Ascension Parish has celebrated Mass for the past several Sundays on YouTube.
Here is today's celebrating Pentecost.
Music too! For you Schubert fans, today's Gloria is included. You can sing along without embarrassment or frowns from your fellow parishioners. Sermon very good and apropos of the Gospel and our current situation.
Starring: Fr. Dan Kearney, Deacon Nelson Falcon, Music Director Preston Smith, and the brilliant Margarita Martinez (who doesn't miss a beat or a high note in the Gloria).
Alleluia!
I didn't watch the whole thing, having already been to virtual Mass. But I did listen to the music. I do love that Schubert Gloria. Actually all the Schubert Mass is good. Was surprised to hear the ballad "Barbara Allen" as part of the piano prelude.
ReplyDeleteMany have lamented that Ascension Thursday has been transferred to this coming Ascension Sunday, so I was really curious to see if Ascension Parish had transferred Pentecost to today. I was reassured that they were still calling it the Sixth Sunday of the Easter. It just has themes that point to Pentecost.
ReplyDeleteThe Byzantine Ritual Tradition calls the whole Easter Season the Pentecostarion, as in "when the days of Pentecost were drawing to a close"
Ascension is still on Thursday here.
DeleteWhen I was young, Ascenion Thursday was a good day for my first Cubs game of the year. In 1953 (it must have been) I went to the Cathedral on that Thursday and, lo, two pews in front of me was about half of the cast of New Faces of 1952, which I had seen twice by then.
DeleteTom, that is a wonderful memory.
DeleteAscension Thursday here has been Ascension Sunday for quit a long time - I am guessing for 20 years. I'm sort of grateful, although there are tradeoffs, such as that the scriptures and liturgical texts of the 7th Sunday of Easter never are prayed. The same is true of the 2nd Sunday of Christmas, which Epiphany always preempts.
Ascension Thursday is Thursday in NYC. Though no NY parish will celebrate a "living" Mass with real people, the City of New York is still suspending alternate side of the street parking in observance of the Holy Day.
DeleteWhat do bored musicians do during quarantine? They download a pdf of the accompaniment for the Schubert Gloria. And attempt to play it on the piano, and drive their husband and cat crazy. Actually it isn't that hard. The accompaniment, that is. Also not hard to drive one's quarantine companions crazy.
ReplyDeleteAs I'm sure you've noticed, I am not a musician! Only a music lover.
DeleteThe trick part of the Schubert Gloria, I have intuited, is that the words were originally in German (or Latin?) and, whichever it was, the melody conformed to the phonetics. In English not so much. That's what makes it hard for congregational singing. Nonetheless, I have observed that if you hear it often enough and sing it (badly) often enough, your brain gets it! My brain is till working on it. The trick is to get everybody's brain in sync.
sorry about the cat.
I have noticed as you said, that sometimes the syllables and notes don't quite mesh perfectly. But you're right that by hearing and singing it often enough our brains eventually would get it.
DeleteUnfortunately I know our parish won't be using the Schubert Mass, because we use the OCP music edition rather than the GIA. OCP has good quantity, but sometimes not the best quality.