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.