The Complete Communion Antiphons for the new Catholic Liturgy Introduction

The Communion Antiphon often suffers during the celebration of Mass. Sometimes there is a half-hearted attempt by the congregation to say it, which can descend into an indistinct mumble. The Celebrant will sometimes lead the congregation which produces a shuffling of missals and mass sheets as the congregation tries to find its place, usually too late.

This is a great pity because these sentences are beautiful and full of meaning. They also occur at a point in the Mass where there is often music. These settings will give an opportunity for these words to take their proper part in the Mass.

The Musical Rationale

The settings are designed to be simple and easily performed but not at the expense of musical variety and originality. They are short, with each setting only taking up one page of voice and accompaniment.

The antiphons are all unison, designed to be sung either by a cantor or a unison group/choir of either female, male or mixed voices. The accompaniment doubles the tune throughout, helping the singers. The organ/piano/keyboard part is simple, being written as much as possible in three or four parts. The pitch range is in general, from B-D. Musical coherence sometimes demands that this is increased a little but is never extreme. The antiphons are mostly written in straightforward keys, although, again, the needs of musical logic and pitch range lead to the occasional foray into four flats or sharps. The antiphons make no musical compromises, some of them are simple and a group of amateur singers will be able to learn them in one rehearsal. Others, particularly those with expressive or significant words will need a little more rehearsal time but none of them are beyond the skill of amateurs. In general antiphons for feast days and for Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter are a little longer and more demanding than those for days in Ordinary Time. Each antiphon begins with a straightforward introduction which gives the singers the opening note. Each antiphon has a metronome mark and I would strongly encourage performers to follow these. Occasionally, alternative small notes have been added if the pitch is particularly high or low.

Layouts

Communion Antiphons do not follow the three year Mass cycle. In Ordinary Time there are two alternatives for the Sundays of Years A,B and C. In Lent, Advent and on Feast Days some days have only one antiphon which others can have two or three.

The Antiphons follow the Church's Year beginning with The First Sunday of Advent and Ending wih the Feast of Christ the King. A problem arises in that as Easter moves around it does not always fall after the same Ordinary Time mass. I have put it after the 8th Sunday which is where it fell in 2019 and is almost as late as Easter can be.

The whole cycle is now on YouTube. Follow this link:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLm4NDz69wzY8k9XSf7yjnxg6O5Rst_NG

Music - Copyright Robin Highcock 2017 Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.