Mozart on a Sunday morning

Every quarter, St. John's Lafayette Square has a special Sunday morning church service where they bring in an orchestra and they make use of it to enrich their worship experience, typically with Mozart Mass settings. Yesterday was one of those Sundays, so our good friend Max—a longtime St. John's parishioner—invited us to come down and hear the music.

We got there a little late and had to sit in the back row under the balcony. Before we left the apartment, Laurent had to change shirts four times before he was satisfied with his "look," and, still, he refused to wear a tie to match Ryan and me, as well as all of the other gentlemen (and most of their boy children) at the service. Methinks he's spent too much time with Catholics, who are known to wear any old thing to Mass, including shorts and t-shirts. We will eventually I trust, though, get him properly socialized for suitable Episcopalian company and society.

The centerpiece of the service was Mozart's Mass in C, K. 257. The chamber orchestra sounded very nice in the space, only marred a bit because the strings got a little out of tune by the Benedictus. The musicianship of the players was excellent, though, because they used their ears to tune together in ensemble passages. The fourteen-member St. John's choir provided the choral support, and the four soloists were taken from the choir.

They chose to do the Kyrie as a choral prelude and the Agnus Dei as a communion motet. In addition at communion, they did Alma Dei creatoris, The kindly mother of God the Creator, K. 277. Venite populi, Come, O people, K. 260, served as the offertory anthem. Also during the offertory they did Nun danket alle Gott as a congregational hymn. Other hymns included Austria as the processional, Cwm Rhondda as the recessional, and Azmon (O for a thousand tongues to sing) as the sequence (at St. John's, they do half the sequence hymn before and half after the Gospel).

It's always a pleasure to visit St. John's. They have an excellent music program, the rector is an engaging preacher, and the congregation is unusually friendly for an Episcopal church. But, sitting through a service always reminds me why I've never joined the parish: liturgy. They are a very low church parish, the clergy wears only albs and stoles during Mass (no copes or chasubles), they don't chant, they do that quasi-inclusive language liturgy nonsense (things like during the sursum corda saying "It is right to give God thanks and praise" instead of the correct phrase "It is right to give Him thanks and praise), and they abridge and rush through the actual prayers of consecration. They also have an unfortunate penchant for allowing priestesses to celebrate Mass; fortunately, the rector and one of the assistants were concelebrating, so the Elements were validily consecrated and we were able to receive.

Here's a picture of Laurent sitting in the "President's Pew" after Mass.