(I'm leaving the other services - Responsive Prayer, Litany, etc. - to the side for now and just considering the Divine Service and Daily Office orders.)
For example, in the parishes I serve we use only one setting of the Divine Service (LSB's fine setting of the Common Service, DS III), Matins, Evening Prayer, and Compline. Matins is used for school chapel and Evening Prayer and Compline are used for the Advent and Lent prayer services.
I'm curious to see whether or not there are any services that are pocket vetoed by the vast majority of LSB users (I suspect that there are). I also doubt that many parishes utilize all ten services - so if you are going to prove me wrong on that score, please tell us how all that works in the comments!
+HRC
A typical week at my church includes either DS1 or DS3, depending on the service and Compline. I am not sure what they use for the preschool chapel, though. We hit the other DS's throughout the year on special occasions and the occasional matins/vespers for weekends without communion (i.e. pastor is out of town or we have a congregational meeting on Sunday and need to shorten church time). We do Compline after Monday night bible study. I know that my Pastor's goal is to use more of the LSB.
ReplyDeleteWhat of the service of Prayer and Preaching?
ReplyDeleteFr. Brown,
ReplyDeleteLike I said, I limited this poll to just the DS and Daily Office. Perhaps another time we'll take a stab at all the other prayer services.
+HRC
I bring that one up because unlike the Litany or what have you, the SPP (there, doesn't it sound cool now) seems to have been designed to function in the place of Evening Prayer/Vespers for midweek services. I'm wondering how many places use it for midweek Advent/Lent services.
ReplyDeleteI like DSII's music for the Gloria and esp. the Sanctus (ascr. to Bach), and wish there was an option of the Common Service (DSIII) text set to that music.
ReplyDeleteMr. Carver,
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a living composer or arranger create a new musical setting for the Common Service and leave it in the public domain. The Healey Willan setting is very fine, and is used by a parish here or there, but it costs money every year to do so.
For centuries this was how things were done: everybody knew the words of the Mass, but musical settings abounded. I'd love to see Lutheran musicians take up that tradition again with the Common Service text.
+HRC
we use the divine services I, II and III exclusively, with Luther's German Mass on Reformation. Divine Service II is a musical gem, much more higher-church/chant sounding than DS I. It does take a bit to learn it, though it is worth the effort. No vespers since we use evening prayer - the Phos Hilarion is one of the oldest and most beautiful chants known to Christianity. Matins or Morning Prayer for weekday morning services
ReplyDeleteI think Fr. Brown raised a good point regarding SPP. It really functions more as a daily office than the other, ancillary services.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, we use SPP in rotation with Morning Prayer and Matins for our Wednesday chapels. We also use SPP once every three years during Lenten Vespers, substituting Lucien Dies' "Keep in Mind" (from LBW but also in AGPS, no less!) for the New Testament Canticle. Otherwise Advent & Lenten Vespers use Evening Prayer. (We use Vespers twice a month for Sat evening services.)
I did check "we use them all", but wasn't sure if that was the best for us, since we only use Compline during prayer vigils and retreats. But since we use all the other services it was the only thing I could check! :)
@HRC
ReplyDeleteHear, hear!
A big hot-button issue for me is the intellectual property rights frenzy that the Church has succumbed to. I understand people wanting to be compensated for their work, but honestly, sacred music, preaching, etc., is in a different category, and it should not be bound up in restrictive copyright!
When, in the entire history of the Christian Church, were there IP police showing up at the door of churches demanding that they pay for a license to use this or that hymn, this or that musical setting???
Honestly, the thing just disgusts me. And now the situation is much worse. When CPH copyrights a hymn, it locks that copyright up, essentially, forever. I know that brother McCain will object, and I respect his position on this, but I would point out that the Church need not exercise every "right" given to it by the State, and as a servant of the Church, CPH should not think itself of a business that need do anything other than operate at the level of its expenses. Setting hymns and liturgical settings free is not going to make them insolvent.
In fact, the open source world has paved the way with instruments such as the Creative Commons license. Any author or publisher, provided they did not do something as unwise as relinquishing their copyright to a faceless corporate entity, can choose to place their creative works under such a license after a certain time has elapsed, and thereafter the work continues to be attributed to the original author, as enforced by said license. Derivative works can even be forbidden -- or not.
I would suggest no longer than 10 years. This is the spirit of our original copyright/patent system: authors and inventors are renumerated for a time -- and then the works are set free, to be used and enjoyed without restriction by all. If any given composer, author, translator chooses a shorter period, or sets the work free from the start, at least for public use in the Church, then even better.
I guess I should write a manifesto. :)
Brown writes: "the SPP...seems to have been designed to function in the place of Evening Prayer/Vespers for midweek services"
ReplyDeleteWhy would a church have something function in the place of Vespers? Also, this phrase "evening prayer/vespers" reminds me of how amazing I find it that the LC-MS, with all of the "expertise" and "hard work" it boasted with the new hymnal, still managed to preserve from the previous book the odd coexistence of two things that in any other church would sound like synonyms.
Pr. Diers:
ReplyDeleteI am with you and Curtis on this. I only differ from you on one point, namely, I have no respect for the CPH approach to these matters.
Pr. Curtis: I'm working on transcribing/arranging a mass setting for Sundays from Matthew Ludecus 1589 missal, with the common service text. I think it should prove to be quite congregational without much alteration. There's also a gloria-less setting for Ferias that's very simple.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Willan, it's not very expensive really. There's also a Jan Bender setting, but I don't know much about the cost or rights for that.
Yes, too bad everything costs money. Whenever the Church will patron the arts again, perhaps musicians would be able to forgo royalty- and copyrights.