Just as a reminder to those who are looking for our set of Simple English Propers for this weekend, the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, they were posted late last week with some practice recordings. I hope that these will be helpful to those who might want to sing these settings in liturgy this week.
Additionally, here is a 4-part choral setting of the simple offertory setting for this week. The cantus firmus (in the soprano) is a St. Meinrad psalm tone and the harmonization is also courtesy of St. Meinrad Archabbey.
My parish adult choir sang, for the first time ever, an offertory proper last week in the 4-part Meinrad setting that was posted in last week’s offering. This was sung a cappella at the beginning of the Offertory procession, not even with a verse, and after it was complete we went on to the Offertory hymn as is the current custom. I was extremely happy with the result–it was a setting that was quickly and easily learned, was not far from the expectations of a parish choir that is used to and enjoys regularly singing choral music in parts, offered a hightened dignity to the beginning of the Offertory rite of the Mass, and perhaps most importantly, it allowed the Offertory proper text to be prayed in its proper place in the celebration. I sense that a consistent presentation of the Offertory proper in this way will have the advantage of exposing and catechizing all on the integral role of the Offertory chant while pedagogically preparing the singers for singing more elaborate Offertory settings in due time. It seems like a win-win from every perspective!
And again, to our score engravers who are reading: I am in great need of an efficient way to digitally engrave 4 part scores like the offertory above.
I have used Sibelius for a very long time and can produce a score like this, but for 10 times more time and effort than it is worth.
I would be very interested to see if anyone can produce an attractive engraving of this score in Lilypond. Any takers?