New organist

Whilst sitting in the pews perusing the service leaflet and the parish newsletter this morning, I found the very formal announcement that my friend John had been engaged as organist of the parish. How exciting! What was particularly fun, though, was during the Peace, I discovered him sitting just two pews behind me.

The Mass setting this morning at St. Paul's was Communion Service in E-flat (Missa de Santo Albano) by Healey Willan, all sung by the choir. The choir also did the Anglican chant for the psalm, this time a chant by Edward Bairstow. The congregation joined in chanting the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, as always, plus the usual responses.

Opening hymn was Oriel (To the Name of our salvation), Bourbon (Take up your cross) was the sequence, Picardy (Let all mortal flesh) showed up as the post-communion ablutions hymn, and the recessional hymn was all six verses of Coronation (All hail the power of Jesus' name).

For the offertory, the choir sang "O God, thou art my God" by Henry Purcell. It included a closing alleluia section that was the familiar melody from the hymn Westminster Abbey. The communion motet was "Tantum ergo Sacramentum" by Maurice Duruflé. Duruflé also composed the postlude today, Fugue sur le thème du carillon des heures de la cathédral de Soissons, Op. 12. The prelude had been "After an Old French Air" by Percy Whitlock.

There was sherry in the parish hall after Mass.

Drizzly feast days

The remnants of that tropical storm have moved up the Atlantic coast and D.C. is getting a constant drizzle from it. Nothing hard, but enough that I needed an umbrella this morning lest I get wet on the walk to church. I've not done laundry in a month, so all my casual clothes were dirty and I had to put on a jacket and tie, thus I landed at St. Paul's K Street (one can dress like a slob at Catholic Masses, but a gentleman must be properly attired at an Episcopal service).

Today is the Feast of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. Naturally, they opened the service with the well-known hymn Nicaea (Holy, holy, holy). Other hymns included Rustington (Round the Lord in glory seated) for the sequence and Shipston (Firmly I believe and truly) post-communion. For the Mass setting, they did Paul Callaway's Communion Service in D, sung in unison by the congregation. Anglican chant by Richard Farrant, also sung by all in unison, accompanied the psalm.

The women and girls of the choir sang "Give ear unto me, Lord" by Benedetto Marcello as the offertory anthem and "Duo seraphim clamabant alter ad alterum" by Richard Dering as the communion motet. The basses and tenors got to sit around this morning. I think they are singing Evensong tonight with the boys, though.

The fun part of the Mass happened after the post-communion prayer and final blessing when the entire choir and congregation sang the plainsong version of the Te Deum not only with full festal organ, but with two well-stoked thuribles up in the sanctuary generating billowing clouds of smoke.

Having sung all the Te Deum, there was no recessional hymn, and the altar party departed during the postlude, Bach's "Fuga a 5 con pedale pro Organo pleno," BWV 552/2 ("St. Anne").

There's big news at St. Paul's today, too. Music director Mark Dwyer is resigning at the end of the summer to become organist/choirmaster at Church of the Advent in Boston. And organist Scott Dettra is leaving this summer to become organist at the National Cathedral. We should be getting a new organist soon; they're planning an international search for the music director's post, predicting it'll take about a year.

Then I walked home in the rain.