Evening Prayer (Book of Common Prayer)

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Evening Prayer according to the Book of Common Prayer is a liturgy used in the Church of England in the late afternoon or evening. It is commonly known as Evensong, especially when the office is rendered chorally. It is roughly the equivalent of sung vespers in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran churches, although it was originally formed by combining the Catholic offices of vespers and compline. Although many churches now take their services from Common Worship, Choral Evensong from the Book of Common Prayer is often retained.

Contents

1 Service
2 Music
3 Observance among Unitarian Universalists
4 See also

4.1 External links

Service

The service of Evening Prayer, according to the prayer book, is similar in structure to the equivalent Morning Prayer (or Mattins), but with different canticles and with evening-specific collects. Until the last quarter of the twentieth century Morning Prayer was the usual morning service in all but very high church parishes, with the Eucharist celebrated as the main morning service once per month or even quarterly. With the virtual disappearance of the service of Morning Prayer, Evensong takes on a special character it formerly lacked.

It is made up of the following elements:

A penitential introduction, including the General Confession and the Lord's Prayer.
Preces — a series of responsory prayers.
A portion of the psalter, usually two or three psalms.
Two lessons (readings) from the Bible. The first is usually taken from the Old Testament and the second from the New Testament. Each lesson is followed by (one of):
Two canticles, usually the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, but the various Books of Common Prayer from different countries often offer an enlarged list of options.
The Apostles' Creed.
Several prayers and responses, including the Kyrie eleison and the Lord's Prayer.
An anthem following the third collect ("In quires and places where they sing, here followeth the anthem," in the famous phraseology of the 1662 edition of the Prayer Book).
Further prayers

The service is normally framed by organ playing before and after an accompanied service. Some institutions, have regular unaccompanied evensongs: at Exeter Cathedral, for example, Friday evensongs are usually sung to a cappella settings of the liturgy.

In practice, the penitential introduction is often omitted, and apart from in some cathedrals, usually only one psalm is sung. A sermon or homily may be preached at the end on Sundays or other special occasions, such as important feast days, but does not form a set part of the liturgy. Also, one or more congregational hymns may be added to the service. In Anglo-Catholic churches, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament frequently follows Evensong.

Music

In a fully choral service of evensong, all of the service except the penitential introduction, lessons, the creed and some of the prayers are typically sung by the officiating cleric (or a lay cantor) and the choir. Musical settings for Evensong (or "Evening Service") have been written by many English composers, including William Byrd, Daniel Purcell, Adrian Batten, and Charles Villiers Stanford. At a particular service, the preces and responses will normally have been set by one composer, the canticles by another and the anthem by a third.

As an ordinary service, Evensong will start with the preces and responses and proceed with the canticles and psalm set to Anglican chant, with an anthem after the Third Collect.

In cathedrals, or on particularly important days in the church calendar, the canticles, the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis, are performed in more elaborate settings. Many composers including Herbert Howells, Michael Tippett, Thomas Tallis, Healey Willan, Orlando Gibbons, Henry Purcell, John Tavener have set these texts (some on more than one occasion). They may be in through-composed form which becomes an autonomous piece of music suitable for concert as well as liturgical performance or they may take the form of elaborations of the various forms of chant to which the texts are set, such as faux bourdons for plainchant.

Both the anthem and the canticles may use settings by composers from outside the Anglican tradition.

In extremely high church parishes Evensong may have plainchant substituted for Anglican chant and may conclude with Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament (sometimes called "Devotions") and the carrying of the reserved sacrament under a humeral veil from the high altar to an altar of repose, to the accompaniment of music.

The service may also include hymns. The first of these may be called the Office Hymn, and will usually be particularly closely tied to the liturgical theme of the day, and may be an ancient plainchant setting. This will usually be sung just before the psalm(s) or immediately before the first canticle and may be sung by the choir alone. Otherwise any hymns normally come toward the end of the service, maybe one either side of the sermon (if there is one), or following the anthem. These hymns will generally be congregational.

Most cathedrals of the Church of England, from where the service originates, and a large number of college chapels in the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge offer this service regularly, often daily. In other provinces of the Anglican Communion, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the Anglican Church of Australia, and the Anglican Church of Canada, it is offered less often, although many parishes do hold special Evensong services occasionally. There are some notable exceptions, including Washington National Cathedral, which holds the service five times a week, and Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York, which holds it four times each week, as well as Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, St. Paul's Cathedral in Buffalo, St. John's Cathedral in Brisbane, St. Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, St Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide, St. James' Cathedral in Toronto, St John's Cathedral in St. John's, Newfoundland and Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, and most of the larger churches and cathedrals of the Church of Ireland, all of which hold the service at least twice a week.

BBC Radio 3 broadcasts choral evensong on a Wednesday afternoon at 16.00 UK time (and occasionally also on Sunday evening). This usually comes live from an English cathedral or collegiate institution. However, it is occasionally a recording, or is replaced by a different form of service or a service from a church elsewhere in the world and/or of another denomination. The most recent broadcast is available on the BBC's "Listen Again" service for up to a week after the original broadcast.

Observance among Unitarian Universalists

Evensong is also the name of a programmed series of gatherings undertaken as part of the Unitarian Universalist Association's Adult Religious Education initiative. The goal is to deepen spiritual awareness and commitment while increasing fellowship among members. The format includes hymns and readings from Singing the Living Tradition followed by a discussion on a pertinent spiritual topic. The gathering is closed with another hymn.

Evening Prayer (Book of Common Prayer)

Service

Music

Observance among Unitarian Universalists

See also

External links