Here is another big win for the YouTube suggestion algorithm, a motet by Palestrina which has the first two verses of the epistle of Corpus Christi (1 Corinthians 11, 23-29) as its text. For simplicity’s sake, I have titled this post “for Corpus Christi”. But our friend Thomas Neal, who is an expert on Palestrina, tells me that the exact occasion for which it was composed is unknown; it may have been written for Holy Thursday instead.
“Brethren: I indeed have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke it, and said, ‘Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me.’”
The motet is preserved in only one manuscript (preserved in the archives of the Cappella Giulia in the Vatican), which dates to around 1584, and contains many other pieces copied out in Palestrina’s own hand. He later used it as the basis of a very beautiful Mass for eight voices, which is therefore called the Missa Fratres, ego enim accepi, published posthumously in 1601.
We are very grateful to our friend Thomas Neal sending us this item, this time writing with his colleague Dominic Bevan, about the upcoming third edition of a sacred music festival, which will be held in England in July in honor of St Birinus, the patron Saint of Dorchester.
The St Birinus Festival, which will be held this year from Thursday July 9 to Sunday July 12, seeks to celebrate a remarkable and often overlooked part of England’s Catholic heritage: the arrival of Roman liturgy, chant, and sacred music in the Kingdom of Wessex. While this may seem an ambitious claim, even a brief glance at early English Christian history reveals the extraordinary significance of St Birinus and his legacy. So who was St Birinus, and why does he matter for sacred music?
A part of a stained glass window with an image of St Birinus (here spelled “Bernius”) from Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Stemonitis, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Curiously, despite his importance in the early Christian history of England, St Birinus is little known today outside specialist circles. Before the Reformation, devotion to him was widespread throughout southern England. Afterwards, however, his shrines were destroyed, and his memory gradually faded from public consciousness.
Christianity first arrived in Britain during the Roman occupation. Archaeological discoveries, including references to Christians on Roman curse tablets found in Bath, suggest the faith had already taken root here by the second century. St Alban, martyred around AD 303, is remembered as Britain’s first martyr.
Following the collapse of the Roman Empire and the upheavals that followed, the kingdom of Wessex gradually emerged as a major centre of power. In response, Rome sent missionaries to different parts of England. St Augustine arrived in Kent in 597 and established the see of Canterbury. Some decades later, another missionary was sent to Wessex: St Birinus, an Italian monk who, according to tradition, was consecrated bishop in Milan by Archbishop Asterius before being sent to Britain by Pope Honorius I. His original intention had been to travel deep into the interior of the country to preach among peoples who had not yet heard the Christian faith. Yet, as the Venerable Bede recounts in his Ecclesiastical History, upon arriving among the West Saxons and finding them “all confirmed pagans”, Birinus judged it wiser to remain there and begin his mission in Wessex itself.
In AD 635, King Oswald of Northumbria travelled south to meet Cynegils, King of the West Saxons, whose daughter he hoped to marry. Oswald had already embraced Christianity through the influence of the Celtic mission at Iona. During his visit to Dorchester-on-Thames, he found Cynegils receiving instruction in the Christian faith from Birinus. The outcome was momentous: Birinus baptised Cynegils, probably in the nearby River Thame, with Oswald acting as godfather. Cynegils and Oswald subsequently granted land at Dorchester for the establishment of Birinus’ episcopal see and cathedral church, making him the first Bishop of the West Saxons.
Dorchester-on-Thames was no ordinary settlement. Positioned strategically between Winchester, Oxford, and London, it became an important centre for the developing Christian life of Wessex. From there, Birinus helped organise the structures of the Church in the kingdom and laid foundations that would shape the future religious identity of England.
Birinus died around AD 650 and was buried at Dorchester, where he was soon venerated as a saint. His relics were later translated to Winchester by Bishop Hedda around 690 and moved again in the tenth and twelfth centuries as devotion to him continued to grow. During the Middle Ages, Dorchester Abbey became an important place of pilgrimage, centred on a richly decorated shrine dedicated to St Birinus. Extensive rebuilding followed, including the construction of the south choir aisle around 1320. Although the shrine was destroyed during the Reformation in 1536, fragments of it survived and were later incorporated into the reconstructed shrine that stands in the abbey today.
Evidence of Birinus’ enduring importance can still be seen in the medieval art of Dorchester Abbey. A stained-glass roundel dating from around 1225 depicts Birinus receiving a blessing from an enthroned archbishop, believed to represent Asterius of Milan before Birinus’ mission to Britain. Elsewhere in the Great East Window, Birinus is shown preaching before King Cynegils and his people.
For musicians, St Birinus holds an additional significance. With him came not only Roman Christianity, but also Roman liturgy and chant. The liturgical chant traditions cultivated in Rome were brought to England by Birinus and his fellow monks. From Dorchester, the structures of the Church in Wessex were organised, with Winchester becoming one of its principal centres.
One of the most important surviving witnesses to this musical tradition is the pre-Reformation manuscript known as the Winchester Troper. It preserves some of the earliest and most sophisticated examples of liturgical music in medieval England, offering a glimpse into the flourishing musical culture that developed from these foundations.
As part of the festival’s efforts to renew devotion to St Birinus and recover this heritage, we have carefully transcribed chants from the feast of St Birinus preserved in the Winchester Troper. Festival attendees will hear, for the first time in centuries, antiphons, hymns, sequences, and chants written specifically for his feast.
The festival was created not simply as a concert series, but as a celebration of a living Catholic musical tradition rooted in the history of this country. Dorchester-on-Thames is a uniquely fitting setting: one of the earliest centres of English liturgical music and of the Roman rite in Wessex.
England already possesses several celebrated sacred music festivals within the Anglican tradition, including the Three Choirs Festival and The Eddington Festival. Yet opportunities to experience Catholic liturgical music in its proper liturgical context remain relatively rare. The St Birinus Festival hopes, in its own small way, to contribute to the rediscovery of that tradition and to make it accessible once again.
The response to previous festivals in 2024 and 2025 was deeply moving. Many attendees have spoken of the profound impact of hearing this music within the liturgy for which it was written. Some have described the experience as faith-deepening or spiritually transformative. Above all, the festival reminds us that sacred music is not simply a historical artefact, but part of a living tradition that continues to speak with beauty, reverence, and power today.
We are grateful to Don Francesco Deffenu, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cagliari (on the Italian island of Sardinia), and a student of the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra in Rome, for preparing this article, which has been translated and edited by Thomas Neal.
The Servant of God Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta (1865-1930) is remembered as one of the most authoritative and spiritually profound figures of the Church of his time. The most trusted collaborator of Pope St. Pius X, Cardinal Merry del Val served the pope first as his personal secretary and then as Secretary of State. In this role, he assumed a central role in the management of the Roman Curia and in diplomatic relations with heads of state. His life was entirely dedicated to the service of the Holy See, during which he held prestigious positions such as Prefect of the Apostolic Palace, President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica. Today, his intense personal spirituality is attested by the ongoing process of beatification, which was opened in 1953 at the behest of Pope Pius XII.
A portrait photograph of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val taken ca. 1905. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Alongside his important ecclesiastical and diplomatic commitments, Merry del Val also cultivated a deep passion for sacred music. He experienced first-hand the great musical reform promoted by St. Pius X, author of the famous Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini (1903) and founder of the Scuola Superiore di Musica Sacra (now the Pontificio istituto di musica sacra) in 1910. In his memoirs, he vividly recounted the Pontiff’s love for sacred music:
When new musical compositions were presented to [St. Pius X] for approval, he carefully examined the score and more than once, in my presence, hummed the melody that he read at first sight with the greatest ease, beating time with his hand as he read, then giving his opinion on the merit and style of the music.
This direct contact with the musical sensibility of St. Pius X profoundly shaped the Cardinal’s tastes, inspiring him to dedicate himself with genuine enthusiasm and refined sensitivity to the composition of sacred music.
Surprisingly, despite being immersed in correspondence with Heads of State, in the government of the Curia and in personal assistance to the Pontiff, Merry del Val found time to compose numerous pieces of liturgical music. His hymns and motets — including settings of the Veni Creator, Te Joseph, Ave Maris Stella, Ave Regina Coelorum, O Salutaris Hostia, Tantum Ergo, Panis Angelicus, and Audivi vocem de caelo — provide an extraordinary testimony to his faith, and to his spiritual and artistic sensitivity. The manuscript scores are now preserved in the Archives of the Cappella Giulia and at the Pontifical Spanish College of San José in Rome.
In recent years, the Cardinal’s musical legacy has been rediscovered and enhanced thanks to the work of Monsignor Pablo Colino, Canon and Maestro Emeritus of the Cappella Giulia of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Colino has undertaken an extensive study of Merry del Val’s compositions, culminating in the recording of a CD with the Choir of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, released in 2005 and entitled Raffaele Merry Del Val & Lorenzo Perosi - Inni, mottetti e canzoni, which has helped raise awareness of this repertoire and demonstrate both its beauty and historical importance.
Recently, on November 12, 2025, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Merry del Val’s episcopal consecration, a commemorative concert was held in Rome at the Spanish National Church. Presided over by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State to His Holiness, the event paid tribute to the figure and spiritual legacy of Merry del Val. The choir of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli (the Spanish national church), directed by Fabjola Lekaj, performed his sacred compositions, offering a rare opportunity to rediscover the Cardinal’s artistic dimension and underline the contemporaneity and lasting value of his ecclesial, spiritual, and artistic testimony.
Once again, we are very grateful to Mr Thomas Neal for sharing his work with us, some historical notes on motets which use the same words as one of the Offertory prayers which Dr Foley has been examining in his Lost in Translation series.
In spíritu humilitátis et in ánimo contríto suscipiámur a te, Dómine: et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut pláceat tibi, Dómine Deus.
In a spirit of humility, and in contrite heart, may we be received by Thee, O Lord; and may our sacrifice take place in Thy sight this day, that it may please Thee, O Lord God.
It is a particularly beautiful prayer which, along with the Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, occurs in the majority of medieval uses.
As Foley discussed in a follow-up post, one of the central subjects of this short prayer is the contrite heart, reflected in the priest’s posture: he recites the prayer in a low voice, as he prostrates himself before the altar. It is unsurprising, then, to find the text also used as the fourth psalm antiphon at Lauds on the First Sunday in Lent. It is set to a particularly beautiful chant in the second mode, found in both the Roman and Dominican Rites. The rising melisma on “fiat” underlines the speaker’s supplication, and is echoed on “tibi” in the penultimate quarter-measure.
This beautiful prayer was set to polyphony by the priest-composer Giovanni Croce (ca. 1557-1609). Born in the coastal town of Chioggia, on the southern side of the Venetian lagoon, in or around 1557, Croce studied with the great theorist Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-90) and sang in the choir of the Basilica di San Marco, Venice. He took holy orders in or before 1585 and spent the remainder of his life attached to the church of Santa Maria Formosa. By the early 1590s, Croce was vicemaestro at San Marco and taught singing at the seminary. In 1603 he succeeded Baldassare Donato (1525-1603) as maestro di cappella at the basilica, dying in post only six years later. While Croce is mostly remembered for his canzonette and madrigal comedies, he also composed a substantial body of liturgical music including masses (1596) and volumes of motets (1591, 1594, 1595) for double-choir or cori spezzati.
Croce’s polychoral setting of In spiritu humilitatis is not known to survive in any sources from his lifetime, but it was published posthumously, appended to Alessandro Grandi’s Motetti a cinque voci […] (Venice: Alessandro Vincenti, 1620). Is it too romantic to imagine Croce conceiving of a setting of this text one day while he celebrated Mass at Santa Maria Formosa? Here is the front cover from the Quintus partbook. A modern edition is available on the Polyphony Database.
While several commercial recordings of this motet have appeared in recent years, arguably none has matched that by the Choir of Westminster Cathedral under Martin Baker:
The Perugian composer Lorenzo Ratti (c.1589-1630), who made a career as a singer and composer in various churches and colleges at Rome and later at the Basilica della Santa Casa at Loreto, also composed a setting of In spiritu humilitatis. Ratti’s motet was published in the third part of his three-volume series Sacrae modulationes […] (Venice: Alessandro Vincenti, 1628), in which he sought to provide polyphonic settings (from two up to nine voices) of the Gradual and Offertory texts, as well as motets for the Elevation, for every Sunday of the liturgical year. Ratti’s setting is scored for two voices and continuo, and was intended as an Elevation motet for the First Sunday after Pentecost. To my knowledge, little of Ratti’s music has been transcribed into modern editions, let alone performed or recorded.
This coming Friday, February 7th, the church of Blessed Hugh of Faringdon in Faringdon, England, will host a lecture by our friend Thomas Neal, titled “The History and Future of Gregorian Chant in the Roman Liturgy.” The first part of this lecture will outline the history of Western liturgical chant from the Jewish temple worship of the Old Testament, through to the early church and the manuscripts of the 9th and 10th centuries. In the second part, Mr Neal will offer reflections on the nature and purpose of liturgical chant, and suggest reasons why it has always been considered the highest form of liturgical music. At the end of the lecture, there will be an opportunity for Q&A. The lecture will begin at 7:45pm; the church is located on Marlborough Street.
Thomas Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK). He read music to postgraduate level at Clare College, University of Cambridge, where he was the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Sacred Music. His research focuses on the sources of sacred music in sixteenth-century Rome, with a particular focus on the life and works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas has over fifteen years of experience directing music for the traditional Latin liturgy, in addition to conducting numerous choirs and period instrument ensembles in repertoire from Josquin to Haydn. Since 2018 he has been the Director of Music at New College School, Oxford.
The first page of the Laon Gradual, the oldest extant manuscript of liturgical chant.
Our thanks to Mr Thomas Neal for sharing with NLM this summary and assessment of a lecture given by the well-known Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan last October at Oxford University, where Mr Neal lives, and serves as the Director of Music at New College School.
On Monday 28 October, the pre-eminent Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan gave one of the 2024 Oakeshott Lectures at the University of Oxford. Formerly named after the philosopher, writer, and critic Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020), this annual series of free public lectures now honours the legacy of the philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) by inviting eminent public intellectuals to speak on topics of “civilisational importance”. The lectures are held in Oxford’s historic Sheldonian Theatre.
MacMillan is well-known in the UK and internationally as a formidable champion of Catholic music, both in the liturgy and on the concert platform. Almost without exception, his symphonies, operas, and choral works have explored Catholic subjects, and he has also written a large corpus of music for the Novus Ordo liturgy. Through his organisation Musica Sacra Scotland, and his work as Director of Music at St. Columba’s Church, Maryhill, Glasgow, he has consistently advocated for wider use of Gregorian chant in the modern Roman Rite while also proposing new paths for contemporary liturgical music. At the same time, he is a long-standing patron of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. His artistic credo was summed up in a series of interviews recently featured on this site.
In his Oakeshott lecture, titled “Music and the Sacred in Antiquity and Modernity,” MacMillan sought to outline the historical and technical influences of plainchant—and ‘the sacred’ more broadly—on the development of Western art music. He began by observing that, despite the tide of secularisation and the collapse of cultural Christianity, the twentieth century produced some of history’s most profoundly religious composers. Indeed, he proposed that “the spiritual inspirations behind the great composers, past and present, continued and grew through the twentieth century.” One of the aims of his lecture, then, was to chart how “the multifaceted search for the sacred has been manifest in music’s journey through modernity.” This is an extraordinarily important observation, but one that has not yet featured in the standard narratives of twentieth-century music.
MacMillan emphasised the role of the sacred in the lives and works of three of the century’s greatest musical modernists: Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, and Oliver Messiaen. He made a powerful argument for considering Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1956) as one of the most important works of sacred music in the twentieth century. In retelling the beautiful and tragic history of the martyrs of Compiègne (told through the lens of an adaptation of Georges Bernanos’ 1949 novel), Poulenc invited his public to reconsider the ‘founding myth’ of the French republic: here is the revolution in all its violence, cruelty, and brutality. It is indeed extraordinary to think that an opera composed and first performed in the mid-1950s—a cornerstone of musical modernism, and one of the most beloved and frequently-performed operas of the last century—should have in its climactic scene an impassioned setting of the Salve Regina, sung while the innocent religious are led to the guillotine.
Throughout his career, MacMillan has undertaken a careful scrutiny of Catholicism’s musical and spiritual heritages. This “quest for the sacred” (as he put it) has led him to embrace what he calls “Christianity’s most fundamental musical origins”: the ancient liturgical chant of the West. In the second part of his lecture, he attempted an overview of the role that plainchant has played in art music since apostolic times. After sketching the connections between Jewish liturgical music and the chants of the early Church (in which he quoted extensively from the writings of NLM publisher William Mahrt), MacMillan attempted to draw a direct connection between plainchant and certain masterworks of medieval and early modern Europe: the Messe de Nostre Dame composed sometime before 1365 by Guillaume de Machaut (1300-77); the sacred music of Michael Haydn (1737-1806); and the Romantic modality of the sacred choral music of Anton Bruckner (1824-96).
MacMillan concluded by reflecting on why plainchant is regarded as the fundamentum of Western art music, and why it is described as the paradigm of sacred music.
“There is holiness in the sound of this music. And music is an intrinsic part of the projection of sacredness in the liturgy. […] It does this in two ways. First, by setting the texts of the liturgy to singing [… and secondly,] it provides the entire liturgy [with] an elevated tone of voice that conveys its special character […]”
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I enjoyed this lecture very much, but nevertheless went away with several unanswered questions that concern the first principles of sacred music.
First: I would have liked to hear MacMillan draw out the connections between the two parts of his lecture. While there were certainly some modern composers whose “search for the sacred” did not lead them to reach for the Liber Usualis, there are many others for whom their initial exposure to plainchant was a defining moment in their artistic development. Countless twentieth-century composers were inspired by and even quoted plainchant in their works, usually to invoke a sense of the sacred. Gregorian modes and melodies among the primary Western influences on the music of Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, Ottorino Respighi, Benjamin Britten, and Gustav Holst—to mention only the most recognisable names. Britten, for example, made extensive use of plainchant in his opera Curlew River as a structural device and a source for thematic and motivic material; while other direct quotations can be found in works such as the Ceremony of Carols and the children’s opera Noye’s Fludde.
Composers of the French school made extensive use of plainchant themes (particularly in their liturgical music) including Maurice Duruflé, Charles Tournemire, Marcel Dupré, and Jean Langlais. And no one could deny the importance of both Western and Eastern liturgical chant to postmodernist composers such as Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, and Henryk Górecki. It would have served MacMillan’s purposes well to have acknowledged this rich tradition of twentieth-century composers who took inspiration from plainchant. It would also have been interesting to hear how plainchant has directly influenced his own development as a composer and specifically in works such as his percussion concerto Veni, veni Emmanuel (1992), Gaudeamus in loci pace (1998) for solo organ, or The Strathclyde Motets (2005).
But while these composers—and many others besides—have quoted plainchant melodies in their works, we do not yet have a definitive answer about whether (and, if so, how and why) such stylistic tropes work on the listener to communicate a sense of the sacred. If we are to adopt as broad a definition of ‘sacred music’ as MacMillan proposes, then what really differentiates the use of plainchant melodies in, say, the four chant paraphrase masses of Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521) from the use of the Lamentation tone in Franz Josef Haydn’s Symphony no.26 (composed in the late 1760s)? How does the quotation of the plainchant hymn Pange lingua in Holst’s The Hymn of Jesus (Op.37, 1919) compare with Duruflé’s use of the Gregorian Mass for the Dead in his Messe de Requiem (Op.9, 1947)? It would be still more difficult to differentiate between Duruflé’s motet Ubi caritas, clearly intended for liturgical use, and the countless imitations by contemporary composers intended for concert performance (Ola Gjeilo, Paul Mealor, Morten Lauridsen, et al.)—yet they are all based on the same plainchant melody. For a comprehensive understanding of plainchant and sacred music through the centuries, we must chart not only its continuity but the constantly shifting expressions and changing meanings. I do not think it is possible to compare Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame with the modal colourings of Bruckner’s choral music: they may make use of similar material, perhaps sometimes even using similar techniques, but one cannot say they were working with the same intentions or aesthetic aims in mind.
I would like to make one final observation. MacMillan made an excellent argument for considering some ‘art’ music as sacred, but we must also consider that in our century the process can work both ways: sacred music is not necessarily considered sacred by all consumers. Today, it is rare indeed for listeners to encounter sacred music in the context for which it was originally composed. Most people are far more likely to hear plainchant or polyphony on their smartphone or in a live concert than in its original liturgical or devotional context. Even the context of ‘live’ performances has changed: in countries such as the UK, you are more likely to encounter a polyphonic Mass by Palestrina, Lassus, or Byrd in a Protestant cathedral service than in the traditional Latin Mass for which it was originally intended. While this does not necessarily mean that people no longer associate, say, Renaissance polyphony with the sacred per se, the separation of this music from its original cultural, doctrinal, and ceremonial meanings does inevitably affect how the music is received and understood in the new performance contexts of our time. Some might argue that music that was once described as ‘sacred’ now has such a broad aesthetic appeal to a non-religious audience that older definitions have become redundant. Yet it seems equally plausible that the sacred character (read: timelessness, antiquity, otherness) of the music is a large part of its appeal to most listeners—even, or perhaps especially, in our secularised age.
There are no easy answers to these questions; I certainly would have liked to have heard MacMillan’s views. He gave an engaging and thoroughly thought-provoking lecture, which I recommend to all NLM readers. It would be great to see others take up the various stands of this lecture and explore them in greater depth.
This is the second part of a guest article by Mr Thomas Neal on the chants of the ongoing feast of All Saints; the first part was published on Friday. Mr Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK), where inter alia he serves as the Director of Music at New College School. Our thanks to him once again for sharing with us the interesting results of his research.
Alleluia
Allelúia, allelúia. Veníte ad me, omnes, qui laborátis et oneráti estis: et ego refíciam vos. Allelúia. (Come to Me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest.)
The Alleluia verse is a quotation from the Gospel of St. Matthew 11, verse 28. More research is required to determine the sources of this melody. In my (admittedly brief) searches, the earliest chant manuscript I could find with this text is the 11th-century Cantatorium of the Use of St. Martial de Limoges; among the later sources are a 15th-century Graduale from Maastricht; but both transmit other melodies that are markedly different from that in the Liber usualis.
This text was set by composers such as Palestrina, Andrea Gabrieli, Jacobus de Kerle, Orlando di Lasso, and Jacob Regnart. But it is perhaps Felice Anerio’s glorious setting for double choir (Selectae cantiones octonis vocibus concinendae, 1614) that is best known today:
I would also commend the slightly later setting by Heinrich Schütz, which was published in the first volume of his groundbreaking collection Symphoniae sacrae (1629):
However, Venite ad me is not the only text associated with the Alleluia for the feast of All Saints. Many chant manuscripts from the 10th through to the 14th centuries have the verse Vox exsultationis [4], while one 10th-century tropaire has the verse as O quam gloriosum, adapted from the Book of the Apocalypse (7, verse 9). [5] This text is still to be found as the Magnificat antiphon at Second Vespers of All Saints, and was set to polyphony by numerous sixteenth-century composers, most famously by Tomás Luis de Victoria (Motecta, 1572):
Offertory
Justórum ánimæ in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos torméntum malítiae: visi sunt óculis insipiéntium mori: illi autem sunt in pace, allelúia. (The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead: but they are in peace. Alleluia.)
Several early liturgical manuscripts (such as the twelfth-century Gradual of Bellay Abbey) give Mirabilis Deus as the Offertory for the Mass of All Saints, while manuscripts of Old Roman chant specify the widely used chant Laetamini. [6] It is unclear when it was changed to Justorum animae, although this must have occurred at a comparatively early stage. The text comprises the first three verses of the third chapter of the Book of Wisdom, a passage that had already had a long association with the feast of All Saints, appearing in various forms in the texts of the Office.
The melody for the new Offertory text was adapted from the Offertory chant for the feast of St. Michael, Stetit angelus, the earliest source for which appears to be the Graduel de Laon. (Bibliothèque municipale Ms 0239, f.73v.) This famous manuscript was copied for use at the cathedral of Laon in the final quarter of the ninth century, making it one of the very oldest surviving examples of Western musical notation. Perhaps the earliest copy of the chant adapted to the Justorum animae text is that found in the Graduale Narbonese, a manuscript copied at the cathedral of Arles in the tenth century, using so-called ‘Aquitaine’ notation. [7]
Justorum animae has been set many times by composers. The versions by Palestrina (Offertoria, 1593) and Byrd (Gradualia, 1605) are among the most well-known, but this one by Orlando di Lasso (Sacrae cantiones, 1582) remains my personal favourite:
With a nod to Anglican patrimony, the setting by Charles Villiers Stanford is also extremely attractive and deserves to be better known:
Communion
Beáti mundo corde, quóniam ipsi Deum vidébunt; beáti pacífici, quóniam filii Dei vocabúntur: beáti, qui persecutiónem patiúntur propter iustítiam, quóniam ipsórum est regnum caelórum. (Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)
The text is taken from the Gospel of the feast, the Beatitudes in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 5, verses 8-10. The earliest surviving source for this chant appears to be the Laon Graduale (f.71r), where it appears as a proper Communion for the feast of Ss. Felix and Adauctus (30 August).
Among the few polyphonic settings of this text is Byrd’s, from the Gradualia (1605):
Exitus
A vast amount of music has been composed for this important feast. However, one composition frequently omitted from music programmes is Palestrina’s six-voice Missa Ecce ego Johannes. Even among that composer’s incomparable corpus of Masses, this exquisite setting surely ranks near the top. The model for this Mass has yet to be identified, but the title suggests a motet setting the Chapter at First and Second Vespers of All Saints. It survives in only one source: a choirbook copied for use by the Cappella Sistina around the time of the composer’s death in 1594:
NOTES:
[4] Among the earliest sources with this verse are the 10th-century Gradual from St Gallen (St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod 0342, f.195) and the Gradual copied for the Abbaye Saint-Sauveur de Prüm around 990 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 9448, f.76r). [5] Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 1118, f.94v.
[6] Roberto J. Snow, ‘The Old-Roman Chant,’ Gregorian Chant, ed. Willi Apel (London: Burns & Oates, 1958), pp.484-505: at 468.
[7] If I am correct, then Dom. Johner’s statement that the chant was adapted to the new text during the twelfth century, is inaccurate. See: Dom. Johner, The Chants of the Vatican Gradual, p.470.
We are very grateful to Mr Thomas Neal for sharing with us this excellent article on the chants of today’s feast. Mr Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK). He read music to postgraduate level at Clare College, University of Cambridge, where he was the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Sacred Music. His research focuses on the sources of sacred music in sixteenth-century Rome, with a particular focus on the life and works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas has over fifteen years of experience directing music for the traditional Latin liturgy, in addition to conducting numerous choirs and period instrument ensembles in repertoire from Josquin to Haydn. Since 2018 he has been the Director of Music at New College School, Oxford; he lives in Oxford with his wife, Catherine, and their three children.
The origins of the feast of All Saints have traditionally been traced to the most ancient custom of marking the anniversary of a martyr’s death. By the fourth century, adjacent dioceses would commemorate the feasts of each other’s martyr-saints, divide and transfer their relics, and coordinate common feasts. However, the persecutions under Diocletian (r.284-305) created so many martyrs that commemorations began to be grouped together. Eventually, a common day for all saints was appointed: the first trace of this feast is at Antioch, when it was observed on the Sunday after Pentecost. Reference to this or a similar feast appears in the writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian (d.373) and St. John Chrystostom (c.347-407).
In an article published here in 2017, Gregory DiPippo proposed an attractive theory that the feast of All Saints on 1 November has its origins in the iconoclast heresies of the eighth and ninth centuries. [1] Pope St. Gregory II (r.715-31) was quick to condemn the perpetrators of the iconoclasm that broke out in 726, and publicly reprimanded emperor Leo III for his role the destruction. His immediate successor, Pope St. Gregory III (r.731-41), convoked a synod at Rome on 1 November 731, during which he decreed the excommunication of all who committed iconoclasm against images of Our Lord, the Mother of God, the Apostles and all the saints. He dedicated a chapel in Old St. Peter’s basilica to All Saints and designated 1 November as its feast day. Recent research has demonstrated that this chapel was situated in front of the martyrium of St. Peter, on the south side of the nave and within the pars virorum. One of the texts inscribed in stone at the time of Gregory III can be seen in the crypt of the new basilica, left of the tomb of Emperor Otto II. The pope planned for a Mass to be offered in the chapel daily, commemorating not only the saints in the calendar or whose relics were kept in the chapel, but for all saints, including those known only to God. [2]
A cross-section drawing of the old basilica of St Peter as it was at the end of the 15th century.
In a follow-up to his first article, DiPippo further proposed that the construction of the oratory of St. Lawrence in the Lateran Palace (known as the Sancta Sanctorum), with its unique collection of relics and the icon of the Saviour, may have been constructed partly in response to the iconoclast heresies. (Vittorio Lanzani, Le grotte vaticane: memorie storiche, devozioni, tombe dei papi (Rome: De Rosa, 2010), p.242) The chapel is first mentioned in the life of Pope Stephen III (r.768-72) in the Liber Pontificalis, while the icon is known to have been in Rome by 753 when Pope Stephen II (r.752-57) carried it through the streets to implore Divine assistance against the threat of the Lombard invasion.
Nearly a century after the synod at Rome, during another wave of iconoclasm, Pope Gregory IV (r.827-844) extended this feast to the universal church. In so doing, DiPippo suggests, he upheld both the cult of the Saints and the Church’s true teaching on sacred images.
As the feast was introduced into the universal calendar only in the mid-ninth century, it does not feature in the more ancient manuscripts of liturgical chant. Some of the chants were borrowed and adapted from older feasts, while others appear for the first time in connection with the feast of All Saints.
Introit
Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino, diem festum celebrántes sub honóre Sanctórum ómnium: de quorum sollemnitáte gaudent Angeli et colláudant Fílium Dei. Exsultáte, iusti, in Dómino: rectos decet collaudátio. Glória Patri… Gaudeámus omnes…
Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast day in honour of all the Saints, on whose solemnity the angels rejoice, and join in praising the Son of God. Exult, you just, in the Lord; praise from the upright is fitting. Glory be to the Father… Let us all rejoice…
The Introit comprises a general text calling on the assembly to rejoice in the feast, with the verse(s) taken from Psalm 32. To my knowledge, no other Introit has been recorded in connection with this feast. The melody is of such ancient origins that several of the oldest surviving chant manuscripts do not even provide notation. [3] According to Dom. Johner, it was originally composed for a Greek text for the feast of St. Agatha; it gained popularity and was gradually assigned to a range of other feasts, including (until the 1951 reforms) the Assumption. The earliest surviving source for this chant in relation to the feast of All Saints is the manuscript Missal copied by the Benedictine monks of Andechs Abbey between 900 and 930.
The text’s lively call to rejoice is wonderfully reflected in William Byrd’s setting, found in his monumental collection Gradualia (1605):
Gradual
Timéte Dóminum, omnes Sancti eius: quóniam nihil deest timéntibus eum. Inquiréntes autem Dóminum, non defícient omni bono.
Fear the Lord, you His holy ones, for nought is lacking to those who fear Him. But those who seek the Lord want for no good thing.
The text of the Gradual is taken from Psalm 33, verses 10-11. One of the earliest surviving musical sources for this chant is the late tenth-century manuscript copied between 960 and 970 at the abbey of Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 121), in which it is notated in adiastematic neumes. According to the Graduale Triplex, the chant also survives in the ninth-century Gradual of Compiègne (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat.17436, f.128). In that source and other ancient manuscripts, it is assigned to the feast of St. Cyriacus and his companions (8 August). The twelfth-century Gradual from Bellelay Abbey (Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne, MS 18) provides perhaps the earliest version in diastematic neumes, and is notated so clearly that an experienced schola might easily sing from its pages today.
In 1777, Michael Haydn (brother of Joseph) composed this glorious setting, which ingeniously plays on the contours of the plainchant melody:
NOTES
[1] Traditionally, the feast has been somewhat loosely connected with the consecration of the basilica Santa Maria ad Martyres (the Pantheon) at Rome by Pope Boniface IV (r.608-615) on 13 May 609 (the same date mentioned by St. Ephrem). Such an interpretation requires an equation of the martyrs with all saints—a point that DiPippo convincingly refutes by looking at the practice of the stational churches at Rome in the Octave of Easter.
[2] See the literature cited in: Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ‘Interactions between liturgy and politics in Old Saint Peter’s, 670-741. John the Archcantor, Sergius I amd Gregory III,’ Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, eds. Rosamond McKitterick, John Osborne, Carol M. Richardson, and Joanna Story. British School at Rome Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp.177-189: at 188-189. See also: Charles B. McClendon, ‘Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy,’ pp.214-228.
[3] The twelfth-century Premonstratensian Gradual from Bellelay Abbey (Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne, MS 18), for example, assigns this Introit melody to five separate feasts (The Assumption, St. Mary Magdalen, The Nativity of Our Lady, All Saints, and the Common of Many Virgins), but gives only the text incipit for each. At this point, I would like to acknowledge the incredible work of Dominique Gatté, Jan Koláček, and all the team involved in producing and maintaining the Medieval Music Manuscripts Online Database (https://musmed.eu/), without which much of the basic research for this article would have been impossible
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