The Offertory Proper for this Sunday is a verse from Psalm 138: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, yet shalt thou refresh me, O Lord: thou shalt stretch forth thy hand upon the furiousness of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.”
As our Offertory Anthem this week, the choir will sing the entire Psalm in an Anglican chant setting by James Turle (1802–1882). In addition to composing a number of chant settings, Turle was organist at Westminster Abbey in London from 1831 until his death (a 51-year tenure!).
Here is a recording of the setting our choir sings. The singers of the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral (London) are conducted by John Scott, with Andrew Lucas at the organ.
You can listen to four additional Anglican chant settings of this Psalm on this page, which also includes a recording of Sarah James singing the plainchant setting of the Psalm from the St. Dunstan’s Psalter. I’ve inserted one of the settings from that page below. It’s a recording of an Evening Prayer service at Westminster Abbey in September 2010. This was a very special Evensong, as the honored guest was Pope Benedixt XVI, who was making a four-day state visit to Great Britain. This Evensong was the first time a reigning pope ever visited the Abbey. You can watch a recording of that entire service here. During the service, the Westminster Abbey Choir, conducted by James O’Donnell, sang this setting of Psalm 138 by Henry Ley.
During Communion, the choir will sing one of eight settings of the Eucharistic hymn, Tantum ergo, composed by Anton Bruckner (1824–1896). Here is a recording of the setting in D major that we’ll sing this week. It is sung by the Viennese Arnold Schoenberg Choir.
Back in 2017, I wrote an article about Bruckner’s sacred choral music, especially his shorter pieces for liturgical use (as opposed to the larger concert-hall compositions). You can read that article, “A Mysterious Sense of Rightness,” here.
Music critic Ted Libbey has written:
Bruckner was a devout Catholic whose innermost thoughts and feelings centered on his religious beliefs — faith in God and in the mysteries of the Church permeated his life and his work as a musician. He was also one of music’s greatest late bloomers: All of his mature works date from after his 40th year. On the outside, he appeared to be a humble musician from the provinces whose awkwardness and self-doubt led many to dismiss him as a country bumpkin. On the inside, he was a powerful, visionary musical thinker whose symphonies were among the supreme accomplishments of the late 19th century.
One of the mature sacred choral works from Bruckner’s pen was his Mass # 3 in F minor. completed in 1868 but revised repeatedly until 1893. Bruckner composed seven Mass settings, but, as critic Wadham Sutton has observed, “the F minor is his biggest and greatest Mass, classical in form but injected with a new vitality and a profound religious mysticism, setting the familiar text with total commitment.”
There are numerous recordings of this Mass available. Below is a performance of the Kyrie from a 2008 performance by Philippe Herreweghe conducting the RIAS Kammerchor and the Orchestre des Champs-Ëlysëes. Click here to open the playlist for the entire Mass.