Organ after the Gospel
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,245
    New to me this Easter is the practice of playing a very brief piece on the organ immediately after the Gospel is sung. (In the traditional rite, this is.) I've never encountered it before but that certainly could be lack of experience. Who can tell new something about it?
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,950
    I suspect it is to do with the mediaeval Prose that was sung after the Gospel and before the Sermon. The FSSP in Switzerland sing some German text, I think from the Pentecost Sequence.
    Thanked by 1Andrew_Malton
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,473
    Well it’s also walking music since there’s a brief wait before the sermon (or Credo if you don’t preach).
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • trentonjconn
    Posts: 801
    My experience with the Old Mass has been that most down time is accompanied by organ improv when the rubrics permit it.
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 710
    My experience with the Old Mass has been that most down time is accompanied by organ improv when the rubrics permit it.

    I feel like this is something lacking in the OF, especially whenever there’s incensing involved and the hymn is coming to an end, but the incensing isn’t, or it has, but the priest still needs to traverse from one part of the sanctuary to the other. I grew accustomed to the satisfaction of the organ improvisation succinctly ending at precisely the same time as the the priest steps up to the ambo, or returns to his chair, or the server finishes incensing the congregation. It just really helps maintain the flow of Mass and keeping mentally in the focus zone, rather than get distracted by all the surrounding noise people make during Mass dropping metal water bottles on the pews, rummaging through their stuff, talking during Mass, repeatedly dropping their phones, texting during Mass with the sound on, opening and closing binder rings. People are so loud.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,965
    For what it's worth, the sedevacantists at St. Gertrude the Great will sing a hymn as a segue following the Gospel into the homily, and they're hardly the ones for liturgical innovation (meaning it has been done elsewhere before).