Antoine Brumel’s twelve-part Earthquake Mass "Et ecce terrae motus" alongside lovely works by selected C15/16 contemporaries including Praetorius, Gibbons and Lassus
Church of St John the Baptist, Wellington TA21 8QY
5pm
£15 full price, Students £10, u12s free
Hear parts of the Earthquake Mass, written around 1500 by Antoine Brumel, using extraordinary complexity of harmony and rhythm. For contrast listen to C16 contemporaries including Ockeghem, Gombert, Isaac and Lassus.
We are very pleased to be working under the expert direction of Andrea Brown for this project, a truly inspiring director to work with, highly experienced and a superb singer in her own right.
The programme is loosely based on an Easter theme, principally because it is thought that the first performance of Brumel's Earthquake Mass took place at an Easter service, hence his naming it Et ecce terrae motus. The plainchant theme which recurs throughout the work is also based on an Easter chant. Described dramatically in the Bible, St Matthew wrote that of the moment of Jesus' resurrection, "And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it".
Certainly the music that Brumel imagined for this theme is a long way from other works of the time, these were characterised by clarity of interwoven lines of music, opening and closing, easily distinguished one from another by the listener; parts of this Earthquake Mass can seem as chaotic as an earthquake in their own right, yet always resolving with clarity.
The choir will be accompanied by instruments: cornetts, sackbuts and organ doubling some of the vocal parts.