New Mass setting for School

[Nick Baty]

I haven't met many seminarians lately. Are they really that bad?

A friend recently returned from Rome described them as "Lace by day, leather by night...."
But that doesn't mean the same is true of colleges in England.

[Amaris]

I do mean the full thing, except we rarely sing the Gloria. We do sing the Kyrie and all the other parts mentioned.

I think we are using the Gathering Mass at the moment, though the copy have I have is missing a cover or any other information other than Mr Inwood's name.

At the moment we sing the Our Father from African Sanctus, which is the one part sung with much gusto by the girls.

It is difficult to introduce something new as finding the time teach all the girls the new music is very limited. Sadly there seems very little contact with their own Parish Churches. Many of the girls are not practicing Catholics and a significant number are from other religions but are committed to the ethos of the school and attendance at Mass.

Thank you for your suggestions Nick (and others), I will start looking at these.

[Nick Baty]

At the moment we sing the Our Father from African Sanctus, which is the one part sung with much gusto by the girls.

In which case, try them with Bill Tamblyn's Jubilee Service.

[HelenR]

As well as the mass settings mentioned above you might want to look at the work of Liam Lawton Mass of the Celtic Saints which is easily singable after hearing just once and sticks in the memory. Bernadette Farrells Acclamations in Laudate and Marty Haugens Mass of Creation have also been useful to me. If you have students who are Cantors Chris Walkers Manafest setting is one of my favourites. The CJM settings Soli and Burntwood have very beautiful penitential rites and fraction and if you like upbeat music to clap to the Soli Hosanna does get children singing.

If you are interested in developing Latin - Daniel Bath has written a mass setting which we were introduced to at Summer School with a tune which makes the words accessible and easy to sing. I am using Matt Maher's Kyrie and Lamb of God, which uses a mix of latin and English, with younger children and they are learning the Latin and Greek words with enthusiasm because they love the music - with parts for soloists which the children love singing at the main parish mass on Sundays.

Hope this is useful.

[Nick Baty]

It is difficult to introduce something new as finding the time teach all the girls the new music is very limited

Perhaps just use new acclamations to begin with. Add a fraction song at a later date etc. Do tell me to shut up and sod of – I won't mind.

[mcb]

I'll second Helen's recommendation for Haugen, Farrell and Lawton, and add one for the Community Mass by Richard Proulx. These are all straightforward enough for unison singing and good enough for a parish or school's standard repertoire. They all have choral parts for a special occasion.

The Proulx also has a through-composed Gloria which can be done by unison voices. The Proulx Holy Holy is in Laudate (or strictly, on a loose-leaf insert because they accidentally printed page 829 twice instead of page 828 ).

[Reginald]

I know I'm late to the party but Year 11 reports have kept me busy. I don't want to offer suggestions so much as to share a strategy. I arrived in a school that had lapsed into 4 hymn sandwich territory and also needed to introduce new material.

I decided on a 5 year plan, asking myself what I wanted the kids to have sung before they leave us. I find it takes the heat out of the urge to do everything today and allows things time to bed down. We change settings for whole school Masses after the first Mass of the new academic year and add things gradually, building up to the last Mass of one academic year and the first of the next. Masses with smaller groups may break with that year's pattern - usually as a result of there being kids in the group that are involved in the liturgical music in their parish.

On the grounds that we ought to be supporting the work of the parishes with the kids who go to Mass- and trying to make sure that the ones who don't would be more comfortable on the occasions that they do go (weddings, first communion etc) - I tried to find out what was being used in the parishes around us. Most of our parishes use Laudate and commonly Mass of Creation, Gathering Mass, Celtic Mass and the Farrell Euch Acclamations. These are the ones that I keep in mind as a kind of core repertoire, music that will be known by a significant number of children and teachers and music that the others might benefit from knowing if they occasionally attend Mass.

In addition to that I've set myself three other conditions. The first is that in any 5 year period we should have sung Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus in Latin (/Greek) and to chant (I wouldn't mind also doing the chant Pater Noster before the next World Youth Day, but it's likely to be a step too far for some of my colleagues). My reasoning behind that is that the kids tend not to have learned an aversion to chant and Latin. The second condition is that, wherever possible, I include something (setting/hymn) that's been composed in the last several years. The copyright notices on our 'worship aids' include the year and I want the whole school community to know that liturgical music didn't stop in the 15th Century, or the 19th, or even after Pope John Paul II's visit in '82! The third condition is to be open to suggestions from staff and pupils - not generally for particular hymns as I don't want to encourage the idea that they should be chosen arbitrarily - that's how we ended up using the Canedo/Hurd Mass of Glory. It can be really easy to stay within our own comfort zone and I need to learn new music as much as anyone.

God willing, in a few year's time there'll be people in our parishes who are neither afraid of new music nor throw their hands up in despair when someone puts simple chants in front of them...Now that I've put into writing what I've been thinking for the last couple of years I can't help feeling that I ought to be sat here stroking a fluffy white cat - it wasn't meant to be a plan to take over the world

[VML]

Reginald, that sounds a thoroughly useful well worked out plan, and should bear much fruit.
I am only in the parish here, not the school, but do attend the primary school Masses. I have tried to get a toe in there, but I am not getting very far at the moment. How do you go about suggesting that Alleluia could be sung when there is usually a stream of children who have just read a verse each of the psalm, and it rolls into a spoken alleluia? I even announced and listed a sung alleluia at the Christmas Eve family Mass, but PP cancelled the singing of it as the child reading the verse had not practised with it sung.
An excellent pianist is hired to accompany hymn practice, but I believe the hymns are actually steered by a teacher who is not liturgically very musically savvy, but is head of RE. There is no leading of the singing, just a hope that the children will sing. At the first Mass this term they were supposed to sing 'God be in my head' which rather surprised me, and it quite understandably fell apart.