Music for the Third Sunday of Easter — April 18, 2021

Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget (Paulus, Op. 36, No. 43) – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

view video here

Felix Mendelssohn, in full Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, was a German composer, pianist, musical conductor, and teacher, and one of the most-celebrated figures of the early Romantic period. In his music Mendelssohn largely observed Classical models and practices while initiating key aspects of Romanticism — the artistic movement that exalted feeling and the imagination above rigid forms and traditions. Among his most famous works are Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826), Italian Symphony (1833), a violin concerto (1844), two piano concerti (1831, 1837), the oratorio Elijah (1846), and several pieces of chamber music.

Felix was born of Jewish parents, Abraham and Lea Salomon Mendelssohn, from whom he took his first piano lessons. Though the Mendelssohn family was proud of their ancestry, they considered it desirable in accordance with 19th-century liberal ideas to mark their emancipation from the ghetto by adopting the Christian faith. Accordingly, Felix, together with his brother and two sisters, was baptized in 1816 as a Lutheran. In 1822, when his parents were also baptized, the entire family adopted the surname Bartholdy, following the example of Felix’s maternal uncle, who had chosen to adopt the name of a family farm.

In 1832 Mendelssohn enlisted the help of pastor Julius Schubring, a childhood friend, to produce the libretto for a new oratorio based on the life and work of St. Paul. For this, he drew on passages from the New Testament, chiefly the Acts of the Apostles, and the old, as well as the texts of chorales and hymns. Composition of the music was started in 1834 and was complete in early 1836. The English premiere was in Liverpool in 1836 in a translation from German by Mendelssohn’s friend Karl Klingermann. To this day, it is performed in both of its original languages.

The chorus heard here is from very near the end of Paulus / St. Paul, in Scene 5, the Farewell of Paul from Ephesus, right before the final scene, the Martyrdom of Paul. It is the first verse of our Epistle reading for this Sunday, 1 John 3:1a.

Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, dass wir sollen Gottes Kinder heißen.

Behold what love the Father has shown us, for us to be called God’s children.

 

Alleluia, Cognoverunt discipuli – plainsong

view video here

I have pointed out previously that the name “Gradual” comes from the fact that a soloist originally chanted a psalm from an elevated place, the step (gradus) of the ambo where the subdeacon had just read the Epistle. The proper Gradual for the Third Sunday of Easter is this verse from Luke 24:35. Of particular note in the ancient chant heard here are the extensive Easter alleluias surrounding the verse.

Alleluia. Cognoverunt discipuli Dominum Jesum in fractione panis.

Hallelujah. The disciples knew the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread.

 

Fantasy on “Easter Hymn” – Sir William Harris (1883-1973)

view video here

The name Sir William Harris, KCVO, MA, DMus, FRCM, FRCO conjures up images of grand Royal state occasions at Windsor, coronations in Westminster Abbey and “pomp and circumstance” in general. To many church musicians his name also brings to mind the eight-part anthem Faire is the Heaven, surely one of the greatest pieces of Anglican church music of the last century. A man who was humble, mild-mannered, humorous, deeply spiritual, dedicated to his church work, loyal to his friends, restrained in his organ accompaniments and, sadly, impoverished in his later years hardly seems to be a description of the same man, yet they were indeed one and the same.

This “Fantasy”, a musical composition with roots in improvisation, unbound by strict form, is based on the familiar tune Easter Hymn. Played brilliantly here by Daniel Cook, Master of the Choristers and Organist of Durham Cathedral, it showcases the splendid Tuba stop of the renowned “Father” Willis organ. Yours truly typically plays this piece at St. James’ as a postlude at some point during the Easter season.

Gerald Harder

/by

Music for the Second Sunday of Easter — April 11, 2021

Quia vidisti me, Thoma – Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)

view video here

In the Orthodox Church this Sunday is called “Thomas Sunday”. In our three-year lectionary, the Gospel lesson on this day is invariably John 20:19-31, in which Jesus invites Thomas to cast off his doubts about the Lord. It is perhaps not surprising that a number of composers have set the oft-cited twenty-ninth verse from this passage. Although this verse is the text of the Magnificat antiphon for the Feast of St. Thomas (December 21), the consistent addition of lively alleluias to these settings makes them perfect for the Second Sunday of Easter.

Italian composer and singer Luca Marenzio was considered by many Renaissance musicians to be the chief architect of the expressive 16th-century Italian madrigal style. Marenzio’s madrigalian style of text painting is well served here. Note the homophonic emphasis – all four parts singing the same text and rhythms simultaneously – given to the passage beati qui non viderunt (blessed are they that have not seen). The motet concludes with an imitative and joyful Alleluia in a dancing triple metre.

Quia vidisti me, Thoma, credidisti: beati qui non viderunt,
et crediderunt. Alleluia.

Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. Alleluia.

 

Alleluia! O sons and daughters – Text: Latin; attrib. Jean Tisserand (15th cent.); tr. John Mason Neale (1818-1866) / Music: Melody Airs sur les hymnes sacrez, odes et noels, Paris, 1623.

view video here

Jean Tisserand, a Franciscan friar, wrote a poem of nine stanzas entitled L’aleluya du jour des Pasques. It is found in a little booklet, without title, printed between 1518 and 1536, the original copy of which now rests in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The text is based on the translation by John Mason Neale from his Mediaeval Hymns 1851. It is one of the few hymns on the resurrection that mentions Thomas. In our Common Praise hymnal it is found at 228.

The first known appearance of the tune O Filii et Filiae is in Airs sur les hymns sacrez, Paris 1623. The melody is modal in character, but like all folksong tunes, it has had many variants. The wonderful arrangement and rendition here by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge under the direction of the late Stephen Cleobury omits the verses referring to Thomas. They are included below (in italics) for reference.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

O sons and daughters, let us sing!
The King of heaven, the glorious King,
o’er death today rose triumphing.
Alleluia!

That Easter morn, at break of day,
the faithful women went their way
to seek the tomb where Jesus lay:
Alleluia!

An angel clad in white they see,
who sat, and spake unto the three,
“Your Lord is gone to Galilee.”
Alleluia!

That night the apostles met in fear;
amidst them came their Lord most dear,
and said, “My peace be on all here.”
Alleluia!

When Thomas first the tidings heard,
how they had seen the risen Lord,
he doubted the disciples’ word.
Alleluia!

“My piercèd side, O Thomas, see;
behold my hands, my feet,” said he;
“not faithless, but believing be.”
Alleluia!

No longer Thomas then denied;
he saw the feet, the hands, the side;
“You are my Lord and God,” he cried.
Alleluia!

How blest are they who have not seen,
and yet whose faith has constant been,
for they eternal life shall win.
Alleluia!

On this most holy day of days,
to God your hearts and voices raise
in laud and jubilee and praise.
Alleluia!

 

Résurrection (Symphonie-Passion, Op. 23) – Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)

view video here

The virtuoso French organist Marcel Dupré succeeded Charles-Marie Widor as the titular organist at St. Sulpice in Paris, a position he retained for the rest of his life. With his long tenure, and as Widor had been there for more than six decades, the position changed hands only once in a century. Dupré is both adored and reviled by organists; much of his music is at once brilliantly appealing and fiendishly difficult to play.

In 1921 Dupré made the first of his many visits to America. He refers in his memoirs to the evening of December 8, when, at a recital he was giving in the Wanamaker Auditorium in Philadelphia, he was offered several liturgical themes on which to improvise—Iesu redemptor omnium, Adeste fideles, Stabat mater dolorosa and Adoro te devote. He instantly decided to improvise an organ symphony in four movements which depicted in music the life of Jesus: ‘The world awaiting the Saviour’, ‘Nativity’, ‘Crucifixion’ and ‘Resurrection’. This improvisation became the basis of his Symphonie-Passion, Op. 23, which he began to compose on his return to France.

The last movement, played here by the composer himself in a 1965 recording, consists of a vast crescendo based entirely on the Eucharistic hymn Adoro te devote. Listen for that melody as it appears first in the top voice, quietly, as though early on Easter morning, then in interplay between manuals and pedal, and finally erupting into joyfully cacophonous resurrection in a French organ toccata with the melody on the massive 32’ Contre-bombarde stop in the pedals. As I’ve occasionally mentioned previously, this is best heard on a substantial audio system, or a good pair of headphones.

Gerald Harder

/by