Sunday, July 24, 2005

Gloria in excelcis Deo

Last night Katy and I went to a concert by the Berkshire(USA) Choral Festival in Canterbury Cathedral Quire.
We heard Handel's Coronation Anthems and Vivaldi's Gloria in a place built 700 years before these composers lived. Wonderful music to the glory of God in a magnificent setting. I did not listen with any attention to the thirds composition sung, Pergoliesi's Salve Regina. I read a hymnbook instead. I do not participate in mariolatry. Theology limits my musical taste.
There was also something unreformed about the Quire too. It is separated from the nave by an ornate rood screen which I presume survived the Reformation iconoclasm which removed such barriers to the common people observing all the eucharistic rite.

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