A musical reconstruction of Vespers for Christmas Day in St Marks

Vespers is the sixth of the canonical hours, or offices, and is a service of evening prayer held at sunset in the Orthodox, Western Catholic and Eastern churches. The Anglican equivalent is Evensong. It is a mixture of psalms, hymns and a canticle from the new testament. These are framed by seasonal antiphons, and separated by bible readings and responsories. The psalms and canticles are concluded with a doxology – the Gloria Patri. Psalms 110, 111 and 112 were those appointed for the vespers on Christmas Day. They were also used in St Mark’s on St Stephen’s Day (Dec. 26^th), the Feast of St John the Evangelist (Dec. 27^th) and Holy Innocents’ Day (Dec. 28^th). St Mark’s also retained them for the Feast of the Circumcision (Jan. 1^st), the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6^th) and the Feast of the Purification (Feb. 2^nd). The additional psalms, De Profundis (Ps. 126) and Memento Domine David (Ps. 132), were performed at vespers in Venice from Christmas Day until twelfth night – a practice which was unique to Venice, and a little unusual given the darker nature of the text. The major feasts of the Christian calendar are celebrated on their eve. So the first vespers of Christmas would occur on December 24^th and the second vespers of Christmas on December 25^th.

Respond

The words of this respond are taken from the opening of Psalm 70. These words form the introductory prayer to every Hour of the Roman, monastic and Ambrosian Breviaries. They are interpolated with instrumental extracts from Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Virgine of 1610, which in turn he plagiarised from his own opera, L’Orfeo of 1607.

Respond

Alma Redemptoris Mater - F. Cavalli

This Marian hymn, written in Latin hexameter, was published as part of the same collection as the Magnificat. It was traditionally sung at the end of compline (the last of the daily canonical hours) and vespers and is one of four used seasonally throughout the year. The hymn is thought to have been written in the early eleventh century by Hermannus Contractus. The hymn is mentioned in one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Antiphon