Monday, January 3, 2011

The Divine Liturgy in English by Capella Romana

I received The Divine Liturgy of Our Father Among the Saints John Chrysostom in English by Capella Romana as a Christmas present. It has two CDs and is the first recording of the entire liturgy of St. Chrysostom in English. The recording is excellent. Portions of it are difficult to hear if you are listening to it while driving but that is only because they preserved the dynamics which are often lost in overly compressed modern music. The liner notes contain the text as well as lots of other interesting information. Anyone familiar with the historic liturgy in the Western tradition will notice similarities but also interesting differences. As a Lutheran, I'm not a big fan of the prayers to the saints but they don't detract substantially from the liturgy as a whole. The chanting of Capella Romana does not match the beauty of Fr. Apostolos Hill but is still well done and will no doubt remain the best recording of the complete liturgy of St. Chrysostom available until somebody can get Fr. Apostolos Hill to do it.

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