Howard Baker wrote:It seems to me that almost nowhere now, in ordinary parish churches, will you encounter any form of sung proper, except perhaps in some places a responsorial psalm; and many struggle to provide that. The singing of the psalms is becoming a rarity...
I think this is untrue. The responsorial psalm is sung in many churches — yes, not enough (perhaps 30-40%), but still a significant proportion. As far as sung propers are concerned, I think you may not be aware of how many places are using the Psallite antiphons and psalms.
And, from what I see up here, mainly in those parishes which don't have a choral tradition. So much of Psallite needs just cantor and assembly. Superb.
BobHayes wrote:We could have stepped through the window of opportunity, developed our offer to open new markets, re-branded the Church and adopted a new logo to replace the 'respected but dated' Crucifix..............Ah, how many of us have been along the jolly road of 'continuous improvement going forward'?
I don't think Cardinal Martini would have approved of a (medieval) C Of E establishment I encountered this year advertising Good Friday as a "family fun day" .
Any opinions expressed are my own, not those of the Archdiocese of Birmingham Liturgy Commission, Church Music Committee. Website
Nick Baty wrote:If you consider that the most popular are by Bernadette Farrell, Marty Haugen et al, I would hazard a guess at most.
This is a fair point - and I'm one who likes traditional four square hymnody (probably would cite Common Praise as my ideal hymn book). In my experience, the works of these composers are much closer paraphrases of scriptural texts than are those of Faber, Caswell, Watts etc.
