Music for Sunday 22 August 2010

Statue of St Bartholomew, Duomo, Milan

This week the Anglican Parish of Jika Jika is anticipating the feast of Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr, which falls on 24 August.

This day is associated with a number of institutions and events.  In London, there is a hospital in named in honour of the Saint near the Smithfield Market, where there is a fair to mark the feast every August.  And -- London church crawlers will already have this one marked -- it is the feast day of Great St Bartholomew's, the remains of what was once a sprawling monastery in the middle of London.

The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre remains an important milestone in the religious history of France, and to my mind it occupies a place in the history of the sixteenth century which can be compared to the kristallnacht in the twentieth.  This dreadful event forms the basis of the story for Meyerbeer's grand opera, Les Hugenots, which in turn has a reflection in organ music.  Franz Liszt took the chorus Ad nos, Salutarem and turned it into one of the great variation-and-fugue sets of the organ literature.  The chorus itself comes at the moment when the Anabaptists have decided to enter a covenant to remain faithful in the face of impending death at the hands of Catholic mercenaries.  The organ version is a transcendental experience, and in a good performance it is well worth the twenty minutes of hard listening.

The readings for this week are linked here.

The psalm is set to Anglican chant.

The Mass setting will be Philip Mathias's Christ Church Mass (Together in Song, 757).

Hymns are as follows:

Introit: The eternal gifts of Christ the King [tune: Gonfalon Royal 332]
Gradual: Saints of God! Lo, Jesu's people [tune: Cross of Jesus, 136]
Offertory: All hail the power of Jesus' name [224 i]
Communion: Filled with the Spirit's power, with one accord [411]

The postlude at All Saints will be:

Bolero -- Thomas Mohr