This is a recording of a live concert by the Choir of St. Luke in the Fields of The Great Service by William Byrd. It also celebrates the 400th anniversary of the death of the composer.
Music Director: David Shuler
Organist for the concert: Gwendolyn Toth

Date of concert: 26 October 2023
For the complete program of the concert as a PDF file see:
saintlukesnyc.org/octprogram

Album release date:
31 October 2023

10 - Anthem - Sing Joyfully

04 - Te Deum

Vandelux - Piper No (White Lotus Remix)

Choral religious music by George Frideric Handel (1685-1750) and Concerto Grosso by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) recorded live in concert on April 3, 2025, at, and by the choir of, the Church of Saint Luke in the Fields (NYC). David Shuler, Music Director

The complete program with extensive notes on the music and the composer is available at: https://account-media.s3.amazonaws.com/25850/uploaded/a/0e19439514_1743609507_apr-3-2025-program-complete.pdf

20 Dixit Dominus, HWV 232 - De torrente in via bibet (Chorus)

18 Dixit Dominus, HWV 232 - Dominus a dextris tuis (Chorus)

Phillip's Album

Spem in alium, P. 299 (1570)

Quire of Cheahs presents John Taverner's magnificent first setting of "Dum transisset Sabbatum". The text is the Respond to the third lesson at Matins on Easter Sunday which depicts the story as told in Mark's Gospel of the two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome, going early in the morning to Jesus’ tomb. We all know what happens next: they find the tomb empty with an angel next it who informs them that Jesus is resurrected, etc. "Dum transisset Sabbatum" captures that poignant moment of sorrow just before that wondrous revelation. Taverner sets the text using the cantus firmus technique of a plainchant melody inserted into the middle of a dense choral texture with a soaring treble line typical of the florid late-medieval English style.

––
Dum transisset Sabbatum,
Maria Magdalene et Maria Jacobi 
et Salome emerunt aromata, 
ut venientes ungerent Jesum. Alleluia.
Et valde mane una Sabbatorum 
veniunt ad monumentum orto iam sole.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.

When the Sabbath was past,
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James,
and Salome, bought sweet spices, 
that they might anoint Jesus. Alleluia.
And very early in the morning, the first day of the week,
they came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

Dum transisset Sabbatum (I)

Quire of Cheahs presents Messiaen’s haunting and deeply spiritual motet, “O sacrum convivium!”. Though much of his music is overtly Christian in content, this is his only liturgical motet which makes its impact all the more profound. Written when Messiaen was only 29, this early work revels in a static chromaticism which lends it a fervently devotional quality. The text is taken from the Antiphon for Second Vespers at Corpus Christi and marks the first instance of the composer setting a text in Latin rather than in French.

—
O sacrum convivium,
in quo Christus sumitur
recolitur memoria passionis eius.
Mens impletur gratia
et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.
Alleluia.

O sacred feast,
at which Christ is received
the memory of his passion is renewed.
Our souls are filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory is given to us.
Alleluia.

O sacrum convivium!

Quire of Cheahs presents the Kyrie movement from what is argueably Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's most famous mass setting, the Missa Papæ Marcelli (or Pope Marcellus Mass). Composed in the late 1550s or early 1560s in memory of Pope Marcellus II (who only reigned for three weeks as he suffered a stroke on the 22nd day of his Papacy and died that evening), the Mass is considered the most well-known, most often performed, and frequently anthologized of Palestrina’s Mass settings*. Yet despite its celebrity, scholars consider the Marcellus Mass as atypical within the composer's prodigious output. It is only one of six "free" masses that he had not based on motets, madrigals, chants, secular melodies, or his own prior compositions, and of those it is the most homophonic, as if it had been especially designed for intelligibility of the text.

Written for six-part SATTBB chorus, Palestrina casts the Kyrie (and the Sanctus and Agnus Dei) in an earlier florid style while the central Gloria and Credo are written far more directly. As a practical matter, this is eminently sensible: the portions with shorter text can afford the time to luxuriate in more polyphony whereas the wordier sections need to present their entire content and tend to be more homophonic to ease comprehension. There is much to admire in the Kyrie (and, indeed, the entire Mass): Palestrina’s continuous and overlapping lines have a natural curvature, with mostly step progressions and complex internal rhythms far removed from the modern concept of distinct "beats." Indeed, the bar lines in modern editions are mere conveniences and are largely unrelated to the actual pulse. New phrases are marked by a different combination of voices and registers, with climactic text signified by leaps and consonances that suggest chords. The Kyrie effortlessly fuses linear and harmonic counterpoint, weaving together individual horizontal lines to imply vertical harmony while melding old plainsong modes with the nascent diatonic scale system. Melodic lines, while dictated by the speech patterns of the text, are a smooth and careful balance of ascending and descending linear movement, even to the extent that most upward leaps are tempered by stepwise descents. The overall result is a natural and unstrained setting of the words in spite of its contrapuntal complexity.

*The creation of the "Missa Papæ Marcellus" and Palestrina’s life during its period of composition has even found an extraordinarily imaginative expression in the form of Hans Pfitzner’s 1917 opera entitled, appropriately enough, "Palestrina".

Missa Papæ Marcelli - Kyrie

Quire of Cheahs presents Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's heartwrenching "Improperium exspectavit", the appointed Offertory for Palm Sunday.

––
Improperium expectavit cor meum et miseriam et sustinui qui simul mecum contristaretur et non fuit; consolantem me quæsivi et non inveni. Et dederunt in escam meam fel, et in siti mea potaverunt me aceto.

My heart hath expected reproach and misery; I looked for someone to grieve together with me, but there was none to comfort me; I sought him, and found him not. And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Spem in alium, P. 299 (1570)

Phillip Cheah

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