Notes About The Music

2nd Sunday After Easter

Hymn: Veni Creator Spiritus, 956
Recessional hymn: The King of Love, My Shepherd Is, 874
Credo III, 776

Antiphon during Confirmation: Confirma Hoc, John Mason
Kyriale: Missa Puisque J’ai Perdu, Orlandus Lassus (c.1532–1594) 
Marian Antiphon: Regina Cœli, Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500–1553)
Communion Antiphon: Ego Sum Pastor, Heinrich Isaac (c.1450–1517) 

Orlandus Lassus’s (c.1532–1594), Missa Puisque J’ai Perdu, is a polyphonic setting of the ordinary parts of the Mass. Lassus took the musical foundation for this setting from a chanson (song) by Johannes Lupi from which the Mass received its name. 

In his four voice setting of Regina Cœli, Cristóbal de Morales uses this familiar melody with some ornamentation in the Soprano voice. The Alto voice echos much of the Soprano melody at a lower pitch while the Tenor and Bass voices have many moving notes throughout. He emphasizes the final alleluia by having each voice sing a series of ascending notes then drop to a lower pitch and repeat several times which lasts well over a quarter of the overall work.

Orlandus Lassus (c.1532–1594) is known for the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school. He wrote over 2,000 works in Latin, French, Italian, and German both sacred and secular. Lassus along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria are the most influential composers of the late Renaissance.