The Schola Abelis at the GCN Chant Course

Six members of the Schola attended the Gregorian Chant Network's Weekend Chant Course directed by Colin Mawby, which took place last weekend (Friday to Sunday) at the Oratory School near Reading. Five of us provided a schola for the opening Mass.

The course was extremely successful, and we all learnt a huge amount from Colin Mawby's experience of singing and directing chant, which goes back to the 1940s, and his great sensitivity to it. He demonstrated in a quite remarkable way how small changes to tempo and emphasis can make a piece of chant sound quite different, and how groups of singers can respond to interpretative suggestions.

Colin Mawby is well known as a composer, and was Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral in the 1960s. For more on the course, see the Gregorian Chant Network.

Term Card for Trinity 2011

This is a very exciting Term Card for the schola, including more events than we have ever had in one term before. We will be singing in Greyfriars in Oxford for the first time, and returning to the Oratory. We will be singing in the historic Catholic house of Stonor at the first Traditional Mass to take place there since 1970. We will be supporting two new walking pilgrimages organised by the Latin Mass Society and Juventutem Oxford, to Littlemore and to Our Lady of Oxford. Among the chants we will be singing the great sequences of Pentecost and Corpus Christi. And for the first time, we will be marking the Feast of St George, which does not usually fall in term time but has been displaced by the late Easter to 3rd May.

Practices as customary in Queen's College, at 8.15 on Wednesdays, unless otherwise arranged.

First Week

Tues 3rd May 6pm: St George
Ss Gregory & Augustine

Sat 7th May Pilgrimage to Littlemore
in honour of Bl J.H. Newman
2.30pm Sung Mass Greyfriars (Ss Edmund & Frideswide)
Followed by walk to Littlemore and Vespers

2nd Week

Sat 14th May Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Oxford, Oxford Oratory
Walk from Abingdon Abbey, Abingdon, departing 11am
Sung Mass, Oxford Oratory, 3.30pm

4th Week

Thurs 26th May 6pm: St Augustine of Canterbury
Ss Gregory & Augustine's

6th Week

Sun 5th June 11am: Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension
St William of York, Reading

Tuesday 7th June, 4pm: Newman Society Mass, Oxford Oratory

7th Week

Thurs 16th June, 11am: Whit Thursday
followed by blessing of lilies and veneration of a relic
of St Anthony of Padua
Church of St Anthony of Padua, Headington

8th Week

Sun 19th June 6.30pm Trinity Sunday
Stonor Chapel, near Henley-on-Thames

Thurs 23rd Corpus Christi
Sung Mass 6pm Ss Gregory & Augustine

9th Week

Wed 29th June 6pm: Ss Peter & Paul
Ss Gregory & Augustine

Friday 1st July 6pm: Sacred Heart
Ss Gregory & Augustine

Juventutem Mass in London, again

We sang again for the Good Counsel Network and Juventutem London. We were singing from the back of the Church so the sound isn't very good (the camcorder was at the front!) but it was a good Mass. Our polyphonists sang Obrecht's 'Missa Fors seulement'.

Here's the Introit (Audivit Dominus: Friday after Ash Wednesday) and the Kyrie


The Gradual Unam petii


Obrecht's Sanctus and Benedictus.


See some photos.

Ash Wednesday in SS Gregory & Augustine, 2011

We sang at Mass on Ash Wednesday, with a polyphonic Mass Ordinary: Morales, Missa Super fa re ut fa so la.

Here is one of the chants sung during the blessing of the ashes, Emendemus.


The Introit and Morales' Kyrie.


The Gradual Miserere and Tract Domine non secundum.


Offertory Exaltabo & motet: Antoine Brumel, O Domine Jesu Christe


Morales' Sanctus & Benedictus.


Morales' Agnus Dei.


Communion Qui meditabitur & motet: Cipriano de Rore, 'Miserere nostri Deus'


More uploading now!

Musical event in Oxford

I've been asked to promote this.

YOUNG MUSICIANS' PLATFORM CHARITY CONCERT
in aid of Kianda Foundation, Kenya

Saturday, March 12th at 7.30pm

St. Michael and All Angels' Church,
Lonsdale Road, Summertown, Oxford OX2 7ES

Tickets at the door
£15 / £12 concessions. Refreshments included.

Featuring
Jay Boender,
David Mears,
Osman Tack,
Laurens PriceNowak,
Leo Appel & the Florentine
musicians: Giacomo Rossi
Prodi, Petra Cini, Sara
Palumbo, Simone Tavoni &
Francesca Orlando.

This is likely to be the programme with small alterations:
F. Chopin (1810 -1849) - Waltz no.14 and Prelude no.24, op.28F. Liszt (1811-1886) - from Grandes Etudes de Paganini "La campanella".F. Chopin (1810 -1849) - Fantasie Impromptu in C sharp minor op.66J. Brahms (1833 -1897) - Hungarian Dance no.1S. Rachmaninov (1873 -1943) - Prelude in C sharp minorR. Schumann (1810 - 1856) - Aufschwung op.12. Bela Bartok (1881 - 1945) - Suite op.14Allegretto, Scherzo, Allegro molto, Sostenuto
.Prokoviev (1891-1953) - Sonata n.3
F. Chopin (1810 -1849)- Study Op 25/1 Debussy (1862 - 1918) - The hills of Anacapri F. Liszt (1811-1886) - Consolation no.3
PianoE. Elgar (1857 - 1934) - Salut d'Amour op.1

Videos of the Feast of St Chad

We were privileged to sing at the inaugral Mass of Juventutem Oxford, a new group for young people attached to the Traditional Mass. They are affiliated to Young Catholic Adults, who are the UK affiliate of the Juventutem Federation.

It was the feast of St Chad, a first class feast in the Archdiocese of Birmingham. His relics are kept in Birmingham's St Chad's Cathedral. We sang the propers, the Second Mass of a Confessor Bishop, and a polyphonic ordinary: Heinrich Isaac's Missa pro Confessoribus.

Introit Sacerdotes tui and Isaac Kyrie


Gradual Sacerdotes and Tract Beatus vir.


Offertory Veritas mea with verses.


Heinrich Isaac's Sanctus and Benedictus


Isaac Agnus Dei


Communion antiphon Beatus vir, followed by a polyphonic version of the vespers hymn for a Confessor, Iste Confessor, by Victoria.


See LMS Chairman for more on the Mass. More photos here.

Videos of the Pilgrimage to Caversham

Last Saturday the Schola sang for the Latin Mass Society's annual Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Caversham. There was an important shrine to Our Lady in Caversham from before the Norman Conquest to the Reformation, and this was restored in 1958. Today it boasts a lovely medieval shrine image, a large, polychromed wooden Madonna and Child; Our Lady was crowned to mark the 50th Anniversary of the restoration of the shrine. This is the second year that the LMS has organised a pilgrimage there.

It was a Votive Mass of Our Lady (after Septuagesima). (When we sang there last year, it was the Ember Saturday of Lent, which was interesting.) Not having any polyphonists with us, we sang as a vested schola from the front of the nave.

Here is the Introit, with the Kyrie from Mass IX.


The Gradual Benedicta et venerabilis, and Tract Gaude Maria Virgo


The Offetory Felix namque est.


See the LMS Chairman blog for more on the Mass; see here for more photos.