Choral Evening Prayer Wed, 14th Sept 2011

**jean** · 14-09-11, 16:48

If a homily and some congregational singing doesn't make it count as a service, I don't know what does.

**ardcarp** · 14-09-11, 17:01

The concept of a plainsong Magnificat with the organ taking alternate verses (ie only half the text being sung) strikes one as an odd practice. It was in fact quite widespread, and there are examples of 'organ masses' where the only bits of text sung are the priest's incipits. Ah well, it avoided having to pay the choir.....

**Vile Consort** · 14-09-11, 19:12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jaz_...&feature=share

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

The concept of a plainsong Magnificat with the organ taking alternate verses (ie only half the text being sung) strikes one as an odd practice. It was in fact quite widespread, and there are examples of 'organ masses' where the only bits of text sung are the priest's incipits. Ah well, it avoided having to pay the choir.....

So widespread as to be commonplace, in fact. Hence all those organ magnificats with the sections named after alternate verses of the canticle. I've got a shelf-full of them from both Catholic France and Lutheran Germany.

The practice has by no means fallen into desuetude!

Tournemire (died 1939) got on the wrong side of his clergy by improvising rather long alternatim verses, in consequence of which the Magnificat sometimes lasted 45 minutes - with everyone present (the organist excepted) standing, of course.

Here is a recording of it being done (rather splendidly) at Notre Dame de Paris quite recently.

**ardcarp** · 14-09-11, 20:57

Here is a recording of it being done (rather splendidly) at Notre Dame de Paris quite recently.

Thanks for that clip! I'll bet Tournemie's extempore versets sounded a bit different though. M. Lefebre sticks to a rather 18th cent musical language. As you say, the practice in the Catholic church is not questioned....and evryone knows what the missing text is, whether in Latin or the vernacular. It does not chime well with the protestant imperative of making The Word clear, however.

**DracoM** · 15-09-11, 09:03

There was a delicate and almost filigree sense of these organ 'interventions' which I thought worked rather well in purely performance terms. It also made for a sense of intimacy in what was actually a pretty large acoustic - well caught by the engineers, btw.

The singing was of a genuine chamber group - one [two?] rather prominent vibrato sop apart - but good dark bass sounds and excellent discipline and balance. I very much liked the tempi of the plainchant too. Monteverdi felt nicely exuberant against the necessarily sober palette of much of the rest of the service, but that was all to the good. It was a real surprise to hear how big the congregation was when it came to the final hymn because there had been not a cheep from them at all up to then.

**Simon Biazeck** · 15-09-11, 15:08

I am reliably informed that there were about 400 people in the congregation!

Choral Evening Prayer Wed, 14th Sept 2011

Choral Evening Prayer Wed, 14th Sept 2011

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