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):

Advent chants

The hymn Conditor alme siderum:


The hymn Veni, veni Emmanuel. [My original link is now broken: there are plenty of recordings available though, so find one you like!]

The prose Rorate caeli desuper:


The Marian anthem Alma redemptoris mater in its simple tone:


Or, for the more ambitious, in its solemn tone:

Nesciens mater

Nesciens mater is the antiphon in honour of the Blessed Virgin that is sung in the Use of Nidaros after Compline, from Christmas until Candlemas. We learnt it last week at the Schola, and I am going to make a recording of it as a practice aid; however, a recording by the Choir of Winchester Cathedral from 2000 has just been re-released. The antiphon is available for download (price: 10 pence), and as it is less than a minute in length, you can actually listen to the whole thing on the website of Hyperion Records.

Compline on CD

As the recently revived Compline group is taking a week off (meeting again on Tuesday 11 December), one member asked me whether I had any CDs with Compline on, that could be used for learning at home.

The answer is "yes and no". Historically, Compline was one of the most stable rites in Christian worship, with the same psalms, canticle, antiphons, &c. being sung almost every night in almost every part of Western Christendom. But there were always small variations in text and music; even after the Roman office of Compline became homogenised in the age of printing, the religious orders adhered to their own unique variants. Following the Second Vatican Council, the revised office of Compline allowed for a great deal of variety - and some religious houses continued to cherish their own peculiarities even within the reformed rite.

As a result of all this, CD recordings of Compline - whether they are historical reconstructions or simply recordings of a monastery at its Work - are like snowflakes: no two the same. And this makes them of limited use as learning aids.

I have four CDs with Compline, but only a few items are precisely the same as what we are learning in the group:

1. Chant: Music for Paradise, the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz (Universal). CD1, track 21 (the Gospel canticle) includes the antiphon "Salva nos" in exactly the form we are using; but N.B. the tone for the canticle itself is a different one.

2. More Sublime Gregorian Chant, the Cathedral Singers/directed by Richard Proulx (Kevin Mayhew). Track 25 is an exemplary performance of the hymn Te lucis ante terminum, using the same melody that we are learning. The only difference is that they sing it in English, and - oddly - the final "amen" is omitted.

3. Lauds of the Transfiguration and Sunday Compline, Benedictine Monks of Pluscarden Abbey (Pluscarden Abbey). Our friends in the South sing Compline according to the Benedictine tradition, and the only exact overlap with our version of the office is the Lord's Prayer (part of track 16).

4. A Treasury of Gregorian Chants, vol. 1, Benedictine Monks of En Calcat (gets churned out periodically by various record companies) includes (as track 11) four minutes of Compline highlights. The first part, from "Jube, domne" to "Deo gratias" is the same as what we are using.

The CD I mentioned last night is Nox Lucis: The Night of Light by the wonderful Finnish duo Vox Silentii. The album includes the antiphon we started learning last night, O florens rosa, which we're singing from the transcription which Vox Silentii kindly sent me.