Chant colloquium

As part of the Graduate Students' Colloquia Series, there will be a lecture given on plainchant. Here are the details:

"Gregorian Imprints: Solesmes, Regensburg and the Battle for a French Plainchant", given by Katherine Ellis

Tuesday of 5th Week (26th May), 5.15pm

Denis Arnold Hall, Faculty of Music

Students, staff and general public are all welcome to attend. Refreshments beforehand and discussion afterwards.

Term Card, Trinity 2009

Here are our events for this term:

1st Week
Fri 1st May: St Joseph the Worker (First Friday)
SS Gregory & Augustine, 6pm


4th Week
Thurs 21st May: Ascension
Oxford Oratory, 12.15pm


Sat 23rd May: Chant Training Day with Phillip Duffy
SS Gregory & Augustine, from 9.30am
Votive Mass of Our Lady, 3.30pm


5th Week
Sat 30th May: Whitsun Eve
Mapledurham House, near Reading, 11am


6th Week
Friday 5th June: Whit Friday
SS Gregory & Augustine, 6pm


7th Week
Thurs 11th June: Corpus Christi
Oxford Oratory,12.15pm

Practices are on Wednesdays, First week to Seventh Week, at 8.15 in Oriel unless indicated.

To join us please email oxfordgregorianchant@gmail.com

First Friday of March

Last Friday was our last Mass of Hillary Term, the First Friday of March, which was the Friday of the First Week of Lent. Mass was sung by Fr John Saward in his church, SS Gregory & Augustine. Notice the 'Lenten array' which now covers the reredos and the panelling on either side: it is a large, patterned purple curtain.

Each day of Lent has its own Mass in the Traditional Missal. Outside Lent the Mass one gets on a given weekday will either be a votive Mass, a ferial Mass (ie the repetition of the previous Sunday Mass) or (most likely) the feast of a saint. During Lent there are Masses (ie a full set of propers and chant settings for them) for each day. Important feasts and votive Masses can still be said, of course, but these Lenten Masses are of great antiquity and beauty.

Fr John Saward accordingly said the Mass of the Friday after the First Sunday of Lent, which is in fact the Ember Friday of Lent. Like many days of Lent, this makes use of the Tract of Ash Wednesday. All the other propers, however, are unique to this Mass.

At the offertory we also sang the beautiful hymn to the Holy Name of Jesus, Iesu dulcis memoria, since First Friday Masses are a devotion to the Sacred Heart.

At communion, after the communion antiphon 'Erubescant, et conturbentur' we sang the Lenten prose, 'Attende Domine'.

The liturgical music essential to an understanding of the liturgy

If we sing what the Church wants us to sing, the nature of the music presents the words to us in such a way that helps us to understand them. Another very interesting post on the New Liturgical Movement by Jeff Tucker:

Lent is a fantastic example of this, and this Sunday in particular, when the propers intrigue us with their form and structure. The Introit is joyful, and the Tract is too, but it is shockingly long, while the Gospel itself is short. The propers are uniformly from Psalm 90, which his highly unusual, and this happens to be the same Psalm that the Devil quotes during the period of temptation.

See the whole post.

Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge

This is the schola founded by the late Dr Mary Berry, who directed the first Gregorian Chant Training Day I organised in Oxford. We have established mutual links and they have asked me to mention a very interesting-sounding event:

THE TEMPLE CHURCH, LONDON EC4Y 7HL

Saturday 18 April 2009 at 7.30pm

Cantors of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge

THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE

Music from the Templars’ Jerusalem Breviary

Mass at Milton Manor

On Saturday we had a splendid Mass in the delightful 18th Century 'Gothick' private chapel of Milton Manor, which was consecrated by Bishop Challoner and has been occupied by the Catholic Barret (now Mockler-Barret) family ever since.
The chapel was quite full and the schola sang from an upper room which has wooden shutters opening into the chapel.

Mass was followed--as always at Milton Manor--by refreshments offered by the ever-hospitable Mockler-Barrets, after which we went for lunch in a nearby pub.

Here are two videos recording our singing:

the Offertory, Felix namque est:


the Gradual and the Tract, sung by selected members of the schola:


See the Oxford LMS events blog, where there are more photographs.

Residential Chant Coure

A brand new and very exciting development is heralded by the announcement by St Catherine's Trust of a residential Gregorian Chant course to be directed by Nick Gale, who is the Director of Music at St George's Cathedral in Southwark. It will run Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, 26th-29th March, at Ardingly College, near Haywards Heath in Sussex.

All the active singers of the Schola Abelis will be able to attend this course for free, thanks to the schola's benefactors. For the general public the price is £50.

Please contact me to secure your place on this unique course. There is simply no similar opportunity in the UK to spend time on chant over three days:

oxfordgregorianchant@googlemail.com

For more details, see Oxford Events, which also announces the annual 'Chant Training Day' organised by the local Latin Mass Society, and directed by Mr Phillip Duffy, former Director of Music at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (ie the Catholic one). This is a one-day event, which will take place at SS Gregory and Augustine on Saturday 25th May.

Again, the Schola Abelis has an arrangement with the organisers and active singers will not have to pay to attend. Please note it in your diaries!