Music for Common Worship

Common Worship: President's Edition

Common Worship: Prayer and Services for the Church of England – the first in the series of publications for the Church of England's new liturgy – was published on 1 December 2000 in a range of editions.

The President's Edition contains a 144-page music section typeset in Score by Alistair Warwick, a PDF of which can be downloaded from the Church of England's website.

Unfortunately, the first edition omitted to mention the music typesetter; this omission is noted here along with several other errata.

Hearing the chant

The website of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield enables you to download and hear chant settings published in the President's edition of Common Worship as an aid to preparing for the celebration of the new liturgy.

Common Worship: Festivals

The Festivals volume, published on 4 February 2008 by Church House Publishing (London) is the final* volume in the Common Worship Publishing Project, and brings to completion the largest liturgical project by the Church of England since the 1662 Prayer Book. (See "Music" for details of the Music for Common Worship project.)

Festivals includes a further 88 pages of music engraved in Score by The Art of Music. Music settings includes additional Short and Extended Prefaces for the Eucharistic Prayers (to supplement those found in Common Worship: Sunday Services) as well as settings of four of the prayers (Prayers A, B, C and E). They are set to authentic plainsong tones, which have been used over many years in daily worship at the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield (see above).

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Update (March 2010)

A new volume "Times and Seasons Altar Book is in preparation for publication in autumn 2010 (with music engraved by The Art of Music).

Music for Common Worship

Seven volumes of Music for Common Worship have now appeared (2000-2006), as part of the RSCM's work in supporting the Common Worship Publishing Project.

The general editor for this project is Professor John Harper, Director, International Centre for Sacred Music Studies (ICSMuS) and former Director, RSCM.

Text and music for all of these volumes (except the music for vols IV & V) were typeset by Alistair Warwick.

Over the coming years ICSMuS will prepare new resources for Times and Seasons, Festivals, Daily Prayer, Rites on the Way, Ordination, Music for Pastoral Services.

Volumes currently available

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