Hoc est praeceptum meum

Currently on repeat in my head: this gorgeous piece by Francisco Guerrero (sung by The Advent Choir a few years back with yours truly on S1)!

Hoc est præceptum meum -- Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599) / The Advent Choir / Jeremy Bruns, conductor /

Hoc est præceptum meum ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos. Maiorem charitatem nemo habet ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis. Vos amici mei estis si feceritis quæ præcipio vobis. Vos autem dixi amicos quia omnia quæcumque audivi a Patre meo nota feci vobis.

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you; I have made known to you all that my Father has told me, and so I have called you my friends.
(John 15:12-14,15b)

Ainsi qu'on oit le cerf bruire

Psalm 42 has inspired some of choral music’s best moments (“like as the hart”, “as the deer”, “sicut cervus”), but this setting, sung by The Advent Choir a few weeks ago, is probably my favorite of all time.

Ainsi qu’on oit le cerf bruire -- Claude Goudimel (c1510-1572)/ The Advent Choir / Jeremy Bruns, conductor / Ainsi qu’on oit le cerf bruire, pourchassant le frais des eaux: ainsi mon cœur qui souspire Seigneur, après tes ruisseaux, va, tousjours criant, suivant le grand, le grand Dieu vivant. Helas! donques, quand serace que verray de Dieu la face? Jour et nuits pour ma viande de pleurs me vai soustenant, quand je voy qu’on me demande: où est ton Dieu maintenant? Je fond en me souvenant, qu’en troupe j’alloy menant, priant, chantant, grosse bande faire au temple son offrande. As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me continually, “Where is your God?” These things I remember, as I pour out my soul, how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. [Metrical paraphrase of Psalm 42:1-4 by Théodore de Bèze, (1519-1605) & RSV]

Vruechten - Sacred or Secular?

An Early Music Monday post for Easter Monday - have you ever noticed how many of the songs used in religious liturgies have Renaissance or Baroque origins? Or aren’t actually sacred at all? This is one of those, and my personal favorite of all the hymns for Easter.

1 This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow! My Love, the Crucified, has sprung to life this morrow: Refrain: Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst His three-day prison, our faith had been in vain; but now has Christ arisen, arisen, arisen; but now has Christ arisen! 2 Death’s flood has lost its chill since Jesus crossed the river; Lover of souls, from ill my passing soul deliver: [Refrain] 3 My flesh in hope shall rest and for a season slumber till trump from east to west shall wake the dead in number: [Refrain]

From Mark Dwyer, Organist and Choirmaster:

VRUECHTEN is originally a seventeenth-century Dutch folk tune for the love song "De liefde Voortgebracht." It became a hymn tune in Joachim Oudaen's David's Psalmen (1685) as a setting for "Hoe groot de vruechten zijn." The tune is distinguished by the rising sequences in the refrain, which provide a fitting word painting for "arisen." Sung with athletic enthusiasm by the congregation of The Church of the Advent, the organist provides an improvisation as the altar is censed at the Offertory of the First Mass of Easter.