what lays ahead

Jackson,

Surely, it lies ahead.

indeed, Bach takes the whole cake in my mind, but this one in particular is right close to the pearlies... performance a bit rushed here and there at times, but still a wonderful excitement and drive toward the resolution of continued harmonic question and answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXAXtePMQEc

then there is this... and this performance is absolutely stunning. I often play this as a postlude, manuals alone on the 8' principal or flute. It presses people into an austere mystical place and simply invites silence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbM3VTIvOBk

MJO

Can you point us to some online performances which you highlight?

Can you point us...

Francis -
I'm not skilled at providing these blue links and other impressive internet stuff which the rest of you are so talented at doing. I seem to have stopped buying and listening to CDs (of which I have hundreds) and simply look up any and everything I wish to hear on Youtube. The works I mention up above here can be found on Youtube.

You are right about chant. It is in a class by itself. It is uniquely sacred, uniquely spiritual. And, it has such a long history. It has come a very great distance in time from that of the pre-Carolingian cantors, who likely would have snickered loudly at what is called by some 'the Solesmes method' - not to mention some of that method's predecessor 'methods'. That's really not meant to be a dig. Since roughly after the XIth and XIIth centuries right up to right now chant has lost almost all aesthetical relationship with early chant - that of the highly trained cantors even of pre-Gregorian times up to the time of the Frankish notations. We are just beginning to get an idea of the vast alteration of chant mentality since the post Carolingian eras - and that through the study of those 'squiggles' (that aren't 'squiggles' at all!) that were made by Frankish monk-scholars.

One of the noblest utterances of the IInd Vatican council was that regarding the aptness of chant to the Roman rite. And amongst the ignoblest of behaviours following the council was the contemptuous disregard of those admonitions. It is, indeed, an act of fundamental, objective, ignobility to scorn our heritage of liturgical chant.

Francis -

'...THIS!'

is Scintillating.
The French tongue is amongst the world's most spiritually beautiful -
even if it's naught but a grocery list.

My musical heaven-on-earth is the Corelli Sonata Da Chiesa (Church Sonata) Opus 5 No. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLqosexD-pU
In class we heard Corelli did these flourishy things with his violin... very improvised. So to me it has the energy of being transformed from a very brief melodic outline to something that can tell the story of human emotions, that particularly belongs in church.
What about Bach? Magnificat. Here's the soothing and meditative scrolling score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Oeq12zjZk

The Durufle Requiem comes to mind for polyphony. For chant, there will always be a special place for Mitte Manum Tuam, since it was the first Proper I ever sang with a schola. I would also list Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, Terra Tremuit, and Puer natus est nobis (this one was the first Proper I had ever heard in my life, and Christmas is my favorite liturgical season).

Being able to perform or even practice these kinds of works can bring you in close to the inspiration that guided the composers.

Excruciating offerings, Aristotle -
During the Ortiz I could not help but think, 'did the baroque really just have to happen?'.
Clearly an aesthetic had reached, perhaps, its greatest possible heights,
an eventuality that seems ineluctably to happen throughout our cultural history.

Many thanks for your 'heaven on earth' offerings.

Heaven on earth? Psalm 150 from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.

To an untenable question a measured and somewhat literal answer:
"Sanctus" of Faure "Requiem."

NEW CATEGORY:
Earth on Earth (human) Exquisite Beauty

Adagio for String Quartet, Barber.

Runners up- Unanswered Question (Ives); Aire (JSBach); "Et in terra pax" Gloria (Vivaldi); Ave Maris Stella (Kverno); Death and Transfiguration (R.Strauss.)

I attended a wedding as a child where they sang the Franck Psalm 150. Huge choir and well over 100 ranks of organ. My eyes were wide the whole time. That is still one of my all time favorite pieces. Wish I had the huge organ and choir to do it.

Immense thanks, Chaswjd, for the offering of McCreesh's Sarum mass. If I were only allowed one CD that might be the one. But, the varied and bejeweled riches of our musical patrimony are such that any such choosing would be absolute torture - similar, I should think, to choosing betwixt one's children.

The gorgeous thing about this Sarum re-enactment is the studied and on-going contrasts betwixt plainchant and polyphony, and even when the boys do and don't add their treble voices to the chant. I think that our late mediaeval forebears must have exploited this dramatic element quite purposefully, for it seems to happen at points of ritual progress from one emotional state to the next.

And, in the example you give, there is that tower bell ringing - yet another poignant and prayerful liturgical expression announcing to all the world that Christ is now present on this altar. I nearly weep every time I hear it. Why do we not do this still, today? I'll eschew comment on that because I'm trying not to waste any more words and thought on what is not admirable than would have a possible constructive reception. (Come to think of it, I think that I shall mention this to Bishop Lopes and Fr Hough - perhaps we'll start ringing the tower bell at the elevation at Walsingham.)

And, in the example you give, there is that tower bell ringing - yet another poignant and prayerful liturgical expression announcing to all the world that Christ is now present on this altar. I nearly weep every time I hear it. Why do we not do this still, today?

The Episcopal church that I serve does it every time we celebrate Mass—the custom is not dead! (Although I'm always ready with the tower chimes in case a new usher misses his cue!)

Mr. Osborn—

Christ Episcopal Church in Guilford, CT—a lovely shoreline Connecticut community a couple of towns east of New Haven.

Howells Requiem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hBco-7y6M

Mr. Osborn

Thank you. I am blessed, as are we all!

Yes, 'Alleluias' are appropriately buried. The parish is Anglo-Catholic in it's soul (and in the person of our Rector) but we do have a 'Low-Church' contingent, in the Anglican sense of favoring the Protestant elements of Anglicanism, i. e. Morning Prayer on Sundays rather than Holy Eucharist, and we do provide services for those folks, but all of our services are 'high church' with regard to music and liturgical style—and our folks love to chant the Psalms!