We were on holiday in Bavaria at the end of August, and our local church was S. Katharina in Pfaffing. I duly went along to Mass one Sunday.
Double gallery at S. Katharina, Pfaffing
This being Germany, we were issued with treble-line hymnbooks and there was an electronic hymnboard which was kept busy not only with the numbers of hymns but with bits of liturgical music. There were four hymns, two with tunes which sounded as if they had come from the Genevan Psalter and one which was a translation of The Church’s One Foundation to the usual tune. The final hymn was a rather charming and evidently very familiar Marian one, but unknown to me.
The church has two galleries, one above the other, with the upper one containing the organ and the lower one a cantor. I was impressed by the two altar boys who rang bells alternately at the Elevation with absolute precision.
On an excursion to Munich I went into Bauer & Hieber’s music shop, and spent some time browsing their stock. Among their extensive collection they had a particularly interesting line in scores of experimental works and I was detained by Cathy Berberian’s Stripsody and Terry Riley’s In C.