Jesus Christ is risn'n today, da da da da da, da da da, da, da

Just in from Easter morning Mass at St. Stephen Martyr, my little neighborhood R.C. parish. As expected, it was jam packed in the pews and there were probably over a hundred people standing in the side aisles and in the narthex in back. You would think that these Catholics would know after all these years that if they show up at 10:59 for an 11 a.m. Easter Mass, they're just not going to get a seat!

Finally found a church with Easter lilies! You can see the handful they had at the altar; there were also about a dozen of them grouped under the ambo (pulpit).

I shall be exceedingly holy for the next year, as I got a face full of holy water as monsignor walked down the aisle with the aspergillum "sprinkling" the congregation and hitting me straight on. Good thing he's not my Father Confessor or he'd have dumped the whole bucket on me.

They rented an electronic organ for the Triduum and the Easter season, which was a much welcome addition! (This is the place with the broken pipe organ that's trying to raise a million dollars to install a new symphonic Spanish pipe organ) They also had a small string orchestra with French horns to help out with some of the music. The strings played a bit of a prelude after the choral Lauds that preceded the service.

They did a sort of oddly juxaposed Gloria with the Gloria from Mass in B Minor by J. S. Bach (choir and orchestra) and the Gloria from the Hurd New Plainsong Mass. Other Mass setting music included the Hughes Mass of the Divine Word during the consecration and the old Gregorian Agnus Dei.

Hymns were Easter Hymn for the processional, Festival Canticle during the offertory, and Hymn to Joy for the recessional. The parish's organist-choirmaster Christopher Candela wrote an antiphonal hymn "Those Who East Your Flesh" which they sang as communion music and he also wrote the Gospel Acclamation setting. They used the Proulx antiphon for the responsorial psalm.

Anthems included a Gregorian Mode 1 "Christians praise the pascal victim" as a sequence, a plainsong "I Saw Water Flowing" during the asperges, "Surgens Jesus" by Peter Phillips (1561–1628) at the offertory, and the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah during the ablutions.

The orchestra did Allegro from Concerto IV by Johann Melchior Molter (1696—1765) for a postlude.

Fun morning, and it was beautiful and sunny this morning, though it looks a bit overcast now. Leo is waiting on me so we can go shopping and then to Easter brunch somewhere, so I must away. Happy Easter!

Easter greetings

Happy Easter, everybody!

The Great Vigil at K Street

Kindling the New Fire

The Great Vigil of Easter, Rite I
St. Paul's Episcopal Church (K Street)—Washington, D.C.
April 15, 2006

First Lesson: Genesis 1:1—2:2
Psalm 33:8—11, Anglican chant by Edwin G. Monk

Second Lesson: Genesis 22:1—18
Psalm 33:13—14, 20—21, Anglican chant by Edward Elgar

Third Lesson: Exodus 14:10—15:1
Canticle: Cantemus Domino, Tone VIII, with verses in falsobordone by Francis Burgess

Fourth Lesson: Isaiah 55:1—11
Psalm 43:2—3, 6—7, Anglican chant by H. Walford Davies

Fifth Lesson: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 30:1, 3, 12—13, Anglican chant by Michael Nicholas

Anthem: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Sicut cervus

Antiphon: Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, Mode VII

Mass setting: Healey Willan, Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena

Psalm 114, Tonus Peregrinus, sung congregationally

Easter Acclamations: Joseph Noyon, arr. Gerre Hancock

Offertory Motet: attrib. Josquin Desprèz, Regina coeli
Offertory Hymn: Unser Herrscher

Communion Motet: Andrea Gabrieli, Maria Magdalena et altera Maria
Ablutions Hymn: Ellacombe

Recessional Hymn: St. Albinus

Voluntary: William Boyce, arr. Chuck Seipp, Trumpet Voluntary in B-flat

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Wow, we just made it through the Easter Vigil at St. Paul's K Street. It was just six minutes shy of three hours!

The church was packed! How many Vigils have I sung in the past where there were more people in the altar party and choir than in the congregation? I showed up half an hour before the service thinking I'd be able to snap a few photos and stake out a good place to sit so I could both see the choir and be accessible for my friend John who was driving down from Baltimore as soon as he finished playing services at his parish up there, but when I walked into the church, the nave was already full and practically all of the seats were either occupied or being reserved. Ultimately, they would have to set up several rows of folding chairs in the narthex.

When the service started at 9 p.m., the first thing they did was kindle the New Fire of Easter. Now, most churches do this by using a cigarette lighter to light a candle lighter with which to light the Pascal Candle; not so at St. Paul's! They used a sparker and kindled a bonfire back in the narthex! That's a picture of it up at the top of this post. Once the flames died down a little bit, they used coals from the fire to light the charcoal in the incense thurible and then lit candles from the flames of the bonfire.

The new curate served as deacon and chanted the Exultet and the Gospel. It occurred to me that they don't seem to teach chanting to divinity students at Yale.

The whole first hour and a half of the service (the lessons and the baptisms) was done essentially in darkness. The congregation had candles to use during parts of the service, but we sat for the lessons, psalms, and collects in darkness. Finally, at the Gloria, they turned the lights on!

Speaking of the Gloria, they had parishioners bring bells to ring during the Gloria. It was weird.

Oh, during the lessons, I was absolutely appalled when one of the readers went up to the lectern wearing this great big, round, straw, daytime hat! I couldn't tell with the candlelight, but I sure hope she wasn't also wearing white before Memorial Day! Shockingly, I also saw two other women in the congregation in day hats, though theirs were more of the modified pork pie shape.

In addition to the full-form Exultet, they also chanted a lengthy Litany of Saints during the baptismal procession to the font in the narthex.

The Noyon Easter Acclamations were a trip! There's this loud congregational chorus that actually has a lot of high Fs and even a big high G! Gs were not in my contract tonight, especially with no warning and no warm-up.

Once we got to the Mass, the organ was joined by a brass quartet and tympanist.

The choir had a ton of music to sing tonight. I thought they particularly shined on the Anglican chants during the Lessons portion of the service. The Palestrina was particularly nice. The Desprèz during the offertory started out fine, but it had a few internal rough notes and then by the ending cadences they lost tuning and I was involuntarily turning my hand in my conductor's "tuning knob motion" trying to help them out (now, mind you, this is a very professional choir, so all "problems" are relative and I'm very very perfectionistic).

Once again the church looked like they'd had a professional floral designer in to do the arrangements. Interestingly enough, though, I didn't see a single Easter lily in the entire building! You can see the altar, above. Here are some pictures of some of the arrangements on the tops of the columns in the nave and one of some green callas by the pulpit.



I should have gotten a picture of the baptistery in the back of the narthex, but the priests were standing there greeting people after the marathon, uh, er, I mean service. It was decorated in branches of flowering trees such as cherry and dogwood. The chapel was done in greenery and bare branches:



After the service, John and I went up to the dining room in the parish hall for the post-Vigil reception. As usual, no one talked to us. The place was interestingly decorated with pastel crepe paper streamers everywhere and columns of lighted streamers over each of the three food buffet tables which were laden with cheeses (mostly big wheels of brie), rollups, meatballs, deviled eggs, shrimp (enough to repopulate the Gulf of Mexico), crudités, dips (we found some freshly made guacamole so they must have given the servants carte blanche to cook), cookies, miniature cream puffs and probably other things we missed. And, as is traditional with most Episcopal churches, there was a big wine table with sparkling cider and Freixenet Spanish cava sparkling wine (they kept shooting corks all over the dining room!). We didn't stay long, or even get drunk for a change, since John had to drive back to Baltimore and get ready to play all the services in the morning. He'll certainly get a workout: he's doing the Gigout "Grand Choeur Dialogue" (which I love!) with brass for his postludes tomorrow!

Hope everyone has a happy Easter!

Happy Passover

Happy Passover!

Today is the first day of Passover (seasonal felicitations to any of you Jewish readers!), which means the observance started last night at sundown. My friend Eugene has some Russian Jewish ancestors, so we decided it would be fun to have a meal with traditional Passover foods, but we didn't want to do a formal religious Seder meal (the original "Lord's Supper," for you Christian readers). Several of the nicer restaurants in town have special Passover menus this year, including Felix in Adams-Morgan, Gallileo in the West End, and Rosa Mexicana in Penn Quarter, but they were booked up with reservations (not to mention pretty expensive!). Nonplussed, we looked for an inexpensive place with roast lamb on the menu.

And, we happened upon Zorba's Cafe, just across from the Q Street exit of the Dupont Circle Metro station. Zorba's is always a fun place for a quick and inexpensive meal. They are a rather casual place where diners go to a counter on the lower level to order, pay, and pick up their own food, then they can select their own table on the main level, upstairs, or out on the patio where we chose to eat. The best thing about Zorba's, though, is the "home cooked" food from old Greek family recipes.

This place has some of the best kotósoupa avgolémono I've tasted. This is a simple chicken, vegetable, and rice soup enriched with eggs and lemon juice—a very classic Greek dish—and theirs is always well balanced, hearty, and delicious. They didn't have any matzo ball soup (matzo is not a traditional Greek food!), but we brought our own box of matzo crackers to eat in lieu of the leavened rolls Zorba's serves.

For our main course we had a sort of "blue plate special," their arnáki sto foúrno. They roast a leg of lamb and pull the tender meat from the bone and allow it to mingle with its own natural juices. They serve it on top of a mound of lightly tomato-sauced Greek pasta called manéstra, which looks like large, oversized grains of rice. Along with the lamb and pasta is a large serving of Greek salad with crumbled feta cheese and black Greek olives. Along with our meal, we split a carafe of Greek red wine, since the Passover tradition is to drink four glasses of wine with dinner!

Tonight starts the Christian Triduum, and I've still not decided where all I'm going to church and when this weekend.

Oh, I'm really curious about the "Mexican Passover" food at Rosa Mexicana, so if anybody is feeling bold and adventuresome and wants to try it out, let me know.