Setting: Short communion service (Phrygian) – Charles Wood
Motet: Surge illuminare – Huw Williams
For more information about music at St. James’, visit the Concerts page at www.stjames.bc.ca.
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This Sunday’s organ prelude in church, the Prélude sur l’Introït de l’Épiphanie (Opus 13) of Maurice Duruflé, dates from the early 1960s. It is one of this composer’s less well-known works and appears in a volume of compositions (Orgue et Liturgie) assembled and prefaced by the French musicologist Norbert Dufourcq. Each of the préludes in the volume is based on a plainsong introit. Duruflé’s Prélude is on the introit for the Feast of the Epiphany, ‘Ecce advenit dominator Dominus’.
The piece forms a postscript to Duruflé’s Four Gregorian Motets, and it was premiered along with them at a concert in Paris in May 1961. Soft sparkling mixtures and a pungent solo trumpet celebrate the arrival on earth of the King of Heaven: ‘Behold, the Lord our Ruler comes …’ The composer has carefully set the Gregorian rhythmic patterns resulting in a series of bars of irregular length and music which simply flows.
Gerald Harder