Lenten Triad

These past years for Lent, I have spent this designated holy time listening to a single large piece of music. These compositions have included Bach’s “Mass in B Minor”, Mendelssohn’s Oratorio, “Elijah”, and Messiaen’s huge piano cycle, “20 Reflections of the Infant Jesus.” I focus on this music, listening over and over, analyzing it musically until it reveals some new secret each time -----not just musically, but, especially in the case of Bach and Messiaen, theologically as well. I think I could spend 20 years of Lents listening to the “20 Reflections of the Infant Jesus” and not even begin to have a grasp of Messiaen’s vision of the Incarnation or rhythm and harmony.

It's not always classical music. One Lent was spent absorbing Bruce Springsteen’s “The River.” Another time, John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." Sometimes it would be novels or poems; one of my more interesting Lents was spent with “Zorba the Greek.” I know some people this Lent are using the movie "Chocolat" as a focal point.(And maybe my friend is listening to John Hiatt...)

This year, as Lent approached, I kept my ears open for a new focus point. Instead of one large opus, I have found myself with three shorter settings of the Catholic Mass, each one unique.

The first is “Mass for Double Choir”, by the Swiss composer Frank Martin. Written in 1926 and performed only once that year, he kept it under cloaks until 1966, for fear it would be judged “aesthetically” rather than as a" conversation with the Creator." I have no clip for you, but it’s listed with ITunes, if you wish to sample.

Next, I rediscovered an almost forgotten composition, “Missa Criolla” by Argentinean composer Ariel Ramirez, written in 1964, as part of the “Mass in the Language of the People” breeze that blew from the second Vatican Council. I heard a recording of it around that time, and it’s always been floating around in my head, although I did not listen to it again until just before Lent this year. A clip of the "Gloria" is on the LENTEN SPACE blog. Here is a sample of the “Señor, Ten Piedad” (the “Kyrie” or “Lord Have Mercy”.)


The third is a true old friend, Faurè’s “Requiem”. It was written in 1887, shortly after the death of his father and mother, and is meant to be performed by smaller groups, such as regular church choirs.(He referred to it as his "petit Requiem.") Rather than being morbid, it looks forward with a heavenly vision, complete with harp and boy soprano.
It is the simple unadorned faith of this piece that is pulling me along this Lent.

This is the “Piè Jesu”: “Dear Lord Jesus, grant them rest, rest eternal.”


Post-script: All three of these masses are simply exquisite and exquisitely simple. I urge you to listen especially to the Martin, since it is the least known.
MARCH 19 UPDATE: Halfway through Lent, and I've dicovered two more wonderful mass settings: Francis Poulenc's "Mass in G major"(1935) and Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Mass in G minor"(1922.) Poulenc did not develop a spirituality until a young friend's life was senselessly snuffed out. Vaughan Williams openly referred to himself as a "religion-loving atheist."