SATB choir
SKU:
CA.965300
Antiphon
for Holy Thursday.
Composed by Ko
Matsushita. Edited by
Stefan Schuck.
Contemporary Choir Music.
Sacred vocal music, Holy
Week. Full score.
Composed 2014. 4 pages.
Duration 3 minutes. Carus
Verlag #CV 09.653/00.
Published by Carus Verlag
(CA.965300).
ISBN
9790007164881. Language:
Latin.
For the
moving moment in the Good
Friday liturgy, when the
priest symbolically
washes the feet of
several people thereby
recalling the thoughtful,
loving gesture of Christ
at the Last Supper, the
Christian church provides
a specially intimate,
conciliatory text in the
antiphon Ubi caritas.
Matsushita's composition
sets this text quite
simply to reflect this
moment in a beautiful
motet, which is both
charming and grateful to
sing. In an entirely
tonal setting in F major,
with chromatic accents
sparingly employed, he
uses elements from
organum and pedal points
to create tonally
atmospheric expanses
contrasting with the
syllabic setting which
runs throughout. In his
writing he uses unisons,
thirds and contrary
motion, spanning
quasi-Gregorian melodies.
Matsushita sets the three
verses of the hymn
usually set nowadays, and
these also divide the
composition. Each verse
is introduced with the
ascending pentatonic
motif Ubi caritas, but
the melody is transformed
according to the text and
expresses the
immeasurable joy of the
glory of God in the third
verse in a brief forte
outburst with leaps of a
fifth, before the
composition concludes
with a final Ubi caritas
and an Amen lost in
reverie. voice range: S:
c' - f'' / A1:adeg - es''
/ A2: gdeg - b' / T: fdeg
- f' / B1: B - des' / B2:
F - a'.
