Everyone's tired on Low Sunday
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 370
    Lo! Sunday bringeth lots of tired choirs
    Who now must singeth, as has been required;
    But they're so tir'd from Holy Week and Easter.
    They're all real feasters.

    So, clear your throats now; put away that chocolate.
    Get out your music; I sure hope you brought it!
    Quit all that chatting; need I once more mention,
    To pay attention?

    Picking some easy repertoire should do ya;
    Just always make sure it has Alleluia!
    Or go repeat stuff that you did last Sunday.
    Make it a fun day!

    Can be sung to any Sapphic hymn tune

    This is accurate to my experience of choir practice before Low Sunday Mass each year, except thankfully no one's ever brought chocolate. This is not skillful poetry, but hopefully I gave someone a chuckle.
    Thanked by 4tomjaw Roborgelmeister CHGiffen CharlesW
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,827
    E.g. the chant melodies of Iste Confessor and any melody based on it, like of Caelitum Ioseph and Iste confessor (the Joseph version).

    We move schola to Thursday. We’ll have to have the choir rehearsal on Wednesday unless we cancel it and go for Sunday only. I’m OK with that on second thought.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 12,097
    I always though Easter was an endurance feat. It almost beat us all into the ground.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 860
    I always though Easter was an endurance feat. It almost beat us all into the ground.

    My parish had two whole Triduums, one for the 2011 Missal and one for the 1962 Missal. Our MD did both despite some Easter Vigils ending at around 3:00 am and the first Easter Sunday Mass with music being at 9:00 am. I don’t function in less than 6 hours of sleep, and even then it’s iffy when it comes to tasks requiring actual brain function. I have no idea how he survived.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • trentonjconn
    Posts: 825
    Double Triduum sounds like the sort of anxiety panic dream that liturgical musicians tend to have.
    Thanked by 3Charles tomjaw CharlesW
  • Noctcaelador
    Posts: 30
    In my previous job, I advocated strongly for sung Easter Vespers and Easter Monday Mass. Keep the energy up! That way Low Sunday isn't a letdown.
    This was about as popular as you'd expect, but people did come...

    At my current job, it's kinda trippy doing dailies during Easter Week. That's a lot of Victimae. A very long emotional high, to counterbalance Holy Week.
    Thanked by 1novusgordo
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,827
    Easter Vespers has been more popular but it’s the worst attended of any on Sunday barring weather related concerns. Low Sunday is a letdown insofar as our scheduling needs meant not doing a polyphonic Mass that week, but we’ll have the choir.
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 370
    I would love sung Mass and Office every day during the octave. But the people who actually make the decisions evidently don't feel the same way...
    Thanked by 3tomjaw novusgordo CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,827
    I mean I’d love it too, but we have one priest. Even if we didn’t we don’t have the resources.
  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 427
    In former years I had the opportunity of attending Solemn Easter Vespers, once in a parish church (all of the statues were censed during the Magnfificat), and at a Benedictine Abbey -- during the Magnificat, the abbot's cope slipped off. Exciting to watch the acolytes in quick motion, not unlike the Apostles at the tomb earlier that day!
    Thanked by 3tomjaw novusgordo CHGiffen
  • novusgordo
    Posts: 48
    @SponsaChristi: is double Triduum in the same place even licit? I don't think it is...
    Thanked by 1Roborgelmeister
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,827
    It is. Whether it should be is another matter. Or at least it was, for the TLM, from 2011 to 2021.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 860
    @SponsaChristi: is double Triduum in the same place even licit? I don't think it is...

    It is because it’s shared with the FSSP.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,199
    My parish had two whole Triduums, one for the 2011 Missal and one for the 1962 Missal.

    This was my own reality as a music director from 2016 through 2019.

    Plus Tenebrae (1962), whose start times varied from midnight to 9am.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,688
    For years, when people would complain about the amount of work they had for Holy Week, I’d always tell them that Aristotle did double Triduums for YEARS.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,199
    On topic: On Low Sunday my choirs repeated choral rep from Easter Sunday. I didn't hold rehearsal during the Easter Octave.
    Thanked by 3OMagnumMysterium Roborgelmeister MatthewRoth
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,827
    We try to do a Mass twice (in a row or in the same season). We rotate motets though. It builds up yearly/seasonal repertoire and music for weddings and other special occasions. Doing a Missa Regina Caeli is limited to Easter season the for example. Ditto Masses linked with a feast’s chants, like for the Ascension, a Missa Viri Galilei, but repeating something like the Byrd Masses for X Voices, the Hassler Missa Secunda, a Mass in a mode or super voces, based on a chanson etc. can be used so much more often. I appreciate that my pastor took the lead last year and this year and said to do them twice: if that means on a green Sunday, so be it.
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