All Saints' Sunday

This Sunday, November 7, the combined adult choirs will present anthems for Saint Philip’s All Saints’ Sunday services, in conjunction with the First Sunday Music cycle.

Featured will be two movements from the Messe Sollenelle by Louis Vierne (1870-1937): the dramatic Kyrie and the Agnus Dei. Vierne was the titular organist at the Notre-Dame de Paris, a post which he held for 37 years. Also, due to congenital cataracts, Vierne was blind from birth, and one of several famous blind organists in the Parisian scene.

Vierne’s ‘Solemn Mass’ (the term denotes a more detailed setting of the entire Latin text of the Mass Ordinaries) was first sung at Sainte-Sulpice in 1901 on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. Interestingly, this setting was originally scored for two organs, though it was later scored for a single instrument. The ‘awesome solemnity’ of the Kyrie is especially memorable.

For the Offertory, the choirs will sing a rousing English anthem, O how glorious is the kingdom by Basil Harwood (1859-1949). Harwood served as organist at Ely Cathedral for five years before moving to Oxford to be the precentor of Keble College, the conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir, and organist at Christ Church Cathedral in 1892. O how glorious is the kingdom was originally scored for orchestra, but the organ version is quite dramatic and well-crafted, showing a debt to Baroque techniques and to current Edwardian harmony.

The Communion is a favorite motet by the Latvian Composer Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977), his O salutaris hostia. This gorgeous motet weaves lush, smooth chords together with two intertwining soprano solos for an impressively moving statement of this familiar text.

—Dr Justin Appel, Director of Music