This week, our cathedral is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its building, the large Gothic structure on St. Catherine Street that was completed in 1859 and now stands in the middle of modern "downtown" Montreal. Located just off the present day Philips Square, near La Baie ("The Bay" -- which was the Hudson Bay Company's retail store), the cathedral was originally built on land that had been the Philips' family's orchard. The other day we drove to the outskirts of Laval, a suburb to the north and west of Montreal Island, and saw the present-day edges of urban development where they meet cornfields and farms, many many miles from downtown. It's hard to imagine, but when the cathedral was built, the area where I live now was the faraway edge of the city.
Our cathedral has a sister relationship with the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Havana, Cuba, and we were fortunate to be able to invite and bring its Dean and Bishop - who are husband and wife, respectively - from Cuba to be with us this week. I'm looking forward to meeting them tomorrow. Several delegations from our church have gone down to Cuba for the past couple of years, but even though Quebec has a very open relationship with Cuba, it's still extremely difficult for Cubans to travel here, so we're lucky they were able to get visas and be with us, and I'm looking forarad to telling you more about them.
Tomorrow morning there will be a special liturgy in celebration of this anniversary, and I've been running through some of the music this afternoon. We'll be doing a mass setting by Tomas Luis Victoria (1549-1611), one of my favorite early composers, and it is a thrilling one - you can listen to the various movements here, and I'd suggest that you try the Gloria. Another standout piece from the morning service will be Healey Willan's "Behold the Tabernacle of God," which you can also hear on the web.
In the afternoon, at 4:00, Evensong will feature the music of Orlando Gibbons, who wrote during the Tudor period. I learned today that Gibbons, a great master of counterpoint, was one of Glenn Gould's favorite composers, and even though I'm not an early music nut, as some of my choir compatriots are (I actually love learning and singing the most contemporary music) I like Gibbons a lot. We're doing a verse-anthem, "O Great and Glorious God" with verses sung by soloists and the choir then coming in as a chorus, and his "Second Service" Magnificant and Nunc Dimitis. The other anthem for the service is a big English romantic piece by Stanford (1852-1924). As usual, the afternoon service will be broadcast and streamed live on the net, so you can listen to us if you'd like, right here. Click that link (to Radio Ville Marie) and then click on "Nous ecouter radio en direct" in the upper right part of the screen, at 4:00 pm Sunday, EST. You'll get much better sound if you use headphones.
Comments