What’s on Great Sacred Music, Sunday, May 19, 2013

08:01:06
William Henry Monk, arr. Robert Prizeman: Abide With Me
Libera, Robert Prizeman

 

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: A Song of Wisdom
James Jirtle, treble; James Lazenby, piano

 

Maurice Duruflé: Scherzo, Op. 2
Todd Wilson, organ

The Schudi organ in Saint Thomas Aquinas Church, Dallas, Texas

 

Libera is a British boy band well-known both inside and outside of the

United Kingdom. James Lazenby is the Titular Organist of St. Benedict’s

Anglican Church, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Todd Wilson is an American

organist who hails from Toledo, Ohio.

 

08:18:35
Michael Haydn: Dixit Dominus ~ Vespers
American Boychoir, James Litton

 

Franz Schubert: Agnus dei ~ Mass No. 2 in G, D. 167
Vienna Boys’ Choir; Chorus Viennensis;

 

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Bruno Weil

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger: Adagio ~ Organ Sonata No. 2
Wolfgang Rubsam, organ
Rieger organ in St. Fulda Cathedral, Germany

 

The American Boychoir is the only residential non-church affiliated choir school

in the United States. Emperor Maximilian I founded The Vienna Boys Choir in 1498.

Joseph Rheinberger was a German composer who lived from 1839-1901.

 

08:31:22
Gregorio Allegri and Tommaso Bai: Miserere mei, Deus
Choir of Westminster Abbey, Martin Neary

 

Allegri’s setting of Psalm 51 dates from 1638. A young Mozart

heard the work performed in the Sistine Chapel and wrote it down

from memory defying the Pope’s ban on doing so.

 

08:46:33
Healey Willan: Prelude on Aberystwyth
Patrick Wedd, organ
Casavant Organ (1914, 1995) of the Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Montreal

 

Casavant Freres has been building pipe organs in its St. Hyacinthe,  Quebec plant since 1879.

 

08:51:23
Felix Mendelssohn: Hear my prayer
Choir of New College, Oxford, Edward Higginbottom
Thomas Herford, treble

 

Organist George Thalben Ball and treble Ernest Lough recorded

this work in 1927 to great acclaim.

 

09:04:10
J.S. Bach: Cantata 34, “O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe”
Bach Choir of Bethlehem; Bach Festival Orchestra, Greg Funfgeld
Daniel Taylor, countertenor; Frederick Urrey, tenor; 
Christopheren Nomura, baritone

 

The German title translates as “O fire everlasting, o fountain of love”.

This cantata was written for the First Day of Pentecost.

 

09:23:04
Alan Hovhaness: Simple Mass, Op. 282
Gloriae Dei Cantores, Elizabeth C. Patterson

Alan Hovhaness (1911–June 21) was an American composer

of Armenian and Scottish descent.

 

09:45:59
Cesar Franck: Chorale No. 3 in A minor
David MacDonald, organ
Casavant organ at the Basilica of Notre Dame du Cap, Cap de La Madeleine, Quebec

 

Cesar Franck wrote three chorales for organ. These are lengthy, rather elaborate

musical compositions as opposed to the chorale prelude form which is much shorter.

 

10:01:47
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Missa Salisburgensis
Musica Antiqua of Cologne; Gabrieli Consort & Players
Reinhard Goebel; Paul McCreesh

 

Biber’s Mass is one of the largest polychoral works extant from the Baroque period.

It was written for the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Cathedral in 1682.