O sacrum convivium
Olivier Messiaen
Recording
Choir of Clare College, Graham Ross
- Album
- Pange Lingua: Music for Corpus Christi
- Year
- 2016
- Length
- Period
- Sacred choral
- Listen
Painting
Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)
Christ at Emmaus: The Larger Plate, 1654
The piece
Messiaen set this antiphon for Corpus Christi, attributed to Thomas Aquinas, for four-part choir in 1937. Its text names the sacred banquet in which Christ is received and the memory of his Passion is renewed.
The recording
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge recorded it unaccompanied under Graham Ross in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral in 2016, on an album of music for Corpus Christi. John Quinn of MusicWeb International wrote that "all the performances here are first rate."
Other recordings
Westminster Cathedral Choir under James O'Donnell, and the Danish National Vocal Ensemble under Marcus Creed on OUR Recordings.