Saturday, April 13, 2013

A MOST BEAUTIFUL KYRIE



One of the most heart-rendingly beautiful settings of the Kyrie is that which was composed by Flor Peeters (1903-1986) in his lovely Mass in Honor of St Joseph.

It implores Our Lord to have mercy on us.  Musically, it begs Him to have mercy on us.  This exquisite piece, composed rather recently (in 1950), was written to adorn the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in that pure form which was taken away from the Church in the late 1960s.  It was that Mass that inspired Peeters to compose what he did; it was that Mass that inspired numerous other brilliant musicians.

In recent years in Milwaukee I was privileged to attend the traditional, ancient Rite Mass which has musical accompaniment by the Palestrina Choir under the leadership of Lawrence Stich.  Maestro Stich had his choir sing the Peeters Mass often.  The Peeters Kyrie, and Stich's conducting of it, was art of the highest order.

Here is a rendition of this gorgeous Kyrie.

http://youtu.be/bGlXD8rWWZY

That is what Heaven-centered Catholic liturgy is all about.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most beautiful. Yes.

Mary Kay said...

Exquisite.

Anonymous said...

So So Beautiful.

Thank you.

Could a robot comment on a blog,
or is that just a joke?

Aged parent said...

I hope that you fine folks who have read this and/or commented can one day hear this performed live, in a Church, by a fine choir under a skilled conductor.

We used to have that wonderful experience regularly in our Church until a religious order came in and had other ideas.

Aged parent said...

Anon @2:05:

Very pleased that you liked the piece.

As to your question about the robot, all I can answer is that I have no idea.

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