Hymn:  Christ the Lord is Risen Today (Llanfair)

Vidi aquam:  chant

Propers from the Graduale Romanum

William Byrd Mass for Four Voices

Credo III

Offertory motet:  William Byrd:  Regina Caeli

Communion motet:  Randall Thompson:  Alleluia

Closing Hymn:  Jesus Christ is Risen Today (Easter Hymn, w/ organ introduction by Richard Proulx)

Postlude:  Joseph Rheinberger:  Sonata 11, First movement

Mass XVII (chant)

Victoria Passion

Offertory motet:  Anton Bruckner:  In monte Oliveti

Communion motet:  Hernando Franco:  Christus Factus Est

Closing Hymn:  Vexilla Regis (chant)

Processional Hymn:  In the Lord’s Atoning Grief (Heilein) (44 Westminster)

Asperges:  chant

Propers from the Graduale Romanum

Pompeo Cannicciari:  Missa Phrygia

Credo I

Offertory motet:  Vexilla Regis (chant; choir only)

Communion motet:  Francesco Roselli:  Adoramus te, Christe

Closing anthem:  Orlando Gibbons:  Drop, Drop Slow Tears

Processional:  organ improvisation on Laetare Jerusalem

Asperges (chant)

Propers from the Graduale Romanum

Hans Leo Hassler:  Missa Secunda

Credo I

Offertory motet:  Christopher Tye:  Laudate nomen Domini

Closing hymn:  Jerusalem the Golden (Ewing)

Benediction hymn:  Edward Elgar:  O Salutaris Hostia

Mass concluded with the beginning of Forty Hours, and so there was no postlude.

Processional Hymn:  Parce Domine (chant)

Asperges:  chant

Discussing Bach is like trying to tell someone everything you know.  His output is so vast, and most of it rises to the level of truly great music.  A devout Lutheran who spent his life working for the church, his music nonetheless is treasured by many kinds of people, and amongst church musicians his work is considered to be universal.  Even those who are most opposed to using “Protestant music” in Catholic churches generally make an exception for Bach, in my experience.

It’s rather unfortunate that in a generic YouTube search for Bach the first item that came up was the infamous Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  This is not a bad piece—though the exact identity of the composer is somewhat in dispute these days—but it is over-played, and most people call it the Phantom of the Opera piece, or something like that, which would only seem to perpetuate rather than to mitigate musical ignorance.  Bach wrote more than just “churchy” stuff and Halloween music.  His cello suites are a wonderful place to start.  You might like to track down his orchestral suites and the Brandenburg Concertos as well.  And for fun, don’t forget the Coffee Cantata.

Very often cited as the greatest composer who ever lived, Bach occupies a place in musical history that I would have a hard time characterizing with perfect logic:  While he represents, in many ways, the culmination of years of steady development with a style that combines not only polyphony but also tonality, horizontal lines and vertical harmonies, he also points to the future with  sounds that portend the so-called “breakdown” of traditional harmonic language.  I remember once playing the great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, emphasizing a number of very crunchy chords, and after the concert a knowledgeable friend gave me an approving wink and a nudge.  Bach’s music is not clean; it is real.  I was once told a story, but cannot verify it, that when Bach was confronted with the rules of theory that are so often erroneously ascribed to him, he said, “If that’s the way French people wanna write music, let ‘em.”  I hope the story is true, but even if I figure out that it isn’t, I’m going to continue to tell it, because, like most fiction, it contains truth in it.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s music is the supreme art, if by art we mean something that is well-made.  It is well-formed without being crunched into a mummifying mold—in fact he gladly bends and breaks standard forms when the subject matter calls for it—and it is inspired without being sentimental, egotistical, or generally self-indulgent.  It transcends nations:  No one synthesized the French, Italian, and German styles into one cohesive approach quite like he did.  He loved to talk about God; it was his job, after all—along with teaching Latin, among other things, at the adjacent school.  Yet his music combines the colossal with the personal, the divine with the human.  Anyone who has ever heard his setting of Wenn wir in hoechsten Noeten sein from the Orgelbuechlein knows that Bach knew pain in his life.  In fact he wrote that piece while in prison for breach of contract with a less-than-agreeable employer.  Listen to this, and hear how the melody twists and turns, like a lost soul searching for comfort.  I once played this at a very difficult point in my life and wept with a mixture of sadness and joy; sadness at my situation, and joy at realizing that in this moment I was communing with such a great composer, who experienced the vicissitudes of life just as I did.  For a moment it seemed like Bach was on the organ bench next to me, which was more comfort than any living human being could give.

Maybe his humanity is what infuses his great works with their authenticity.  It is so easy to be bombastic, to overstate oneself in a gigantic piece of music.  And yet not a note of the St. Matthew Passion or the B Minor Mass, each two and a half hours long, seems to be wasted.  Neither is his music weighed down by any pretension.  It seems to serve a purpose beyond itself, a Purpose which cannot be crammed  into the dusty cubicles where musical, artistic, and philosophical treatises are kept.

If I am rambling it is because I’m rather overwhelmed by the subject of this great composer.  One runs the risk, in these kinds of situations of saying something stupid but if one more person loves the music of Bach because I was willing to make a fool of myself on his behalf, then I am quite at peace.   Suffice it to say that someday I hope to see him conducting the heavenly choirs, with Olivier Messiaen as his accompanist, while all the great musicians of history sing in his schola.  Soli Deo gloria.

Hymn:  The Glory of These Forty Days (Erhalt Uns, Herr; harm. J.S. Bach)

Asperges:  chant

Propers from the Graduale Romanum

Claudio Monteverdi Messa dalla Cappella

Credo I

Offertory:  Attende Domine

Communion motet:  Oliver Hayes:  Audi benigne Conditor

Hymn:  God of Mercy and Compassion (Au Sang Qu)

This week’s polyphonic motet comes from the composer Oliver Hayes, who writes in Birmingham, England.  Visit his page on ChoralWiki.

Processional Hymn:  Lord, Who throughout These Forty Days (St. Flavian)

Asperges:  chant

Propers from the Graduale Romanum

Mass Ordinary:  Pompeo Cannicciari:  Missa Phrygia

Credo I

Offertory motet:  S.S. Wesley:  Si iniquitates

Communion motet:  Audi, benigne Conditor (chant)

Closing hymn:  Today is the Accepted Time (Breslau)

Pompeo Cannicciari was the successor to Alessandro Scarlatti at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.  He has written this Missa Phrygia in the so-called stile antico, that is the sacred polyphonic style as opposed to the contemporary Baroque style.  All the same, this piece has some interesting moments which give away its true age, harmonic and melodic elements which simply would not appear in a genuinely Renaissance piece.  Perhaps it was his intention only to recall the works of Palestrina and others and not to imitate them.  Imitators, such as the Caecilians in the 19th century, are usually failures, after all.  Cannicciari has left us a lovely, demur piece of music which is perfect for the mood in Lent.

The last hymn is a translation of the Latin text Nunc tempus acceptabile by Kathy Pluth, a church musician in Virginia.  A number of her works have been published, and I’m quite happy to have worked with her, writing some melodies to go with some of her original hymn texts.  With this text, we sang the tune Breslau, which most people associate with Take Up Your Cross.  I think  Kathy’s work gives great testimony that a text does not have to be ancient, Victorian, or undecipherable to be noble and acceptable for the liturgy.  Visit Kathy’s blog here.