Libera Nos by John Sheppard
I've been doing a lot of research and listening and mulling about the closing concerts of our 2021-2022 season. The set will be in remembrance of all those we've lost during the pandemic, and will also attempt to point forward toward some possible resources for healing and renewal.
The first half is built around music for the Officium Defunctorum by Duruflé, Kerll and Duarte Lobo (with vocal and instrumental settings of 'Befiehl du deine Wege' linking the pieces together); the second half is built around music for Compline (or Completorium), the final service of the daily round of 'hours': 'At the close of day'. This sequence will be bound together with the three verses of 'Herzlich lieb hab ich dich O Herr', in settings by Buxtehude and Michael Praetorius.
(If interested, you can hear more about this program and the other shows of 21-22 at our Wednesday evening
'Behind the Curtain' event.)
I have noticed that in perusing and listening to so much reflective and healing music, I am myself experiencing some of the effects which I fervently hope our concerts can have on all of us. Coming the other day once again upon the Compline music of John Sheppard (ca. 1515-1558) was an instance of this. Sheppard was a master of what I would call the 'cosmic style', in which many voices stack up to create a tall structure which somehow evokes the 'music-of the spheres'.
Perhaps the most apposite example of this effect is his two settings of 'Libera nos'. Take a listen and a look at these two pieces, linked together into a single unit in the attached recording and score. I don't know whether it's the seven-voice texture, the thorough-going imitation, the slow-moving cantus firmus, the exploration of large vertical range--or perhaps all these things and more. Some of it is surely inexplicable.
All I know is that it makes me feel, with the poet, as though I had 'put out my hand, and touched the face of God'.
Spend a few minutes out of your day with this magical music. Maybe share it with a loved one. You won't regret it.
I've been doing a lot of research and listening and mulling about the closing concerts of our 2021-2022 season. The set will be in remembrance of all those we've lost during the pandemic, and will also attempt to point forward toward some possible resources for healing and renewal.
The first half is built around music for the Officium Defunctorum by Duruflé, Kerll and Duarte Lobo (with vocal and instrumental settings of 'Befiehl du deine Wege' linking the pieces together); the second half is built around music for Compline (or Completorium), the final service of the daily round of 'hours': 'At the close of day'. This sequence will be bound together with the three verses of 'Herzlich lieb hab ich dich O Herr', in settings by Buxtehude and Michael Praetorius.
(If interested, you can hear more about this program and the other shows of 21-22 at our Wednesday evening
'Behind the Curtain' event.)
I have noticed that in perusing and listening to so much reflective and healing music, I am myself experiencing some of the effects which I fervently hope our concerts can have on all of us. Coming the other day once again upon the Compline music of John Sheppard (ca. 1515-1558) was an instance of this. Sheppard was a master of what I would call the 'cosmic style', in which many voices stack up to create a tall structure which somehow evokes the 'music-of the spheres'.
Perhaps the most apposite example of this effect is his two settings of 'Libera nos'. Take a listen and a look at these two pieces, linked together into a single unit in the attached recording and score. I don't know whether it's the seven-voice texture, the thorough-going imitation, the slow-moving cantus firmus, the exploration of large vertical range--or perhaps all these things and more. Some of it is surely inexplicable.
All I know is that it makes me feel, with the poet, as though I had 'put out my hand, and touched the face of God'.
Spend a few minutes out of your day with this magical music. Maybe share it with a loved one. You won't regret it.