Light in the shadows

Light and darkness. Shadows and highlights. Ornate buildings take on a whole new character at night when the daytime sun no longer illuminates the building. The planners of tonight's concert—one of the fifteen performances in the Summer Music Festival 2005 at the Washington National Cathedral—opted not to illuminate brightly the performance space, but to allow the elaborately carved walls and ceilings of the cathedral to form a dramatic, changing, chiaroscuro backdrop for the sixteen a capella singers of "Phoenix."

Light and darkness continued in the music, as well, as the group sang alternating movements of darker contrapuntal music from a 16th century Christopher Tye Mass with contemporary 20th century motets about lux, or "light." In addition, during the first half of the concert, the setting sun continued to shine through the stained glass of the clerestory windows, not only allowing the liturigcal portrayals in the windows to glow and later darken, but also casting beams of colored light through the upper part of the sanctuary. Those beams reminded me of the symbolism of light in gothic style churches that dates all the way back to the construction of the Abbey Church of St. Denis, the very first gothic building in the Middle Ages, and its creators' studies of the philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius, who taught that symbols such as light and beauty move us towards God.

It was in this mystical space that we heard tonight's concert. What was particularly interesting was the performance location within the vast cathedral. The previous two series concerts I'd attended put the performers in the crossing and the audience in the nave. Tonight, though, the organizers set up hundreds of chairs in the Great Quire, and the singers stood in the sanctuary to perform. Between the permanent stalls for choir and chapter and the supplemental chairs set up in the aisles between the stalls, I estimate that there was seating for 450-500 people (it should tell you how big this place is if you remember this is just the choir or chancel area of the cathedral!). It's a very interesting space, being fairly long and narrow and approximately four stories high. In the area of the stalls, the lower half of the walls are of highly carved walnut and walnut paneling, with artistically arranged organ pipes on each side, and above that white limestone with a heavily ribbed ceiling and stained glass windows on the clerestory level. The sanctuary, of course, is largely of sculpted white marble with limestone and stained glass in the top half. The special intimate acoustics of this area of the cathedral were soon to lend themselves to the delicacy of this all-a capella concert.

Phoenix is a group of young-ish church musicians drawn from across the northeast coast, and it has been performing across the country since 1996, specializing in English choral music. They have an interesting mix of singers, with nine men (one is a counter-tenor) and seven women, plus a conductor. They entered the sanctuary to stand behind black music stands in a large semi-circle, parts mixed, with all the gentlemen in black tuxedos and the women in a variety of styles of conservative long black dresses, and the conductor in a cream dinner jacket. I noticed an interesting thing about the group: they were all brunettes!

The first half of the concert was devoted to Tye's Mass Euge Bone, opening with the 16th century John Taverner's "Kyrie LeRoy" and then between each of the Mass movements, they sang contemporary "lux" motets, namely "O nata lux" by Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943), "Lux Aurumque" by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), and "Lux AEterna" by Edwin Fissinger (1920-1990). This interplay made for quite an interesting balance of moods. The choir was at its best with the contemporary motets. The pianissimos and diminuendos of "O nata lux" were particularly beautiful. I didn't know the lux motets, so I can't say much about the works or the composers other than the fact that they shared a contemporary British feel in their chordal structures and harmonies, and some of the passages felt very familiar, reminding me of some of the British anthems I've sung by other composers. The Tye Mass presented some interesting challenges for the group. Now, I don't want to give a negative impression of the group, because their mastery of the music and their level of artistry far exceeds what we generally hear from church and collegiate choirs. Music from the 16th century can be very challenging for modern choirs to sing, since that era of music expected a trained singer's voice eventually to "solidify," and to lose any wobble, tremolo, or vibrato; modern operatically-trained singers tend to strive for such vibrato. This group also used female singers, but we should remember than in the 16th century, the high parts were sung either by boys choirs or by castrati, since a papal decree forbade women from singing in public. Music written for castrati will be hard for modern women to sing because not only were soaring high notes put in, but castrati were particularly prized for the richness of their lower registers, and few modern female sopranos will have that kind of range. In the Taverner, the singers were particularly careful to enunciate their consonants, giving us especially explosive K's for repetitions of "kyrie," and that made me hopeful for the rest of the concert. Unfortunately, though, the diction lost crispness in many of the more elaborate sections of the Tye Mass, and that was often quite noticeable in the lower voices during some of the melismas. I also had the feeling that several of the women were working hard to hold their voices back, since some entrances felt shaky and almost cracked. They were doing that, though, to blend in, stop the vibrato, and keep their voices from sticking out, and I must say that overall, the blend of the choir was very pleasing.

For the first half of the concert, we sat on the fifth row back from the altar rail. During the second half, we moved and sat twenty rows further back on the next to the last row of the chairs in the choir, just in front of the rood screen. While the closer seat gave us a better feel of the voices as they entered during the contrapuntal sections and the individual personalities of some of the singers, the seat further back not only gave us a better overall blend, but gave us more of a sense of the cathedral's reverberant "echo". It would have been nice to have had a chance to go out into the nave to hear the sound from out there, as well, but perhaps we can do that for another concert.

The second half of the concert was devoted to three of the great British composers of the 20th century. They opened with Charles Villiers Stanford's "Magnificat, anima mea," his long Latin version (not one of his Mag and Nunc settings for Evensongs) that I've never thought was very exciting. Next was a "Chorale after an Old French Carol" by Benjamin Britten which was pretty, but the diction was so blurred I could not swear that they were actually singing the English words in English. Finally, they did Herbert Howell's Requiem, a little known work hidden by the composer until shortly before his death thought to be a response to the death of his son and a preliminary study for Howell's big festival piece, Hymnus Paradisi. The two major portions of the Requiem are settings of Psalms 23 (rather forgettable) and 121 (very nice), with two variations on "requiem aeternam" in between, and all flanked by a "Salvador mundi" up front and "I heard a voice from heaven" at the conclusion The baritone (who looked a lot like the British actor Rupert Graves) and tenor soloists had opportunities to shine in Psalm 121. The first "requiem aeternam" variation had a lot of nice pedal tones from the basses, and the second variation had some of the very few soaring, "big" moments in the evening's performance.

Tallis quincentenary

Just got back from a concert at the National Cathedral celebrating the quincentenary of the birth of the English composer Thomas Tallis. Most of you would probably recognize a hymn tune of his which is often sung as a round, usually with the words "All praise to thee my God this night, for all the blessing of the light: keep me, o keep me, King of kings, beneath thine own almighty wings." Long time church choristers may also remember singing an English motet called "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

Anyway, tonight's concert was devoted exclusively to Tallis's a capella choral compositions, sung by five different area choral ensembles. This concert is a part of the month-long Summer Music Festival at the cathedral, wherein several free concerts are given each week from a broad range of performers and genres. I got there tonight about fifteen minutes early, and had to sit at the back of the front half of the nave. Eventually, the north and south transepts were also filled, and I'd say about a third of the back half of the nave was full. The audience was quite diverse and seemed to have people from all age groups. The past several days, there has been a Tallis workshop going on at the cathedral with musicians from all over, led by Philip Cave, an original singer with the Tallis Scholars choral ensemble and the director and founder of the English choral group Magnificat.

The program opened with "Loquebantur varlis linguis" (the apostles did speak with many tongues), sung by the Choir of Men and Girls of the Washington National Cathedral. The choir was surprisingly small, with about five men and six high school aged girls. I guess most of the girls are off on summer vacation, since the choir for services is much larger. The next ensemble was the Choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek, that sang "Te lucis ante terminum" (before the ending of the day), "Salvator mundi" (Savior of the world), and "In ieiunion et fletu" (fasting and weeping). This was another small group, and there was one guy in the group who was absolutely adorable, even from way back where I was sitting!

The only English-language anthems were sung by the Woodley Ensemble, which did "If ye love me," "Hear the voice and prayer," and "O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit." This was a little bit bigger group. One of the men had this very unfortunate tendency to bob and sway wildly as he sang, though, and all that movement made his hair comb-over fall out of place and become very obvious. The "large" group of the day was the Palestrina Choir, which sang "In manus tuas" (Into your hands), "Candidi facti sunt" (Made radiantly white), and "O nata lux de lumine" (O light of light). They were certainly the most polished group of the evening. I noticed there were several people who sang in multiple ensembles, especially with this one. The last group to sing was the Schola Cantorum from St. Matthew's (Catholic) Cathedral. Another small group, they did "O sacrum convivium" (O sacred banquet) and "O salutaris hostia" (O saving victim), a couple of pieces they recently recorded for their CD. They use microphones at St. Matt's, so they weren't quite used to the live acoustic here.

A couple of notes seem common to all of the ensembles. The acoustics of the cathedral are amazing. Even the small groups of eight singers could be clearly heard without any amplification. That acoustic was rather unforgiving in some of the less-well-rehearsed passages, where the diction got a little muddy. I was also reminded, unfortunately, with each ensemble, why the early, medieval, and Renaissance church used choirs of men and boys instead of choirs with adult women. It is extremely hard for women to sing with a "straight tone" and avoid using their vibrato to help keep the pitch on target, even with these auditioned, professional singers. At some point, each group had some major pitch problems when the women went flat. Now, I certainly don't want to infer that boys never go flat, but they naturally sing in straight tone, so I find that most trained boys choirs do a much better job with pitch and intonation on this type of music.

For the finale, all of the groups came on stage to sing Tallis's masterpiece, the motet "Spem in alium", conducted by workshop leader Philip Cave. Now, most choral music is arranged for four parts (for example, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass), and some complex music today may be written for eight parts or for a "double choir". This motet, though, is written for forty parts, distributed amongst octuple choirs! Because of it's difficulty, it isn't often performed. This is the first time I have ever heard a live performance of the piece. About twenty years ago, I sang the motet with the Canterbury Choral Society, but you get a completely different perspective of the work when you are in the ensemble and are trying to concentrate on one part and watch the conductor. Our performance was also complicated a bit by the director's decision to spread the choir out all over the Civic Center Music Hall (before the big remodeling process in Oklahoma City's post-bombing renewal), rather than keep the group together on stage. Today was, then, a really exciting opportunity for me to hear this piece (and the main reason I went to the otherwise rather dry concert). They acquitted themselves well. There were, as expected, a couple of places where the parts get dense when some of the voices got lost, but they eventually picked it back up again. The subito fortes were of wonderous effect in the cathedral acoustic. It made a fine ending for the hour-long concert.

I was rather amused during the concert by an elderly man sitting in front of me a bit. He came in before the concert began to find his seat, then he pulled out this big book called Einstein in Berlin, and he proceded to read it during the entire concert! He looked rather annoyed during those moments of applause, which, I guess, distracted him from his reading. After the final ovation, he closed his book up and left with the rest of the audience. I have no idea why he came to the concert, if he was just going to read!

New cast

Went to Mass this morning at St. Stephen's. They have new priests. The new pastor is another monsignor, but surprisingly young. Back in Oklahoma, when the bishop did the mid-summer clergy shuffle, he usually just changed one priest at a time, but here in D.C., the entire team of three priests is switched out. The celebrant was the new assisting priest. He sings flat, but was basically melodic. He's a little heavy, too, and didn't genuflect during the prayer of consecration. To compensate for that, he held the host and the chalice up for about an hour each during the elevation. I think it's interesting that the pastors of this parish always seem to be monsignors—the new guy is at least the third in a row. St. Stephen's doesn't appear to me to be that big of a parish, or particularly important, so I don't know how they manage to get so much red trim. I still haven't figured out what I think of the parish. Because of the modern '60s architecture, I always feel like I'm going to Mass in a bowling alley.

Liturgical music for fife and drum

I belong to a parish back in Oklahoma City (well, Nichols Hills, actually, but OKC is just across the street!) that has for decades had a special Independence Day service (transferred to a convenient Sunday, of course) with patriotic hymns and the entire Oklahoma City bagpipe and drum band. Episcopalians love a party, and the Fourth of July is as good an excuse as any. It turns out my church selection for this morning was having a transferred Feast of Independence Day celebration today, as well. I wonder if anyone will actually have church tomorrow morning on the actual day?

It was a busy morning at St. John's Lafayette Square. They were welcoming a new assistant rector (yet another priestess—the majority of the clergy at this parish is, distressingly, female) who was celebrating her first Mass here today. The choir is off for July and August, so they have "summer choir" of volunteers for services that rehearses in the nave for most of the hour prior to the service. They had a substitute organist this morning. And, for the "holiday," they had a fifist and a snare drummer.

The hymns were pretty predictable: "God of Our Fathers" for the processional, "O God Our Help in Ages Past" for the sequence, "America" at the presentation, and "America the Beautiful" for the recessional. The one weird thing was after the communion anthem, there was a some dreadful Taize hymn called "Bless the Lord, My Soul" which was intended as a congregational hymn. The congregation, of course, didn't sing it. Most Episcopalians and Catholics in the pews hate Taize music, no matter how much choir directors try to force the trash on them.

The anthems this morning were the spiritual "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" for communion, which was really just the choir singing a hymn with some simple harmonies by itself, and then for the offertory, they did that tired Wilhousky arrangement of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" that everyone has done for years. This is the first time I've heard it with fife and drum, though, so that at least made it a little more interesting. For the final chorus, the choir director made the whole congregation stand up and sing along, which, of course, the congregation loved, and they actually applauded after the offertory! (For you non-Anglicans, non-Catholics reading this, one does not applaud during Mass!) It was fun, though. I decided to be wild and sang the Amens with the choir at the end, even if people did stare. LOL

I found their choice of service music to be rather unusual. The Gloria was a William Mathias setting from the Episcopal hymnal, the psalm was an unaccompanied plainsong chant that was cantored Catholic-style, and the only thing sung during the eucharistic prayer was the Sanctus, for which they chose a setting from Lift Every Voice and Sing that had some big high Fs in the Benedictus (and I noticed that the congregation wasn't the only group of singers that couldn't hit the Fs!).

Should have worn my seersucker suit to church this morning. I saw at least a half dozen of them today, plus a couple of pincord suits and some seersucker blazers. This parish seems a lot more Southern than others in town. That also was apparent in the "coffee hour" out on the plaza in front of the church after the service, from the Southern iced tea they were serving. There were two huge urns of tea, and both of them were sweetened....one was with lemon and the other without lemon. Actually, I've always thought of Southern tea less as tea with sugar and more as tea-flavored syrup. If one is gonna do the sugar, one might as well do the lemon, too.

I may think about going back and joining their summer choir. I always enjoy their rector's preaching. The downside is all the priestesses in the clergy. Fortunately, the rector and the geriatric male assisting priest all stand back behind the altar during the consecration (not quite a formal con-celebration), so I can at least take communion. The church is only two subway stops away, so it's not too hard to get to. We shall see.

Church reports

Ah, I'm just in from church, and I'm nibbling on some delectable slices of roast beef. Before I left this morning, I preheated my oven to 450º, then took half of an eye of round roast and jabbed it liberally with little slivvers of garlic here and there, put it in an open cast iron skillet, popped it into the oven and closed the door quickly, then reduced the oven heat to 325º. When I got home, it was black and crusty on the outside and oh-so-moist and juicy on the inside. Mmmmm.

Today is the transferred Feast of the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, so I thought it would be a fine day to pop in to St. Paul's K Street. The humidity is high today, so even after the short three-block walk to the church, I felt the blast of cold, heavily incensed air as I opened the door to the church. They considered this to be a secondary patronal festival, so they had an introit and procession. It was a lovely service, and not quite as stuffy as this church usually is. Of course, I'm sure my opinion was skewed since they sang one of my very favorite anthems for the offertory, Parry's "I Was Glad When They Said unto Me," and the recessional hymn (Lasst uns erfreuen) is also one of my favorites. The Parry was wonderfully done, and I had shivvers in my neck as they concluded. It helps that they have such a splendid organ in their worship space. The other anthems this morning were "Introibo ad Altare Dei" by Mark Dwyer for the introit and "Locus iste" by Anton Bruckner for communion. The Anglican chant for the psalm was by John E. West and the mass setting was the Communion Service in E (Collegium Regale) by Harold Darke. Additional hymns were Gonfalon Royal and Oriel for the processional, Wolvercote for the sequence, and a new hymn "In our day of thanksgiving" (St. Catherine's Court) on a program insert page that I didn't know for post-communion.

The clergy vestments were gorgeous today. Feasts of apostles and martyrs are "red" days, but most parishes don't have festal vestments for each of the liturgical colors, and make due with generic white and gold stuff, but not here. They had the celebrant in an elaborate red and metallic gold brocade cope with a fancy oversized hood and the deacon and subdeacon in red brocade dalmantics, with an assisting priest in a red cope as well. After the procession, they changed the celebrant's vestment, removing the cope and replacing it with a red and gold fiddleback-shaped chasuble (I haven't seen fiddleback-shaped chasubles in ages!).

I wore a blue and white seersucker suit, yellow bow tie, and white bucks to church, and one man (in a blue blazer, grey flannels, and bow tie) said, "My, don't you look Virginian today!" I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. I also saw the cutest couple at church, probably both in their early thirties. The wife was wearing a pale khaki two-piece tailored suit with a damask pattern in the weave and some slightly sparkly stuff in the fabric on her top. She looked very elegant with her dark hair pulled back into a high pony tail showing her long neck and her drop earrings with five graduated pearls each. She wore bone high heels and carried a matching handbag. Her husband was in a blue blazer with khaki trousers the exact shade of her suit, and he wore a vest that appeared to be the same damask pattern as her skirt.

I forgot to write in my blog my previous visit to Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown. Grace is an old 1866-vintage church down by the canals and the river, and it's a tiny, historic building. It's also a small parish, with about 50 people in the congregation when I visited. They were very casual (I was the only one in a tie), and very friendly (unusual for an Episcopal parish!)—perhaps a little annoyingly friendly, however, cause during the passing of the peace, they were wandering around all over the church shaking hands with everybody, not just those in their immediate vicinity. When I left after the service, a greeter practically ran after me to welcome me and thank me for coming, and outside, I tried to slip around the priest shaking hands and chatting with another parishioner, and their youth minister ran after me to say hello and welcome.

There was no choir (off for the summer), so we just had organ accompaniment. The hymns were "Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation" (the Prince of Wales' favorite hymn) for the processional, "They cast their nets in Galilee" for the gradual (tune name Georgetown—how appropriate!!), "Where cross the crowded ways of life" (sung to Gardiner) for the offertory, and "The Church's One Foundation" for the recessional. The only service music was a Trisagion setting (S-102) I don't know and the Schubert Sanctus setting. The rector had a rather annoying habit of announcing all the bulletin page numbers, hymns, and explaining what was going to happen. It's not like they didn't have a full text service bulletin, you know, and I don't think anyone in the congregation looked illiterate or dyslexic or anything.

One of the good things about this parish, though, was that it was full of young families and children, and that's always a good sign of a healthy church. They are getting ready to start a three-week-long Bach Festival the end of the month, so I may wander back to listen to some of their guest groups.

Rooftop view

Wandering up to the rooftop to lay out in the sun seems to be a popular thing to do around here on summer vacation days. This is a picture of the view to the north from the rooftop of my building. You can see the Washington National Cathedral very well from that direction. It's not quite as close to here as it might look.....keep in mind that it's on top of "Mount St. Alban," which is the highest geographic point of D.C., and the cathedral building itself is very very large—they say one could lay the entire Washington Monument down the center aisle of the nave.

Oklahoma Day

Today was Oklahoma Day at the National Cathedral. This wasn't a big deal state day today—states have a "major state day" about once every three or four years (Oklahoma comes up in January 2006)—so there wasn't a special procession or reception or anything. They just include special prayers for the state during the normal liturgy, and that's it.

The church service was a little odd this morning, but I've come to expect that at the cathedral—they always try to be too many things to too many people. This morning's liturgy was taken largely from the new British alternative Book of Common Prayer called Common Worship, with some things from the New Zealand Book thrown in for good measure. As are so many things from Tony Blair's Labour Government, the new prayer book is modern, but lacks grace. The psalm was an Anglican chant based on Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress" that just didn't quite work in my mind. Hymns this morning were Es flog ein kleins Waldvogelein, Nettleton, New Britain, Hollingside, and Austria. The offertory was Michael Tippett's "Steal Away" from A Child of Our Time and the communion anthem was Palestrina's "Sicut cervus." Their best choral work, though, was an anthem sung during the post-communion ablutions that wasn't listed in the program, so I've no idea what it was. The Mass setting was from Antonin Dvorak's Mass in D, which was interesting and well done by the cathedral's Choir of Girls and Men, but I always think that making a congregation stand and listen to choral settings of Masses is just bad church business, especially in these days of evangelical churches using rock bands and setting up the church campuses like a religious Disney World. I was even getting bored and wanting to sit down myself in the middle of the Gloria when it occurred to me that they were just then starting the "gratias agimus tibi" section of the Gloria! (for those of you who don't know Latin or the Catholic/Anglican rite, that's the third sentence of a long sung canticle of praise). The preacher was an older priest who kept talking about military history, current politics, foreign policy, and military spending in the Bush Administration, and I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Don't know that he did, either. I was also somewhat chagrined this morning to note that the principal celebrant of the service was a priestess, but, fortunately, one of her concelebrants was a proper male priest, so I was able to take communion.

Here are a couple more pictures from the cathedral. One is the back end of the Chapel of the Resurrection. The sanctuary of the chapel is often photographed in books and postcards because of the striking hemispherical mosaic over the altar, but I thought the back and side walls (which never get photographed!) were equally striking.



You probably can't see enough detail in these tiny blog pics, but several of those tiles are actually metallic gold. The final picture is the fountain in the courtyard outside the cathedral, where I listened to the carilloneur play for quite some time after the service.

Cinco de Mayo

Thursday was Cinco de Mayo.

After our business meetings in Albuquerque, I went out in quest of a Cinco de Mayo celebration. I'd been searching the newspapers and tourist guides, but nothing at all was mentioned, so I headed to the Old Town section of downtown Albuquerque, which includes the original plaza, church and buildings from back when Albuquerque was founded in 1706.

One of the more interesting things on the plaza was St. Felipe de Niri Church, the original church from the early days of Spanish colonization in New Mexico. It's a very small, narrow church, and I found the art and statuary to be particularly interesting. If you look closely at the figures in the reredos behind the altar, you'll see a definite "conquistador" theme with Jesuits and explorers. I gather the parish is more of a tourist attraction than an active parish, since there was only one Mass scheduled for the day, and there was no special Mass observance for Ascension Day, which it also was.....I guess I should have looked for a proper Episcopal church if I'd wanted to observe a holy day of obligation on its proper day, instead of being transferred to a Sunday.

May Day

Tis May Day today, and nobody sent me flowers. :(

Went to church at St. John's Lafayette Square this morning. This is the little crackerbox place that's just north of the White House known as the "church of the presidents." There are many things I like about this parish. The rector, Fr. Luis Leon, is a particularly effective leader and preacher, and they have a twelve member professional choir that does a fine job. The parish is friendly without being pushy, and they have strong youth and Hispanic programs. They're also involved in the community—this morning, they were seeking volunteers to help make 1,000 sandwiches to give away to the street people.

On the downside, the church is an old, cramped thing with very uncomfortable, ancient pews—the kind that has a central barrier running down the middle. It's located nearly a mile from home (not a big deal if one had a car, but in the district, since there's no direct bus or subway, that's a long walk). And, the most disturbing thing is their assisting clergy. This morning, the celebrant was a pregnant priestess. If that weren't bad enough, she kept changing the words of the litury, refusing to refer to "God" with masculine pronouns or calling Him "Father." I thought the only people who were in to that inclusive language litury crap were lesbians and feminists. What was particularly amusing during her "inclusive" liturgy was after one of the more egregious examples, a bit of plaster from the cupola above where I was sitting "dripped" down on me, making a splash mark on my blue blazer. Was that a sign of His displeasure?

Anyway, it was a pleasant walk to the church this morning. The ushers were all very chatty, and I found a seat in the "President's Pew"—George wasn't coming today, so it was available for common use—right at the Gerald R. Ford kneeler pillow. The hymns today were Creation, Sloane, Royal Oak, and a weird-word version of Forest Green. The mass setting was a hodge-podge, with a Rutter version of the Gloria (significant because John Rutter is a well-known, self-avowed atheist). They do Anglican chant for the psalms with a congregational antiphon. Offertory anthem was a Magnificat setting by Bryan Kelly that kind of reminded me of a French or English "Broadway" musical chorus with its cadence and modern chords, and the communion motet was a pleasant "I Am the Vine" by Linda Hoffer. They filled in the post-motet time with a Taize chant that the congregation didn't sing along to (I hate Taize) as requested. The postlude was Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster," and I forgot what the prelude was. On the steps outside the church after the service, the rector actually recognized that I wasn't a parishioner and introduced himself!

Don't know where I'll go to church in Albuquerque this week....Thursday is Ascension Day. And, it's also Cinco de Mayo, which may be a more fun thing to observe in Albuquerque! This will probably be my last post until I return Friday night.

Tartan kirking

This afternoon we attended the annual Kirkin' of the Tartans service sponsored by the St. Andrew's Society of Washington, D.C. at the National Cathedral. Our 3:10 bus never bothered to show up, so our 3:25 bus got us to Mount St. Alban's about 3:50. Since this service took the place of Sunday Evensong, I didn't know if it would take place in the Great Quire or if it would be big enough to overflow into the nave, but once we walked into the nave, my questions were answered. It was packed. The main nave seating was full of lads in kilts and obnoxiously bold tartan plaid sportcoats, and their womenfolk, some of whom had tartan skirts and sashes of their own. Even the side aisle seating was filling up, but I didn't want to sit in the aisles, since one can't see either the chancel or the crossing from there due to the enormous pillars. So, we wandered up to the North Transcept, which turned out to be reserved seating for the Society. I "innocently" asked an usher woman if all the seats in this section were reserved, and as she was explaining the section reservation, a male usher came up to us and said to her in a classic Scottish brogue, "Look at his tie, woman! Of course he can sit here!" I quite fortuitously had worn my family tartan tie this afternoon. So, we got prime seats. :-)

You haven't heard a racket until you've heard an entire bagpipe band with drums playing "Over the Sea to Skye" full tilt in a limestone pillared, marble floored, stained glass windowed cathedral. They processed in from the narthex, and stopped at the crossing, where they played for quite some time whilst the Society members, clan representatives, choirs, and clergy all processed.

I found the service music to be interestingly unusual for a Scottish service. Of course, it was, essentially, a Presbyterian rite, but still, I thought there'd be Scottish music. The three hymns were the English Lauda Anima, the Irish Slane, and the Russian Russia. And, every time I hear a hymn sung to Russia, I can't help but remember back to my youth and all those Order of the Arrow conclaves and ceremonies at Boy Scout camp. The usual cathedral choir and organists did not perform this afternoon. The choir was an all-girls' ensemble from West Potomac High, a snooty prep school in Alexandria, Virginia. The choir sang Mendelssohn's "Laudate Pueri Domimum" for a Gradual anthem and for the offertory a Psalm 23 setting by Z. Randall Stroope, a living composer who is neither a Scot nor a Presbyterian. After the sermon and offertory, the pipers returned in procession with the presenters of the tartans to "Highland Cathedral," and they all actually landed in the Great Quire, where the organ joined in, and I can't imagine the deafening noise there must have been in there! After the Necrology, the pipe major played a solo verse of "Flowers of the Forest." The recessional for the pipers and the Society members was "Scotland the Brave," followed by an organ postlude of the Toccata from Symphony No. 5 by the French composer Charles-Marie Widor.

My friend Michael from the Solicitor's office at work lives across the street, and he popped over and managed to find us sitting in the area where he usually sits for "normal" church. Here's a picture of Michael with me:



After the service, we kinda played tourist—I haven't been there since the last time I sang there, which was about 1985 or '86. One of the interesting things we found was a children's chapel, where all of the chairs, the altar, and the organette are "child-sized."



Here's the high altar, way up in the front, and also an exterior shot of the building.