Met Opera On Demand

[+ g56whiz]

They played the Poulenc Gloria tonight on the radio. I hadn't listened to it for a long time. My God, what beautiful music. I thought the same thing last year when I heard the composer's Concerto for Organ Strings and Tympani at the LA Phil. At Christmas I heard an exquisite choral piece which turned out to be Poulenc's Four Motets for the Christmas Season. He has become one of my favorite composers. Now I have to see Dialogue of the Carmelites.

 

I’ve sung Poulenc’s four Christmas motets. They are superb. He wrote many many songs and it shows in the marriage of music and text in the motets. Even I sounded a bit like a Francophone.

[bostonman]

I’ve sung Poulenc’s four Christmas motets. They are superb. He wrote many many songs and it shows in the marriage of music and text in the motets. Even I sounded a bit like a Francophone.

 

I sag the Christmas motets as well, back in college. As the accompanist for a Catholic church now, I have this tradition of playing the final one ("Hodie Christus Natus Est") as an organ postlude. The first year I did that, the choir director, who had also sung these motets, loved the idea so much that he's insisted every year that I do it, lol. (I wish our choir was good enough to actually sing any of these, but alas...)

 

We also sang Poulenc's "Salve Regina" - not the one from Carmelites, but another gorgeous 4-part a cappella motet. Still one of my favorites.

[+ g56whiz]

I sag the Christmas motets as well, back in college. As the accompanist for a Catholic church now, I have this tradition of playing the final one ("Hodie Christus Natus Est") as an organ postlude. The first year I did that, the choir director, who had also sung these motets, loved the idea so much that he's insisted every year that I do it, lol. (I wish our choir was good enough to actually sing any of these, but alas...)

 

We also sang Poulenc's "Salve Regina" - not the one from Carmelites, but another gorgeous 4-part a cappella motet. Still one of my favorites.

 

Go hire some ringers. As you and your director know they’re great fun to sing. Your choir will love you for sharing the fun.

 

But for festal postludes forget the Franc or Widor, my favorite is the Gigout Grand Choeur Dialogue. Back at St Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York, Gere and Judy Hancock would play it as an actual duet with one at the main organ and the other at the antiphonal organ over the narthex. Great fun! I think there’s another recording of it from St Thomas Church in which they (not sure it’s the Hancock’s) gilded the lily by adding a trumpet.

 

There’s a video of the Gigout on YouTube. Unfortunately I’m traveling and don’t know how to insert it using my iPhone.