Sacred Music talk

On the Feast of St. George we gave a talk on Sacred Music to the Parish. This talk was structured to describe the different types of Sacred Music, through the music we sang at Mass on today’s feast. These include the Propers, (Introit, Alleluia, Second Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion) We also sang a ‘proper’ processional entrance hymn. Those types of chants not used today such as the Tract, Gradual, Sequence and Hymn were described using examples we had sung over the last few weeks. We also looked at the chants of the Divine Office (Antiphon, Responsory and Office Hymns). We then looked at one of the pieces of Sacred Music sung as part of the Ordinary, the Kyrie, in this case a Troped Kyrie for Easter Sunday, and the Trope of the Kyrie for Mass I usually sung during Eastertide. Finally we looked at Polyphonic setting of Propers, the ancient chants provided a basis for composers such as Palestrina, Byrd, and Issac to produce many beautiful settings that we regularly hear at St. Bede’s.

Each piece of Sacred music was illustrated using a chant manuscript dating from IX-XV c. From a wide spread of places across Europe. From Lisbon, to St Gallen and Einsieldeln in Switzerland, Dubrovnik, to Utrect, Rome, to Koln, Praha, to Astorga, with many from across Northern France. This not only demonstrates that the music we sing has been almost unchanged over the last thousand years but also the music we sing at Mass links us with Catholics across Europe and across centuries.

A link to a booklet to accompany the talk can be found below,

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e8a4puefccu2253/Sacred%20Music%20talk.pdf?dl=0