Any good suggestions? My choir is a bit tired of John Weaver's Prayer for Transfiguration Day, which we sing every year. We are ready to try something different. This is for Lent II in a RC parish.

Bairstow - Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence? Try this

oooooooooooooh!

The Bairstow is gorgeous, gorgeous and very exciting.

But if you need something a smidge simpler, what about the Tallis 'O Nata Lux?'

Both these Motets are glorious.

Do remember the term Anthem was coined when the Church of England was formed and is a distinctly Anglican term.

Just remembering my notes for my dissertation on the Restoration Verse Anthem, and the chapter on the origins of the Anthem.

The RC church do observe Transfiguration on Lent 2, however the actual feast is on 6th August. Altar Cloth and Vestement Colour White. Major Festival.

The Transfiguration is a Feast of the Lord (in post Vatican II terminology). Pre-Reformation, texts would be set in Latin and set as a motet (these first appear late C13th). The Anglican tradition created the verse anthem and then the anthem which in essence wanted the same idea but in English and accompanied (by anything from viols / recorders to organ).

It is extremely unlikely that an RC church would have an issue with the performance of an 'Anglican' anthem especially if the text is appropriate.

If Latin motets are in order, the Mass Book for Saint Mary of the Angels (Wellington , NZ) where I often go, includes for Transfiguration (Lent 2 or August 6th):

O Nata Lux (Tallis)

Resplenduit facies ejus sicut sol (Victoria)

The Tallis is in the Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems. The Victoria doesn't seem to be available on CPDL.

Are you going to tell me how to suck eggs too?

I wrote my Undergraduate Thesis on the development of the Verse Anthem, more specifically the String Verse Anthem of the Restoration Court. What I did not read at the time was not listed in RILM and an awful lot of it so bad it promptly went under BIN.

Incidentely, it was a response in the rubrics in Cramner's original 1549 prayer book, and in Tudor times, Full Anthems were also composed. They just were not so popular as the Verse Anthem as the Verse Anthem had Verses for solo singers.

There are many more sources than just the Oxford Tudor Anthem Book, which also contains Motets!

I probably did not use Post Vatican II terminology. However I do know what date the Feast is. Plainsong Motets were written before 13th Century. It is only the polyphonic ones that were written at that point.

cf Hildegarde von Bingen and Guilleme de Machault.

RC church = motets Church of England = Anthems

The Transfiguration is the Gospel reading for 19th February in Common Worship so the RSCM Sunday by Sunday guide has many suggestions, some more particularly appropriate to the Transfiguration than others.

They include, for example:
Christ whose glory fills the skies (Shepherd - unison, Archer and Darke - SATB)
For lo I raise up (Stanford)
Behold the tabernacle of God (Harris, Rutter)
Glorious and powerful God (Stanford, Wood)
My eyes for beauty pine (Howells)
Aurea Luce (Mcdowell - SSAATB)
In splendenti nube (Phillips - SSATB)
O Nata Lux - Tallis

I know, just likely to be the one that is most readily accessible for many people.

I'm aware of the distinction between motet and anthem and I didn't have the time for a fuller response.

I don't have a degree in music, but I do have a reasonable level of understanding of the development of the verse anthem, albeit probably missing some of the detail etc (a friend of mine has done a dissertation on the subject and we've had quite a few chats about it over the years).

I was just wanting to make the point, from my experience, that if the text is appropriate, I doubt if most RC churches would be too worried that the item in question was an Anglican anthem rather than a motet.

Since it's pantomine season, all together now: "Oh, no it wasn't!" The term is actually much older. "Antem", or "anthem" is the old vernacular name for what we now call an antiphon. There's an article here about how post-Reformation anthem came about - it's a bit waffly, but see especially near the top of page 2:
http://www.plymouthorganists.org.uk/news_n..._and_places.pdf

Thank you. I appreciate the responses.

At the same time, I want to point out that the term "anthem" is used more loosely here in North America, in both Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. It simply refers to a piece sung by the choir during offertory or communion, regardless of the form or whether or not it's accompanied.

And - guess what? That's the way most of us use the term here in the UK too! Don't sweat it