Music for Sunday 27 June 2010

This week will be the first time in about four years I have been in Melbourne for St Peter's day.  Among the perks of doing a PhD is that one can get funding to go overseas for research trips and conferences. You can combine these trips with any amount of cathedral crawling.  My most memorable St Peter's day was 2007, when I sang at Old St Paul's in Edinburgh.  Their processional route includes a short stretch of the Royal Mile, two closes and the back of a busy hotel.  I was associated with St Peter's, Eastern Hill, in various ways for a few years back in the 1990s, and on-and-off in the last decade.

So, for the first time in a few years I am back at the grindstone for an observance of St Peter's day.  The readings for the week are linked here.

The mass setting will be the  Christ Church Mass of Philip Mathias [Together in Song, 757].

Hymns for the week are:

Introit: Thou art the Christ [tune, TIS 118]
For the Psalm: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord [22]
Gradual: God of grace and God of glory [611, tune 520
Offertory: Ye watchers and ye holy ones [150]
Communion: Glorious things of you are spoken [446, tune 772]

The choir will be singing the proper Communion antiphon for the day, using Francis Burgess's edition of the Plainchant Gradual, which was a contrafactum of the old Roman Gradual.  Thus, you get the authentic Gregorian melody with English text underlay:

The chant is being extended by the inclusion of verses from Psalm 80, so that it covers the action of the general communion.