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Worship
Music at Eventide
Compline for Ascension Day, 21 May 2009 at 8:00 o'clock pm
| Our current Book of Common Prayer provides a wealth of liturgies for use in the Episcopal Church. Two such orders come from the daily monastic evening "offices" (think "worship services") of the early Christian church and still are practiced today. The first is Vespers, somewhat clumsily called An Order for Worship for the Evening in our BCP, found on page 108. The second is An Order for Compline — or simply, Compline (pronounced KOM-plin) — on page 127. It was from these two offices that Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) beautifully distilled and crafted our most Anglican of liturgies, Evening Prayer (p. 61), or Evensong as it has come to be known when sung. He understood the value of the structure in the older services and at the same time knew a service of practical use was needed for the worship life of the newly formed Church of England. [I will explore this further in a future Listen Up! article as it | applies to the influence on music.] Fortunately, we have all three services for use in our own time and, with the exception of a few revisions, all would still be recognized by those of old. You may recall that we followed the order of Evensong for All Saints' last November, that of Vespers in our Mid-Lent offering this past March, and we will follow the order for Compline on Ascension Day, Thursday, May 21st at 8:00 o'clock in the evening. The Saint Francis Choir will lead us as we commemorate the ascension of Christ into heaven. Music by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 – 1847), T. Tertius Noble (1867 – 1953), and Peter Philips (c. 1560 – 1628) will be sung, in addition to the service settings in medieval plainchant and congregational hymns. A reception follows in the undercroft. Please come and join us on 21 May for this term's concluding offering of our Music at Eventide series. |
Gary Davison, O–C