Choral Eucharist

Leaving Sunday 

Today is the last day the choristers will be at Saint Thomas for the season, and the last day that the 8th grade boys will be with us students of our beloved Choir School. The full choir will return in September. Over the summer, choral worship will continue on Sundays, thanks to visiting choirs and the Gentlemen of the Choir.

The propers (including the Collect of the Day and the lessons) during this service are appropriate for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, Proper 5. Yet, the events of Leaving Sunday will in many ways dominate the 11am Choral Eucharist, especially during the sermon by Fr Sean Mullen, during the blessing of the class of 2013 after the postcommunion prayer (to the singing of Ubi caritas), and during the closing hymn, Come, labor on.

We thank the Class of 2013 for their many good years as students, choristers, and acolytes, and we wish them Godspeed as they continue their education: Marcus Eugenio Axel d’Aquino (Fort Hamilton High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.), Matthew Garnet Higgins Iati (Groton School, Groton, Mass.), Samuel Morris Long (Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H.), Ryan Christopher Newsome (St. James School, St. James, Md.), Olajuwon Isaiah DePaul Osinaike (Providence St. Mel Catholic High School, Chicago, Ill.), Noel Arnold Emanuel Patterson, Jr. (St. James School, St. James, Md.) and Richard Mayne Pittsinger (Williams School, New London, Conn.).¬†

‚ñ∫The Rector speaks about the Choir School and our unique choral heritage in his weekly audio message.

Music notes: The music of the Swiss composer, Frank Martin (1890-1974) first came to prominence through the festivals of the International Society for Contemporary Music. His output includes a number of orchestral and chamber works, but only one piece of unaccompanied sacred choral music, the Mass for Double Choir written in 1922. The piece was not premiered until 1963, a fact largely attributed to the composer’s deeply-felt Christian faith. At the time of the work’s first performance in Hamburg, Martin wrote ‚ÄúI did not want it to be performed‚Ķ I considered it as being a matter between God and myself. I felt then that an expression of religious feelings should remain secret and removed from public opinion.‚Äù There is no doubt that the setting is a profound statement of personal faith. The Gloria, usually the most exuberant part of any mass setting, begins and ends very gently, the joy of the text conveyed through complex cross-rhythms and harmonies of ecstatic richness. In the Sanctus we hear the increasing persistence in the upper parts of the cry of the Cherubim and Seraphim, the Benedictus concludes with a vibrant ‘Hosanna’ and in the Agnus Dei, added in 1926, one choir sings a lyrical plainsong-like melody against the gently pulsating chords of the other, until the two unite in one of the most beautiful passages in all unaccompanied choral music, the final petition for peace.

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