Archbishop of Westminster

[Nick Baty]

Well there's Walker Gloria Festiva for a start but, as you say, perhaps on a separate thread. And don't we both know a cathedral MD with the initials MCB who writes rather wonderful music for both choir and congregation?

[Southern Comfort]

Not only that, but Walker's Gloria Lenis and his Sanctus In Nativitate. Duffy wrote his Sanctus 1 (I think it was called - a brilliant piece) as well as the Mass of St Edward and another whose name I have forgotten. Have you seen Paul Dowbekin's Gloria? Or Tamblyn's neo-Byzantine Lamb of God setting (6-7 part harmonies - can't remember the name of the setting it was in)? Kenneth Leighton had a great suite of eucharistic acclamations in Sing the Mass. And so on and on. We've forgotten our heritage.

mcb, I don't feel that either the Mass of Creation or Proulx's Community Mass (which was written in 1970 and then hacked around to accommodate the 1973 texts, and it shows) get anywhere near the kind of thing we might have wanted to hear at Westminster on Thursday. However, Schiavone's Litany for the Breaking of bread might have fitted in well here.

The tragic aspect to all this is that Westminster's resources, which can do virtually anything and do it superbly well, are not being fully utilised. They could be leading the country, but they're not. In the 1970s the Westminster Council of Priests condemned the cathedral as "a mausoleum with music". It has certainly moved on from there, but has a heck of a long way to go and a huge sideways shift to make in order to rejoin the "real Church".

Lots of commentators have mentioned how "spectacular" the liturgy was. And indeed it was. But that's not the only criterion for judgement, I venture to say.

[musicus]

Let's not stray too far from the topic, please, which is about the Archbishop and, by reasonable extension, the ceremonies of his installation.

Thank you.

[Boadicea]

Tamblyn's neo-Byzantine Lamb of God setting (6-7 part harmonies - can't remember the name of the setting it was in)

I think you're referring to Vigil Mass.

[Nick Baty]

Now that takes me back to student days and singing in Bill's choir at St Teresa's, Lexden.
A superb setting. (Sorry, Mr Bear – I'm off topic.)

[mcb]

mcb, I don't feel that either the Mass of Creation or Proulx's Community Mass (which was written in 1970 and then hacked around to accommodate the 1973 texts, and it shows) get anywhere near the kind of thing we might have wanted to hear at Westminster on Thursday.

No, agreed - by comparing them with the Gathering Mass I didn't mean to imply I thought they would have been suitable for the Archbishop's Mass of installation. Not that I know what would have been.

[Southern Comfort]

Tamblyn's neo-Byzantine Lamb of God setting (6-7 part harmonies - can't remember the name of the setting it was in)

I think you're referring to Vigil Mass.

Thank you - yes, that's the one. It's beautifully atmospheric, offers the choir something to do, and is, most importantly, short enough to cover a normal fraction rite. It wouldn't have done for the Westminster service, of course, because, like other celebrations with hundreds of concelebrants who have to be given Communion for simultaneous consumption after the Ecce, Agnus Dei the setting had to cover a much longer length of time.

This is one of the major differences between parish liturgies and cathedral/diocesan concelebrated liturgies - the length of the fraction rite.

Another is the treatment of the Eucharistic Prayer. In dioceses where all the concelebrants chant the Prayer together, once again that's something that wouldn't normally happen at a parish Mass. A shame that Westminster did not attempt anything like that - they were doing it in the 1970s for diocesan Masses and concelebrations of the Bishops' Conference, but don't seem to do it now.

[Boadicea]

Another is the treatment of the Eucharistic Prayer. In dioceses where all the concelebrants chant the Prayer together, once again that's something that wouldn't normally happen at a parish Mass. A shame that Westminster did not attempt anything like that - they were doing it in the 1970s for diocesan Masses and concelebrations of the Bishops' Conference, but don't seem to do it now.

I'm in a parish where, for special occasions, we often use the Coventry Mass Eucharistic prayer. Glorious! So prayerful when sung.

[Nick Baty]

And we sometimes use Walker's Eucharistic Prayer 3 – superb!

[John Ainslie]

At the risk of trying to steer a via media and calling 'a plague on both your houses', may I make the following observation about the choice of the 'Holy, holy' at the installation Mass.

No doubt there were some who lamented that the choir did not sing the 'Sanctus' from the Palestrina Mass used for the 'Gloria' and the 'Agnus Dei'. On the 'other' side one might have lamented that an 'all guns blazing' modern setting wasn't used.

Much as I dislike the Missa 'de Angelis' from a musical perspective - however popular, it is late and poor Gregorian chant - the inclusion of the 'Sanctus' in the people's copy, complete with music (in Gregorian notation), and its performance as an entirely congregational piece was both correct and welcome from a liturgical perspective, and also well-judged for scale. The 'Holy, holy' is an acclamation within the Eucharistic Prayer. It should not interrupt the flow of the prayer. Its music should not become such a dynamic high point that the remainder of the prayer becomes an anti-climax. Admittedly this is difficult if the clergy do not sing at least the words of institution - and what a sound 50 bishops and 500 priests would have made!

It should be noted that the most ancient setting of the 'Sanctus' is XVIII, which is entirely of one piece with the preface dialogue and the preface tone that precedes it, and now with the plainsong-style settings of the Eucharistic Prayer, the memorial acclamation, the doxology and the Great Amen that follow it. The entire Eucharistic Prayer is then seen more readily as the single unit that it is, with the music expressing that unity rather than interrupting it and diverting from it. Musical understatement has its place, especially when it is the liturgical rite and its words that are the most important. (And, for that reason, extra brownie marks for the choice of a simple Responsorial Psalm with congregational response, rather than the Gradual from the Graduale Romanum more traditionally sung at the cathedral.)

[Boadicea]

No doubt there were some who lamented that the choir did not sing the 'Sanctus' from the Palestrina Mass used for the 'Gloria' and the 'Agnus Dei'. On the 'other' side one might have lamented that an 'all guns blazing' modern setting wasn't used.

Yes, I think you're quite right. On this occassion the choice of Sanctus did seem to be a good compromise. And people did seem to be joining in.

[presbyter]

Another is the treatment of the Eucharistic Prayer. In dioceses where all the concelebrants chant the Prayer together, once again that's something that wouldn't normally happen at a parish Mass. A shame that Westminster did not attempt anything like that - they were doing it in the 1970s for diocesan Masses and concelebrations of the Bishops' Conference, but don't seem to do it now.

Now we used to do this at the Chrism Mass and other big occasions with +Maurice (RIP) but Archbishop Vincent stopped the practice - I don't think he could see the point.

[presbyter]

What he has done sometimes at large concelebrations though, is to say the priest's (priests') private prayers of preparation for Communion aloud - and expected the concelebrants to join in - and this has led to the unfortunate practice in a few parishes of the presiding priest saying them aloud and expecting the people to join in. I make no further comment, other than thank goodness he did not do this at the installation.

[gwyn]

It was good to see the full-throated congregational participation in Credo iii - including those from other denominations. Archbishop Carey was giving it some oomph I noted.

The very prayable Rimskey Korsakoff (? spelling) Our Father is superb, but lacks a doxology, to sing the prayer then to have a spoken embolus and doxology is such a wind-down.

These are merely observations though, not intended as criticism. The liturgy was a delight.

[mcb]

Now we used to do this at the Chrism Mass and other big occasions with +Maurice (RIP) but Archbishop Vincent stopped the practice - I don't think he could see the point.

And we used to do it with +Patrick *, but it's not Bishop Terence's style either.

(* With hindsight my not-very-witty abbreviation could have been taken to be an instruction rather than an observation, and that was ruder than I intended! So I've edited it out.)