Music Notes for Aboriginal Prayer Sunday — June 23, 2024

Postlude in D – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

Click to watch video on Youtube.

Although born in England, James Healey Willan spent most of his professional life in Canada, most famously as precentor of the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Toronto. As a high-churchman, the Anglo-Catholic liturgy here suited him, and he was instrumental in establishing the musical standards for which the church is famous. Willan’s compositions (written mostly for the choir at St Mary Magdalene) were held in such regard that Willan was the only non-English composer to be asked to submit a piece for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Likewise, he was the first non-English church musician to be awarded a Lambeth Doctorate by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Willan’s Postlude in D, this Sunday’s organ postlude in church, is an ebullient piece with some interesting harmonic twists. Written in triple meter and in ternary form, the quieter central section (the latter part of which is built over a dominant pedal point) is framed by two bold passages notable for their descending scales in the pedal part.

 

/by

Music Notes for Pentecost 4 — June 16, 2024

Jesu dulcis memoria – attr. Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548–1611)

Click to watch the video on Youtube.

Tomás Luis de Victoria was a Spanish composer who ranks with Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso among the greatest composers of the 16th century. His surviving œuvre, unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. As a Catholic priest, as well as an accomplished organist and singer, his career spanned both Spain and Italy.

Jesu dulcis memoria, this Sunday’s brief eucharistic motet in church— although technically not a motet but a polyphonic setting of the first verse of a hymn text—has long been a favourite. Since its publication in Felipe Pedrell’s complete edition of Victoria’s work early in the twentieth century the scholar von May has asserted that it is not in fact by Victoria. Despite its questionable authorship it stands as a perfect little example of the art of Renaissance polyphony.

Jesus, how sweet the very thought,
giving true joy to the heart;
but sweeter than honey and all else
is his presence.

Gerald Harder

 

/by