Communion music
This Sunday, we shall be listening to “Victimæ Paschali laudes” by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–1594), performed by the Choir of New College, Oxford.
This is the “sequence” (a type of liturgical hymn) for Easter in the Roman Missal. The text, whose title translates as “Praises to the Paschal Victim” is usually attributed to the 11th-century Wipo of Burgundy, chaplain to the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II. Palestrina was one of the most significant and influential, as well as prolific, composers of the 16th century; this is one of his later works, probably written during his time (from 1571) as chapelmaster of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter’s in Rome.