Papal Visit

[MaryR]

Cofton Park

This is a muddle of thoughts as I’m still exhausted!

It was wet and windy at Cofton Park, and, after rehearsing and standing or sitting in the rain for some hours, most choir members were freezing by the time Mass began! Amazingly, though, the rain stopped and the sun even broke through at the exact moment the Pope’s helicopter landed in Birmingham, and the rain stayed away for the entire Mass.

It was a wonderful, prayerful, uplifting experience and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world! Fr Peter Jones was positively beaming throughout and must have been thrilled that months and months of hard slog had come to fruition. As Dunstan has said, the choir was watching the big screen after Mass, and we all let out a huge cheer when Fr Peter was presented to the Pope. He deserved it; he worked tirelessly for months and months on much more than just the music.

On my coach on the way home, diocesan singers were all saying how much they enjoyed coming together with other parishes for rehearsals, and then singing in a choir of over 2000 on the day. As Keith said, many of those people only ever sing unison in a small parish choir. This gave them an opportunity to experience something new, and lots of those I spoke to thought that, with a bit of hard work, they might be more adventurous in their parish music going forward.

On the whole, the MacMillan mass has grown on me and I really enjoyed singing it yesterday, though I think only the Agnus Dei is really congregation friendly. I can see us using that in my parish.

I enjoyed singing Paul Wellicome’s psalm too. I’m only slightly biased (Paul leads the music in my parish) but I think Paul writes excellent psalm settings and this one both reflected the words beautifully with that big uplifting response, and was just right for the occasion. Paul was also someone labouring hard behind the scenes for several months.

Keith Ainsworth deserves huge thanks, not only for his work as a rehearsal leader (with responsibility for the largest area rehearsal at Coventry), but especially for his part behind the scenes in negotiating to secure a choir pavilion to house 2000 of us between rehearsals on both Saturday and Sunday, and for successfully negotiating in relation to several other key choir issues. There was more going on behind the scenes than you could ever imagine!

I think I was slightly disappointed that the beatification bit was over so quickly. I suppose I imagined there would be more to it. What was good though was that, throughout the choir preparations, Fr Peter reiterated to everyone that this was going to be a Mass of Beatification for John Henry Newman first and foremost, and a Papal Mass second. It made lots of people (me included) go off and discover more about the life of Newman and we never lost sight of the importance of the beatification itself in all the papal hype.

That said, being involved in planning the music and organising the choir for a liturgy at which the principal celebrant was going to be the Pope is an experience I will never forget!

[VML]

MCB said:

The Pope got the same treatment when he arrived, of course, but what amazed me was how quickly he turned the occasion to one of genuine holiness and prayer. He shrugged off the adulation and put our Lord in the centre of things, in the form of the Blessed Sacrament on the altar. The reverence of the silent prayer was jaw-dropping. And then, unbelievably, Benediction, in front of 80,000 people. In Hyde Park. This jaded old cynic was briefly in tears.

An amazing occasion. To my surprise.

I would imagine this was probably the very first time most of those present had ever attended Exposition or Benediction, or even seen a monstrance. It is the first time I can remember seeing any of these on TV. And the quiet was wonderful.

[gwyn]

Peter Jones et al did a fine job. Do we know what Peter Jones's musical pedigree is? He's certainly no musical shop-egg.

[musicus]

"shop-egg"? I had to look that up. Gwyn seems to be saying that he's the genuine article.
Which he is, of course: witness the Glory to God for the Papal Mass in Coventry in 1982, followed by many other fine pieces for the liturgy. See the OCP and the Decani website for details. Fr Peter currently chairs the Music Committee of the Archdiocese of Birmingham Liturgical Commission, the group that helped him to plan and organise the music for Cofton Park.

[gwyn]

Ah. As I understand it a "shop-egg" would be an egg that one might purchase from a high-street supermarket or other food retail outlet, nothing special, one like all the others, just a shop-egg.

The expression "he's no shop-egg" implies that the individual concerned is not the fruit of a battery hen but rather the fruit of a run-out hen. Run-out is a free-range hen, able to run free, to exercise freely and to explore, learn to risk-assess, build a toned physique and yield quality eggs.

Ipso fatso, He's no shop-egg = he's something a bit special, not an also-ran.

He aint no shop egg he aint, mister, no he aint, I'll say.

[Mithras]

I did not see much of the broadcasts, lacking a TV, but I enjoyed what I saw. What I heard, on Radio 4 at 8.10 on Sunday morning is another thing, and I am not sure what good it did to enhance Benedict's visit and some members of my parish were quite unimpressed.

That having been said, I wonder if there are plans to issue a DVD of the services and meetings, which I am sure would be a very successful commercial venture. Having only heard it on YouTube and only having seen the melody lines, I am particularly interested in MacMillan's Mass and Paul's psalm setting - new music for such occasions is often inspired and though I questioned the MacMillan setting in a previous post, I would like to see or hear for myself how succesful it was.

In Domino

Mithras

[TimSharrock]

I did not see much of the broadcasts, lacking a TV

If you have broadband, http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/Replay- ... atch-Again has on-demand video of many of the events - for example the Gloria at the Beatification Mass starts just over 26 minutues into http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/Replay- ... nal-Newman

[JW]

Mithras wrote: I am particularly interested in MacMillan's Mass and Paul's psalm setting - new music for such occasions is often inspired and though I questioned the MacMillan setting in a previous post, I would like to see or hear for myself how succesful it was.

We used the psalm setting on the day and I've posted a review in the composers area of the forum.

[presbyter]

Does anybody know who the Pavillion MC was?

She was Wanda - pronounced 'Vanda'.

[Boadicea]

It was wonderful to be a part of such a special occasion. Many thanks to all involved in the planning and organisation, especially Fr Peter. I’m thrilled to bit to have been involved.

If anyone would like to see some photos of the occasion, you’re most welcome to take a look at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jagylys/

[keitha]

Mithras has asked whether there are any proposals to issue a DVD of the Papal Visit.

My understanding is that the production costs of producing a DVD of the right quality, and the highly uncertain demand for it in these days of mp3 downloads, iplayer, YouTube, home recorders and the like would almost certainly mean that it would be loss-making and for this reason, it is highly unlikely that a DVD will be produced. The liturgies will, however, be available on the relevant church websites for some considerable time.

I suggest that those of you who have home recordings should save them to disk!

[Deke]

A blog run by an American Deacon advertises the website Net TV. They've got a DVD in production so there may well be one produced over here. Details http://netny.net/popeuk/blog/uncategorized/dvd/

[Gabriel]

The rehearsal of MacMillan Sanctus at Cofton Park can be clearly heard in the first few minutes of BBC R4 Sunday. A bit later you get Surrexit Christus

[keitha]

Any DVD of any of the liturgies by anyone other than The Catholic Trust for England & Wales will be unlawful as it will have been done in breach of the performance, recording and production rights of the Trust and the various performers at the liturgies and composers of the music. I will be notifying the relevant bodies of this so that appropriate action can be taken.

[SAUnison]

In case anyone hasn't seen this, the BBC website has a very good 'gigapan' image (no, I'd never heard of this before either) of Cofton Park. You can zoom in and play 'Spot the SSG member'!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/birmingham/ ... 999253.stm

Just looking at the size of the choir and the gap between the two sections, I'm all the more impressed by the quality of the music! Well done all.