I don't understand
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Does anyone know why Bragers, the NOH composers, and others wrote HUNDREDS OF PAGES of organ accompaniments for the processional chants on Palm Sunday? ("Cum appropinquaret Dominus" — "Cum audisset" — "Ante Sex Dies" — "Occurent turbae" — "Cum angelis et pueris" — "Turba multa" etc.)

    Weren't the people processing outside the Church? How could the organ accompany them?

    HERE IS A SAMPLE PAGE OUT OF HUNDREDS.
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    Perhaps they had a portative organ in mind.
    Thanked by 1Ragueneau
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Or a very large/loud organ inside!
    Thanked by 1Ragueneau
  • Allan DAllan D
    Posts: 43
    The accompaniments could be used for rehearsals.
  • Jeffrey CogginsJeffrey Coggins
    Posts: 360
    Or a "battery-powered portative organ".
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    When I think of outdoor processions I think of bands and accordians and such accompanying the singing. Though this is just a theory, the musicians might practise indoors with the organist accompanying them so they learned the music. I would imagine they all played by ear. I happened upon a procession like this in Rome once.

  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    They seem to have figured out a way in Rome.
  • Maureen
    Posts: 678
    Even if most of the procession were outside church, a lot of the procession was inside church (ie, winding around before sitting down). And if everyone in town was in the procession, it might take quite a while for everyone to wind around and sit down.
  • joerg
    Posts: 137
    BTW: The organ that we hear playing in St Peter's square in the video linked by Robert must be the one donated to pope John Paul in 1981 by the then German chancellor Helmut Schmidt - himself a distinguished amateur pianist and organist.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,827
    We have a bell tower with a large speaker in it. I have a digital organ (Allen) which has MIDI IN and can be run by a MIDI keyboard. So technically, I could play the organ from the back of a pickup truck from a small MIDI keyboard, (at the front of the outside procession) over a wireless internet connection like G4, send the signal to the organ, and then have the organ patched into the bell tower. Voila! However I have considered a hand pumped portative... I think that would be very cool.
    Thanked by 1expeditus1
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    1) Organists wrote accompaniments for outdoor processions because, rather than busy themselves with learning how to sing well and teach others to do so, they'd rather set about with their favortite preoccupation- writing yet another set of harmonizations that the world was groaning for and could not live without. And then forgot.
    2) Organists wrote accompaniments for outdoor processions because- silly- no one can sing a note without dripping chords to help them. Sustain me!!!
    //tongue firmly in cheek, organist friends.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Some kind of instrumental music for processions seems so desirable as to be almost necessary. The last outdoor procession I sang was for an EF Corpus Christi, 6/10 mile each way, with nothing but voices, and I was dead by the end. Having a little band to spell the singers would have been so nice.
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Thank you for all these thoughts.
  • PaixGioiaAmorPaixGioiaAmor
    Posts: 1,473
    You'll get to do it again in about 10 weeks for Corpus Christi in the Ordinary Form ...
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