Noteworthy Candlemas Masses on the East and West Coasts of the US on February 2, 2014

These two posters from Baltimore, MD, and Palo Alto, CA announce noteworthy sung Candlemas Masses in the Extraordinary Form—which will take place on opposite coasts of the United States this coming Sunday February 2, 2014. Also see the larger versions at the end of this blog.


In Palo Alto, the St. Ann choir, directed by Stanford Musicology Professor, William Peter Mahrt, who is President of the Church Music Association of America and Editor of the journal Sacred Music, will sing Missa Quarti Toni by Tomás Luis de Victoria along with several motets, including Anima mea liquefacta est (Rivafrecha), Christe, Fili Dei (Josquin), and Ave Verum Corpus (Byrd). The Palo Alto Mass will be sung at St. Albert the Great Church, the choir's temporary home while St Thomas Aquinas Church, where the choir usually sings at Sunday Masses, is being renovated. This is a good opportunity to hear a Mass by Victoria, who is the most famous composer of the 16th century in Spain and one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation.

St. Albert the Great Church
1095 Channing Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 494-2496

The Candlemas Mass in Baltimore will be sung by the professional choir of Mount Calvary Church. Mount Calvary is a Roman Catholic parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. The choir sings under the direction of Daniel Bennett Page, a music historian specializing in liturgical music in sixteenth-century England (including Byrd) and undergraduate dean at the University of Baltimore. The Ordinary of the Mass will be William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices. This event offers a rare opportunity to hear both Byrd's Mass for Five Voices and his Propers for the Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple (from the Gradualia of 1605) sung at a Catholic Mass, where this music is meant to be sung, instead of in a concert hall or academic setting. According to the website, “This annual feast day rarely falls on a Sunday, and so 2014 provides a particularly apt opportunity to undertake this special project.”

Mount Calvary Church
816 N. Eutaw Street
Baltimore, MD 21201-4624