Triodion and Preparation

If you have been following the church calendar and have been looking ahead, you may notice we only have one more Sunday until the Triodion. It sets up one of the most intense and sometimes most difficult time of the year: Great Lent. The Triodion, with the tiered fasting and Biblical lessons, allows us to pull the great fast into focus. Yet for church musicians, part of our focus in the fast is on the various musical/liturgical challenges throughout lent and Holy week.

My lesson today is simple: it is time to prepare! The triodion itself should be prepared for, and the variability of hymns including the exhausting-ness of Holy Week, are in our sights. Your weekly rehearsals (you’re having weekly rehearsals right?) should start focusing more and more on the coming months. Chipping away at it slowly over weeks is the only way to be successful. So this week, work on whatever you usually work on, but budget a significant amount of time to The Triodion and Great Lent. You, your priest, and your community will be so thankful and more spiritually enriched. Well-performed Lenten music can be some of the most spiritually edifying of the year.

Thank you again for reading! As always, you can find me on facebook (please message me and let me know you found me here), twitter, or by email at david@ecclesiasticalconsulting.com