Propers of the Mass, Outdoors

For years I've heard that music at large Papal Masses simply cannot be what it should be because of the demands of the venue. Where hundreds of thousands are gathered, you need drums, huge choirs, and music with a beat to cut through the dead space - or so we are told.

Well, the most recent Apostolic Visit of Benedict XVI provided an excellent illustration that this is not the case. Here is the communion proper Dilexisti sung in Domplatz by a Gregorian choir.

Incidentally, they are single from a single edition of chant that is really a blown-up version from the Graduale Triplex, with the antiphon on the left and hand-written Psalms on the right.



The chant itself is certainly, then, first millennium.

"Thou lovest justice and hatest wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee."

Here is a clean edition.