Music for Pentecost 4

 

Today’s musical offerings explore the meaning of the peace Christ bestows on his followers in the Gospel. Before the collective proclamation of the opening hymn, we gather in a moment of inward serenity: a short meditation by Belgian organist Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, who studied in a lineage of pupils directly descended from Bach. His own students such as Guilmant and Widor would later shape the trends of late-romantic organ music, a category into which Lemmens is often grouped. One hears in “Adoration” a bridge between the classical forms of central Europe and the emotive language of his peers such as César Franck.

The words of the offertory and communion hymns recall the discipleship of peace in Christ: a mission for which Bach and his contemporaries viewed the Holy Ghost as an evangelical conduit, inspiring devotion in the hearts of believers throughout the world. Bach depicts the Spirit’s omnipresence through musical allegory in his third “Kyrie” setting from Clavier-Übung III, heard as today’s postlude. The chorale melody is set in sustained bass notes played by the pedal, over which a musically-perfected counterpoint in four voices evolves using subjects taken from each of the hymn’s verses. This polyphony converges over the pedal’s final note in a fiery conclusion, descending in a striking series of chromaticism and “cross” motives (tritones), connecting the predestination of the Passion to the faith shared by Christ’s disciples.

 Abraham Ross