To First Vespers of Corpus Christi, in the rather gaudy chapel of Gloucester Hall within my parish. It was sung according to the Use of York; why, there appeared to be no explanation. Gloucester Hall was a house of studies for the subjects of some Benedictine abbeys before the Tudor Disorders, so the Benedictine rite might have been a more obvious choice. (After the Suppression it became a dependency of S John's; S John's was a very recusant college and Gloucester Hall seems to have been its even more recusant annexe.)
Vespers was very beautifully sung; but I don't think the young people can have known much Latin, because there was some strange phrasing. Perhaps, too, whoever transcribed the texts made slips; for example, in the third antiphon, they sang (each time) " ... in circuitu mensae Dominum", which can hardly make sense. The York use, apparently, had a responsory between the Capitulum and the Hymn; otherwise, there seemed no difference of text between it and the Tridentine Rite.
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4 comments:
A responsary in this position was also present in Sarum Use at First Vespers of all the most important feasts and Sundays.
For Corpus Christi was it part of the original office of S. Thomas Aquinas or a medieval English addition to fit with English practice?
Third antiphon? The fourth surely.
Fourth indeed.
The Dominican Office also has such a responsory at First Vespers.
However, at important Vespers (such as this), the five psalms are sung under one antiphon only, for more expedition.
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