The Recovering Choir Director

Those with the time may be interested to view the Long Range Liturgical Outline published by Jeffrey Herbert, Director of Music for the Church of the Incarnation in Sarasota, Florida. The outline is intended to cover three liturgical cycles beginning with the First Sunday of Advent 2008.

Some highlights from the 2008-2009 plan:

• The Communion hymn will be selected from a repertoire of 6 well-known communion hymns plus two Communion Antiphons with the psalm verses for the particular Sunday. This will be the first introduction of Psalm Antiphons into these liturgies.
• The recessional hymn will be replaced on most occasions with an instrumental (organ) recessional. A Recessional Hymn will be used on major Feast Days.
• The Kyrie will be selected from Mass XVI or Mass XVIII (or) the Lord Have Mercy from the Sacramentary setting with the appropriate invocation.
• The Psalm Response will be the response from the Missalette with verses set to the appropriate Psalm-Tone.
• During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, preference will be given to the 3rd and 4th forms of the Memorial Acclamation (III. When we eat this bread… / IV. Lord by your cross…) and to the simple intoned response for the AMEN.
• The Our Father will be sung in the standard plainchant setting from the Sacramentary.

The plan for the following two years builds on the foundation laid out in 2008-2009.

Finally,

The above outline assumes that the new translation of the Missal in the 2010-2011 liturgical year will require new settings of the Gloria, Sanctus and Memorial Acclamations to be introduced.

Within this time period, discussions will be undertaken with the Pastor and Priests concerning the introduction of Latin settings of the Mass Ordinary and increased use of sung responses by the Priests. Decisions on these issues will be reserved to the Pastor or via directives from the Bishop or Holy See.

All in all, it looks like a good example of a gradualist approach to sacred music reform within the Ordinary Form of the Mass, so it will be interesting to see and hear what happens these next three years at Incarnation.