Ash Wednesday

Choral Highlights for

12:10 pm Mass, The Choral Motets

The themes of the motets reflect the readings of the day and the season of Lent. We hope that their use in the liturgy inspires the assembly to a more profound entrance into this season of charity, fasting and penance. Ash Wednesday marks the end of the Winter Ordinary Time hiatus for the Schola Cantorum. The Cathedral’s principal choir will sing each Sunday from the first Sunday of Lent through June 23, the Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ.

Distribution of Ashes: Emendemus in Melius – William Byrd (1539-1623)

This motet is from the collection Cantiones Sacrae,1575. The motets in this set were composed by Byrd and Thomas Tallis and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. Emendemus in Melius is unique in Byrd’s catalogue for its ubiquitous homophonic part writing. The first part of the motet is conservative in its harmonic language, with minor flourishes at the ends of phrases interrupting the calmness. Near the end of part one, the lines become more declamatory, as the singers sing Hear O Lord, and have mercy. The second part, whose text implores God to help us and deliver us, permits more dissonance than in the first, including an extremely modern moment on the word nominis (name) where the partial harmonies of A minor and B flat major occur at once. The text is taken from the Matin’s Responsory for Lent I, and also appears as an option for the Distribution of Ashes in the Missal.

To hear a version, click below:

Preparation of the Gifts, "Within the Vale of Eden" – James E. Clemens (b. 1966)

The musical material for this motet comes from the French Christmas carol: Nous voici dans la Ville,which sets the story of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter on the first Christmas in a somber and sparse texture. Clemens utilizes the bleak quality inherent in the melody to adapt it with Anthony G. Petti’s translation of the old Provençal carol Adam e sa coumpagno,which describes the fall of the first parents in the garden of Eden, and of Christ coming to redeem humanity.

Communion Motet, "Parce, Domine" – Felix Nowowiejski (1877-1946)

Felix Nowowiejski studied music in Berlin and Prague before returning to his native Poland to direct the Krakow Musical Society. This motet, taken from his oratorio Kreuzauffindung (The Finding of the Cross) is a romantic setting of the tradition Lenten antiphon:

Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo: ne in aeternum irascaris nobis.
Spare, O Lord, spare your people: do not hold your anger towards us eternally.

This text, adapted from the book of Joel, is set in a harmonically rich and profound musical setting.

To hear a version, click below: