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1. SONATA IN G MINOR FOR FLUTE & CONTINUO (7:46)
G.F. Handel (1685-1759)
Largetto, Andante, Adagio/Presto
(SAMPLE)
2. JUBILATE DEO (2:47)
B. Britten (1913-1976)
(SAMPLE)
3. OPENING VERSE: O GOD, COME TO MY ASSISTANCE (0:58)
Plainchant
(SAMPLE)
4. O SONS AND DAUGHTERS (3:44)
L. Cherubini (1760-1842)
(SAMPLE)
5. MOTET: SURREXIT CHRISTUS (1:31)
G. B. Pergolesi (1710-1736)
6. PSALM 110 GREGORIAN, TONE 4G (3:21)
7. PSALM 117, LAUDATE DOMINUM (3:57)
W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
8. CANTICLE: THE WEDDING OF THE LAMB (4:59)
E. Diemente (b. 1929)
9. ALLELUIA, GREGORIAN, TONE VII (3:07)
10. RESPONSORY, SURREXIT DOMINUS, GREGORIAN (1:16)
11. MOTET, MARIA MAGDALENE (2:46)
A. Gabrieli (1520-1586)
12. MAGNIFICAT (4:33)
Canticle of the Mother of God, Greek chant, Tone IV
13. LITANY (3:17)
A. Gouze (b.1943)
14. REGINA COELI, GREGORIAN, MODE VI (0:49)
15. THE LORD'S PRAYER (1:41)
Notre Pere, M. Durufle (1902-1986)
16. CLOSING VERSE: LET US PRAISE THE LORD, ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA (0:35)
Plainchant
17. HYMN: THIS JOYFUL EASTERTIDE (3:32)
Vruechten, harmony, C. Wood (1866-1926), descant, 3rd verse: John McIntyre
18. POSTLUDE: PRELUDE & FUGUE IN G MAJOR (7:27))
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
BR EMMANUEL MORINELLI, O.C.S.O.
A native of Philadelphia, he is both a visual artist and a musician. He attended the Philadelphia College of Art and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. where he earned a BA and an MFA degree in Studio Art. He also holds an MA degree in Music, with a concentration in Church Music and Liturgy, from Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana. In 1983, he entered Saint Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts where he currently serves as choir director and organist at the Abbey.
ALLAN TAYLOR
Mr. Taylor earned a BA degree in Classics at Trinity College, Hartford and the MA degree in Music at Smith College. He is currently Music Director of Novi Canton, a professional chamber choir as well as the Director of the Hampshire Choral Society in Northampton, Massachusetts. In addition to conducting, he teaches privately, and performs on organ, piano and harpsichord. He also maintains his own business Allan Taylor Associates, which specializes in the servicing and tuning of pipe organs.
Choral Vespers for the Easter Season was recorded live at Saint Joseph's Abbey, on Sunday, April 14, 2002 in the Abbey Church.
Easter (Pascha)
Easter (called Pascha in the Eastern churches) is the most important religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion; this resurrection is celebrated on Easter Sunday. Easter also refers to the season of the church year called Eastertide or the Easter Season, the period of fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. The first week of the Easter Season is known as Easter Week or the Octave of Easter (Bright Week or Renewal Week in Eastern usage). Easter also marks the end of Lent, a season of fasting, prayer, and penance.
Easter is a moveable feast, meaning it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the vernal equinox. Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on March 21. The date of Easter in the West therefore varies between March 22 and April 25. Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar whose March 21 corresponds, during the 21st century, to April 3 in the Gregorian Calendar, in which calendar the celebration of Easter therefore varies between April 4 and May 8. In most years, the Eastern Pascha falls after the Western Easter, and it may be as much as five weeks later; occasionally, the two dates coincide.
Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover not only for much of its symbolism but also for its position in the calendar and, in most languages, its name. Pascha is a transliteration of a Greek word derived from the Hebrew
pesach, both words meaning Passover. The origin of the English term "Easter" comes from the Germanic name for the month in which the Christian feast usually fell, which was named for the pagan goddess Eostre.
Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referencing Easter is a mid-2nd century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one. Evidence for another kind of annual Christian festival, the commemoration of martyrs, begins to appear at about the same time. But while martyrs' days were celebrated on fixed dates in the local solar calendar, the date of Easter was fixed by means of the local Jewish lunisolar calendar. This is consistent with the annual celebration of Christ's resurrection having begun during Christianity's earliest, Jewish period.
St. Joseph's Abbey: Spencer, MassachusettsSt. Joseph's Abbey is a monastery of the Catholic Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.), popularly known as the "Trappists", located in Spencer, Massachusetts.
The monastery became known internationally as the origin of the Centering Prayer movement in modern Catholicism and Christianity, whose leading proponents were monks at the monastery: Fr. William Meninger, Fr. M. Basil Pennington and Fr. Thomas Keating. Since the 1950s, the Abbey has been supported in part by the monks' production of Trappist Preserves, their popular line of 30 flavors of jams and jellies.
St. Joseph's Abbey was founded in 1950 by Belgian and French Trappist monks from the monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, which had burned to the ground. In the rustic hills of central New England, they established a new home in which to follow an age-old contemplative way of life.
