Here's an interesting post, from last week at MusicaSacra: The Sunday which heads the Lenten season takes its theme from the paradigm of all Christian fasting: Jesus’ forty-day fast in the desert and his temptation by the devil there. In tempting Jesus to show his divinity by casting himself down ...

R. Attende, Domine, et miserere: quia peccavimus tibi . (Hear us, O Lord, and have mercy: because we have sinned against You.) 1. Ad te, Rex summe, omnium Redemptor, oculos nostros sublevamus flentes: exaudi, Christe, supplicantum preces. (To you, Most High King, Redeemer of us all, we lift our eyes...

The famous Lenten hymn "Attende Domine" is the cry of the sinner who calls unto God to receive his mercy. A monument of the liturgy of the Catholic Church. ATTENDE DOMINE (Penitential Chant) Hear us, O Lord, and have mercy, because we have sinned against Thee. Hear us, O Lord, and have mercy, becaus...

Next Wednesday, I'll post another Lenten favorite of mine, Attende Domine ("Hear [us] Lord"). This and Parce Domine are two of the earliest chants I learned (all of 18 months ago). They are simple melodies to learn, certainly penitential in character, and the words could not be truer. The Latin is b...

More of an Advent article than a Lenten one....Composer Morten Lauridsen explains how a 17th century still life inspired his musical composition of O Magnum Mysterium, in the Wall Street Journal of all places!   Excerpts: "Francisco de Zurbarán's ' Still Life With Lemons, O...

Last week, I signed up for "Google Alerts" on the topic of "Gregorian Chant" - I really did! - and believe it or not, this was in my Inbox today: "It's a Still Life That Runs Deep," a piece written about the Baroque painter Francisco de Zurbarán - by the contemporary American composer Morten Laurid...

I'm starting to get quite a few of the usual seasonal hits for this wonderful Lenten responsory that I first heard sung in procession at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue; according to TPL, it's a Mozarabic hymn from the 10th century. Unfortunately, it seems that the video I posted last year has been removed ...

This past Shabbat, the rabbi spoke about one of the most valuable pieces of wisdom she learned in rabbinical school. We think of theology as a fixed understanding, an aha! moment of awareness that arrives and stays, she said. But relationships between our fellow humans grow and evolve over time, tau...

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I'm nuts for singing Orthodox (and Orthodox-ish) music these days. The melodies (and harmonies) are almost always pretty simple; it's the dynamics that give these songs their impact - and working on dynamics like this is really good for breathing, which is so key in singing everything. We sang Bogor...