Terry's Short Mass in C
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    This little unison Mass ordinary was just posted on CPL. It's by the great great Richard Terry of Westminster fame. I can't help but be charmed by it. any choir could sing this, and rather quickly. He wrote it for boys of course.

    Doesn't it seem like this would be useful today? Or am I'm revealing a stylistic draw to Victorian aesthetics?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    Yes, and yes. I think it would be very useful, but only as a part of the repertoire, perhaps for 2 months of ordinary time--something like that.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    I think it's charming, btw.
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    IMO, it could serve as an inspiration for an English language setting that might turn out to be less objectionable than most. But I don't see much point in a monophonic, non-plainchant Latin ordinary.
  • don roy
    Posts: 306
    people
    this is manna from heaven for those of us that have to endure ..... (shudder shudder) SCHOOL MASS (Oh the horror...)
    This is great for any childrens choir program.
  • Nick BotkinsNick Botkins
    Posts: 31
    don Roy - I was thinking the same thing, children's choir. Is it just me, or is it difficult to find decent Masses for children's choirs?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    Not at all! Just $10 for the Parish Book of Chant...
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    "But I don't see much point in a monophonic, non-plainchant Latin ordinary."

    I disagree. It's a good way to get congregations more familiar with the Latin ordinary without them sighing "more chant". More metrical Latin suitable for congregations is exactly what's needed to bridge the gulf between what's common and easy introduction to plainchant.
  • Francis1984
    Posts: 21
    I used to use Terry in C fairly regularly for the children's choir when I was choir director at a church in London. The children loved it, and the congregation (parents) soon picked it up. I have also used it here in the USA in similar circumstances. Does anyone have access to Terry's Mass of St. Dominic? This is 4-part, simple, tuneful and easily learned. It was a popular standard in England until recently, although some objected to his harmonies. The Mass of St. Dominic is used as an example of Terry's use of modern diatonic harmony in E.T.Muir's book "Roman Catholic church music in England, 1791-1914"
    I would really like to get hold of a copy if anyone can help.
  • Dan McGarveyDan McGarvey
    Posts: 59
    I went and printed out a copy for the benefit of my youth/children's choir directors. The Kyrie has a good tune that I think kids and lay singers can sink their teeth into, but in what world does 96 to the quarter note qualify as "Larghetto?"
  • Daniel Bennett PageDaniel Bennett Page
    Posts: 835
    There's also a nice unison Latin Mass by the Canadian composer Healey Willan in the 1950s edition of the Saint Basil Hymnal--Mass of Saint Teresa, IIRC.
    I believe it was first created for use by women's religious communities.
  • Francis1984
    Posts: 21
    Healy Willan was an Englishman. He worked for many years at the famous Anglo Catholic church of St. John's Holland Road Kensington, London. He used to describe himself as "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption." Funny!!
  • Francis1984
    Posts: 21
    So, I suppose that somehow I brought this thread to a close with my remarks on Healey Willan
    BUT
    Can anyone help me to locate the Mass of St. Dominic by Terry?
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,048
    Don't have a copy but a wonderful discussion of the work and others by Terry in the book "Roman Catholic Church Music in England 1791-1914"

    http://tinyurl.com/2ad6s9o

    Sam Schmitt
  • rogue63
    Posts: 410
    Many thanks for making this lovely setting available. My boys choir likes it very much, as well as my girls, and it will make an appearance on the 5th Sunday OT here in Oklahoma City: the Kyrie and Agnus Dei. There seems to be a dearth of unison metrical Latin ordinaries like this one---not sure why. Anyway, this is a treat and the right pedagogical thing at the right pedagogical time for my students.
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