Compline - The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge - Graham Ross, conductor

A service of Compline, sung live by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, directed by Graham Ross
Recorded in Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge, UK
www.clarecollegechoir.com
www.grahamross.com
Introit: Robert White (1538-1574): 'Christe qui lux es et dies'
Christe qui lux es et dies,
Noctis tenebras detegis,
Lucisque lumen crederis,
Lumen beatum praedicans.
Precamur sancte domine,
Defende nos in hac nocte,
Sit nobis in te requies,
Quietam noctem tribue.
Ne gravis somnus irruat,
Nec hostis nos surripiat,
Nec caro illi consentiens,
Nos tibi reos statuat.
Oculi somnum capiant,
Cor ad te semper vigilet,
Dextera tua protegat
Famulos qui te diligunt.
Defensor noster aspice,
Insidiantes reprime,
Guberna tuos famulos,
Quos sanguine mercatus es.
Memento nostri domine
In gravi isto corpore,
Qui es defensor animae,
Adesto nobis domine.
Deo patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli filio,
Cum spiritu paraclyto,
Et nunc et in perpetuum. Amen.
Christ, who art the light and day,
You drive away the darkness of night,
You are called the light of light,
For you proclaim the blessed light.
We beseech you, Holy Lord,
Protect us this night.
Let us take our rest in you;
Grant us a tranquil night.
Let our sleep be free from care;
Let not the enemy snatch us away,
Nor flesh conspire within him,
And make us guilty in your sight.
Though our eyes be filled with sleep,
Keep our hearts forever awake to you.
May your right hand protect
Your willing servants.
You who are our shield, behold;
Restrain those that lie in wait.
And guide your servants whom
You have ransomed with your blood.
Remember us, O Lord,
Who bear the burden of this mortal form;
You who are the defender of the soul,
Be near us, O Lord.
Glory be to God the Father,
And to his only Son,
With the Spirit, Comforter,
Both now and evermore. Amen.
Anthem: Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901): 'Abendlied'
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, und der Tag hat sich geneiget
Bide with us, for evening shadows darken, and the day will soon be over.

[@marthawedge-blake5479]

So pure and calming. Grieving over sudden death of loved one. Very comforting.

[@b.r.holmes6365]

PLEASE keep producing such majestic religious videos. Uplifting for the soul.

[@helenmeikle]

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy upon us, Amen

[@williamsmith-xq3mc]

Let us all prostrate our hearts, EVER, before such a GOD as this!!!

[@dr.pjclarekobengisbey8198]

How good to listen to this before bedtime - so spiritually uplifting yet soothing at the same time!

[@islespatrick]

There's something about choir music that's just perfect.

[@barbarab4632]

Just beautiful. Thank you.

[@Ala11334]

I use to be in a Compline choir at a small Presbyterian church here in Houston. It's a blessing be reminded of what I use to experience. Thank you!

[@ofeliaclaudio6379]

Very soothing to the soul.

[@hudsonbailey674]

Compline is for night as Evensong, for evening. How could anyone fear the night? This superlative Clare College Choir are tiny stars who'll, "make the night so fine that none will pay no debt to the garish sun."

[@christinejones9620]

Such skilled and sensitive intoning from the female soloist. I sense she possibly has a richer depth of colour within her voice, yet she knows just how to control that and minimize vibrato, to produce the clear and clean sound needed for the purposes of this kind of liturgical singing. This is a skillful, intelligent faculty much in decline outside of the great cathedral and collegiate chorister tradition.

[@b.r.holmes6365]

Please post more videos, especially during these quarantine times! Simply uplifting. God bless.

[@Tombuchaill]

Beautiful, a perfect ending to the day

[@iktomi5]

Loved that !!! Raise a Hallelujah ‼️🧨☀️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@ldoom8827]

That adds up to the treasure of compline services in the High Church and the UMCA tradition. The service revokes the soul to seek God in the dark night of sleep.

[@MsKatie64]

Lovely, thank you for sharing. Beautiful memories of my boarding school days.

[@annecallow5372]

We have just started singing this monthly in our benefice in Oxfordshire. Loving it :D

[@halwheeler3124]

A beautiful blessing.

[@edwardhart5466]

Just so lovely, yes what would we do with out youtube

[@anamcarabear]

Lovely

[@KirstenBayes]

A wonderful gift of the spirit, thankyou!

[@wmnoffaith1]

I clicked this as background music while I read Compline in the Liturgy of the Hours or Breviary, whichever you prefer. I was raised in the Episcopal church and even in the cathedrals they don't sing Compline. How lucky you are to have such things in your life!!!!For the rest of us, there is youtube :). Thank you for this fabulous addition to my evening worship.

[@teddymonk5209]

wmnoffaith1 joint our faith your missing so much ...

[@teddymonk5209]

teddy monk oh I'm Catholic just incase there is a mixup lol

[@shanenishibun2883]

For what it's worth, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Montgomery (AL) does sung compline once a month, and Trinity Church (Boston) does sing compline weekly. :-) Maybe we're coming around. ;-)

[@jerejoiner4551]

Grace Church in Colorado Springs sings it once a month.

[@wmnoffaith1]

teddy monk The last 2 churches I went to were Catholic. One my son refused to go to.Noone sang. Tgrre was one female singer, or should I say yeller, and her husband played on piano. My husband said it was like bad dinner theater, and my son said they were like the Captain and Tenille. They were so loud no one else could hear themselves sing, so they just stopped singing. They didnt do any recognizable hymns at all...nothing before 1960. The same with the other Catholic church. There isn't one church near me with a choir, and none of the churches do hymns, or the Psalms. I've pretty much given up going. I listen to sermons and do bible study at home.

[@nowellandrews4304]

Well done. Blessed is the SPIRIT in hand.

[@charlottewhyte9804]

beautiful gir,s voices luv the pure sound with adult volume terrific

[@bulwurth1]

incredible.

[@vitorialeal2456]

🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 SOU DO BRASIL. POR FAVOR, MANDAR VÍDEO PARA MIM. OBRIGADA! 🙏💐🇧🇷

[@grdlviev1366]

Very good!

[@davidhartley4664]

Enlightening

[@jeffreynolds7894]

Graham, It's good to see choirs using the 2005 edition of the Order for Compline (Royal School of Church Music/The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society). I really enjoyed your Compline. Your pacing was just right. Large, unadorned pauses for reflection and mystical enhancement. Since your quire is not all men, you made good use of spelling the chant around to different cantors and chantresses. I especially liked your solo alto on, 'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum", which to me is ground zero, the apex of the Compline experience. In my retirement from the L.A. Phil, bass trombone chair, I have devoted what's left of my time to composing, conducting, arranging, and engraving music for Compline, now up to 1600 pieces. I run four Compline Choirs at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Three are all men and have an ATBarB, or AATB voicing, and one is an all women Compline Choir, SSAT. None are SATB. If you want any of this music, let me know. The price is right. jeff reynolds.

[@johnburns3510]

Dear Jeff, I am Roman Catholic and don't know much about the order of service for Compline in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition. However, I was interested to know whether the double use of hymns (at the beginning of Compline and after the short lesson) as in this video is traditional for Anglican Compline or is a revision on the 2005 edition. The Roman liturgy has only one hymn at Compline. The traditional place for the hymn of Compline-and in my opinion the correct place-was after the short lesson and its response. The revised Roman Compline (post Vatican II) places the hymn at the beginning of the service. I would appreciate your comments. Fr. John Burns

[@jeffreynolds7894]

Fr. John, there are a plethora of versions of Compline. The most used one in the Episcopal Church is in the Hymnal 1982, which is pretty bare bones. After much searching with lots of trial and error, we have settled on a realized version of the 2005 edition of An Order for Night Prayer COMPLINE in traditional language Published by the Royal School of Church Music for The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society.www.rscm.com/shop We first looked at An Order for Compline found on page 127 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It did include the four Psalms dedicated to Compline (Ps. 4, 31, 91, and 134) but was very minimalist and included, in my view, too much congregational participation, superfluous involvement of clergy, and no chant notation at all. There is almost no there, there. We looked at a version published on choral public domain library (cpdl) that was pretty bare bones. At least it had chant notation. We looked at a Canadian Anglican Order for Compline and found it way too complicated and rule ridden. We looked at the un-accepted 1928 version in the Church of England Book of Common Prayer from which many versions of Compline have evolved. We found the joints to be abrupt and the basic order rather scattered. The Compline Choir in Seattle uses a doctored 1949 edition of the PMMS Order for Compline, a further refinement of the 1928 edition. Still, the Order, IMHO, did not have a sensible flow to the parts. Since there are no elements distributed at Compline, the office can be run by the lay choir themselves. At Trinity Episcopal Church in Nevada City, CA our Priest has an excellent chanting voice so he was included in the Order, early on, but he did not have to be there. We have now migrated to having our speaker and cantor, in house. In talking to my Compline mentor, the late Peter R. Hallock, his idea was any Compline Choir could design their own Order to fit their situation. But there were some ‘must haves’. He said the nut of Compline was the chanting of the Psalms. Must chant Psalms. He said, “all else may fall away, but the chanting of the Psalms will remain.” That has an interesting twist in itself as the most difficult part of Compline for me to obtain, at the beginning, were notated Psalm settings…of any kind. PRH himself set about to relieve that situation by composing his own Psalm settings; around 50 of them for an AATB choir of men. This is the order we settled on: PREFACE: also called a bidding prayer, this is an optional spoken biblical reading or prayer as a prelude to; ORISON: essentially a short sung prayer that can come in many guises. A monody Gregorian Chant; a short anthem; a short Psalm setting, either in chant or harmonized; a single verse of a hymn, harmonized or in plainsong; English or Latin. This does not appear in any of the published Order for Compline but after Seattle Compline Choir’s example, we include it most of the time. When we do a bare bones Compline we will loose the Orison and the Anthem altogether, as they are expendable. PREPARATION: This includes opening sentences and some antiphonal chanting by the cantor (or chantress) and quire leading to, PETITIONS: this some of the only congregational participation during our version which includes confession and deliverance. OFFICE HYMN: There are a few assigned Compline hymns which come from the Roman and Anglican tradition, but any seasonally appropriate hymn is acceptable. The format can be: single line Gregorian chant in Latin or English; or a harmonized hymn tune from the Hymnal or other. In our format, we many times sing the 1st verse unison; the 2nd verse in harmony (melody in the top voice); 3rd verse in fauxbourdon (melody in the tenor down an 8va; top voice sings tenor up an octave) or other harmonization with the last verse with a stock harmonization or back to unison. THE PSALM: There is no one format that works here. We have done Medieval Psalm settings from Gregorian and Ambrosian single line chant up to 8-part settings by Renaissance composers; with a sprinkling of modern composers. Peter Hallock had the best idea for these Psalms to come alive through music. His settings are genius. Sometimes we do 2 Psalm settings, or 3. One time we did all four assigned Psalms (4, 31, 91, 134) during one Compline. Ps. 134 was done as the Orison and Ps. 4 and 31 were stuffed into the Psalm slot, with the longer, 16 verse, Ps. 91 as the anthem. It was very effective. The Bros. at a local Cisterican Monastery sing all four assigned Psalms every night at Compline. We always try to attach an appropriate Gloria Patri to the end of the Psalm. A Psalm antiphon at the beginning is optional. THE COMPLINE RESPONSORY: Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. For me, this is ground Zero for Compline. The mystical resides here. Besides the Psalms, this speaks to our hearts. This is also as close as you can come to meeting your maker for a test run. How can you not respond to, “Keep me as an apple of an eye……Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings…”? We leave some large, halting, G.P.'s during this one for the Oh-so-Roman, "examination of conscience." THE NUNC DIMITTIS: we have maybe 50 settings of Luke 2:20-32 from plainsong to 8-part settings, which includes a Gloria Patri and we always use a mode-appropriate antiphon by Bill Bertolas, before and after. I have found a handful of Nuncs written by John Shephard for use toward the end of Lent that are just great. But this is one place where our particular audience does not like change so they don't get much play. THE APOSTLES CREED is chanted by the quire. All are standing now. This is followed (after the congregants are seated) by, THE KYRIE: a short, 3 phrase chant, (expanded into something much larger for Lent) that leads directly, segue to, THE LORD’S PRAYER: each of our groups use a different version. The Trinity Compline Choir uses a harmonized 16th c. version by Robert Stone. Voces angelorum uses a 3-part harmonized version that I wrote for trebles. Others use just a one-note chant version. This is one place where each choir can have their own 'stamp'. PRAYERS AT COMPLINE: an antiphonal responsive chant. COLLECTS: we usually speak three. These can be chanted, but we prefer a stark pre-anthem setting. The quire responds with a spoken, first syllable accented, “Ah-men”. This is one of the only sections of our Compline that are not chanted, but it sets up, THE ANTHEM: we have hundreds of short and long anthems appropriate at Compline. Sometimes we do a plainsong as the Anthem, depending on the season. Voces angelorum includes the Roman tradition of singing some kind of ‘Ave’ as the anthem. They have dozens from which to choose. FINAL PRECES/SIMPLE CONCLUSION: sung as the prayerful cool-down at Compline, post anthem, we used Peter Hallock’s final preces for a while but have gone back to the stark and mystical, ancient version in a responsorial plainsong chant. “We will lay us down in peace and take our rest. For it is thou, Lord, only that makest us dwell in safety. Abide with us, O Lord. For it is toward evening and the day is far spent. As the watchmen look for the morning, so do we look for thee, O Christ. The Lord be with you and with thy Spirit. Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God. The Almighty and merciful Lord, The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost, bless us and preserve us. Amen.” As far as advise, I can offer this: In the beginning, make the program easier for the weaker singers. This is most gratifying to both the singers and the audience. Most fledgling compline groups start out with just chant/plainsong in monody to hone their chanting skills. The most important person during compline is the cantor or chantress. They sew the whole office together and set the mood. Next is the director. Next is the speaker, or reader. We have an excellent, ex-opera singer (who now sings tenor) whose stentorian tone is perfect as the speaker for compline. The other advise is, once you let someone in the group, and they don't work out, it is tough to make them go away. Look for younger singers as they have less wobble and husk. I like instrumentalists in our groups as they can read music and generally sound more 'authentic' for compline than a vibrato racked, giant sound, blend free, opera star. Some important reference sites: complinechoir.org/ www.trinitycomplinechoirs.org Liber Usualis 1961.pdf can be found on the internet. Also I have used 1912 and other years of the Liber for ideas, chant and info. The manual of Plainsong by H.B. Briggs and W.H. Frere, 1902 Which is now in P.D. and downloadable. It’s a large file. I've revised many of the text entries up to date to BCP1979 spec. www.lectionarypage.net/ is a very useful tool for scheduling seasonal Psalms and other works. Just find the date and a lot of info will appear. I also use the Anglican Chant Psalter (edited by Alec Wyton; Church Publishing) as a basis for some of my settings. Although I’m not a fan of Anglican Chant Psalter, I found some useful harmonizations upon which to realize for instrumentalists, who are a good part of our consist. Why am i not a fan? For instrumentalists, the chance for mistakes are very high. The whole system is prone to mistakes, unless, of course you grow up with it and sing it every week. Here is a recording of last week's Compline, the first Sunday in Lent: www.dropbox.com/s/3chp7nitx6iaq5k/20170305.mp3

[@johnburns3510]

Dear Jeff, I deeply appreciate the time that you took to write such an informative email about Compline in the Episcopal tradition, along with links to helpful resources. I visited the Compline choir site for St. Mark's in Seattle and will look at additional resources later. I am a member of a Catholic monastery. We sing Compline every night, fully chanted on Saturdays, Sundays, and feast days nights. Although I love chant, I deeply appreciate the choral tradition of the Episcopal Church. The use of polyphony for some parts of a service adds a tremendous depth of spirituality. I was amazed by the number of setting you indicated that you have available for Compline. I have two questions. I always associate Evensong with the Anglican Church. Is Evensong given the same emphasis in the American Episcopal tradition as seems to be given to Compline? Secondly, where do find the needed singers of quality for FOUR Compline choirs in rural California? Fr. John

[@jeffreynolds7894]

Fr. John, I just kept beating the bushes and finally young and fresh counter tenors started to appear. 8

[@paulcaswell2813]

@@johnburns3510 In the Benedictine Diurnal, the (single) hymn follows the second Psalm (133).

[@jerejoiner4551]

The Anglican (and its American counterpoint, the Episcopal Church) Church recognized early on the need to continue the music that began in the Catholic Church in the 13th century. Today, the Roman Church has largely abandoned Gregoria's chant in favor of modernistic compositions. They see not to know that when people gather to worship, they want to leave the secular world behind. This isn't true across the board, obviously, and there is some evidence that indicates the Catholic Church may once again return to its roots. For the time being though, the best choral music programs are found in Anglican liturgies.

[@paulcaswell2813]

I used to sing daily compline in my old college choir. To this day the memories remain magic.

[@Patricia-wf2via]

Protestantes. Sin Sagrario, sin Víctima propiciatoria,sin Sacramentos. Pura actuación.

[@GZ9090]

What a beautiful and inspiring chapel and choir! The only downside is that is possesses a rather dry acoustic and what a real shame it is! I now understand why so many recordings have been carried out in such places as The Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral!

[@paulcaswell2813]

I love the acoustic of college chapels. Incredible performances in homely atmospheres - a very special (and British) combination.

[@ateresapara7980]

The Holy Roman Catholic Church--- when you hear music that originated from it, how can you deny it is heavenly inspired?

[@bwilliamleo7872]

This is an Anglican service however.

[@peterkenyon2810]

U

[@eduromano777]

Vuelvan a la verdadera Iglesia, herejes del infierno! La música bonita no les salvará el alma. Solo la verdad os hará libres.

[@thedevilsreject23]

I’m sorry but I prefer male voices for Gregorian chant and compline - it’s in our blood and history and while I’m all for females in choirs don’t tell me it doesn’t alter the sound - I personally think male voices suit Gregorian chant etc better than women’s vocal ranges - like when singing with other lads growing up and as an adult baritone I can sing in unison through vibration of our vocal ranges and feel it better than with females in this style of music and Gregorian chant especially- I’ve always felt more touched by hearing compline sung by the male sound - it’s what’s been around far longer than added female vocal range and it is a preference- I’m not a fan of female vocals in classical or Gregorian or anthems or opera etc - I find it doesn’t do anything for me and I’m a huge metal head and rocker - love rap, rock, ghostemane, heilung, Celtic, etc etc etc - each to their own init 👍🏻🍻 as long as the music touches your soul don’t be concerned over what another likes or dislikes just vibe to the music that you get 👍🏻🙏🥃🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇿🇦