Programme

Orlande de Lassus – Ave Verum
Lassus’s treatment of this familiar Eucharistic text is serene and elegiac, with imaginative use of the six-voiced texture to create expressive interplay between high and low voices, and restrained word-painting at the words ‘unda fluxit sanguine’. The motet—which would assuredly enjoy wider renown were it not for Byrd’s and Mozart’s settings of the same text—was first published in a 1582 collection issued in Munich, and reprinted in the posthumous collection of 1604. Source: Collegium Records

Tomás Luis de Victoria – Amicus Meus
The Tenebrae Responsories by Tomás Luis de Victoria are a set of eighteen motets for four voices a cappella. The late Renaissance Spanish composer set the Responsories for Holy Week known as Tenebrae responsories. Amicus Meus is the first dedicated to Matins of Maundy Thursday.

William Byrd – Ave Verum Corpus
Ave verum corpus is a short Eucharistic chant that has been set to music by various composers – in this case William Byrd.

Tomás Luis de Victoria – O Vos Omnes
O vos omnes is a responsory, originally sung as part of Roman Catholic liturgies for Holy Week, and now often sung as a motet. The text is adapted from the Latin Vulgate translation of Lamentations 1:12. It was often set, especially in the sixteenth century, as part of the Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday.

Judith Weir – Like as the Hart
“Like as the hart” is a composition for unaccompanied choir by the British composer Judith Weir, setting the first seven verses of Psalm 42 from the Book of Common Prayer. It was commissioned for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, at which it was first performed by choirs conducted by James O’Donnell at Westminster Abbey on 19 September 2022.

John Taverner – The Lamb
The Lamb is a choral work written in 1982 by British composer John Tavener (1944–2013). It is a setting of music to the William Blake poem “The Lamb” from Blake’s collection of poems Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789). It is one of Tavener’s best known works. The music is minimalistic and combines chromaticism with more conventional harmony.

Ola Gjeilo – Ubi Caritas
The first time I sung in a choir was in high school; I went to a music high school in Norway and choir was obligatory. I loved it from the very first rehearsal, and the first piece we read through was Maurice Duruflé’s Ubi Caritas. It will always be one of my favorites; to me, it’s the perfect a cappella piece. ​

So when I set the same text myself a few years later, it was definitely influenced by his setting in some ways – though while Duruflé used an existing, traditional chant in his incomparable work, I used chant more as a general inspiration. Source: Ola Gjeilo

Henry Purcell – Funeral Sentences
The Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary comprises the March and Canzona Z. 780 and the funeral sentence “Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts” Z. 58C. It was first performed at the funeral of Queen Mary II of England in March 1695. Purcell’s setting of “Thou knowest, Lord” was performed at his own funeral in November of the same year. In modern performances the March, Canzona and three funeral sentences are often combined as Purcell’s Funeral Sentences, Z. 860

Heinrich Schutz – Selig Sind Die Toten
Selig sind die Toten (Blessed are the dead) is the incipit of a verse from the Bible frequently used in funeral music of German-speaking composers. The most famous settings are a six-part motet by Heinrich Schütz published in his 1648 collection Geistliche Chormusik.

Christopher Tin – Hope is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson’s poem on the fragility of nature, as well as our own hand in its destruction, finds a elegiac tone in this original piece from Baba Yetu composer Christopher Tin. Palo Alto High School, Tin’s alma mater, commissioned this deeply melodic composition in celebration of their centennial in 2018.

Josef Rheinberger – Abendlied
Abendlied (Evening song), Op. 69/3, is a sacred motet by Josef Rheinberger. It has been regarded as his best-known sacred composition. He wrote the first version in 1855 at the age of 15. The text is a verse from the biblical narration of the Road to Emmaus.

William Byrd – Arise, O Lord
Arise O Lord, Why Sleepest Thou? is the first of two sections in William Byrd’s Arise, Lord, Into Thy Rest – printed after William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets and Songs of 1588.

Charles Villiers Stanford – Coelis Ascendit Hodie
Coelis Ascendit Hodie is one of three sacred motets based on Latin texts: Three Latin Motets, Op. 38. The works, some of Stanford’s few settings of church music in Latin, have remained in the choral repertoire internationally and are performed in liturgies and concert.