Somewhere over the Rainbow

Fred Stone came to lead us because Alan was unwell. He has the man-flu that just keeps giving and sounded terrible on the phone.

We met in the crying room at the back of St Margaret’s where I had set up the speakers while the Novena group were praying in the church itself. I was planning to use the CD Alan had suggested: A Gregorian Advent and Christmas by the London chant group Pro Cantione Antiqua.

There were only five of us for this first meeting of the New Year and we began with a prayer for the miraculous healing of the Director of my course at Maryvale, Canon John Redford. This is for the canonisation of the Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman:

‘O God, who raised up Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman to be a model of those who seek for the truth and find it in full communion with the Catholic Church, graciously grant as a sign of his full sanctity the miraculous healing of Canon John Redford, who followed the same spiritual path, in order that he may continue his work of teaching and writing for your glory, who live and reign for ever and ever, Amen.’

Read more here, http://www.maryvale.ac.uk/index.php?id=507

including Father John explaining the theology…..He would.

The altar at Maryvale: Newman said Mass every day while he lived here

 and Fr John has said Mass at this altar for the last twenty years.

Back to the Schola:
Fred began by teaching us some useful tips and tricks. When a Cantor leads the Kyrie, the last note of the ‘e’ is the first note of the Christe response, all you have to do is keep it in your head while the Cantor completes ‘eleison’. Easy,
if you can hold a note in your head while someone else is singing something else.

Much more fun was learning how to sing the transition to the final Kyrie. This involves a full octave upwards. Fred remembers how to do this by humming ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ – the first two notes of ‘Somewhere’ are the precise distance apart for the transition from ‘..son’ to ‘Ky..’

Brilliant!

In the example below, the 'Somewhere' shift is on either side of the double line in the middle.

 Click to enlarge

I played the recording of Kyrie VIII, then used the recording to practice. We listened to the first Kyrie, sang along with the second, then sang a third and fourth ourselves. This worked well and we repeated it several times.

Next we tried the same thing with the recording of Agnus Dei VIII, following a quick reminder of the pronunciation, ‘Ahnyoos Dahyi’ and ‘miisss’ rather than ‘mizz’.

Fred showed us how the transitions from a Cantor to the Schola (shown by an asterisk between the words) ended and began with the same note (Dei….qui, etc). This should make things easier if we ever get to sing at Mass. And if we have a Cantor.

The process of listen-to-recording, singalong-to-recording, sing-unaccompanied worked so well that we used it to try the Sanctus. We were better at the Porrectus (Jack’s Latin for pigs-ear). But Fred corrected us. Someone was mispronouncing Sabaoth. Fred was looking at me when he explained that the ‘h’ is silent, it should sound like SabaoT (a bit like the anti-tank round).

Here is a very clear version with words and notation:

 

Click the little box at bottom-right to see the dots more clearly.

Fred reckoned that we had enough time to try Gloria VIII before our finish at 9pm. We listened to the whole thing a couple of times then tried it for ourselves. Fred sang as Cantor, alternating with us. A trick he had spotted in the recording by Pro Cantione Antiqua. This would make it less stressful for us to sing this prayer in a Mass.

After a couple of rehearsals, we went into the church and prayed the Gloria together before the Altar.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.