The Colloquium came to a magnificent and emotional close today with a Mass of almost two hours. Everybody sang, and it was truly wonderful.
If you’re interested, follow along in the music packet distributed online starting on PDF page 181 (ignore the page numbers printed on the page itself) or in the paper copy starting on page 195. This was a Mass in the Ordinary Form, in Latin. Father Scott Haynes of St John Cantius parish in Chicago was the presider – he did a number of Masses during the week.
We started with the Introit of the thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Omnes Gentes Plaudite. The Kyrie and Gloria were polyphony pieces from William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, along with the rest of the Ordinary. After the Old Testament Reading was the day’s Gradual, Exaltabo te, Domine. The Alleluia chant was the same text as the Introit, Omnes gentes plaudite, meaning “All nations, clap your hands; shout unto God with a voice of joy.”
The Offertory chant was Sicut in holocausto from Daniel: “As a holocaust … let our sacrifice be in your sight on this day.” Then came a lively two-choir SATB piece, Duo Seraphim, which had a challenging Bass 1 part because only two of us were singing it – trying to balance with about 35 other singers.
The Communion chant came from Psalm 30, Inclina aurem tuam: “Bow down thy ear, make haste to deliver us.” Also at communion was a beautiful Byrd Ave Verum Corpus, followed by a Victoria Laetatus Sum. Before the final Benediction the entire Colloquium – some 240 people – sang that wonderful Ave Maris Stella, and it was as stunning as I expected. I’ll be working this afternoon on processing all these recordings and getting them posted on the website.
After Mass we had a brunch, and I handed out the remainder of the CDs I made of the Thursday Holy Hour service. It was great to surprise people with copies fresh off my computer. And of course it was sad to say goodbye to everyone, especially Jeffrey, the directors I worked with this year, and the other singers I was with. And my roommate as well.
I finally made it to Arizona and had a nice dinner with my wife and daughter, it’s wonderful to kick back and relax. 110 degrees, but air conditioning fixes all.
Tomorrow after sleeping in, I hope to spend time getting the recordings processed and posted on the server. But no energy for that tonight, my brain’s fried.
Way too much to think about. I had some real interesting thoughts about my future career in combining coaching with sacred music … more to come later, I hope!
Carl, thanks so much for making your recordings available. Wasn’t colloquium amazing? Now we know what the paradigm for sacred music is . . . hard to get back to “normal.”