Webber Pie Jesu
  • darth_linux
    Posts: 120
    OK, so I just heard the A.F. Webber setting of Pie Jesu for the first time. I'm not much of a Broadway fan, so don't shoot me for just discovering this arrangement :-)

    I found Webber's melody hauntingly beautiful. With a little work on the rhythm for "miserere nobis" and a dignified setting, I could see this as a viable replacement for the Massive Cremation version of the Agnus Dei heard at my parish's weekly OCP 4 hymn sandwich Mass.

    Am I crazy? Or am I succumbing to the dark side? Surely it couldn't be any worse than what I am currently enduring. For what it's worth, my parish did just do Agnus Dei XVIII for 6 weeks during Lent, so authentic chant is not totally foreign here, but it isn't heard too often.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    Well, we can be shot together because I rather like the piece - and it will be the surviving section of the Requiem. And it is definitely better than many poor "Lambs of God" wandering around out there. Right now, I've been enduring the Isley (sp?) "Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamb of God" and noting its bleating quality.
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    You're crazy.
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    Blacklist plz.
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    Haunting melody.

    Gracious, beautiful melody.

    Everything they do is so wonderful it causes one's heart to ache beautifully.

    Memorable melody in free rhythm without gimmicks.
  • Daniel Bennett PageDaniel Bennett Page
    Posts: 835
    It's a beautiful piece, but it's concert music, just as many settings of the Requiem Mass text are.
    If the published versions all have only the 'dona eis requiem' text, it's technically a copyright violation (I believe) to alter it.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    I agree. Fine music, but probably not 'fitting'. It reminds me of one of my schola member who asked me why we don't sing 'Panis Angelicus.' (Franck). It's beautiful for sure and much better than ' Let us break bread."
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Isele.....I think.
    Anyhoo, no dog in this fight. All the "achingly" beautiful ones require accomplished singers, whether ALW, Faure, Rutter or one that we recently debuted, the Manalo. Besides the chant, I fault towards the Faure. I happened to hear Westminster Abbey's Choir rehearsing the ALW on a visit in summer of '97; it is enchanting. I've also been a backup singer to ALW's ex, Sarah Brightman, who sang PJ here in Fresburg a few years back. And here's the deal with that: when we have occasion (funerals) to do the ALW per request, I can't get that association of the performer to the music out of my consciousness; to me, that's a problem. FWIW.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    I have seen that Isele "Lamb of God," because it's in RitualSong. I have not seen or heard the rest of the mass setting that goes with it. RitualSong is legendary for having mass fragments from unrelated compositions.
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