Perhaps rather earlier these days-- I mean to say, the days are lengthening appreciably-- although it is difficult to be regularly observant since there's ordinarily cloud and fog obscuring the view. Today is the feast of the martyrs Saint Vincent, Deacon and Protomartyr of Spain, and Anastasius (CE [Saint Vincent, Saint Anastasius, and the eponymous abbey at Rome], Introibo, Wiki [Saint Vincent, Saint Anastasius]). Holy Mass at Saint-Eugène will be celebrated at 1000 PT.
Cardinal Schuster in his Liber sacramentorum:
These two martyrs also had each the honour of a separate stational Mass at Rome. The feast of the Deacon Vincent is the more ancient, and was celebrated in his oratory close to St Peter’s; that of the monk Anastasius dates only from the Pontificate of Honorius I (625-638), when the head of the saint was transferred from the East to the monastery ad Aquas Salvias near the Via Ostiensis, so his stational Mass was celebrated at the same spot. Some liturgists have supposed that on this day the station of St Vincent was celebrated also at the title of Eusebius on the Esquiline, but they are not agreed in determining the motive which suggested the choice of this basilica. We only know that the body of one of the deacons comites Xysti, called Vincent, reposed there, and that he was originally buried beside St Eusebius in the papal crypt of the cemetery of Callixtus; also that in consequence the Esquiline basilica was also dedicated to this Vincent, a Roman deacon and martyr. There were many other churches in Rome dedicated to St Vincent. The most ancient was that which was built in the Vatican, probably by Pope Symmachus, and which stood beside the oratory of the Holy Cross in Hierusalem. The monastery adjoining it is mentioned in the life of Stephen III. In the lists of Roman churches we also find the oratory of St Vincent de Papa, near the houses of the Papareschi in the Trastevere, the church of SS Vincent and Anastasius de Trivio, and that of SS Vincent, Anastasius, and Bartholomew de Colupna. Outside Rome itself, throughout the whole of Latin Europe, one may say, there are scattered numberless churches dedicated to this glorious martyr whose name is associated in the Litany of the Saints with those of the deacons Stephen and Lawrence. Among the most renowned monasteries named after St Vincent we may recall that one ad fontes Vulturni founded at the beginning of the eighth century by St Thomas of Maurienne, abbot of Farfa. Prudentius tells in verse of the martyrdom of St Vincent in his Peristephanon....
James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio is a rich and prodigious invention
Fortune favours the bold. Concert halls across Europe may be closed, but the NTR ZaterdagMatinee series has just succeeded in bringing together a full-sized chorus and orchestra for the premiere of James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio. No audience, of course, but the radio broadcast is available on demand, free of charge.
The work should have had its premiere in London before Christmas, where it was to form the climax of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s year-long 2020 Vision Festival, which focused on outstanding new works of the 21st century. Instead, Amsterdam stepped in (the other two co-commissioning bodies are the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic).
The market is wide open for a big new choral work for Christmas. Nothing has come along to knock Handel’s Messiah off the top spot over the past 250 years, despite honourable efforts by Berlioz and Britten.
It is admittedly a near-impossible ask, but MacMillan gives it his best shot. His music has always achieved its biggest impact when he is writing either blazing orchestral showpieces (The Confession of Isobel Gowdie and Veni, Veni, Emmanuel) or deeply felt religious works (the much-loved Miserere or the St Luke Passion).
The Christmas Oratorio rolls in the best of both. Highly dramatic, colourful, by turns ecstatic and rapt, it throws all of MacMillan’s irons into the fire to forge a full-scale, 100-minute tableau on the theme of the nativity.
Perhaps taking his cue from Bach’s Easter Passions, MacMillan has assembled a multi-layered text. The story is largely told in extracts from the Bible, but extra resonance is provided by the interpolation of hallowed Latin hymns and four 16th- and 17th-century poems by Robert Southwell, John Donne and John Milton for soprano and baritone soloists.
Not all the narrative is equally successful-- Bach’s decision to entrust it to a solo singer was wise, more elegant and easily intelligible-- but everywhere there is a prodigious richness of invention.
The orchestral sinfonias are typical Macmillan showpieces, teeming with vivid ideas like Shostakovich or Walton in widescreen cinema mode. The sacred choral sections include a quietly joyous setting of “Hodie Christus natus est” for unaccompanied choir and solo violin, and an ineffably otherworldly “O magnum mysterium”, moving through orchestral clouds of cosmic dust. Baritone Christopher Maltman is eloquent in an extract from Milton’s “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”, where the shadow of Britten looms large. Soprano Mary Bevan soars up to the fiery heights of Southwell’s “The Burning Babe”.
Given the difficulty of rehearsing anything at the moment, it is understandable that the Groot Omroepkoor and Radio Filharmonisch Orkest were less precise than they might have been, but otherwise this was an authoritative performance, conducted by the composer himself. No other premiere during the pandemic has made such an impression.
By next Christmas, concert halls will surely (please) be open again. If they want to celebrate the festive season in memorable style, they need look no further.
★★★★★
There is a faint suggestion that if I had managed to compose something and get it rehearsed and staged in tempore pestilentiae it would receive five stars, too, but I doubt that is what the critic intended his readers to take away. I'm presuming it's a man, the reviewer; it was last year and it's a pretty good bet that it is today. The link to the recording at NPO is here.
Catching up with the blogs, I see that Father Hunwicke was listening to or watching nonsense to do with Mr Biden's inauguration; if one reads beyond this gem one will observe that he hasn't failed to draw an appropriate moral lesson.
Apparently, he has a narrative that he is descended from a Captain George Biden of the Honourable East India Company who went to India (surprise surprise) and married (how very politically correct) an Indian woman. The problem is that the achives of the Company know nothing of any such person, There was a Captain Christopher Biden, but he had an English wife. Of course, he may have been into bigamy, but would that not turn him into a colonial predator and imperialist exploiter of defenceless indigenous womanhood? Wrong message.
Yesterday, also, Father Albert Marcello, who heads the inestimably valuable Divinum Officium project, looked back, at Rorate Caeli, at the last decade of progress there.
...We are always happy to entertain proposals for the betterment of this Project. Of course, some aspects of the site have undergone minor cosmetic changes as time has gone on, and various back-end mechanisms are in place to account for rubrical variations. While we are aware that there exist significant lacunae in our pre-1910 versions of the Office, our priority has been first and foremost to bring accuracy to the 1962 editions, which are normative for the Extraordinary Form usage. We also have been able to implement to some extent the decree Cum Sanctissima of 22 February 2020. This allows the user the option, under 1960 rubrics, to pray the proper feasts of the United States of America, and a limited selection of new saints canonized in recent years. The site has also recently embarked on a major project to bring Laszlo’s re-creation of the Monastic Office into harmony with the actual Benedictine Monastic Breviary. Plans are underway to make available the Dominican Rite...
It has been humbling to see that Divinum Officium has played such an important role in the spiritual lives of so many people, making accessible the texts of the Missal and Breviary which are often limited to libraries or costly books. The website is also being used as an educational tool in classrooms to demonstrate the historical development of liturgical prayer. In addition to apps such as Breviarium Meum, we are especially happy to partner with the iPieta app, which also has an outstanding library of prayers and theological texts. It is overwhelming to recognize that at every moment of the day, throughout the world, people are using this computer code to prayerfully offer worship to Almighty God, through our site, or through adapting this code for their own needs....
It has been humbling to see that Divinum Officium has played such an important role in the spiritual lives of so many people, making accessible the texts of the Missal and Breviary which are often limited to libraries or costly books. The website is also being used as an educational tool in classrooms to demonstrate the historical development of liturgical prayer. In addition to apps such as Breviarium Meum, we are especially happy to partner with the iPieta app, which also has an outstanding library of prayers and theological texts. It is overwhelming to recognize that at every moment of the day, throughout the world, people are using this computer code to prayerfully offer worship to Almighty God, through our site, or through adapting this code for their own needs....
Donations are always welcome!
Tomorrow is, in most places where the feast is celebrated (it has never been in the general Roman Calendar, apparently), the feast of the Espousals of Our Lady and of Saint Joseph, which Dr Michael Foley at New Liturgical Movement provides the Jewish background for and the Catholic context of. (He says that France and Canada celebrated the feast today; but one French gentleman who follows Holy Mass at Saint-Eugène pointed out earlier that tomorrow it is: so who knows. It is not included on either today's date or tomorrow's at Introibo.)
LDVM
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