i-Cantors

We had planned a practice on Monday but Alan was laid low in Edinburgh. I thought of FaceTime and we arranged a link-up between his iPad and Morven's. It seemed to work when we tried it at 5.00pm so I phoned around and three of us met. We snuggled together at our dining table so that we could all be seen by the camera and after jokes about i-Cantors, we had a go. We began with the Vespers planned for 27th July. Things started badly and then got worse – the time-lag between Edinburgh and Stirling led us so badly astray that we began to sing less and less well. We called a halt. But not before Jack offered some medical advice on Diarrhoea, apparently the advice I had received from our old family doctor (clear liquids, lemonade etc) is now wrong. Drinking the salty water of boiled rice after eating the rice is the approved approach for serious Diarrhoea.

Next day we met in the Hall in the afternoon. While we were waiting for Alan, the others helped me with Deus, in adjutoriam (O God, come to my aid : O Lord, make haste to help me). Here it is until 1.08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vIfbtKHvk0

We worked through the Antiphons and Psalms of Vespers of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
O magnum pietatis opus: mors mortua tunc est, in ligno quando mortua vita fuit.
I noted that we were good with the fu-it.
O great work of love: death then was dead when on the Cross Life itself had died.
There appears to be no recording of this chant in mode VII on-line, so we can be first. DV.

We got more comfortable with the Psalms, then on the Vexilla Regis.
Vexilla regis prodeunt, fulget crucis mysterium,
quo carne carnis conditor suspensus est patibulo.    
The banners of the king issue forth, the mystery of the cross does gleam,
where the creator of flesh, in the flesh, by the cross-bar is hung.

Here are some familiar folks, singing Vexilla Regis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wivAfXH5TGo

Jack spotted that there was a missing neume in our version of verse 7, this was causing us to miss-count and go wrong. We inked-it in and agreed that Jack deserved a special recognition:

The Antiphon O Crux benedicta has a very complicated alleluia:

Click Image to Enlarge

Alan took us through it is short steps. The al could end in a liquescent, then into the le----. This features a series of neumes, repeated twice, as you can see.
We had a quick scamper through Compline before heading-off to visit Holy Rude and arriving after they had closed for the day.