Music Notes for March 29, 2026

Music for Palm Sunday

This liturgy of Palm Sunday balances the simultaneity of two disparate atmospheres: one of rejoicing as Jesus the celebrated prophet enters into Jerusalem; and one of foreboding as the gospel’s narrative leads one to contemplate his sacrifice on the cross.

We begin with the spirit of celebration, as the Carnival Band accompanies our Procession of the Palms, as we sing the traditional processional hymns All glory, laud, and honour and Ride on, ride on in majesty. As we enter the church, the psalm and the tract foreshadow the imminent themes of Holy Week, imploring God’s help in times of deepest trouble.

The words of the communion motet invite reflection on the entire purpose for Christ’s Passion: that through his death on the cross, God exalted Jesus to be above any other who had lived and walked on earth. As it so happens, the artistic aesthetics popular in Felice Anerio’s lifetime were perfectly suited to highlight such contrasts, perhaps most popularly exemplified in the chiaro-oscuro style of Caravaggio and other tenebrists. In this period, a religious painting or piece of music was designed to transport the listener to a state of sympathetic emotion whereby they might experience the phenomena described by a text through affected musical depiction. Anerio breaks a chief rule of counterpoint on the first two notes of his motet, writing the dissonant interval of a major second, which pulls us into the realization of Christ’s suffering before resolving into a glorious sequence of fifths on the text “gave him the name above all names.”

The recessional hymn is one that I personally cherish, a tune which English scholar Erik Routley deemed “safe to call one of the greatest twentieth-century hymn tunes.” Richard Dirksen composed “Vineyard Haven” on the occasion of Bishop Allin’s induction at the American National Cathedral in 1974, after which time it quickly garnered popularity as a centrepiece of our North-American Anglican tradition.

 Abraham Ross

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

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Music Notes for March 22, 2026

Music for Fifth Sunday in Lent

Camille Saint-Saëns is fabled to be one of the first to storm out of the premiere of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps after the first movement’s opening, muttering under his breath; “if that is a basson, then I am a baboon!” However fabricated this anecdote may be, it attests that his musical reputation in early twentieth-century Paris upheld his image as a figurehead of conservative musical style: a man who deeply respected classical forms yet stayed in touch with the contemporary ideals of his time (at least enough to have bought a ticket to young Igor’s ballet!). At a time when the Paris conservatory began to emphasize studies of Wagner and Debussy above more archaic, classical repertories, Saint-Saëns was a lifelong student of the musical language of Bach, Handel, and Mozart.

Saint-Saëns’s relationship with church music was both professional and personal. He began his career as a church organist at Saint-Merri and later at La Madeleine, where his virtuosity on the organ earned him acclaim, including praise from Franz Liszt. His early exposure to sacred music and his role as an organist deeply influenced his compositional style, particularly in works like his Third Symphony (the “Organ Symphony”) and his Requiem. However, his relationship with the church was complex; while he engaged with Catholicism and spirituality his entire life, he eventually left his post at La Madeleine due to dissatisfaction with church bureaucracy. His motet Ave verum, sung by the lower voices at communion today, depicts the personal side of his engagement with his beliefs, a reverent and serene setting of the communion text Ave verum corpus, honouring the Blessed Sacrament.

Abraham Ross

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

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