Religious Choral Music

[Satchmo Distel]

I predictably go to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven for my emotional needs in this field, which at the moment are quite high. The richest tonally is almost certainly:

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnrF...tRadioSymphony

The Sanctus (from 47:40) might be the music that moves me as much as other ever has, or will.

Mozart and Bach have the same artistic weight and there will be times when I prefer them to the packed harmonies of Beethoven. It's like comparing four track recording with 24 track.

[gjw100]

Have you heard any of Jan Garbarek's work with The Hilliard Ensemble, Satchmo? Four albums to date on ECM, the most recent in 2019. There's not a great deal available to link to - as I've mentioned previously on the Jazz thread, ECM are very strict when it comes to online use of their music. This clip, recorded at Jesus College Cambridge, is typical of what you would find though.

[Satchmo Distel]

Thanks so much.

[G-Man]

Did I ever tell the story of why Bach turned down the prestige gig of succeeding his hero Buxtehude as director of music at L?beck's St Mary's church?

[Bruno]

For Anglican lovers:

"Bring Us, O Lord God" by William Harris

words by John Donne:

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heav'n: to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitation of thy glory and dominion, world without end. Amen.

[Satchmo Distel]

Very beautiful, indeed. Rave on, John Donne.

[Bruno]

For recusant lovers, same ensemble:

"Ne irascaris Domine" and "Civitas Sancti tui" by William Byrd

translation:

Be not angry, O Lord,
and remember our iniquity no more.
Behold, we are all your people.

Your holy city has become a wilderness.
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem has been made desolate.

[Bored Of Education]

This version of Missa Luba (as used in "If...") is a favourite of Mrs Bored's and is quite something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ZvDn77wcI

Personally, I find this amazing. It''s a Georgian choir's version of Our Father sung in Aramaic to the Pope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=locW-9S00VU

A bit past its season but I only found out recently what this was after hearing it for years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnEUC4eZjjA

[Levin]

G-Man I don't recall reading about it.

The Mass for in Troubled Times (or the Nelson Mass) is a banger by Haydn.

I very much like Jan?cek's Glagolitic Mass & Martinů's Field Mass.

Are we doing requiems and the like or just Ordinary music?

The Augustinerkirche in Vienna does classical music once or twice a month. I attended a mass with a Schubert setting which was lovely.

[delicatemoth]

Get in there for some Messiaen.

[Various Artist]

Did I ever tell the story of why Bach turned down the prestige gig of succeeding his hero Buxtehude as director of music at L?beck's St Mary's church?

It was because it came with the condition of marrying Buxtehude's daughter, wasn't it? A young Handel, among others, apparently turned him down on the same sticking point. Though scholars now seem to believe Bach simply made the pilgrimage there to learn at the master's feet rather than with any intention of taking over from him at the Marienkirche.

I only know any of this because I've been reading quite a lot about Dieterich Buxtehude in the last couple of weeks back, never having knowingly come across him at all before. My brother though introduced me to this over Christmas:


https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Christmas...r%2C150&sr=8-4
Which was very good, and is the work of Mr Hillier again who was mentioned (or, at least, his Ensemble) by gjw in the second post above.


(Looking up the composer also led me down a gigantic Wikipedia rabbit hole I've literally only just emerged from, as I started reading about the great churches of Luebeck and from there ended up opening dozens of Wiki tabs about the city's biggest/tallest churches and the world's biggest/tallest churches of various descriptions and all the world's tallest buildings/towers/communication masts/freestanding structures/unbuilt skyscrapers etc etc etc – which I kept sidetracking off from further, and only finally closed the last tabs of this afternoon. I mean, I was doing other stuff as well over that period, I wasn't in there for a fortnight solid, but even so...)

[G-Man]

Yeah, Bach apparently hiked all the way from Arnstadt in Thuringia, where he had his first post, to L?beck, having taken four week's leave. Historians aren't agreed whether Bach also came to apply for Buxtehude's job. But it would seem presumptuous of Bach to think that he, who had little experience, should succeed his hero Buxtehude and get one of the big plum jobs in Germany, playing on one of the world's greatest organs (and answering not to a clerical hierarchy but the city's senate!).

Buxtehude obviously saw Bach's talent, and offered him his job, on condition -- as Levin points out above -- that he'd marriy Buxtehude's daughter. Of course, in those days people married more often for expedience than romance, so Buxtehude's condition wasn't particularly unreasonable. The story goes that Buxtehude's daughter was not very attractive, and ten years older than JS, so Bach made a tough choice. His next gig, in M?hlhausen (Thuringia) certainly had nothing of the prestige of St Mary's in L?beck.

The famous "Totentanz" organ on which Buxtehude and doubtless Bach played was destroyed during the bombing of L?beck in 1942.

[Bruno]

If you like Bach's cantatas and oratorios, it's worth knowing the set of seven cantatas by Buxtehude called Membra Jesu Nostri.

Here's the first:

[Various Artist]

On that note, over Christmastime my brother also introduced me to this fine box set of Bach's Christmas Cantatas:



The 6-CD set is itself merely a small part of a truly mammoth sequence of all Bach's cantatas John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir recorded, which is available on an eyewateringly expensive though very handsome box set of 56 CDs.

[Satchmo Distel]

Excellent detailed notes on Beethoven's Missa Solemnis embedded in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbzY...renceRecording

[gjw100]

Thought you might like this Satchmo Distel, taken from Tigran Mansurian's 'Requiem'. I'd forgotten that I even had it, but it came up on shuffle when I was cooking dinner earlier.

[Satchmo Distel]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[gjw100]

I came across the 2022 album 'Adorna' by jazz pianist Jason Rebello and Opus Anglicanum earlier today and was reminded of this thread.