Good meditative pieces
  • JPike1028
    Posts: 95
    My music director is looking for an Easter season meditation piece. Her original plan was Thompson's Alleluia, but that has met some resistance. What other options do you suggest? We have about a 20 voice choir.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    JPike,

    What skill level do your 20 voices possess?

    By the way: what (various words deleted ) is an "easter season meditation piece"?
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    That would be a musical selection (in English an individual musical work is often called a "piece" of music) meant to serve as a "meditation" (see definition 2), used during the "Easter" (not "easter") "season," which, also called "Eastertide," is the part of the liturgical year lasting from Easter to Pentecost.

    Hope this helps.
    Thanked by 4Spriggo Adam Wood Ben Andrew Motyka
  • JPike1028
    Posts: 95
    We have done the Gounod and Mozart "Ave Verum" settings, as well as Faure's "Cantique de Jean Racine." Those are probably among the more difficult settings we have been able to do. We have also done Martin Shaw's "With a voice of singing" and Jane Marshall's "My Eternal King," in addition to some more modern stuff by Stephen Shewan.

    Mark summed up what I meant pretty well.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Rather than the Thompson, try looking at Michael Haydn's ALLELUIA. John Leavitt's iN THE CROSS OF CHRIST I AM is a real sleeper. Kyrikos' ALLELUIA is fun.
  • Fr. Jim Chepponis
    Posts: 220
    A very effective piece of this nature is Eugene Englert's "He Is Risen, Alleluia," for two equal or mixed voices. Starts off gently (with optional narration), has some crescendi, but is overall more "meditative" than the typical brass + timpani + organ + big choir Easter anthems (although they have their place, too!)

    http://www.giamusic.com/search_details.cfm?title_id=176
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Taize round, Jubilate Deo

    Surrexit Christus, simple but I can't recall the composer. cpdl?

    Now the green blade rises, several arrangements out there, some public domain

    Regina caeli, chant or look around at settings from cpdl
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    Take a look at Phillip Stopford's "O God the King of Glory" not particularly difficult but most glorious in its sound.
  • Unda_Maris
    Posts: 53
    Another consideration would be "This Joyful Eastertide" -- William Harris. Effective, and not overly difficult.
  • Unda_Maris
    Posts: 53
    Also the chant setting of "O Fili et Filiae" in Latin, or English (Ye Sons and Daughters of the Lord).
  • R J StoveR J Stove
    Posts: 302
    Nobody has mentioned a 19th-century piece I'm rather fond of: Sir John Goss's O Savior of the World. It's one of those works which on paper look almost humdrum, but turn out to be most effective in performance, without creating undue difficulties for singers or organist. Enjoy:

    http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/goss-sav.pdf
    Thanked by 4CharlesW CHGiffen JulieColl Andrew_Malton
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    Boyce's Alleluia
    Thanked by 1Caleferink
  • redsox1
    Posts: 217
    To add to MaryAnn's excellent suggestions:
    Aichinger- Regina Coeli (cpdl)
    Lindley-Now the Green Blade Rises (Oxford)

    I second the Boyce.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    I'll be a third for Boyce. Our choristers love it.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Also the chant setting of "O Fili et Filiae" in Latin, or English (Ye Sons and Daughters of the Lord).


    If you think this is meditative, you don't sing it the same way I do...
    Thanked by 1Andrew Motyka
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    The John Goss piece reminds me of Sir John Stainer's God so loved the world from The Crucifixion. This might work at Easter. (I've also heard it at Christmas.)

    God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
    For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
    Amen.

    http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/stai-001.pdf

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkJGglj9opY
    Thanked by 1R J Stove
  • JPike1028
    Posts: 95
    Thanks for all the suggestions. We have done the Stainer before and our choir loves it. We ended up choosing a different piece this year, Chesnokov's "Salvation is Created," done in English. We are going to look through all of the suggested pieces here for later celebrations, though.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Adam,

    I evidently failed to make the point as effectively as you did.

    God bless,

    Chris
  • CGM
    Posts: 700
    The L'heritier "Surrexit pastor bonus" is about the most stunning Easter meditation that I know of. SSATBB, in Latin.

    http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Surrexit_pastor_bonus_(Jehan_L'Heritier)

    This performance is a little on the fast side, but it'll still give a good sense of the composition:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfDI8M2ey8
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen expeditus1
  • R J StoveR J Stove
    Posts: 302
    Thanks, JulieColl. Years have elapsed since I read Jeremy Dibble's book on Stainer, but Stainer was Goss's student for a while, if memory serves me, so that there could have been direct - as well as indirect - influence of the older man's compositions upon the younger man's.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    RJ, that was a lucky guess on my part! I'm not very familiar with Stainer except for one organ piece of his in an anthology and God so loved the world. For a turn-of-the-century composer he nonetheless seems to have a classical sound and avoids the overt sentimentality of that era, from what I can tell (which is what I like about his music---what little I know of it anyway.)

    By the way, going back to our discussion a couple weeks ago about French baroque miniatures for the organ, I heard some lovely organ preludes by Claudio Merulo de Correggio this morning on my Schola Bellarmina chant CD. Are you familiar with these:

    http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/7/73/IMSLP172823-WIMA.f46d-Toccate_1.pdf

    I esp. liked Toccata settima and Toccata terza.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    P.S. RJ, I just looked up Sir John Stainer on Wikipedia. I didn't know he composed the Coventry Carol and the First Nowell.

    And How Beautiful Upon the Mountains is delightful! Maybe that might be a good meditative piece for Easter, too.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5wCy3v3Xyg&feature=kp
  • R J StoveR J Stove
    Posts: 302
    No, JulieColl, I hadn't encountered those Merulo pieces. Thanks for the tip-off.

    Stainer wrote some fine organ works which should be much better known than they are, although he also wrote some other organ works which seem like caricatures of "Victorian" sentimentalism.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Sorry, JulieColl, but John Stainer did not compose either The First Nowell or Coventry Carol, but he did publish arrangements of them. He arranged several more carols, too, and composed many hymn tunes and settings.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Thanks so much for the correction, Charles. That makes much more sense. This is from Wikipedia:

    [Sir John Stainer] also made a lasting contribution to the music of Christmas in his Christmas Carols New and Old (1871), produced in collaboration with the Revd. H. R. Bramley, which marked an important stage in the revival of the Christmas carol. The book includes Stainer's arrangements of what were to become the standard versions of "What Child Is This", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", "Good King Wenceslas", "The First Nowell", and "I Saw Three Ships", among others.[33]
    Thanked by 1R J Stove
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