Sunday 7th November 2021 Sung Requiem Mass, 6.00pm.
(transferred from Tue 2nd Nov)

All Souls’ Day is a special day of prayer for the dead, “The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed”, celebrated normally on 2nd November, the day after All Saints’ Day. A list of those to be remembered and prayed for is compiled in our churches over the previous couple of weeks, and read during the Service.

This year, All Souls’ Day falls on a Tuesday, so we are transferring it to the evening of Sunday 7th November. Please make every effort to attend this beautiful and moving service. The Service will be led for us by Fr Nigel Guthrie.

Tthe Music this year will be mainly from the Requiem by Gabriel Faure and the Plainsong Missa pro defunctis.

Music for 2019.  Setting: Missa pro defunctis, by Casciolini.

In 2018 we sang Liturgical setting of the Requiem with organ (1893), Gabriel Fauré  (translation linked below)
Hymns : 524, Dies Irae (Plainsong). The Russian Contakion for the Departed

Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, between 1887 and 1890.
The choral-orchestral setting of the Catholic Mass for the Dead is the best known of his large works.

In 2017, the late Tim Hampshire conducted our performance of the Requiem by Gabriel Fauré  with Hymns 396, Let saints on earth in concert sing (Dundee): 524, Dies Irae (Plainsong) and The Russian Contakion for the Departed

For 2015 & 2016 we sang a full Liturgical setting of the Missa Pro Defunctis a 4, Tomas Luis da Victoria. This beautiful a cappella setting from 1583 of the Requiem texts alternates Plainsong Cantor with 4-part polyphonic Choir.
Motet: Justorum Animae, C V Stanford (2015), William Byrd 2016)
The Russian Kontakion for the Departed

Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum mortis/malitiae.
Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori, illi autem sunt in pace.

The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death/malice does not touch them.
In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die; but they are in peace.