Music for April 2, 2017

Vocal Music

• Christus Factus Est – Felice Anerio (1560-1614)

Instrumental Music

• O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622– Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Prélude au Kyrie (Hommage à Frescobaldi)  –Jean Langlais (1907-1991)

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

• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Hymn R90 - Spirit of the living God (IVERSON)
• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (ST. THOMAS (WILLIAMS))
• Hymn 314 - Humbly I Adore thee (ADORO DEVOTE)
• Hymn 715 - When Jesus wept (WHEN JESUS WEPT)
• Hymn 610 - Lord, whose love through humble service (BLAENHAFREN)
• Psalm 130 - Tone IIa

There are only two people who have ever held the post of composer to the Papal choir. One of them was Giovanni de Pierlugi Palestrina and the other was Felice Anerio. Christus factus est is a perfect example of why his fellow musicians held him in such esteem. Its text is from the Epistle to the Philippians which is used in the Gradual for Maundy. It’s a beautifully simple homophonic work that eschews modality and ornamentation in favour of a simple but oh so effective directness. The chromatic harmonic touches show an influence of early baroque madrigal style not found in Palestrina.

O Mensch bewein dein sunde gross, BWV 622 (O Man, Bewail your Great Sins), is a piece from the Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book) by Johann Sebastian Bach, a collection of 46 preludes for organ almost exclusively written during the 1708-1717 period, while Bach was court organist in Weimar. The collection is defined by Bach himself in the title page as '[a book] in which a beginning organist receives given instruction as to performing a chorale in a multitude of ways while achieving mastery in the study of the pedal, since in the chorales contained herein the pedal is treated entirely obbligato'. Many consider it a collection also for the liturgical year, as the layout of the book begins with Advent and Christmas hymns and then works its way through the life of Christ, and thus the liturgical year.

O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross  is a traditional Passiontide chorale, or hymn, whose melody and text both date from around 1525. Bach's organ treatment of this simple E flat major melody could hardly be more lush -- indeed, this setting is one of the most thoroughly ornamented of all Bach's compositions; the melody as laid out in the top voice of the organ part is coloratura in the best and most original sense of the word. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the Bach treatment (on top) of the first phrase of the original hymn melody (on bottom).

In addition to being the most elaborately decorated piece in the Orgelbüchlein, O Mensch, bewein  is probably the most chromatically adventuresome as well, especially in the final few bars (the last one is marked adagissimo by Bach, calling attention to the last line of text: "stretched out on the cross"), in which we are treated not only to a steadily rising chromatic bass line that moves with great conviction towards a shocking C flat major chord, but also to some wonderfully pungent G flat/F flat decoration in the top voice.

The idea of a musical composition as an homage honoring a great musician is nothing new. Maurice Ravel, composed Le tombeau de Couperin for solo piano between 1914 and 1917 and  Marcel Dupré wrote Le tombeau de Titelouze for organ in 1943.  In Hommage à Frescobaldi, Jean Langlais pays homage to the seventeenth-century Italian keyboard virtuoso and composer Girolamo Frescobaldi. Throughout the work Langlais perhaps purposefully exhibited some of Frescobaldi's idiosyncrasies, including startling harmonic shifts and the quotation of existing melody; but perhaps the most notable similarity is both composers' natural penchant for passionately mystical moments.

The first movement of the work, "Prelude au Kyrie," begins with a slowly-ascending melodic figure against suspended chords. When the opening material returns, halfway through, it is now accompanied by the pedal, which plays the chant theme from the Kyrie of the Mass "Cunctipotens genitor Deus."

Jean Langlais was a French composer and organist who wrote choral and  organ music, often based on Gregorian chant, enhanced by polymodal harmonies. Langlais became blind due to glaucoma when he was only two years old, and was sent to the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children) in Paris, where he began to study the organ, with André Marchal. From there, he progressed to the Paris Conservatoire, obtaining prizes in organ and studying composition with Marcel Dupré and Paul Dukas.

It was as an organist that Langlais made his name, following in the footsteps of César Franck and Tournemire as organiste titulaire at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris in 1945, a post in which he remained until 1988. He was much in demand as a concert organist, and toured widely across Europe and the United States.

Langlais died in Paris aged 84.