Agnes Day has left the building

Our final 2012 session was held in St Margaret’s church. We assembled in the soundproofed room at the back until the Thursday Novena finished at 7.30pm. One of the prayerful ladies joked that we might all be too old to be a Boy Band. I'm sure this was only because Patrick, our youngest member, had been held-up in Glasgow.
Alan led us into the church. We took our places in the front pew and opened our session with prayer, ending by invoking the intercession of St Nicholas, whose Feast Day it was.
We revised the Kyrie. Alan stopped us at the Christe verse because we sang ChristAAayyyy. We were reminded that the first syllable should be most distinct - CHRIst ayyyyy.

Then we went on to the Agnus Dei.
I was pretty relaxed because I knew how to sing this prayer in the Missa de Angelis: a bit like Agnes Day.
AGnus DEi, qui toLLiss...mizzirere nobis.
Wrong
As we wrestled with the pronunciation of Agnus, Graham twigged and explained that the sound was like the tilde ñ in Spanish. Ahñus (Ahnyoos).
At this stage I realised that the neumes (nyoomz in Jack's pdf) were the cluster of notes, such as the three-note Torculus, rather than individual notes. As an aside, Alan told us that the name Torculus was derived from wine-press, reflecting the shape of the neume. Also, it is the root of our word 'torture', presumably because a wine-press could be used to squeeze the truth from prisoners.

Alan explained that the neumes applied to vowels. So the emphasis should be on the vowel-sounds.
Ahnyoos Dahyi.

I was keeping up at this stage but then he explained how the first l should be hummed in qui tol-lis (a Liquescent). I can hum an MMMMM but an LLLL before a second L? Maybe later.

Next I discovered that the final part of What everyone knows about Latin was wrong. It's not mizzrere nobis. The voice must be light, with the emphasis on the 'i' followed by 'sss'; 'miisss' rather than 'mizz'.

Graham suggested that Alan make some recordings of the prayers we are learning and send them by email.
I will try to find a way of posting these in private.

We finished by standing to sing the Kyrie followed by the Agnus Dei. The acoustics inside the church were very forgiving and we sounded as if we knew what we were doing.

We hope to meet again on January 10th next year.
Have a happy Christmas.