Piccolo Mass

Finally made it to church for a change. We've been bad the last few Sundays. Ryan slept in, of course, but Laurent and I wandered over to St. Stephen for the 11 o'clock.

The choir sounded unusually nice today. They were doing portions (Kyrie, Gloria, Agnus Dei) of a setting called Canterbury Mass by Anthony Piccolo. Piccolo is on staff at New York City Opera and has ties to D.C., having formerly studied at Peabody in Baltimore and having worked with the National Symphony and composed a number of works premiered at the Washington National Cathedral. I thought the composition sounded quite contemporary Anglican, and the choir at St. Stephen always sounds best when it does Anglican literature.

The rest of the mass setting was an odd hodge-podge with the standard Proulx Sanctus, and a new (for this parish) Memorial Acclamation and Amen by Leo Nestor, the director of choral activities at Catholic University here in town.

Hymns today were a rousing St. Anne for the processional, We nur den lieben Gott at the offertory (with the improvised accompaniment much more interesting than the hymn itself), and the well-known Wesley Aurelia, but instead of the standard "The Church's one foundation" words, they used one of those weird sets of Catholic words "O Christ the great foundation." Oh, and for the communion marching music the congregation never sings, they did "O blessed Savior now behold," one of those dreadful GIA songs that doesn't resolve at the end.

Communion motet was "Hear My Prayer, O Lord" by Henry Purcell.

This month, the parish is encouraging re-devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to the Rosary, with comments during the homily trying to tie our increased devotion to Mary to decreasing the horrendous, violent crime in parts of the world. I'm not quite sure how that's supposed to work. I was never very good at mariolatry, though.

I want to go to Mass here next week, cause they are singing parts of the Rachmaninoff Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but, alas, I think I'm stuck going to St. John's Lafayette Square next week with a bunch of friends to hear Mozart's Missa Brevis in F (with orchestra), followed by brunch. I just hope they have a real priest there to celebrate instead of one of their gaggle of priestesses.