When Paul Taylor published his “Mass of St Francis” in 2010, there was no Gospel Acclamation included and when you buy the collection at Willow, there still isn’t one.
So we used the Celtic Alleluia for many years and all was well.
You can now buy separately Paul Taylor’s official Gospel Acclamation published in 2024 for this mass. I bought the keyboard version and had to work out my own chords.
The intention is for the Cantor to sing six alleluias, the assembly replies with six more and after the verse there are six more for good measure with the high harmony line if the cantor is up for it. It is a welcome addition to Taylor’s mass and is certainly singable. It is in D and so I suppose follows on from the Gloria in the same key, although it really hasn’t much of a similarity to any other part of the mass. I do wonder why a cantor is needed for this Alleluia. Being done weekly it would quickly become familar enough to do once before and after the verse and belong to the assembly.
I made two backings of the alleluias through twice to get the idea. There was no tempo recommendation so I just found a comfortable speed.
However…
I blogged a different acclamation that was, I gather, an earlier attempt, in which he used the feel of the Memorial Acclamations for the Alleluia. It could be argued that this version is not joyous enough, but it fits the rest of the mass rather better, and having started to use it this year, we intend to continue with the unofficial one for now.
I reckon the Cantor intoning the Alleluia comes from the plan where liturgical musicians have a distinct liturgical role (like altar servers, lectors, and deacons) and aren’t an addition to the liturgy. Formally, the Mass is the big fancy solemn celebration where everyone has their part to play to give something beautiful to God. What we have now comes from the scaled down streamlined ‘essentials only’ liturgy, with solemnity being added on the outside and not properly integrated.
In the Gregorian Chant tradition, for the Alleluia, the Cantor sings the alleluia, and the choir repeats, but with the extra addition of the jubilus, (the long tail at the end). So it ends up sounding like Alleluia, Alleluiaaaaaaaa! Then the cantor sings the verse, and the choir and cantor together sing the final Alleluiaaaaaaaa!
We get the triple Alleluia from the Graduale Simplex, with simpler seasonal chants to help the congregations sing the chants, where basically the same structure is followed – Cantor (alleluia x3), congregation (alleluia x3), Cantor (verse), congregation (alleluia x3). From this structure, we can see that the Alleluia has a responsorial form.
I’m still trying to find a way to signal to the congregation to think about it differently, but will probably only make progress once I stop trying to play it safe and move away from the default mode VI one. Maybe if I move away from the triple ones for a bit and go for some nice easy single ones (from Chants Abreges), will we make some progress. But it’s not the highest on the priorities.
Thanks, Gio and I appreciate the context is important.
For a small country parish even singing the Alleuia or any parts of the mass can be a stretch. Here we sing an alleluia, say the verse together and then sing the alleluia. The assembly becomes more important where numbers are small enough that specific roles are less vital. That said we still have someone to come up and do the readings and the prayer of the faithful – reading rather than singing is less daunting.
Where you have the troops, I’d say go all out.
cheers
Geoff