Music Notes for November 9, 2025

Music for 22nd Sunday after Pentecost

 

The lower voices of the choir lead our music this Sunday. The service is the Mass for Three Voices,  written by Stephanie Martin, who serves as musician at the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto. The church, sometimes known as SMM, was for years the home of the Dean of Canadian church music, Healey Willan, and the source of a wealth of Anglo-Catholic church music. Dr Martin has followed in this tradition, offering accessible music to small choirs.

At communion, the men sing a setting by American composer Daniel Pinkham of an 18th-century text, sometimes known as “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree”. The song may be an allusion to both the apple tree in Song of Solomon 2:3 which has been interpreted as a metaphor representing Jesus, and to his description of his life as a “tree of life” in Luke 13:18–19 and elsewhere in the New Testament.

The prelude and postlude come from two organists who made their mark with English church choirs: Christopher Tambling (1964-2015) served in Perth and at Downside Abbey; Richard Lloyd was Organist and Choirmaster at Hereford and then at Durham Cathedral.

Brigid Coult

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

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Music Notes for All Souls’, November 6, 2025

Music for All Souls’

 

The Requiem of Gabriel Fauré was written in the late 1880s, while Fauré was still assistant organist and choirmaster at L’Église de la Madeleine in Paris. It followed the deaths of both of Fauré’s parents in 1885 and 1887, though it does not appear to have been specifically written for them; he himself spoke of having written “for the pleasure of it.”

Fauré was by nature an agnostic, rather than a faithful Catholic – but it is telling that he returned to the Requiem again and again through his life – editing, improving, changing instrumentations. He chose the texts that appealed to him, the ones that reflected rest and peace, and unlike other Requiem settings that emphasized the Day of Judgement, his one reference to “Dies irae” is a passing section within a “Libera me” that conveys calm certainty.

In the music for this evening’s service we are joined by some members of Richmond Chorus, with Isaac Howie (organ), Miya Otake (harp) and Sarah Westwick (violin). The soloists are our own Tiffany Vrioni-Das (soprano) and Alex Gowans (baritone)

The chorale-prelude, O Mensch, bewein’, sets a Lutheran hymn tune that Bach later returned to in both his St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion. The quiet postlude In Paradisum is based on the traditional Gregorian chant, and was composed by Daniel-Lesur (1908-2002), who was a contemporary of Messaien, with whom he co-founded the group La Jeune France, attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition.

Brigid Coult

Commemoration of All Souls takes place at St. James’ Anglican Church, Vancouver at 6:30 pm.

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