A note on the "Triduum Music Retreat"...

   For a while I have wanted to put together a two-day (overnight) retreat or some other program on the unique music of the Catholic tradition belonging to the Sacred Triduum.  Blaming my being "busy" has prevented me from bringing all the stuff together to do it in recent years.
   I figured I had time to do it here for this Triduum as well, but alas, not yet.  Two mini-articles are already published for Holy Thursday.  I have two articles in draft form, and a couple more that would be due by tomorrow.  It's not going to happen.  Sorry.  I'll work on back-filling these entries onto the right day on the blog over the next couple of days.

   The format of the Sacred Music Retreat was to look at the following six musical encounters in the Triduum Liturgy with an approximately-30 minute talk on the history and theology behind each of the pieces.  Then, if it were a musically inclined group, there would be about another 30 minutes to give direction and/or some kind of experience singing each of these tunes:

1. Ubi Caritas on Holy Thursday
2. Pange Lingua/Tantum Ergo on Holy Thursday
3. The Reproaches on Good Friday
4. Sacred Silence on Holy Saturday
5. The Exsultet at the Easter Vigil, and
6. Victimae Paschale laudes on Easter Sunday

There's a couple of other things that could be added in, such as Tenebrae and the Lamentations (or an overview of the Office altogether during the Triduum), the Easter Entrance Antiphon Resurrexi, or the Vidi Aquam, but not yet...