Music for Third Sunday after Epiphany

 

The mass setting sung by the upper voices of the High Mass Choir for today’s liturgy dates from around 1906, a revision of a much earlier Messe des Pêcheurs dating from the early 1880s. The original mass was a collaboration between Fauré and André Messager, a composer of the same age best known for his operas and ballets. The two composers divided the movements amongst themselves, featuring a Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei written by Fauré to violin and harmonium accompaniment. By the turn of the century, Fauré had emerged as a prolific composer both in church and in the concert hall; thus, he likely revisited the short mass out of preference or utility rather than for commercial revenue. In 1906, he composed his own Kyrie, reworked the now-abandoned Gloria into a Benedictus, and arranged the accompaniment for solo organ (likely the orgue de choeur positioned near the cantors flanking the chancel).

The communion motet is excerpted from Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, premiered in 1846 at Birmingham Town Hall. In the throes of a popular revival of the concerted music of J. S. Bach, the young Felix Bartholdy was keen to demonstrate his ability to write a biblical oratorio resembling those of his 18^th-century forebears in the musical idiom of his time. Mendelssohn is also noted for bringing Bach’s solo organ works to the British isles for the first time, performing them to crowded churches who had never heard such contrapuntally complex music for the instrument. To supplement Bach’s works in concert, Mendelssohn began writing his own work for the instrument, despite only having recently learned to play on the pedals. The Nachspiel in D dates from his early years in England, unpublished until he later re-worked the movement into the finale for his Second Sonata in C minor.

Abraham Ross

Solemn Mass takes place at St. James’ Anglican Church, Vancouver at 10:30 am every Sunday.