Music for Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

The large-scale masses of Josef Rheinberger have enjoyed an enviable prominence in both the church and the concert hall since their setting. Most of them date from the composer’s time as Hoffkapellmeister for the court of Ludwig II of Bavaria, a prominent role where he scored new Catholic Church music for large orchestra and vocal ensembles. Such is not the scope of today’s mass setting in A major, which to the contrary is a rather modest setting for a 3-part chorus of upper voices most commonly heard in its organ-accompanied version.

Recent research documents that even this music for high voices (the Marienische Hymnen op. 171 included) were intended for and performed by the Vokalkapelle in court, where Rheinberger’s romantic style contrasted the Cecilian reforms to Catholic music practiced in other parts of Bavaria.

Rheinberger received an honorary doctorate and professorship from the university in Munich, where he taught composition and counterpoint to an esteemed base of students. In 1882, the young American organist Horatio Parker arrived in Munich to study with Rheinberger, completing two years of study before returning to the U.S. to enjoy a parallel career trajectory, teaching harmony and counterpoint at Yale University. Today’s postlude concludes my favourite (and the longest) of his organ works, the Organ Sonata op. 61. I learned the piece for a series of recitals in the summer of 2016 while playing at a festival in Blue Hill, Maine. Little did I know that Parker’s granddaughter and remaining family still summered just down the road from the church where I was practicing, and when they caught wind that I was playing his music, we arranged a private performance followed by a snack in the living room where he likely composed the sonata on summer holiday. As one might imagine, my experience with this music is now inextricably tied to this serendipitous occurrence in my home area.

–  Abraham Ross

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