Music for Trinity: Palestrina to Messiaen, with a Russian detour
Now that Christ has ascended, and the Holy Spirit descended (last week, on Pentecost), the liturgical calendar marks tomorrow as Trinity Sunday, the end of the Easter season and a feast celebrating the Trinity of Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Please don't ask me to explain it to you! It's probably better to listen to music that approaches "le mystère de la Sainte Trinité," in the words of Olivier Messaien.
The practical part is that Trinity Sunday is the beginning of "ordinary time" -- that long, long season of green vestments and altar cloths stretching all through the summer and fall. It means in another week we go on "chori vacation" for a couple of months, and those who show up to sing on Sunday mornings won't have to put on heavy cassocks and surplices.
Tomorrow, however, we will, but we'll be singing some glorious music while we sweat, and hearing more on the organ. Here's the full program, below; Evensong will be broadcast live/streamed live on the internet on Radio Ville-Marie at 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time, so if you'd like to end your weekend with an hour-long concert of almost-all-Russian choral music, here's a rare chance to do just that. The Rachmaninoff piece is from his "All Night Vigil," one of the great, great works of liturgical music.The inks in teh programme below give information and a few include online resources for listening.
It's a Sunday for poetry too: I am one of the lectors, and was surprised and happy to to see that the passage I'll be reading is Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ."
TRINITY SUNDAY, CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, MONTREAL
10:00 am Choral Eucharist
The Cathedral Singers
Prelude: Le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité from Le Corps glorieux [Messiaen himself: Grooveshark], Olivier Messiaen (1908-92)
Mass Setting: Missa Brevis, Kenneth Leighton (1929-88)
Introit: O lux beata Trinitas [text] [Leeuwarder Madrigaalkoor: YouTube], William Byrd (1540-1623)
Motet: O beata Trinitas [text] [Skinner: NML] (info), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-94)
Postlude: St. Patrick's Breastplate - Allegro maestoso from Sonata Celtica , No. 4 in c, Op. 153 [Payne: NML] (info), Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1942)
4:00 pm Evensong
The Cathedral Singers
Prelude: Gloria tibi Trinitas, John Bull (1562-1628)
Introit: Cherubic Hymn [text] [YouTube], Dimitri Bortniansky (1751-1825)
Preces and Responses: " Dresden ," John Sanders (1933-2003)
Psalm: 146 (Atkins)
Magnificat: [Polyansky: YouTube], Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Nunc Dimittis: [Kelly: YouTube], Alexander Gretchaninoff (1864-1956)
Anthem: Hymn to the Trinity [text] [St. Louis Cathedral: YouTube], Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-93)
Postlude: Gloria tibi Trinitas, John Bull
