Photo by Mark Bertinat
Chant Workshop: The Ceremony of the Star
VOICES
Tutor: Philip Duffy
Location: St Agnes’ Church, Liverpool
Reviewer: Valerie Pedlar
Singing the Officium Stellae: a workshop on Gregorian Chant
Although I knew something in a rather vague way about liturgical drama as a precursor of the miracle and mystery plays, it is not something with which I am particularly familiar. Similarly, although we sing Gregorian chant in the Renaissance Music Group of Liverpool, we don’t often sing it in the original notation, so that too has been something I have found rather bewildering. An opportunity to study a particular piece with Philip Duffy, Associate Director of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge and former Master of the Music at Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, therefore, was not to be missed. Nineteen singers turned up at St Agnes Church, Ullet Road, Liverpool on a bleak Saturday, only two having cancelled because of the bad weather. It was hardly any warmer inside than it was outside, but we consoled ourselves with the thought that we were mimicking the conditions of the original monks!
Philip took us briskly through the rules of chant notation. Then we turned to the Officium Stellae, one of the liturgical dramas for which Rouen and other French Cathedrals were renowned in the period between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. In this case, the dramatization is of the story of the Magi arriving with their attendants and their gifts, and of their proceeding to the place where the Virgin Mary, attended by two midwives, invites them to worship the Christ-child. Having presented their gifts the Kings are warned by an angel to avoid Herod by returning home a different way.
As Philip’s notes explained, the drama would have been performed after the office of Terce, with members of the clergy singing the parts of the Magi and midwives, and a boy singing the part of the angel. As well as the dramatic dialogue, we sang the appropriate antiphons, and finished with two movements, the Kyrie and Gloria, of the mass that would have followed – all, of course, in monodic chant.
Having rehearsed the music and words in the morning, we moved to the even colder church in the afternoon to rehearse the choreography, before sorting out costumes and props for the final performance. Since the church kindly let us use their vestments, our Magi and midwives were impressively costumed. Mark Flinn, of the North West Forum for Early Music, who had organized the day, brought appropriate articles for the attendants to bear as the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and a baby Jesus was produced for the midwives to present. Our performance was for ourselves, not an audience, and in that beautiful church, with lighting, costumes and the solemnity of the movements contributing to the Gregorian chant, the final result was moving. It is easy to imagine how powerful the effect must have been when these liturgical dramas were first performed, and we are extremely grateful to Philip Duffy for the opportunity of discovering this beautiful work.
Valerie Pedlar
First published in April 2013 Newsletter. See also Valerie’s own blog, Choral Singing in Stockport, for additional photos of the day.
