Mass (music) - Masses Written For The Anglican Liturgy

Masses Written For The Anglican Liturgy

These are more often known as 'Communion Services', and differ not only in that they are settings of English words, but also, as mentioned above, in that the Gloria usually forms the last movement. Sometimes the Kyrie movement takes the form of sung responses to the Ten Commandments, 1 to 9 being followed by the words 'Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law', and the tenth by 'Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee'. Since the texts of the 'Benedictus qui venit' and the 'Agnus Dei' do not actually feature in the liturgy of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, these movements are often missing from some of the earlier Anglican settings. Charles Villiers Stanford composed a Benedictus and Agnus in the key of F major which was published separately to complete his service in C.

With reforms in the Anglican liturgy, the movements are now usually sung in the same order that they are in the Roman Catholic rite, leading, according to some, to the musical integrity of the settings being somewhat compromised. Choral settings of the Creed, the most substantial movement, are rarely performed in Anglican cathedrals now.

Well known Anglican settings of the Mass, which may be found in the repertoire of many English cathedrals are:

  • Darke in F
  • Darke in E
  • Darke in A minor
  • Ireland in C
  • Stanford in C & F
  • Stanford in B flat
  • Stanford in A
  • Sumsion in F
  • Oldroyd, Mass of the Quiet Hour
  • Jackson in G
  • Howells, Collegium Regale
  • Leighton in D
  • Noble in B minor
  • Harwood in A flat
  • Wood in the Phrygian Mode

Read more about this topic:  Mass (music)

Famous quotes containing the words masses, written, anglican and/or liturgy:

    When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.
    Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)

    Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?
    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

    I was the rector’s son, born to the anglican order,
    Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
    The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
    With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.
    Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)

    My liturgy would employ
    Images of sousing,
    A furious devout drench....
    Philip Larkin (1922–1986)