At the Offertory today, the choir will sing a polyphonic setting of Psalm 40, verses 1 and 3, the text chanted as the Offertory proper: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me: he heard my calling, and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even a thanksgiving unto our God.” The setting we’re singing (in Latin) is by the versatile and prolific Renaissance composer Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594). On this page, you can read an article I wrote about him in 2018 for Touchstone magazine.
At Communion, we’ll sing a setting of the fourteenth-century Eucharistic hymn, Ave verum corpus.
Ave, verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine: vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine: cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit et sanguine: esto nobis praegustatum, in mortis examine. O dulcis, O pie, O Jesu, Fili Mariae. Miserere mei.
Hail the true body, born of the Virgin Mary: You who truly suffered and were sacrificed on the cross for the sake of man. From whose pierced flank flowed water and blood: Be a foretaste for us in the trial of death. O sweet, O merciful, O Jesus, Son of Mary. Have mercy on me.
The setting we’re singing is by Peter Philips (c. 1561–1628). In a 1993 dissertation, David John Smith argued that Philips “has been unjustly neglected in the revival of Tudor music. Although some of his motets were performed at Westminster Cathedral under Richard Terry in the early years of this century, most of his music remained unknown until 1970. . . . Even today his music is rarely performed, though recently there have been a small but growing number of recordings devoted to him.”
Peter Philips is one of a handful of significant English composers who never embraced the Roman Catholic faith after the English Reformation. Instead, he relocated to the Continent, where he enjoyed a successful career as a keyboard player and composer. Smith explains:
Philips”s reputation has suffered in the twentieth century because he was an emigré: unlike composers such as John Dowland and Richard Dering, Philips never returned to England. He has not been considered alongside his English contemporaries because he worked on the continent, and composed no vocal music for the reformed liturgy of the Church of England; equally, his English birth has prevented inclusion with his continental contemporaries. However, Philip’s contemporaries placed him with the greatest composers of the day. He became the highest paid organist at the archducal court at Brussels. . . . Philips’s music was known throughout the continent, as far afield as Lisbon, Stockholm and Poland.
Philips’s setting of Ave verum corpus is one of six of his motets that our choir has sung, and the work that we have sung most often — 20 times since 2011.
Here is a list of hymns the congregation will sing this Sunday:
PROCESSIONAL HYMN:
O God of Bethel, by whose hand (#497)
COMMUNION HYMNS:
Bread of the world (#196)
The King of love my shepherd is (#345, ST. COLUMBA)
O saving Victim (#209, MARTYR DEI)
CLOSING HYMN:
I love thy kingdom, Lord (#388)
Finally, don’t miss my introduction to one of the cantatas that J. S. Bach composed to be sung on the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity: Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, “What God does, that is done well” (BWV 99).