Six-fold or nine-fold Kyrie.. and has anyone heard seven-fold?
  • StPatricksSongs
    Posts: 12
    Obviously in the EF communities, it's always nine-fold.

    But in the OF, how common is it to hear a nine-fold Kyrie like Missa IX or VI?
    And has anyone heard of a Kyrie from Orbis or de Angelis done seven-fold (repeating first three twice, then the final one.)
    Also, for those who have heard six-fold, do you normally hear them do the final/fourth Kyrie, or do they just repeat the third one?

    This isn't meant to start a debate, more like a survey. The missal allows all these numbers.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,447
    Believe it or not, we did a 9 fold for All Saints and will again for Christ the King, albeit only at the choir mass.

    And whenever it's just a 6 fold for us, but the setting we are using includes a jubilus, I use it.
    Thanked by 1Roborgelmeister
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 192
    The latest "Gotteslob" from 2013 has a Kyrie Tropus on the Kyrie from Missa mundi (GL no. 163; for those accustomed to the Solesmes ordering, the melody is "Kyrie XVI"). The Tropi are marked as sung by the cantor and the congregation answers with "Kyrie eleison". Although the text "(Kyrie|Christe) eleison" is sung only six times by the congregation, the Kyrie melody from Missa mundi is sung 12 times. Actually, the piece is very beautiful and it is sung frequently at our parish.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,351
    In polyphonic works, the relevant phrases are often repeated more than three times in each segment, as the text can be sung in turn by various voices in imitative fashion. Hence a 2-2-3 pattern might not seem unusual or inappropriate at all: except that it might be considered brief for a Kyrie.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,879
    Right but usually the idea is still that it’s ninefold or even more in a multiple of three somewhere between the sum of the voices. (Usually.)
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,314
    I was part of an accidental 8-fold once: organist's first TLM, he was reading from a GIA source and played Kyrie I twice and went on. I corrected him verbally and off we went.

    I've never heard of doing the 7-fold option. Where in the Missal does it say that?
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 390
    Sevenfold is weird but tempting in cases of modal Kyries where the 6th repetition doesn't end on the tonic (Kyrie XVI being an apropos example) but you also don't want to confuse everyone with the ninefold.
  • emac3183
    Posts: 114
    We're using the Missa cum Jubilo nine-fold for Marian feasts and I used it for All Saints (at the choir Mass only). I didn't get many "confused" comments, but many of our parishioners just kinda take sacred music as it comes or are traditional enough to have attended a TLM enough to know.
    Thanked by 2Chant_Supremacist Roborgelmeister
  • StPatricksSongs
    Posts: 12
    The polyphonic settings seem sing about as many of each as they want.

    To answer the question "Where in the Missal does it say that?"

    The exact quote from the GIRM is "As a rule, each acclamation is sung or said twice, though it may be repeated several times, by reason of the character of the various languages, as well as of the artistry of the music or of other circumstances."

    I suppose the reason I'm asking for it "the artistry of the music." Because the fact is there are several settings from the Kyriale, notably some of the most popular like de Angelis and Orbis factor, that have four melodies in the eleison.

    Four obviously doesn't divide neatly into three sets. So the standard six-fold solutions are either 1) to repeat the third, and not sing the fourth, or 2) to not repeat the third, and finish instead with the fourth. Neither of these solutions are great... In the first case, there is a melody then that is never heard, in the second case, it seems too sudden to go to the fourth melody, and it also is on the congregation to remember to do that.

    I've never heard of anyone doing a sevenfold, but it strikes me as more musically satisfying. Then again, introducing yet another, third solution to the problem will make the situation even more confusing.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,879
    Just use nine if the music requires it then.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 890
    Obviously in the EF communities, it's always nine-fold.

    Not always. Sometimes at during low mass, I’ve noticed some of the younger servers lose track and add an extra Kyrie.
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
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