There's just one more Sunday before the "Eucharist" section--the four Sundays in Cycle B when the Gospel is taken from the Bread of Life discourse in John.
My choir has been learning small, simple polyphonic pieces lately, e.g. If Ye Love Me and some smaller pieces of Victoria's. They are building confidence and I'd like to ask them to learn a couple of SATB pieces on the Eucharist that are not too hard, but beautiful. Suggestions?
Remondi "O Sacrum Convivum," Issak "O Esca Viatorum", & Lambilotte "Panis Angelicus."
And there's a very simple "Ecce Panis Angelorum" anonymous 17th (IIRC,) c. in a number of books the titles of which escape me at the moment (although one of them is a Carlo Rossini collection.)
Of course there's the "Ave Verum Corpus" of Josquin des Pres (SAT). I have sung it in "E-flat" - down a full tone. The first part makes a lovely motet by itself though it's worth learning the whole thing.
Verily, Verily is a great piece, but actually rather difficult for amateur choirs because of the complex tuning (to 21st-century ears) of the accidentals/ficta.
A very easy SATB piece I sang in an EF choir once was "Ave Verum Corpus" by Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674). It's more of a hymn because all the words are in unison, but it's something that can be learned very fast, and it's pretty, too.
Kathy, too late I know, sorry, but here's a short, moving Ave Verum by Fransisco de Penalosa (1470 - 1528).
I've altered the barring for performance purposes. Also it's only just over a minute at the measure I take it, so I like to lengthen it a bit by repeating from "O Clemens" ( a la Byrd) making the repeat more tender.
pdf attached below
For scorch, midi & mp3 versions see my website, top line. www.fidelitybooks.com.au/Hugh/
There are actually three texts set to the Farrant...only discovered that last week. Has something to do with the Anglicans doing their own little inquisition at the time. Was not uncommon for composers to do this, if only to save their lives.
Thanks, Kathy.
Mia, I've had a listen to the youtube Farrant version of O Sacrum, and FWIW here's a draft version I've done of it, adapted from the online versions of the English. Not sure of the tenor in some parts (round recolitur memoria) but it sounds OK. Corrections welcome.
Oh, thank you sooo much, Hugh. I really appreciated it. I just printed it out and singing along each part. It's beautiful. (I know my schola will love this.)
It's still a mystery to me that his English score is available but not the latin one.
I thought it had been proved that Richard Farrant is not actually the composer of 'Lord,for Thy tender mercy's sake'. Or am I wrong about that? If you have an old copy of the Oxford Easy Anthem book, there are several nice easy motets in there.
Farrant wrote 'Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake'. The work 'O sacrum convivium' is an arrangement of this work--a nice one, I should add. Farrant wrote no works with Latin texts.
Lord, fttms is often attributed to Farrant, but there is no record of it among Farrant's few works to survive,and it is now believed to have been written by John Hilton
John Hilton? Is this like the ongoing organist debate on the Purcell/Clarke voluntary? I will have to research Hilton. Did he write anything else familiar?
CharlesW LOLOL. And apparently there were two J Hiltons, father and son. The one to which 'LFTTMS' is believed to belong was more well-known for writing catches, one of which was entitled "Catch as catch can" His dates are 1599-1657. And also there was another composer in the 18th c whose surname was Farrants. So who knows? The musicologists are agreed that Richard F did not write the anthem under discussion. In fact, I think I remember seeing this info at the bottom of some edition of the anthem. It's a shame I can't remember where I left my car keys as well as I remember perfectly useless facts such as these.
And who cares who wrote it anyway? It's the first piece of music I ever taught my very first choir! What fond memories! St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Blytheville, Arkansas. What, you say? You never heard of Blytheville, Arkansas?
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