Music Notes Part I for Pentecost 11 — August 4, 2024

Missa brevis for three voices – Stephanie Martin (b. 1962)

Canadian composer and conductor Stephanie Martin is associate professor of music at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design, where she teaches music history, composition, harpsichord and organ, and coaches historical ensembles. She directs Schola Magdalena, a women’s ensemble for chant, medieval and modern music. She is conductor emeritus of Pax Christi Chorale, and past director of music at the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto.

This Sunday’s setting of the Ordinary of the Mass in church, Stephanie Martin’s Missa brevis for three voices, shows that beautiful music can come from three-part writing – no mean feat. The intuitive voice leading and plaintive, evocative harmonies in this setting make for a brief work that is simple and very effective.

Gerald Harder

 

Kyrie

Click to watch the video on Youtube: Kyrie

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

Sanctus/Benedictus

Click to watch the video on Youtube: Sanctus/Benedictus

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts,
heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Glory be to thee, O Lord most high.
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:
Hosanna in the highest.

Agnus Dei

Click to watch video on Youtube: Agnus Dei

O Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world: have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world: have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world: grant us thy peace.

 

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Choral Evensong at St. James’ Anglican Church

Choral Evensong at St. James’ Anglican Church

Friday, August 9 at 5 pm | 303 East Cordova Street, Vancouver

St. James’ welcomes the 40-voice Choir from The Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School (CRMSS) for Choral Evensong.

The CRMSS Choir will sing the Magnificat by Luca Marenzio, the Nunc Dimittus by Orlande de Lassus, and an Anthem by Andrea Gabrieli.  The sung Versicles and Responses are by William Smith, and Psalm 91 and Psalm 92 are chanted in the Anglican tradition to settings by Richard Woodward and George J Bennett respectively.  The service concludes with one of Charles Wesley finest hymns, “Love divine, all loves excelling,” accompanied on the majestic organ and in the glorious acoustics of St. James’ Anglican Church.

Click to watch the video on Youtube.

Whilst the warp and woof of Evensong is its music, it is how music and the spoken word are woven together in a liturgy that is not only enchanting, but gives respite from the busyness of our lives.  You are invited to come together at St. James’ at 5 pm on Friday, August 9 to experience a powerful sense of connecting past and present, to join in heart and mind with that community that endures through time and space, with whom in the Lord Jesus we are for ever one, and experience something much greater than ourselves.

 

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