Saga and Song

Ernest Marwick taped the following programme when it was broadcast on Radio 3 in 1972: Saga and Song, presented by Dr John Bergsagel. I don't suppose anyone else has a recording of it! It featured the St Magnus hymn, Nobilis humilis, performed by Czechoslovakian singers accompanied on medieval instruments.

Chant from Orkney on the BBC!

Kudos to Br Martin Mary.

Watou 2015

The International Gregorian Festival of Watou in May 2015 has the most amazing programme. Thirty-odd scholas are taking part - but none from the UK. The festival takes place every three years. Who fancies a trip to Belgium in 2018?

Music in the Liturgy

I wrote a CTS booklet called Music in the Liturgy, which has been reviewed in a number of places.

My own account of writing the booklet is on the CTS Catholic Compass blog, which also quotes from the letter that Cardinal Burke wrote on receiving his copy.

Reviews have appeared by:

Christopher Hodkinson in the Newsletter of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, Spring 2013 (starts on p.[14]); and in Sacred Music 139.3 (Fall 2012), 70-72.

Christopher Francis in Latin Liturgy, Lent 2013 (starts on p. 17).

See also R.J. Stove, "Catholic Music is Actually Getting Better", Catholic Herald, 30 August 2013.

Kathleen Pluth at the Chant Café.

Leutgeb at Bara Brith. See also here.

James at Catholic and Loving It.

Fr Tim Finigan at The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

Evelyn Stell at the Organists' Blog.

The Choir of St Columba's RC Church, Glasgow blog.

Just after updating this post on Thursday (17 July 2014), I learnt that Stratford Caldecott, who commissioned and edited the booklet for the CTS, had died earlier that day. In memoria aeterna erit justus.

Gregorian Chant Hymns

This new website created by the Schola Sanctae Scholasticae is a tremendous resource for learning the hymns and other devotional chants of the Latin plainsong tradition.

One example - the Regina coeli - will suffice to show how useful this site could be.

Angela Chiochetti sings "Panis Angelicus" in the Chapel her father decorated

Post by BBC Radio Orkney.

I didn't anticipate that!

I just worked my way through the rather complicated rubrics governing the occurrence of feast days around Holy Week in the Use of Nidaros, and it transpires that anyone following that august and venerable Use should this year be transferring the Feast of St Magnus, by anticipation, to ... TODAY! Happy Feast!



(In the Roman Rite, the Feast will be transferred to Monday 28 April.)

Lenten chants

From the Parish Book of Chant.

The prose Attende Domine (p. 141):


The antiphon Parce Domine with strophic verses (p. 142):


The sequence Stabat Mater, in the tone usually used at Stations of the Cross (p. 143):


The Marian antiphon Ave Regina caelorum (simple tone) (p. 120):