This morning I led a student schola in a liturgy at the Liturgical Institute, where I have been studying for the past 5 weeks. The student population at the LI is very diverse and most are studying or writing in every spare moment that they have, so our singing this morning was probably a pretty fair representation of what a parish is able to achieve. This is not a professional group, but a collection of lovers of the sacred liturgy who wanted to lend their talents in what little time they have to a solemn celebration of the Mass.
Here is a rendering of the Offertory for the 16h Sunday in O.T. from the Simple English Propers conducted by myself. We sang the chant as it appears in the book up until the middle of the first verse, where we added a 4-part harmonization of the psalm tone used in this proper setting. The tone in the book continues in the lowest voice, but we thought we would have a little fun with this and also show what else can be achieved with this resource, although singing the tones as-is is no less beautiful. Please pardon the drop in pitch from beginning to end. We sang this perfect in rehearsal, but again, this is real life folks!
Here is the score for this chant, and here is the harmonized psalm tone we used with the verses:
Incidentally, here is the post-communion motet that we also sang this morning, Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus: