Tenebrae Responsories: where to sing?
  • PMass
    Posts: 1
    Hi,
    In our chapel, our schola typically sings the Matins responsories at Tenebrae standing in the stalls. However, in the past there have been times where we have sung them at the lectern. I have been trying to find if there is a specific rubric or even a traditional custom or norm for where to sing them. Does anyone have an answer for this?
    Many thanks!
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    Most of the places in London they sing them in the stalls, BUT the cantors one to each side come to the centre to intone each one. I think the first is intoned by the celebrant.

    Ah well will find out later... I should remember but I forget.
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    The Caeremoniale Episcoporum is silent on this point, as far as I can see; the Caeremoniale juxta ritum S. ordinis Praedicatorum for the Dominican rite says, that on feast days the friars are to remain in the stalls, except the two or four who are to chant the verse of the responsory (and also chant the intonation). I did not find the rubrics for Tenebrae, but the Caeremoniale Parisiense says, that the verse is to be sung by one cantor.

    Thus I assume that singing in the stalls is correct, and the cantors come to the center to intone the responsory and sing the verse.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    I dimly recall, from about 1950, Benedictines having two cantors, each with a legelium (folding lectern like an elongated deck chair) stationed just inside the altar rails. (Facing East? or facing each other?, definitely not versus populum)
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