quaeritor wrote:So what makes it "Anglican" chant? - written by Anglicans? (some research needed there!) - sounding "Anglican"? (does that mean sung in those decadent "parts" and more-or-less together?).
Could we be forgiven for thinking "sounding Anglican" means sounding as though it comes from a culture where excellence or even just hard work aren't automatically dismissed as "showing off" or "boasting" and where organists are choirs are not required to produce a "lack-lustre"or "anything will do" product
quaeritor wrote:So what makes it "Anglican" chant? - written by Anglicans? (some research needed there!) - sounding "Anglican"? (does that mean sung in those decadent "parts" and more-or-less together?).
Could we be forgiven for thinking "sounding Anglican" means sounding as though it comes from a culture where excellence or even just hard work aren't automatically dismissed as "showing off" or "boasting" and where organists are choirs are not required to produce a "lack-lustre"or "anything will do" product
Oh, yes !
The number of times I've been told when things go wrong in a Catholic church, "God doesn't mind". What a cop-out for not trying.
The number of times I've been told when things go wrong in a Catholic church, "God doesn't mind". What a cop-out for not trying.
Probably if you've really done your best and it still goes wrong He doesn't mind. What gets me is when anything above mediocrity (and I include anything more than the most basic of effort too!) is instantly attacked and seen as some sort of "performance" intended to glorify the musician. Talk about "crabs in a bucket!"
Here's an experiment! I will edit it out shortly rather than fill the thread with nonsense! In my first posting of this note, instead of saying "most basic" of effort I used another term which is no more than a slang word for a cigarette! The word got "beeped" automatically.Here it is again: "anything more than the fag end of effort too" Is it me or does it sound much ruder that way? Several alternatives worthy of the beep came to mind!
contrabordun wrote:You could probably adapt the Andreas fauxborduns* - eg use instruments for the harmony - which might work really well especially if everything else you use is based on chant.
(Tried to get a cpdl link, but it's running really slowly - pm me an email address and i'll send them to you if you haven't got them and want a pdf).
CPDL is having a bad time at the moment, but it was working for a few hours, and I couldn't find this magnificat. Do you have the link now?
Here's a useful tip, if like me you find following the "Morning and Evening Prayer" big black book very tricky. Go to this site http://www.scholasaintmaur.net/, which is very interesting if you speak french, but on the dull side otherwise. In the top left corner of the screen is a calendar. Select the date you want and click on the red bar "Liturgia Horarum" under the calendar. When the new screen is steady, scroll down a bit and you will see a horizontal menu in cream/brown text - click on vepres and up will come the text of vespers for the selected day in latin and french. Not that useful in itself, but it does include the scripture references, which let you check if you have really followed the big black book correctly.
Does anyone know of an equivalent site in english?
This thread is a bit old now, but I'm just listening (on "play-it-again-Sam" or whatever it's called) to Vespers from Liverpool Cathedral (and, yes, I had to check on Google to establish if it was "ours" or "theirs") and it's in English (which I admit was a surprise) and they have just finished a very Anglican-sounding group of three psalm settings (though I'm not sure if it was three psalms or three sections of the one psalm - which in itself would be a bit "Anglican").
This looks like a win-win situation for Manniemain - either they are of pristine Catholic provenance, so you could get hold of them for your use, or they are indeed "Anglican" so you could get your pp to "listen-again" (only 3 days to go,though) and politely suggest that if it's ok for the metropolitan cathedral it should be ok for your church (unless your church is the metropolitan cathedral, in which case you've clearly solved the problem already.
And I do admit to treating this subject with the lightness that I feel it merits (- and to trying to break the world record for the number of parentheses in one post). - Sorry!
One of the compensations of the bug that's had me indoors the last few days has been an opportunity to listen to the 3rd program. I, too, was pleased to hear the broadcast of Vespers from The Mersey Funnel. The fine foundation laid by the Duffy brothers is being upheld by their successor. However, I felt that Liverpool's use of Anglican-style chant illustrated a danger for even the best of Catholic choirs when appropriating it: we're not used to it, so tend to take it too slowly, to the point where the sense of declamation is lost.
Of course, that's frequently a problem with chanted verse in our own responsorial psalm-singing, for which we don't have the excuse of unfamiliarity, but that's another thread ...
I inherited a practice of using anglican chant for the psalms of Sung Sunday morning prayer in my place of worship. That was fifteen years ago and I replaced it with settings from France, filling in the gaps with some of my ditties. I had obtained permission from Notre Dame, Paris to use and adapt their settings and we have largely used these ever since. Anyone who had experienced Chanoine Revert's musical presidency at laudes/Vepres will testify to their effectiveness. We used them every day at the Morning Prayer for the SSG Summer School of 2006 and folk seemed to get the hang of it quickly without the dots being provided.
quaeritor wrote:So what makes it "Anglican" chant?
Anglican Chant is a specific method of singing the psalms – reciting note, moving note(s) and landing note. Unlike Gregorian Chant often sung in harmony. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_chant
At the risk of stating the obvious, anglican psalmody uses non-Grail translations of the psalms, doesnt it? Unless there's a lot of work going on to recast the Grail versions onto the chants? As catholics, we surely should use our own texts.
I've been singing anglican psalmody for 6 months now for Evensong in the local Anglican church and have just about got the hang of the rules. It's hard work, when you're an alto, trying to read the text into the 2nd line of harmony, just the hang of it and wumph! there's a new line of harmony for the next six verses, in a different key.
Sounds great, though. We take it quite fast and I think it's at its best when the organist improvises an obbligato (?) against the choir harmony.
I listened to the Liverpool vespers as well, Good to hear a catholic cathedral choir. I would have liked something somewhere with more of a tune, plus harmonious harmony.
Hmm- we do use the Catholic translations of the Psalms but it seems to be the music that causes the controversy - with one person in particular. I have been threatened with a petition to the Vatican for excommunication on some astonishing charge of "musical heresy"
Last edited by manniemain on Tue Jan 06, 2009 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
There's a little book called 'Organo Pleno' which discusses chant. The author, Gordon Reynolds I believe, describes anglican chants along these lines: "...being harmless enough in themselves, and the organist is required to play them through first just to prove this. Unfortunately words are then added, the organist having to act as a referee between the choir and congregation, usually favouring the majority.
