Theodore Baierl, The Ascension, private collection, c.1918
As they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight [NRSV, Acts 1:9].
The Seventh Sunday of Easter / Ascension
June 5, 2011
Click to go immediately to:
1) The Music Programme Homepage
2) The Music Calendar for Choral Eucharist and Evensong.
The organ voluntaries for Choral Eucharist, the 7th Sunday of Easter / Ascension, are movements from Olivier Messiaen, L'Ascension.
Click on the name to go to performances by Charles Krigbaum, Hans-Ola Ericsson, and Olivier Latry.
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Leopold_Stokowski
Olivier Messiaen: L'Ascension, 4 meditations for orchestra:
I. Majesty of Christ beseching His Glory of the Father
II. Serene Alleluias of a soul yearning for Heaven
III. Alleluias on the Trumpet and on the Cymbal
IV. Prayer of Christ ascending to the Father
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The Ascension is not really the celebration of the Lord Jesus taking his departure but of recognizing that the Word of God, enthroned with God the Father, now incarnate in the Lord Jesus, lives definitively in the midst of every human being. "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven . . . (NRSV, Acts 1:11a)?
Click to download Viri Galilaei, performed by the Choir of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on the eve of the Ascension 2005.
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Gerald Finzi
God is gone up with a triumphant shout:
The Lord with sounding Trumpets' melodies:
Sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praises out,
Unto our King sing praise seraphic wise!
Lift up your Heads, ye lasting Doors, they sing,
And let the King of Glory enter in.
Methinks I see Heaven's sparkling courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend,
And hear Heart-cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Chariot as it did ascend;
Mixing their Music, making ev'ry string
More to enravish as they this tune sing.
Edward Taylor
The Lord with sounding Trumpets' melodies:
Sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praises out,
Unto our King sing praise seraphic wise!
Lift up your Heads, ye lasting Doors, they sing,
And let the King of Glory enter in.
Methinks I see Heaven's sparkling courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend,
And hear Heart-cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Chariot as it did ascend;
Mixing their Music, making ev'ry string
More to enravish as they this tune sing.
Edward Taylor
Click to go to Gerald Finzi, God is gone up, performed by the Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge. (At 3:23, after Stanford's Justorum animae.)
To listen to Gerald Finzi, God is gone up, performed by the Pacific Chorale, conducted by Jon Alexander with Mary Preston playing the 2009 C.B. Fisk Opus 130 organ of the Segerstrom Concert Hall of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa, CA., click here, then click on "0920 Hour 1," then hold button and slide to 10:33 (10 minutes and 33 seconds).
Click to download a version by the Halifax Choral Society.
Performance of The Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, Christopher Robinson conducting. [NML] (info)
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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Missa Viri Galilaei (with Motet and Magnificat accompanied by the antiphon from First Vespers of Pentecost) performed by La Chapelle royale and the Ensemble Organum, Philippe Herreweghe conducting. [YouTube]
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Charles Tournemire, L'orgue mystique: Cycle de Pâques, Op. 56: No. 24. Dominica infra Octave Ascensionis (prélude a l'Introit, offertoire, élevation, communion, postlude) performed by J. Melvin Butler at the Fisk organ of Finney Chapel, Oberlin College.
This unusual recording features the new Aristide Cavaillé-Coll-style Fisk organ as it sounds in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College, and also as it might sound if it were in Chartres Cathedral. New recording technology makes it possible to create a mathematical model of a room's acoustics from measurements taken in the room itself. With sufficient computing power, a program can then place any sound (in this case, the sound of the Fisk organ at Oberlin) in the modelled acoustics.
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Click to go to the Free Organ Recitals at St. James United Church, Montreal, for the Summer 2011.
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Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach,Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen / Praise God in his kingdoms (Ascension Oratorio), Cantata 11, with performances by Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Leusink, Parrott and Richter.