Wednesday night

Well, Ascension and St. Agnes isn't the church I vaguely remember from my internship days, at least not unless they have done a major remodel in the past twenty years. It's a very old, gothic-style church in a neighborhood that's still a touch on the "transitional" side. Inside, it's a big, wide space with both a center pace and two side aisles; the vintage, center-divided, dark wood pews creak and moan; the interior walls are trompe l'oeil-painted in two shades of light grey to give the space a stone cathedral effect; a couple of murals are painted on the walls in the style of mosaics; the dark wood "ribs" of the ceiling in the nave are highlighted with coral red painted stripes; the lower decorative tracery work around the thin, cast steel "pillars" are painted the same coral red; a balcony houses a fairly new pipe organ and the choir loft; the side aisles each lead to small devotional altars. It appears the parish is very traditional: I noticed both 1940 hymnals and 1928 prayer books in the pew racks.

Tonight's All Souls' Day service was a "Solemn Requiem in Commemoratione Omnium Fidelium Defunctorum" (in memory of all the faithful departed), and they treated it just like a funeral—so much so, in fact, that in the crossing they set up a pall-covered catafalque with three tall candlesticks flanking each side of it. The rector of the parish celebrated, served by a deacon and subdeacon, and three other priests were vested in cassock, surplice, and black stole. The three principal sacred ministers were vested in black with the deacon in a two-barred dalmatic, the subdeacon in a one-barred tunicle, both in black silk with the decorations worked on beige damask with cream and yellow embroidery and fringes, and the celebrant wore a black, fiddleback-shaped chasuble (Anglican chasubles are usually round) with a large white cross with a large "IHS" monogram on the back that featured exquisitely worked floral vine embroidery on the arms in metallic silver and gold threads and small pearls. It appeared, oddly enough, that both the celebrant and deacon were wearing maniples. During the absolution and commital section of the service (following communion), the celebrant switch to a gorgeous, full, black cope with black and beige damask trim and beige and gold needlework. Also in the all-male altar party were a lay master of ceremonies, three adult acolyte servers, and four other adults acting as thurifer, crucifer, and torchbearers.

The choir was rather small, appearing to be about 12 to 14 mixed voices, seated in the balcony around the organ console from which the organist/choirmaster directed. Having been to the National Cathedral, St. Matthew's Cathedral, and St. Paul's K Street so much lately where they have such large and splendid instruments, I'm a little spoiled and found the organ a little lacking (I'd guess it only had 12 to 18 ranks). It was adequate for this particular service, though, and a few times overpowered the small choir.

The Mass setting tonight was the Requiem of the late-19th century Bavarian composer, Josef Rheinberger. This is Rheinberger's only requiem mass (he wrote twelve other regular masses), and included an Introit, Kyrie, Offertorio, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Communio with the funeral versions of the words, and I can only say that it sounded "requiemy." Rheinberger is strangely popular around D.C., yet I've never been overwhelmingly impressed with his works. I guess they are easy to sing or something. The choir filled in a few holes with works by the organist/choirmaster, Haig Mardirosian, for the psalm setting and an "In Paradisum" which was used as music during the recessional. Mardirosian's works were both written with "modern" chords and harmonies, some of which resembled modern jazz, and which were interesting, but not to my taste for liturgical music. There were two congregational hymns: Michael for the end of the offertory and Pax at the end of communion.

I may have to pop in to Ascension and St. Agnes for a regular Sunday service: their high mass is at 10, a convenient hour which helps fill in the void between all the 9 and 11 o'clock services around town. While I didn't go down, they were hosting a wine and cheese party after tonight's service in the undercroft.


Edit: I've been advised that the organ at Ascension and St. Agnes is actually a 55-rank Letourneau.