Music for Fifth Sunday of Easter

The mass setting, communion, and postlude of today’s Mass paint a varied picture of French sacred music at the end of the nineteenth century. The communion motet O salutaris hostia was penned by César Franck, one of region’s most influential composers of keyboard and chamber music. Educated when Berlioz and Beethoven would still have been the largest musical forces in French culture, Franck bridged the remaining gap towards expressive Romanticism by popularizing long, sweeping melodies, nuanced accompaniments, and some of the most beautifully shaped harmonic progressions ever written.

André Caplet self-forged his route to professional music, supporting his move from Le Havre to study at the Paris Conservatory by playing with anyone who would hire him – dance orchestras, amateur groups, and by building ties with organizations such as the Societé des compositeurs de musique. At a time when the avant-garde was challenging “acceptable” musical taste in Paris, Caplet found a perfect equilibrium between modernity and convention, as his modal melodies show Debussy’s influence while intermittently veering in unexpected directions. He won the Prix de Rome in 1901, earning a glowing review from Maurice Ravel.

The offertory hymn is one of my personal favourites, the poetry written by George Herbert in the seventeenth century and the tune by David Charles Walker in 1976. While Walker was directing music at the General Theological Seminary in New York, he wrote this music specifically to be singable by lower voices, as at the time, there were no women at the institution (this has since changed). Luckily, it works just as well with a group of diverse vocal registers, as well as with the upper voices of our High Mass Choir who sing today’s Mass. Unusually, Walker composed the hymn tune, accompaniment, and descant for this hymn.

Abraham Ross

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