I am considering playing Messiaen's "Dieu parmi nous" as a closing voluntary sometime during Christmas. Would it be wise to use it as a second voluntary at one of the Christmas day Masses, or should I hold onto it for another day (Jan. 1st?).
(FYI : each of the three Christmas masses have a fist closing voluntary that I play every year, e.g. Midnight : Bach's "In dulci jubilo", the second changes every year.)
Nah, things should be so easy - although I used to pull on the dreaded Mixture Horribilis III, to get Last-Verse O'Neil off the altar when he was the associate pastor. These days, the sermons are looooooooong! The congregation is more than ready to leave by the time I get to the postlude.
The two-postlude thing happened by accident one year after midnight Mass: I played (Bach "In dulci"), finished, everyone was still in the church (talking, mostly, unfortunately), the "lock-up ladies" looked antsy to get home, so I played something else to try to cover some of the noise and get the talkers out, it worked well; I did it on Christmas day, and a 'tradition' started. Now, after six years, many people politely stay to listen to both voluntaries. The second is more modern (nothing earlier than Franck).
I was also thinking about Jan. 1st or Epiphany and using as the only postlude (normally I only play one!) because of the length of the piece.
I personally love Messiaen; and I do play a lot of modern music. I've been slowly streaching the ears of the people - when I started playing here nine years ago Sweelinck was dissonant to some, and still is! - and have thought of doing "Dieu parmi nous" for about three years now, and now might be the time to do it.
Francis, I will definitely investigate "In dir ist Freude".
Thanks all for your help, I just wanted to guage the reception among colleagues - if the general consensus seemed to be "Messiaen?! Why are you playing that?!?" I wouldn't bother.
Francis, thanks for the Bach. Wonderful piece to try some time.
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