Music for March 25, 2018 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna in the Highest – David W. Music (b. 1949)
• O Vos Omnes - Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Instrumental Music

• Largo, from Stabat Mater – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), arr. Mark Schweitzer

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 154 - All glory, laud, and honor (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)
• Hymn 156 - Ride on! Ride on in majesty (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn R235 - O sacred head, now wounded (PASSION CHORALE)
• Hymn R214 - Lamb of God (Twila Paris)
• Hymn R233 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn R227 - Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)

In music, a suspension is a means of creating tension by prolonging a note in a chord while the underlying harmony changes, normally on a strong beat. The resulting dissonance persists until the suspended note resolves by step wise motion into a new consonant chord, or harmony. It is often the use of suspensions in music that give music a feeling of longing or emotion.

You will hear several examples of that in the music during the second half of the Palm Sunday service. If you've been to a Palm Sunday service at an Episcopal church (or any other liturgical church such as Catholics or Lutherans), you know that the service begins with lots of "hosannas!" and cheer, before taking an ugly turn like the crowd in Jerusalem. After opening hymns and anthems with the choir of children and adults waving their palm branches,  the music becomes much more somber with the reading of the Passion. That's where the suspensions come in.

The choir will sing a setting of the words from Lamentations, O vos omnes (O all you who walk by on the road), which is used as a response to part of the Tenebrae Service in Holy Week. It's an appeal to us to take note of the sorrow of Christ during His Passion.

This setting is by 16th century Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Victoria ranks with Giovanni da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso among the greatest composers of the Counter-Reformation. He was sent by King Philip II of Spain in 1565 to prepare for holy orders at the German College in Rome. There he probably studied with Palestrina, whom he eventually succeeded as director of music at the Roman Seminary. From 1578 to 1585 he an assistant chaplain of San Girolamo della Carità, where he met the pious dowager empress Maria, widow of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II, and became her chaplain. In 1584 she entered the convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where Victoria became priest and organist. He settled in Madrid in 1594.

Tomás Luis de Victoria, looking like a character from an HBO series.

What makes this music so beautiful is that often, in addition to the use of the fore-mentioned suspensions, a line begins with a single note, allowing the harmony to grow around it, and accentuating the polyphony.  It also spends so much time avoiding thirds, the middle note of a chord that determines its tonality, that when it becomes decisively major or minor, it’s always a surprise. And in the middle of the piece, the basses drop out, leaving just the three upper parts to carry on.

The other suspensions come in the Handbell music played during communion. "Largo" is an arrangement of Quando corpus morietur from the "Stabat Mater" by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.  Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist whoses best-known works include his Stabat Mater and the opera La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress). His compositions include comic operas and sacred music (sounds about right to me.) Unfortunately, he died at a very young age of 26 of tuberculosis, so we don't know what great music he might have written.