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Tuesday, 9 April, 2024
THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
6:15 p.m. Solemn Mass
(Both in-person and online)
Featuring some rarely-heard music!
Prelude: Prière à Notre Dame, Suite Gothique – Léon Boëllmann (1844-1925)
Mass: Missa Paranymphus – Pierre Moulu (c. 1524)
Motet: Paranymphus Salutat Virginem – Loyset Compère (1521)
Postlude: Improvisation – Fr David Smith
No live-stream available unfortunately | Download Leaflet
Music Note
The music for the Feast of the Annunciation will feature a rarely-heard, early sixteenth-century motet by Loyset Compère (1521), Paranymphus salutat Virginem (The Friend of the Bridegroom greets the Virgin). Compère was born in Hainault (present-day Belgium), spent his career in Milan and then Cambrai, and was a contemporary of that most famous of all early-Renaissance composers, Josquin des Prez (c.1455-1521). The remarkable beauty of the vocal music of this era is revealed through mysterious and often eccentric melodies that weave together in close imitation between four voices. The Paranymphus motet proved so popular that another composer, Pierre Moulu (c.1484-c.1550) based a mass setting on it, and we will hear the Kyrie from that mass setting as a part of this liturgy. At Communion, we will hear an Ave Maria, set for three equal voices by yet another Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance, Antoine Brumel (c.1460-c.1513).