Vexilla Regis Prodeunt: Chant, Victoria and Palestrina

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    A blessed and grace-filled Passion-Palm Sunday to one and all of our readers.

    Father Callam has a wonderful meditation on the Vexilla Regis Prodeunt, the hymn written for Passion-Palm Sunday by the bishop and poet Venantius Fortunatus (who also penned the praise to Mary, The God Whom Earth and Sea and Sky, put to harmony by J.S. Bach, for those Lutherans did love Our Lady).

    So, I though to supplement, and add devotion and splendour to this solemn Passion Sunday where almost none of us will be able to be physically present at Mass, you would enjoy the unadorned Gregorian chant version of the hymn, followed by a polyphonic motet composed by the genius of Victoria, and then Palestrina.

    Thomas Luis de Victoria (1548 – 1611)

    And Pierlluigi da Palestrina (1525 – 1594):