(Some of the links play music, so be warned.)
Maybe it would be tacky, as if the Triduum services were a series of concerts-in-the-park, but I wish they would give us a program or a list of the musical pieces that the choir and the organist are performing during Holy Thursday Mass, the Good Friday service, and the Easter Vigil. I think the acoustics and/or amplification in our parish church must be pretty good; I have no idea how they manage to sound like such a BIG HUGE CHOIR on particularly solemn occasions.
We heard what I think is a very good mix. It includes traditional hymns and pipe-organ compositions as well as some carefully selected more-contemporary pieces. Gregorian Chant may be the height of liturgical perfection; but if you ask me, Were You There? (which is originally an African-American spiritual) has found its place in the Holy Week canon. So have certain Taize’ pieces: we heard Stay With Me at the close of Thursday, Jesus, Remember Me during Good Friday service, and Christus resurrexit during the Easter Vigil.
But we also heard plenty of old standards: O Sacred Head Surrounded, for instance, and At the Lamb’s High Feast ("He has washed us in the tide/Flowing from his opened side.") We also got a hefty dose of Latin, which is always fun, including the usual things like Pange Lingua, and also that first Gloria when all the lights come on.
Oscar’s favorite part of the Vigil was the reading from the book of Exodus, which was sung; I’ve heard that arrangement at other parishes, so I assume it must be relatively common, but I can’t find it online and don’t know the composer. "Sing a song of freedom, God has won the victory; horse and chariot are cast into the sea." The refrain has a kind of, oh, I don’t know, lilting Jewish-traditional (think havah nagilah) beat to it, while the "verses" are just the chanted text of Exodus 14:15-15:1 (see the readings here). Anyway, he likes that horse-and-chariot bit, and sang lustily.
All in all, very well done.
(Oh, I almost forgot. Obligatory Holy Thursday footwashing blogging: Yes, they were all male.)
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