quaeritor wrote:Sorry, Sorry, SORRY - just found SC's very comprehensive post from an old thread about Accompaniment on Good Friday - shouldn't have asked! Q (ps - anyone know how to do a link to a post in another thread? - meanwhile search on Laetare and all will be revealed.)
Here, we will do all of Good Friday unaccompanied and a fair amount of Holy Thursday (probably from the Sanctus onwards).
We tried Good Friday completely unaccompanied for the first time about three years ago, at the request of the celebrant, and it worked, despite the fairly big shift of repertoire it required. (Celebrant's 'request' was just that: if we had said we couldn't do it, he wouldn't have pushed us)
We have a different celebrant this year, who likes the unaccompanied but wouldn't have asked for it and wouldn't mind if we didn't, so the choir debated having the hymns during the Adoration accompanied but decided to stick with doing them unaccompanied because they work well and the starkness is powerful. The Good Friday Psalm, Gospel Acclamation, Intercessions and Showing of the Cross have been unaccompanied here for at least a decade or two, as far as I remember.
The Easter Vigil will be accompanied from the first psalm on. Except the Litany and things.
I do miss the Jones Reproaches. Other things I thought I'd miss, I find I don't mind doing without.
