Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Annual Requiem for King Louis XVI in Paris

Each year, the church of St Eugène in Paris has a Requiem Mass on January 21st for the repose of King Louis XVI of France, who was murdered on that day in the year 1793. Anyone who has visited the church or seen our various posts about it knows that the church’s choir, the Schola Sainte-Cécile, does some of the finest liturgical music to be heard anywhere in the world; here is the program for this year’s Mass, which you can watch in the video below. (The text can also be seen on their website.)

At the entrance of the clergy: “De profundis (Psalm 129)” – faux-bourdon attributed to André Campra (1660-1744), master of the chapel at Notre-Dame in Paris, and of King Louis XV at Versailles.
Mass: “Requiem“ ” by Claudio Casciolini (1697-1760), cantor at San Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome.
Communion motet: “De profundis“ ” by Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726), master of the chapel for Kings Louis XIV and XV (extracts).
Recessional: “Domine salvum fac Regem”, prayer for the king from the Masse “Gaudete in Domino semper”, written for the coronation of Louis XVI (celebrated in Reims Cathedrale on Trinity Sunday, June 11, 1775), by François Giroust (1738-99), his master of the chapel.

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