Mozart's 'Coronation' Mass earlier...

on

Have just managed to get to the laptop for Holy Mass from Saint-Eugène at 1000; it is Quasi modo geniti infantes, alleluia (Introibo) since it is a feria. Errands and household chores, and so forth. Am having a difficult time realising that today is already Thursday, eh. Pater Jean-François Thomas SJ is the celebrant; he is chaplain or secretary (I forget the title of the office) of the Confrérie Royal established several years ago in France to pray for the Duc d'Anjou, in better circumstances Louis XX, and the Royal Family. An excellent preacher. 

Another beautiful morning, warmer and less windy than yesterday (thus far anyway). Not the sort of weather that the Argonauts are sailing through at this point in my progress. 




Am reading, inter alia, A.M. Juster's version of Horace's Sermones or saturae, one a day since I received the book. Am looking forward to the third later on. Horace and then Juster.

Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus, inter amicos
ut numquam inducant animum cantare rogati,
iniussi numquam desistant. Sardus habebat
ille Tigellius hoc.

All singers share this fault: among their friends
they won't perform, but music never ends
when everybody thinks it should be through.
Sardinia's Tigellius would do
that sort of thing.

As the poet acknowledges, the 'heroic couplets' are not going to 'work' for everyone but I like 'em, and if every once in a while the sonority is off, somehow, well, the alternatives have more issues so far as I'm concerned. 

From the Twitter account of Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, this Tweet includes an excerpt of Fr Guelfucci's homily on (I believe but am not sure) Low Sunday (when Mons Aupetit's ukase was read from the sanctuary): 'We trust that Christ and the Virgin Mary will vindicate the truth!' or 'We entrust to Christ and the Virgin the manifestation of the truth!'
 

Am pleased to see that this displays as the tweet itself with its video excerpt. It's the first time I've gone to the HTML composing window here. There is code I can enter ('center', '/center', evidently) in order to center that but am not going to push my luck: I can't figure out where to put the 'center' and '/center'. And it's past time for Sext.

Easter having come, I returned to Twitter, visiting regularly, I mean; I checked in three or four times during Lent. My practice is to leave Twitter itself open throughout the day-- whose tweets I happen to see, I see. In the mornings, I open Tweetdeck and make a pass across all the different accounts I have added in that app (Matthew Schmitz and Ross Douthat to Rorate Caeli and Father Zuhlsdorf to Eleanor Parker, Eccles, Professors Pecknold and Deneen [that Vermeule fellow blocked me, for some reason], Josias Rex, Pater Edmund, Michel Janva; 32 althogether), from left to right. Two or three hours later, I go back, right to left. And then I close it. In the case of most of those folks I can scroll a bit but very soon come to the end of the preceding day's tweets-- at which point I stop. Some of 'em are very prolific indeed and have their own 'signals' reminding me when to stop; at Eccles, e.g., I scroll to Patti Fordyce's daily tweet recalling us to prayer for Bill and Melinda Gates and George Soros, at Posobiec until I run across a second gif for the session. 

The annual Musicking Conference at the University of Oregon is happening this week; of course it is all viritual, pft. There is a woman, Anna O'Connell from Case Western Reserve University, talking about, singing about, 'mediaeval German musicking' beginning at 1500, in half an hour or so. We shall see. At 1730, a concert by the ensemble Pallade Musica from Montréal that I will listen to. Arthur Kaptainis says they're good, they must be good. Tomorrow at 1730 there is a performance by one of the University's ensembles of Giovanni Bononcini's San Nicola di Bari. 





Two years ago, the Musicking people staged two oratorios, Quirino Colombani's Il martirio di santa Cecilia (1701) and Giacomo Antonio Perti's La beata Imelde (1686)-- very scintillating events and fine performances. One of them was having its second ever performance although I don't remember which one. This year, there looks to be lots of academic nonsense about multicultural and feminist nonsense, leaving me quite uninterested, generally speaking-- which is not to say that individual presentations may not be fascinating, at least in part. Three cheers for Anna O'Connell (whose brief biography at the page supra is impressive)! 

Have quickly lost interest since Miss O'Connell is connecting 'Deus vult' in the period of the Crusades with 'Neo-Nazis' in the 21st century. 'Meme-enthusiasts', she's prosing on about. I was not indeed fascinated. Pft. Tsk. I hope Pallade Musica can keep their politics out of their performance at 1730. The great pity is that O'Connell doesn't realize that she is importing someone's politics into her research-- and it's not the Neo-Nazis'.

Dom Prosper has remembered today the Just imprisoned in the underworld until Our Lord's Passion, Death, and Resurrection; antechamber of Hell or Limbo-- that is too great a question for me of course but it is dogmatically certain that the Lord, descending to the world of the Dead, brought forth therefrom the souls of the righteous ones who had died before He accomplished the work of Redemption. 

The Apostles and holy women are not the only ones to enjoy the presence of our Risen Jesus: a countless people of the Just made perfect claim and have the happiness of seeing and reverencing the sacred humanity of this their beloved King. The magnificence of the Resurrection has caused us somewhat to forget those venerable Captives of Limbo, with whom the Soul of our Redeemer spent the hours that elapsed between his Death and Resurrection. They were the friends of God, and were awaiting in Abraham's bosom (as the Scripture expresses it) the dawning of light eternal. From the hour of None of the great Friday till the daybreak of Sunday, the soul of our Emmanuel abode with these holy prisoners, who were thus put in possession of infinite happiness. But when the hour of his triumph came how was the Conqueror of Death to leave behind him these souls, whom he had enfranchised by his Death and Resurrection? 

At the moment fixed by the eternal decree, Jesus' Soul passes from Limbo to the Sepulchre, and is re-united to his Body; but he is accompanied by a jubilant choir of other souls-- the souls of the long-imprisoned Saints. On the day of the Ascension, they will form his court, and rise together with him; but Heaven's gate is not yet open, and they must needs wait for these forty days to pass, during which our Redeemer will organise his Church. They are invisible to the eyes of men, but they dwell in the space above this lowly earth, where once they passed their days, and merited an eternal recompense. Adam again sees the land which he had tilled in the sweat of his brow; Abel is in admiration at the power of the divine Blood, which has sued for mercy, whereas his prayed but for vengeance. Noe looks upon this globe, and finds it covered with an immense multitude of men, all of whom are descendants of his three sons; Abraham, the father of believers, Isaac also, and Jacob, hail the happy moment when is to be fulfilled the promise which was made to them, that all generations should be blessed in Him who was to be born of their race; Moses recognises his people, in whose midst, the Messias (whom he had announced, and who is greater than he) has found so few followers and so many enemies; Job, who represents the elect among the Gentiles, is filled with joy at seeing his Redeemer living in whom he had hoped in all his trials; David, fired with holy enthusiasm, is preparing canticles for heaven, grander far than those he has left us, to be sung in praise of the Incarnate God, who has espoused our human nature; Isaias and the other Prophets behold the literal fulfilment of all they had foretold; in a word, this countless army of Saints, formed from the elect of all times and countries, is grieved at finding the earth a slave to the worship of false gods; they beseech our Lord, with all the earnestness of prayer, that he would hasten the time for the preaching of the Gospel, which is to rouse from their sleep them that are seated in the shadow of death. As the elect, when they rise from their graves, on the last day, will ascend through the air to meet Christ as eagles who gather together, wheresoever the body may be; so now, these holy souls cluster around their divine Deliverer. He is their attraction; the seeing him, the speaking with him, is truly a heaven on earth to them. Jesus indulges these Blessed of his Father, who are soon to possess the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world; he allows them to follow and accompany him; and thus does he beguile the days which are to be spent before that glorious one of his triumphant Ascension.

What mast not have been the happiness of the faithful and chaste Joseph in being thus near his adopted Son, his Creator? With what affection must he not have looked upon his virginal Spouse, who has been made, at the Foot of the Cross, the Mother of men! Who could describe the delight wherewith Anne and Joachim gaze upon their Daughter, the august Mother whom all generations shall call Blessed? And John, the Precursor,—how must he not have exulted at seeing Her, at whose voice he was sanctified in his Mother's womb, and who has given to the world the Lamb that taketh all sin away! How affectionately must not these ransomed souls have looked upon the Apostles, those future conquerors of the world, who are now being prepared for the combat by their Divine Master! It is through them that the earth, once brought to the knowledge of the true God, will be ever sending up elect ones to heaven until time shall give place to eternity. Let us, today, honour these hidden but august witnesses of what God's mercy is preparing for the world's salvation. We shall soon see them ascending to heaven, of which they will take possession in the name of mankind, that has been redeemed by Christ. Let us not forget how, on their way from Limbo to Heaven, they rested with Jesus, for forty days, on this earth of ours, where they themselves had once lived and merited an eternal crown. Their visit brought a blessing with it; and their departure was the signal for us to follow them; it opened the way to the blissful Home, which is one day to be ours.

Received my copy today of the Argonautika in the translation of Rodney Merrill; he's put his English version into 'accentual dactylic hexameter'. Translating Homeric Song in Merrill's Odyssey is, he suggests, a thorough explanation of his choices here but, not having that volume to hand, I did find his English Translations of Homeric Epic in Dactylic Hexameters in pdf, which may serve for the present, along with the introduction to his Argonautika. 

Substack requires some formatting manipulation. For example, every text that here I put into small print is italicised when I indent it, so I've taken to putting what is italicised in the original into bold. On Substack, the indenting italicisation doesn't happen, so there are two sorts of bold text that appear there quite unintentionally. And videos and hyperlinks don't copy/paste. Hmm. Must take my walk now before the concert.

The Pallade Musica people are staying out past the 8 o'clock pm curfew in Montréal, ha. "The Buxtehude starts out really groovy...." "We have one guest, Fred, who runs the church." 33 people watching. 





I mixed up the Berardi canzoni but the entire program is there, at least. Now 36 people watching; these are three UO people who've returned from procuring refreshments. The 37th cannot make up his mind whether to stay online or go-- perhaps a surfeit of 'refreshments'. 39. 38. 37. 36. Heavens; 40 during the final Buxtehude. A lovely program, well performed. One of the audience suggested that links to the scores (e.g. at IMSLP) be provided-- which I'd never have thought of but is a great idea although it might be difficult finding a printed score accessible online that would exactly match the score the artist is using; perhaps not.  

It is also the feast of Saint Damian (19th century), of Saint Ortarius (6th century), and of Saint Abbo (7th-8th century).

V. Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum. R. Deo grátias.


LDVM

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