contrabordun wrote:It comes at one of those points in the Mass where a lot of music gets juggled in a 30 second timeframe and the eyes get unglued from the new words.
That strikes a chord. This morning was the parish's and my first mass singing the new translation, as opposed to last week when Latin was sung and English said here and in the other Catholic parish where I sang (and, come to think of it, we sang the Byrd 3-part for the Anglicans, too, but that's another story). My abiding memory of this morning is of frantically juggling Mass text, music running order, Propers sheet (English) and Missal chant booklet, the while trying to avoid disgrace in my stand-in turn at the organ. Psalm-tone Propers aside, we sang the Missal Kyrie (Greek), Gloria, Our Father, Sanctus, Agnus & a surprising number of the dialogues. Perspiration and panic aside, it didn't go too badly - just one general "and also with you", and a sense that at least some thought they recognised bits of the music from somewhere, and were willing to give it a try along with the new text. We leavened it with Sweet Sacrament Divine, Soul of my Saviour and the Salve Regina, just to make people feel at home.
I think we'll only do that much once a month when my turn on the Sunday morning rota comes round, but the plan is for some bits at least to be sung at other times.
The other plus to come out of this week is that we now have commitments from two choir members to write Mass settings over the next few months, which will give us a rota of four over the year, including the Missal chants and excluding the once-a-month Latin (I haven't had the heart yet to mention the antics of The Panel and The Liturgy Office). In this corner of the field, at least, the new translation is showing signs of encouraging the Mass to be sung. Fingers crossed.
