Hello all, Back in my chorister days in my mom's church choir, we learned an arrangement of "The Cherubic Hymn". It was quite beautiful, however, despite my mother's efforts in her research she could not find a straight answer as to what part of the mass in the Roman rite it would be appropriate for, if at all. So we often sang it as a prelude to avoid any errors.
It really is a beautiful setting and I would like to teach it to my current church choir, but I want to know what context it would be best suited for.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
In the Byzantine liturgy it is sung at the time of the offertory procession, and it could be suitable in the modern Roman rite if sung after the offertory chant or instead of it. Since the text ends with the word "alleluia", it is appropriate outside of the season of Lent.
Considering the beloved importance of the Cherubikon in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, and its entire absence from the historical Roman Rite, is there just a whiff of cultural appropriation about using it?
Andrew, actually, it's not entirely absent from the Roman Rite. But it was one of those things that "didn't make the cut". The earliest sources we have are Carolingian, mostly in Greek as part of the Missa Graeca, but there's one source in Latin with neumes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherubikon#The_notated_chant_sources
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