Although these a cappella settings were originally composed about 40 years ago, I find myself returning to them with some inner peace, as I was then still several years away from becoming a Catholic.

The Pange lingua gloriosi, using the (alternate) mode I melody for the Corpus Christi procession (not the familiar mode III) found at p. 950 of the LU 1961, was composed sometime in 1976, I think, and was first sung in 1977 in Princeton, NJ, when I was on leave at the Institute for Advanced Study. The Tantum ergo sacramentum, with the traditional mode III melody, was composed in 1977 and first sung in 1977 in Charlottesville, VA, not long after my wife was diagnosed with an ultimately terminal brain stem tumor.

Both works are intensely personal and employ nontraditional harmonies in their composition. They were the first of my mature compositions, written at a time of great transition in my life. And, even though I don't really compose now in the idiom of these works, I am still inspired by them. These editions are ever so slightly tweaked from the originals, in an ongoing effort to tidy up some of my older works.

The sound files hardly do them justice, but I hope they might give some insight into the sacred nature of these texts and chants.