are less distinct and obvious (they overlap each other), the priests (FSSP) have made a point of informing us that there must be a nine fold Kyrie.

150 at High Mass (EF); 40 at Low Mass (EF)

Weekly EF at 5:30pm on Sunday - usually Low with hymns (We have a new Deacon who has a good voice and loves the EF Mass, so we might have High Mass more often in the future.)

Monthly First Friday at 4:00 Low - no music

All Souls' Requiem (on or near Nov. 2, usually Faure')

Christmas at Midnight (or maybe 10 pm)

Stella Maris
Sullivan's Island (Charleston Harbor)

Many members are Community of Christ.

As in former RLDS? That's what the Quicks were, but my paternal grandfather married a Lutheran girl, so...

As for MJO's question: Every week, 100% sung, 100-125, St. Sebastian Akron OH

Pax has offered some quite lucid and candid assessments of non-Christian participation in Christian ritual. Many such persons have no desire to be 'evangelised', either purposefully or incidentally, and see their participation in our worship as an expression of their own private 'spirituality' or psychic growth. We should thank the Lord that they come to us to get it. The music itself and the performance of it with others is, for some of them, an end in itself with its own set of subjective rewards. Others may (this resonates with yesterday's gospel, doesn't it!) never know when their eyes will be opened and they may, like C.S. Lewis, be 'surprised by {a} joy' that they hadn't dreamed of or sought. Just as all 'believers' are not alike, so it is with non-believers. Never, ever, put anyone in a box. If anything will get through to them it will be the apparent faith, maturity, and genuine devotion of their Christian hosts - who don't attempt in any way to proselyte but receive them lovingly.

I served in a prominent Lutheran church in Houston for fifteen years. (A through and through Anglo-Catholic serving Missouri Synod Lutherans - unheard of!) They never attempted to 'convert' me and I was always scrupulously careful not to proselytise. I did take their spirituality and the latent Catholicism within their faith and ritual very, very seriously and won their gratitude for increasing their own appreciation of their heritage and its origins. I am grateful for all those years of outstanding music, choral and congregational, and a deeply respectful relationship with the pastor. Example is the most profound teacher. Be grateful that there are those present to witness it and leave the rest to God. His will will be done: Gottes Zeit ist der allerbest Zeit!

Even in Walsingham's choir we have had at least one Jew, a wondrously talented voice major at the UofH, who was always very respectful of our worship, even admired aspects of it. He especially liked my Gregorian chant a la Palmer-Burgess. Actually, I always felt a little sympathy for him during Holy Week, and especially on Good Friday. He has left with good memories of Christians but will always be a Jew because that is what he is.

^^Indeed^^. When parishioners ask me where they can learn more about singing, I refer them to community choruses with knowledgeable directors. Some of those directors have advanced degrees in choral conducting and years of experience; and the groups often perform respected choral works, many of them sacred in character. Both of those features are lacking in most parish music programs.

When parishioners ask me where they can learn more about singing, I refer them to community choruses with knowledgeable directors. Some of those directors have advanced degrees in choral conducting and years of experience; and the groups often perform respected choral works, many of them sacred in character. Both of those features are lacking in most parish music programs.

I don't disagree with that in the least: some members of any community chorus will indeed be Christians whose own churches don't have musical programmes of substance.

But equally some will be athiest, pagan, wiccan, whatever else you're having. I have seen churches who naively believed that they were evangelising the "unchurched" by inviting them to be involved with aspects of worship, who had no idea of the intentions in the hearts of the people themselves, which were vastly different from the Christian message.

Of course this doesn't matter if you believe that the choir/musicians are there serve the PIP by enhancing the pray. But if you believe that the choir/musicians are there to serve God alone - then belief in God (not just in music) should be the starting place for participation.

Re: Byrd's 3-part....the music person at our parish now has the congregation singing the soprano-line of the Kyrie (responding to a rendition by a soloist.) The inevitable train-wreck happens when the congregation is required to sing Byrd's final 'Kyrie.'

If one is going to go to that extreme, why not simply teach the congregation a CHANT Kyrie?

@MarkS The Bassoon part in that is SUBLIME

I HAVE come across wiccan people but none who have wanted to join a Catholic choir... plenty who have wanted to advertise their shops of stuff in the Church vestibule (which is never granted.)

I do get a lot of atheists who want to join Catholic choirs and the reason is money... it's paid singing. SOME do indeed get converted. (One of my Jewish friends is considering Catholicism since joining one of my choirs. They sing every Easter and Christmas at various churches and reckon if they did convert they could be baptised at the Easter vigil.) The power of sacred music does indeed

bring folks to God.

I came to this (very rich and stimulating) thread looking for a specific answer to a logistic/liturgical question, which has only been briefly hinted at toward the beginning.

My question is, what to do with the length of the Sanctus/Benedictus in many polyphonic masses. Cards on the table—I am a committed Anglican/Episcopal softie who nonetheless has a deep love and reverence for the practice of polyphonic mass singing in a true liturgical context. It’s why I left the Baptists I grew up with. I am used to those two items being presented as a unit in the Book of Common Prayer and its successors, and to the words of the Great Thanksgiving (all of them) being the central to Eucharistic liturgy.

Do I deduce rightly (also from other hints in other conversations) that in the context of a Polyphonic mass in some Roman churches (and commonly in the time of their composition), the priestly words and sung Sanctus happen simultaneously up to the point “in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread…” ? What are the specific ways that all traditionally fits together? Does the sung Sanctus begin following “Therefore with angels…” or before that? How do we reconcile that with the sentiment, widely held among Protestants, and made explicit for Catholics with Vatican II, of “full comprehension and participation?” (Asking this question honestly, not rhetorically or dogmatically)

Thank you!

Hence the paramount importance of cultivating good communication and relations between music leadership, choir, and clergy

Yes—I had long wondered that. Among Anglicans who do this sort of thing, we have typically just sung them together, which can get long, so we shy away from many a treasure for that reason.

Does anyone have experience of the priest being audible through the mic while the Sanctus is sung? How do you communicate that overlap positively with congregants? I’m not directing a choir right now, but some friends and I have just such a service in the planning stages with St. Mary’s, Park City UT for early in the New Year. We’re so far proposing Josquin’s Pange Lingua mass for the event, and the Sanctus and Benedictus are both on their own pretty lengthy.