Music at Toronto's St. James' Cathedral presents

LUX AETERNA - A meditation on the World's Fall and Redemption
Sunday March 17th, 2002, 4:30pm
St. James' Cathedral, King & Church Streets, Toronto

THOMAS TALLIS Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet (16th century)
(original version for Men's Voices)
EDWARD BAIRSTOW Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet (1942)
MORTON LAURIDSEN Lux Aeterna (1997)

AtB - The Men of the Cathedral Choir
St. James' Cathedral Pilgrim Singers
The Very Rev'd Douglas A Stoute, Dean of Toronto - officiant
Christopher Dawes, Director of Music - conductor
P. John H. Stephenson, Interim Assistant Organist - organ

St. James’ Cathedral began its annual tradition of a major choir-and-organ
Musical Meditation on the Fifth Sunday of Lent in 1994, when the Men and
Boys performed and recorded Theodore Dubois’ Seven Last Words of Christ.
Since then various of the five Cathedral Choirs have offered many works
narrating or commenting directly on the Passion story, including Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion, John Stainer’s Crucifixion, Finzi’s Lo! The Full Final
Sacrifice and Ham’s Solitudes of the Passion.

This year is different: underlying the drama and agony of the Passion of
Jesus Christ is the fall of humankind from God’s Grace, and its redemption
and the return of light through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Today, while bypassing the Passion story which will be so fully told in Holy
Week we emphasise these two poles through two of history’s most beautiful
settings of the prophet Jeremiah’s Lament of the fall of humankind (Thomas
Tallis, Edward Bairstow), and a recent masterwork which sets five ancient
Latin texts dealing with light in a beautiful and reflective choral setting
("Lux Aeterna" by Morten Lauridsen).

This is a church service: like every weekly 4:30 service at St. James'
Cathedral this choral service has no admission charge. All making their
Lenten journey, or seeking a glimpse God through beauty are welcome.