Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral

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About the Music: For the 5th Sunday in Ordinary time, the Schola sings a wonderful hymn "Bless Thou the Lord" from Ippolitov-Ivanov's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. This liturgy, from the Byzantine Rite, was the one celebrated in the Hagia Sophia and refined by St. John in the 4th-5th centuries. Ippolitov-Ivanov studied music at home, sang as a choirboy at the cathedral of St. Isaac (pictured), and later entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1875. In 1882 he completed ...his composition studies with Rimsky-Korsakov, and later became director of the Moscow Conservatory. At Communion, we have a rarely heard motet "O Sacrum Convivium" by Deodat de Severac. From Toulouse, he moved to Paris to study under Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum (a rival to the Paris Conservatoire). He took organ lessons from Guilmant and assisted Isaac Albeniz. A composer of songs, opera, and symphonic music, and a well-known contemporary of Faure and Ravel, he left Paris, and developed his own idioms influenced by regional folk music. The Christmas season used to end on Candlemas on Feb. 2; a vestige of the old calendar remains, in that we transition from the Marian antiphon Alma Redemptoris Mater to Ave Regina Caelorum after Candlemas (Presentation of the Lord). Organ music includes a prelude by Sigfrid Karg-Elert, the Quasi Larghetto section from his Opus 85, No. 3 based on the Credo. Karg-Elert features prominently in our recent Feb. 5 premiere Harmonium and Organ concert featuring Artis Wodehouse; it is still available at link http://bit.ly/organharmonium21 until Feb. 15. The postlude is from a grand work of Romanticism: Rheinberger's suitably-named Fantasie-Sonata in Ab, Opus 65, No. 2 composed 150 years ago in 1871. Friends of the Erben Organ

About the music: This Sunday, we sing Alessandro Scarlatti's joyous Exultate Deo, an early baroque motet, accompanied by the Erben. Though Alessandro Scarlatti is best known as the most important composer of the Neapolitan opera school, and as the father of Domenico, for the latter's prodigious output of keyboard sonatas, both composed remarkable choral music. Alessandro's sacred music synthesizes the stile antico ('old style' of Palestrina) with the modern, dramatic concer...tante style. The text of Alessandro Scarlatti Exultate Deo is taken from Psalm 81: Sing merrily unto God our strength; make a cheerful noise unto the God of Jacob. The piece comes from a 1708 compilation of several motets made when he was maestro di capella of the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, and composed several motets for the feast, of which this is one. With ascending fourth leaps, dotted rhythms, and melismatic phrases, the music is fittingly joyous. At Communion, we will hear a gorgeous setting of "Jesu, dulcis memoria" written by Bairstow. Translated by Caswell, the Oxford-educated Anglican convert, "Jesu, the very thought of thee" is one of three unaccompanied anthems Bairstow wrote in 1925. Bairstow employs expressive modality, pauses at the word ‘thought’, and creates a lush harmonic climax at ‘thy face to see’; then , the piece gradually returns towards repose ("and in thy presence rest"). On the Erben we hear a Chaconne of J. K. F. Fischer, a composer whose work was known to and borrowed by Bach and Handel. Not many manuscripts survive, but he is known to have been of Bohemian origin, and was instrumental in bringing new French styles to Germany. The Baroque organs of southern Germany were more humble than their large north German counterparts; so, I decided to make this piece a study in the shades of color between the 8' Stopped Diapason and 4' Flute ranks of each manual on the Erben, sounds which Handel himself would easily recognize! Hopefully, their grace and clarity will do the music justice. I decided to go way back for the postlude and play some Magister Pérotin, a composer from around the late 12th century, associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris. These organa were built around the first few notes of a chant (the incipit), played in the long pedal notes on the organ, with rhythmically free upper parts. Much of this music remains a mystery and is utterly fascinating--it sounds very modern, and led to the later development of polyphony. Pictured: Alleluia nativitas, 13th century, from Codex Guelf. 1099 Friends of the Erben Organ

About the music for Sunday: Our music this week includes a setting of Psalm 25 by John Ireland, sung at Offertory, known otherwise as "Love Unknown". Ireland studied composition at the Royal College with Stanford, and while he taught there, counted among his students Benjamin Britten. One may remember Psalm 25 (Ad te levavi) from Advent I, a prayer of mercy and confidence by David the penitent king. The Communion motet is a well-known setting of the Ave Verum by Sir Edward E...lgar. His Continental musical influences, and the fact that he was self-taught and of humble origin, put him outside English music circles; he was Roman Catholic as well. He remains one of the greatest English composers and his lush music can lift us into the clouds. We will continue learning Gloria IV too, a new Latin Gloria for the congregation. For organ music, we have a work by the great Charles Tournemire, one of César Franck's youngest students, who is now known chiefly for his organ work from which the prelude comes: "L'Orgue Mystique". It is an imaginative and beautiful cycle of music based on the Gregorian chants of the Church year. Tournemire was a tremendous improvisor, and Organist at St. Clothilde (Franck was organist there too). He also wrote 8 symphonies and operas. The postlude this week is the Allegro from Handel's Concerto No. 2 in Bb. One use of the concertos were as part of the entertainment for the pleasure gardens of Georgian England; Vauxhall Gardens’ organ hall is pictured in the attached engraving from British Museum (asset 806539001) @erbenorgan See more

Enshrined in the Old Cathedral is this image of Our Lady of Altagracia, venerated as the Patroness of the Dominican Republic and by our Dominican Community. She is celebrated under this title on January 21 or Altagracia Day. According to tradition, there was a 16th-century merchant who always brought his daughter back a gift from his travels. One day, the merchant’s daughter asked him to bring her a specific image of the Blessed Mother from her dreams. After failing to find... such an image, the merchant shared his troubles at an inn where he stayed on his way home to Higüey in modern-day Dominican Republic. An elderly, long-bearded man overheard the story, unfurled the 13-by-18-inch image of Our Lady of Altagracia, or Our Lady of High Grace, and gave it to the merchant. After the merchant had brought the image to his daughter, it vanished overnight and reappeared in an orange tree grove. They brought it back to their home, but according to legend, this continued to happen until a church was built for the image in the orange grove. See more

About the music for Sunday: "Though we are back in Ordinary Time, there are still echos of Christmas, as we continue to sing Alma Redemptoris Mater; in many places, nativity scenes are left up until Candlemas on February 2. Please note that we will be singing a new Gloria this week, Gloria IV, dating from the 10th century; it is one of the most widespread in manuscripts, and was used as source material in countless compositions (often called Cunctipotens genitor Deus, see im...age from manuscript B-Lbl Egerton 274). Choral music is all ATB/3-part, with a Kyrie and an Agnus Dei by baroque Italian composer Antonio Lotti. Lotti spent most of his career at St. Mark's in Venice, and Bach and Handel held some of his music as well. This work is known as the Studentenmesse in the Viennese library of Archduke Rudolf von Habsburg-Lothringen (1788-1831), who was the great-grandson of Lotti's patron in Dresden where Lotti went for two years to compose operas. It may have been performed at the Ospedale degli Incurabili (see last week's Vivaldi), or a similar Venetian institution. At Offertory, we'll sing a short motet by William Byrd, the greatest composer of the English Renaissance, who wrote music for the Catholic underground community in England during the Tudor era. This lovely piece sets a verse (the doxology found in Marian hymns) of a 6th century hymn Quem terra pontus, now used in the Liturgy of the Hours. It is wonderfully put together, with the alto entry picking up in augmentation, and then continuing with gentle undulations of mode and rhythm throughout. At Communion, we have a rare three-part work by the great Cristobal Morales; this work was very popular as a motet, with symmetrical and climactic fugues; the text is an excerpt of the Gloria text, related to the Gospel. On the Erben, we have a Ricercare by Giovanni Paolo Cima, an Italian composer and organist of the early Baroque era. A contemporary of Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi, Cima came from a family of musicians and was a leading musical figure in Milan. A Ricercare is a type of instrumental composition meaning "to search out," serving to establish the key or mode of a piece, as well as explore aspects of music theory. The exploratory fugue by Schumann is the first in a set he wrote on the letters B-A-C-H, opus 60. It was part of his and Clara's intense study of counterpoint that began in 1845 in Dresden. He was proud of the work, and though derive from Bach, establish a new way forward in the romantic idiom. Schumann used the rare pedal piano as a means of practicing organ, and these fugues were played on both." Friends of the Erben Organ See more

About the music for Sunday: This Sunday celebrates the Baptism of the Lord, the last day of the Christmas season. In addition to the particularly extravagant and hopeful Gradual chant, we will also hear the Offertory motet, "Benedictus," composed by Antonio Caldara. He was quite influential: Bach had copies of his music, and Telemann took him as his model. Georg Reutter, Caldara's pupil, taught Haydn, so Haydn was very familiar with Caldara's oeuvre. Caldara's canons were fo...und in the collections of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. So perhaps we should know more about him! At Communion at the 10:30 AM Mass, we'll sing the Laudamus Te from Vivaldi's Gloria, a marvelous setting that takes the forms of opera and puts them to use for the Mass text. Vivaldi worked at the orphanage of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà, so listeners his orchestra and choir would have only heard this music emanating from young women and girls, described by contemporaries as angelic. At the 7PM, we explore another composer, Josef Ignaz Schnabel, a German composer born in Naumburg (now Poland), who started out as a boy chorister in Warsaw. By 1812 was Director of Music at the university, teaching at the Catholic seminary, and director of the Royal Institute of Sacred Music. This piece is based on the Vespers hymn for Christmas, Jesu, Redemptor omnium. That ancient chant is the source material for the organ prelude, a set of versetti by Giovanni Fasolo, a Franciscan friar, organist, and composer from the 17th century. In 1659, Fasolo became maestro di cappella to the Archbishop of Monreale in Palermo, Sicily. The postlude is one that features a stop found mostly on Iberian organs, the "trompeta real," for which I will use the Cornopeon stop on the swell to replicate. It is a commanding, bold stop unique to the Spanish and Portuguese realms. Jose Lidon's Italianate, 18th-century self is at the same time suffused with Spanish drama and color; the title itself would have been an anachronism at the dawn of Romanticism! He worked at the Capilla Real, Madrid, Spain (pictured, organ photo Gerhard Grenzing) @erbenorgan