Merbecke

At Swanvale Halt we customarily sing the eucharist to the St Thomas Mass, which is a tolerably pleasant setting. It only dates to the mid-1980s, and was commissioned by former Bishop of Salisbury David Stancliffe when he was Provost of Portsmouth Cathedral, and is now very widely used - ours isn't the only church in which I've met it.

However for the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve I've striven to return to an earlier and generally more splendid way of doing things, and have raised the question of using the old Merbecke setting of the Mass for that service, which again I'm very used to from other places. We say 'Merbecke' but basically all John Merbecke did in 1550 was to take the old plainchant melodies for the Canon of the Mass and bolt them on to the new English liturgy in simple forms so that the congregation could join in. I think the plainchant introduces an element of solemn and plaintive beauty, a raising of the soul in awareness of sorrow and of joy, which isn't present in some of the modern settings.

What surprises me is that even the older members of the congregation here don't seem to recognise the Merbecke music. I wonder what was used here before the St Thomas Mass was brought in, and, even more, before the introduction of the alternative forms of service to the Book of Common Prayer in the 1960s. The Choir are convinced there won't be a problem singing the Merbecke, but the congregation as a whole will need some priming during Advent or it won't work. The Midnight should affect newcomers by beauty, and if the singing is thin and uncertain that won't be the case.