Sursum Corda

Many, many years ago it was common for the Sursum Corda to be a part of the communion service. There were problems such as

• the priest could not sing very well
• the priest simply didn't know the tune
• the pitch would wander about
• it was too slow and/or painful
  

The excruciating aspect was that, after the intial 'call and repsonse' section between priest and congregation, the remainder of the Eucharistic prayer was often sung, very badly. Now and again a priest would admit that he had no vocal skills and he would say the prayer.

The other problem was that the cue for the Sanctus is likely to have been in the wrong key unless the organist had previousy worked out in what key the plainsong ought to begin in order to end up 'right'. The danger there was that a priest would be used to a certain pitch and could naturally slip back into his habitual pitch.

I have not heard a true Sursum Corda for many years. If you do a search on https://www.churchofengland.org/ it does not turn up. (When I started as an organist in 1974 we used Merbecke's communion setting.) The words have since been modernised and shortened. Here is and example and you will note the pitch drifting as the priest gets into the long section.