Choral Vespers from LEEDS Cathedral June 12th 2013

[DracoM]

Choral Vespers from Leeds Cathedral


Order of Service:


Organ prelude: Chant de Paix (Langlais)

Introit: Anima Christi (Marco Frisina)
Responses: Deus in adjutorium (Plainsong)
Office Hymn: Caeli Deus sanctissime (Plainsong)
Psalms: 62, 67 (Saunders, Roberts, Bevenot)
Reading: Acts 2: 29-42
Motet: Cibavit eos (Byrd)
Homily: Canon Christopher Irving
Magnificat (Perosi)
Anthem: Tu Rex gloriae (Gounod)
Marian Antiphon: Salve regina (Plainsong)

Organ Postlude: Symphonic Canzona Op.85 No.3 (Karg-Elert)



Organist: Daniel Justin
Director of Music: Benjamin Saunders

[Vox Humana]

Ooh, an office hymn. A rare treat indeed!

[ardcarp]

...and it looks as if they're doing the psalms with Anglican chant as at Liverpool Met.

[jean]

...but it looks like a proper plainsong office hymn.

[Vox Humana]

Indeed it does. Everyone was far too civilised to peck at my little troll above, but office hymns are a pet hobby-horse of mine. As I am sure I hardly need say, office hymns are specific texts sung sung on specific feasts, or during specific seasons, at specific services. The C of E, however, seems to think that simply singing any old hymn before the Magnificat or the psalms automatically makes it an office hymn, which is a nonsense. You might just as well call the hymn at the end of a service an office hymn. Most so-called office hymns in the C of E are just ordinary hymns, so why not call them that?

[ardcarp]

Going off at a tangent, I'm a bit hazy about Anglican use (maybe in the past?) of the expression 'Offertory Hymn'. As part of the Mass, the Offertory was surely where the bread and wine were presented at the altar, hence the many Offertoire organ pieces played to cover such operations. But I have a feeling Anglican clergy regarded 'the offertory' as being when the collection was taken, and I'm fairly sure the term was used in services other than the Eucharist. Can you shed light, Vox?

[DracoM]

I can see how the confusion might occur these days, because in many catholic churches that is indeed when the 'offertory' i.e. collection is taken and presented at the altar.

In ancient days, of course, nothing so vulgar as money actually arrived at the altar steps, but certainly when the Offertory prayer / ritual was taking place, there was usually the chink of money in plates / collecting boxes.

[Vox Humana]

Going off at a tangent, I'm a bit hazy about Anglican use (maybe in the past?) of the expression 'Offertory Hymn'. As part of the Mass, the Offertory was surely where the bread and wine were presented at the altar, hence the many Offertoire organ pieces played to cover such operations. But I have a feeling Anglican clergy regarded 'the offertory' as being when the collection was taken, and I'm fairly sure the term was used in services other than the Eucharist. Can you shed light, Vox?

As DracoM suggests, the answer lies in the Catholic liturgy. I'm not terribly secure on nineteenth-century liturgical history, so I stand to be corrected on exactly how it came about, but I think we have to thank the ritualists. During the second half of the nineteenth century, many scholars - notably Henry Bradshaw, Christopher Wordsworth, Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere - put a lot of energy into resurrecting the texts and ceremonials of the English medieval liturgies. Principal among these was the Use of Sarum, since that was what had been observed in the majority of parish churches and secular cathedrals. The ritualists in the C of E started to draw on the old Sarum customs in the way they celebrated the Eucharist (and other services). One famous result of this was that choirs were transferred from their west-end galleries to east-end choir stalls and robed in surplices. The office hymns in The English Hymnal, which were the genuine office hymns from the Sarum Use, were another.

In the Catholic communion services the choir chants were divided into the Ordinary (the usual standard mass movements) and the Proper, which had variable texts. The chants of the Proper included the introit, gradual, offertory and communion. The ritualists simply plonked hymns into the positions in the service that the Proper chants used to occupy. So we now have introit, gradual, offertory and communion hymns. I think the French organ offertoire does (or originally did) take the place of the chant, doesn't it? so the Anglican offertory hymn is its equivalent.

[jean]

...in many catholic churches that is indeed when the 'offertory' i.e. collection is taken and presented at the altar...

But don't Anglicans do that as well?

[DracoM]

Indeed. Just trying to wonder aloud why the two operations namely money collecting and sacred rituals were somewhat uncomfortably partnered. Or maybe I'm being a tad squeamish?

[Chris Watson]

I thought the gifts at the offertory, at least originally, were the bread and wine.

[jean]

If you 'offer' the bread and wine, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to 'offer' the 'offerings' that you collect in the form of financial contributions to God as well.

But if you ever set foot in a Nonconformist church (as I dimly remember from my childhood) you may well find that they use the term 'offertory' even when the offering of bread and wine is completely absent, being considered idolatrous.

[Chris Watson]

My point was sthat the original Offertory in the old Latin Mass isn't connected with money and that therefore Draco's squeamishness is misplaced!

[DracoM]

Au contraire, my shiver was because while a most sacred part of the liturgy was being prepared and enacted, the church was full of distracting shuffling and money dropping in collecting plates, which I thought a bit odd. And I DO know from my own RC childhood that that's when it happened, and I do remember asking a priest why it happened then. Don't remember his answer!!! I do indeed know that in the Latin Mass the Offertory wasn't connected with money, the two just seemed to happen together and I was wondering why. I do also recall that in some churches, there were TWO collections, one of which usually went to some parish cause

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m