00:00 RESPONSORY: Christus resurgens
05:43 INTROIT: Resurrexi
10:16 SEQUENCE: Victimae paschali laudes
11:59 COMMUNION: Pascha nostrum

ANTIPHONS (from ¨Antiphonale monasticum¨):
13:31 Angelus autem Domini
14:12 Et ecce terraemotus
14:38 Erat autem aspectus
15:09 Prae timore autem
15:37 Respondens autem

16:12 HYMN: Ad cenam Agni (from ¨Antiphonale monasticum¨)

ANTIPHONS (from ¨Antiphonale monasticum¨):
19:51 Et respicientes
20:57 Post dies octo
22:41 Salve, festa Dies
29:41 Alleluia, latis revolutus est
30:58 Ave Maria

32:02 HYMN: Te Deum (from ¨Antiphonale monasticum¨)

Benedictine Monks of the Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur, Clervaux, Luxemburg


The close ties between Jewish and Christian life are most clearly expressed in the celebration of Easter. It is no wonder that the words of the Jewish Passover occur throughout the Christian festival. The whole Easter Office is a marvelous mixture of texts from the Jewish tradition and from the stories of the Resurrection told by the Evangelists.

This relationship can also be recognized in the hymns recorded here. The responsory ¨Christus resurgens¨ tells in the words of Paul (Rom. 6:9) of the fact of Christ’s Resurrection and His deliverance from the sovereignty of death. The melody has that majestic and, at the same time, transparent responsory style which must go back to the old Jewish style as regards its structure: a hymn sung by soloist and choir. Not only the development as a whole but the very motifs used show traces of traditional Jewish music.

In the opening hymn ¨Resurrexi¨, which introduces the Mass, the Lord himself, in a variation of the Latin version of Psalm 138, tells His Father and His disciples that He has arisen. It is no loud cry of triumph, but a calm word, sung in a splendidly balanced melody expressing restful serenity when all strife is at an end.

A completely different atmosphere surrounds the sequence ¨Victimae paschali laudes¨ which, with the simple musical expressiveness and vivid emotion of the late Middle Ages, calls on Christians to offer praise to this Paschal lamb that leads the strayed sheep back to the fold and has reconciled sinners with our Father in Heaven.

The communion hymn ¨Pascha nostrum¨ sings with restrained joy of Christ the Paschal lamb who died for us, and in the fascinating simplicity of the five Office antiphons the Lauds of the Easter octave tell of the events centering around Jesus’ grave.

In the Easter hymn ¨Ad cenam Agni¨, sung here in the ancient version (that is, not in the one revised during the Renaissance), we find in a short form the intermingling of Jewish and Christian Paschal themes.

Two jewels of short antiphons frame the Magnificat in the Easter Sunday vespers: ¨Et respicientes¨ and the ¨Post dies octo¨ of Low Sunday. In a happy key we learn at Easter in the words of the Evangelist of the amazement of the women who, coming to the grave, saw that the heavy stone had been rolled back. On Low Sunday we are told how Jesus, eight days after His Resurrection, appeared to His disciples and blessed them with His peace.

Infectious and boundless in its joy is the melody of the great ¨Regina caeli¨ antiphon. The ¨Salve festa dies¨ finds us once again in the midst of medieval, sumptuous Easter liturgy. This song of praise, so favored for singing in processions, shows, at least as regards the thoughts expressed, some of the ties of the Middle Ages with the liturgies of the Christian East which have not yet been wholly explained.

We now have a simple, syllabic medieval hymn that tells of the events at the grave. What is typical in this hymn is the constant recurrence of the buoyant ¨Alleluia¨, the word which expresses the joy of Easter in the Latin liturgy.

The simple melody of the ¨Ave Maria¨ can be added to the hymns of the actual Easter liturgy. It expresses a lofty medieval piety and follows the stress of the words in a flowing line. Lastly comes the great ancient Christian prose hymn ¨Te Deum¨, the culmination of the expression of gratitude for salvation. The recitative melody sung here is an older version than the usual one, which latter is generally indicated by the words ‘‘More Romano”.

B. Brockbernd O.S.B.


THE PERFORMANCE
The Benedictine monks of the twentieth century have made a vital contribution to the purification of the Gregorian tradition by removing the foreign accretions of the late Renaissance. This record was made by the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur at Clervaux, Luxemburg. There, in the heart of what was once Lotharius’s Middle Empire, the Romanic and the Germanic approaches to ancient religious music have long played complementary parts. This is neither a studio recording nor a concert performance. It is a presentation of the daily practice of a living community which expresses its beliefs through time-honored melodies.

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