Viri Galilaei
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Oh how I wish we had time to work up the Palestrina here.. Anyone doing it?
  • paul
    Posts: 60
    Jeffrey, what a stunning motet. Will we have to wait three years before it comes up again?
  • john m
    Posts: 136
    You don't have to wait three years to use it as "another suitable song". One advantage of alius cantus aptus...
  • richardUKrichardUK
    Posts: 85
    There is also a very good setting of this text by William Byrd, voicing ATTBB, published by Oxford, Joed Music and maybe some others.

    For anyone with a virtuoso choir and organist, the setting by Patrick Gowers, composed about 1995, is an absolute stunner. Well known in the UK but maybe not in the USA. Worth getting to know! I think it just might be on a Hyperion recording of English Anthems by St Paul's Cathedral choir, I'm not sure which volume though.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    john m ... i like your thinking! perhaps we can use the latin ordinaries and propers as an alius cantus aptus!
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    John M & Francis,
    Yes, 'alius cantus aptus' can be used to the advantage of sacred music!

    Last fall, I suggested the traditional Nuptial Mass propers for a wedding Mass using the Paul VI Missal. The groom requested chants based on the modern Roman Missal, but the problem was most of the texts given in that Missal are not part of the chant repertoire. The chants in the modern Graduale didn't match the Missal either, and we ended up with the traditional propers.
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    Bump...so that everyone goes and listens to the Gowers setting of the Ascension introit! Don't miss it!
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    It can be heard from this page.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    I used this AND the Missa Viri Galilaei for my music history class this year. Great music.
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    Great! I have a recording of this work on a "Three Cathedral Choirs" CD on the Griffin label. I recommend it for this performance, as well as a pretty stunning Durufle Requiem, in a generous acoustic. David Briggs is organist, so his work is also fantastic.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    Phillippe Herreweghe's group has a nice recording of the motet and the imitation Mass. Downloadable from Itunes.
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