A Little Mozart and Bach to Lift Your Spirits

    At the suggestion of a reader, here is Mozart’s Laudate Dominum, a version of the briefest of the Psalms, 117/118, from his 1780 ‘Vespers for a Confessor’, that is, a saint who struggled mightily for the Faith, but was not a martyr, a dedication written by a hand other than the composer’s. But the music is most definitely the divine Mozart:

    And, on this month of Mary, Bach’s Magnificat, originally composed in 1723 for Christmas, then another version, the one we most often performed, in 1733 without the seasonal hymns. A profoundly beautiful work, dedicated to the Virgin, to whom the Lutherans maintained a deep devotion. And Bach was indeed a devout Lutheran, with almost all of his music offered ad maiorem Dei gloriam.