This morning, the choir is back in action; as many of you know, I've started my new job teaching at UH, but I'll be directing the choir for as long as the church needs to find a new permanent music director! The centerpiece of our musical offering this morning is Monteverdi's grand treatment of Psalm 122, in his motet "Laetatus sum." This Psalm —perhaps better known as "I was glad" in English church music, is a fervent prayer for the prosperity of Jerusalem - but it is much more than that. Indeed, in a much broader sense, it expresses the desire for what Jerusalem represents to be implanted amongst God's people all over the world (that's certainly how the poet William Blake interpreted it in his poem "Jerusalem").

The motet is scored for six soloists, two violins, two trombones, cello and continuo (organ in this case); such relatively grand forces were typical of Venetian sacred music of the early 17' century. For the final passage of the motet - the Gloria patri - the full choir sings along with the soloists. Monteverdi's motet is famous - and beloved - for its splendid use of ground bass technique. A ground bass is a short sequence of notes in the lowest register that repeat over and over again. In this case, it's a series of four notes (G-G-CD) that you'll hear in the organ and cello, unadorned, at the very beginning. Even when the music shifts to triple time (on "propter Fratres"), the ground bass can still be heard, ever so slightly rhythmically altered.

It could be that Monteverdi had in mind the majesty of Jerusalem's gates, or even the Psalm's mention of the city "at unity in itself;" both make potent poetic metaphors that are expressed nicely by the essential sturdiness of the ground bass. Obviously, writing an effective ground bass piece takes significant compositional skill, since the music can swiftly sink into repetitive boredom due to the endlessly repeating bass line. Monteverdi - one of the greatest of all ground bass composers - achieves variety in several ways:

1. The shifting vocal and instrumental colors above the bass line, moving from duets between sopranos and violins, to those between tenors and trombones, to a final passage for the basses and the cello.

2. The shift about halfway through, as mentioned above, from double to triple time music.

3. The unrelenting melodic invention in the vocal and instrumental parts, and the frequent use of dazzling virtuosic runs in the solo voices, which contrast wonderfully with the stubborn, stoic ground bass.

4. The use of word-painting, most notably on the word "ascenderunt" ("ascend"), which slowly and steadily moves up the scale in the two tenor voices.

The Gloria Patri at the end of the work - which we'll reprise at the Benediction response - trades a virtuosic soprano line with choral response; after a short homophonic passage to begin, the ground bass returns on "simper saeculorum," and builds to a grand climax.

At the Introit, another of Monteverdi's grandiose sacred creations - the opening movement of his Vespers of 1610, which many of you heard last Fall in a powerful performance by our own Ars Lyrica. I know of no more splendid opening pages in any work - sacred or secular - than these, which contrast a bare-bones, solo tenor incipit with the dense majesty of the full chorus and swiftly ascending fanfares in the instruments. It's music of supreme confidence and of joyous praise.---- Justin Smith