How about a sublime Regina coeli setting for Easter Monday? I came across this version by Agricola this week and it was the 3 minutes of beauty that my weekend needed!
Lamentations
The service of Tenebrae has been my favorite Holy Week experience since I first experienced it in 2010, though I've never sung any of the exquisite settings of the Lamentations (Dear Universe... *hint*). Check out this awesome video from Early Music Sources about the Lamentations and how Lassus and Cavalieri wrote their settings!
Maria Magdalene
Today I'm reveling in this glorious Guerrero motet (the model for the Lobo mass sung at Church of the Advent on Saturday/Sunday) and remembering that Jesus appeared to the women first.
Handl - Ecce quomodo moritur justus
This gorgeous piece by Jacob Handl often shows up for Good Friday and it's always worth it!
Bach and the mob
The "turba" choruses in Bach's St. John Passion are some of the catchiest and fun to sing - and I think that's exactly what Bach intended. Going along with the mob and being swept up by their energy is easy and fun, until you (hopefully) realize you're calling for someone's death...
AND the anti-semitism in the St. John Passion is NOT OK. It's fine to present this piece, but it needs context. My experience had to do with idea that we all are complicit in the actions of the mob. No anti-semitism, yes to personal responsibility and examining your actions.
Sicut Cervus
Palestrina's setting of "Sicut Cervus" - one of the texts for Holy Saturday - is one of his most well-known pieces, but most performances (including this one) only feature the first half!
Missa Maria Magdalene
It’s Holy Week, which means beautiful music, beautiful liturgy, and exhausted singers. Only 5 more services stand between me and this gorgeous mass next Sunday!
Vruechten - Sacred or Secular?
An Early Music Monday post for Easter Monday - have you ever noticed how many of the songs used in religious liturgies have Renaissance or Baroque origins? Or aren’t actually sacred at all? This is one of those, and my personal favorite of all the hymns for Easter.
From Mark Dwyer, Organist and Choirmaster:
VRUECHTEN is originally a seventeenth-century Dutch folk tune for the love song "De liefde Voortgebracht." It became a hymn tune in Joachim Oudaen's David's Psalmen (1685) as a setting for "Hoe groot de vruechten zijn." The tune is distinguished by the rising sequences in the refrain, which provide a fitting word painting for "arisen." Sung with athletic enthusiasm by the congregation of The Church of the Advent, the organist provides an improvisation as the altar is censed at the Offertory of the First Mass of Easter.
Lassus: Tristis est anima mea
My soul is sorrowful even unto death;
stay here a while, and watch with me:
now you shall see the mob that will surround me.
You shall take flight, and I shall go to be sacrificed for you.
You can hear Lassus’ beautiful setting of this text in the Tenebrae service on Wednesday night at the Church of the Advent, or below in the video (complete with non-relevant theory analysis).