G B Pergolesi – ’O Sacrum Convivium’ – anthem at Eucharist 2nd May
Sebastian Forbes – ‘Gracious Spirit’ – anthem at Eucharist, Pentecost, 23rd May
Earthquakes and volcanoes being topical these days, we can readily connect with the citizens of Naples whose lives were endangered by earthquakes at the end of 1732. Lacking the modern protection of Health and Safety directives, they speedily elected St Emilius (protector against earthquakes) as a Special Patron Saint of the city, and took the further precaution of celebrating his festival with particular care by commissioning new music for Mass and Vespers. The young composer Pergolesi – newly-appointed that year to his first post as maestro di capella to a member of the viceregal court in Naples – is said to have contributed some of this music, and perhaps it included his Vespers antiphon ‘O sacrum convivium’ which we shall hear as the anthem at the morning Eucharist service on Sunday 2nd May. Its studiously correct contrapuntal writing gives no inkling of the famous intermezzo ‘La Serva Padrona’ which Pergolesi wrote only a few months later. But then the subject-matter of this beautiful text is very far removed from ‘Padrona’:
‘… O sacred banquet at which Christ is consumed, the memory of His passion
recalled, our souls filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory given to us …’.
The sombre tone, carefully-prepared dissonances and immaculate counterpoint are a wholly fitting musical expression of such sacred mysteries. Good to celebrate this 300th anniversary year of Pergolesi’s birth with this rarely-heard work.
Three weeks later, on 23rd May, again at the morning Eucharist, we have another – rather closer – connection with the anthem, which will be Forbes’s ‘Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost’. Sebastian Forbes began his musical training as a boy singer here in Hampstead Parish Church under Martindale Sidwell (and in fact returned here to sing in the 10th anniversary memorial concert for Martindale two years ago). He went on to a distinguished academic career in composition, becoming Professor of Music at the University of Surrey. He is a prolific composer, and set this text for the wedding of two friends in 1968. Its four verses are taken from Bishop Wordsworth’s hymn paraphrasing I Corinthians 13 (you can find the words at English Hymnal No 367). The setting is mainly for five unaccompanied voices, but later – as Barry Rose describes it – ‘… some florid and delicate organ interludes … seem to give an impression of the fluttering wings of a dove, depicted as the Holy Spirit at Christ’s baptism … on which the final verse (‘From the overshadowing / of thy gold and silver wing’) is based …’. An appropriate choice for Pentecost.