One of the responsibilities of the cathedral choirs is the preservation of the great treasury of sacred music spanning many centuries. Tomorrow at the 1100 AM Mass, the Girl Choristers of the Choir School will form the treble section of the Cathedral Choir in offering Josquin Des Prez's Missa "Pange Lingua".The renaissance composer Josquin Des Prez (1450 - 1521) was probably born in Northern Europe but lived most of his professional life in Italy. Having served in the Milan Cathedral as a young chorister at the age of nine, he later served in the Papal Chapel in Rome and served the ducal court in Ferarra.
The Mass that will be sung tomorrow is regarded as one of the composer's most sophisticated and beautiful works. The musical idea with which the Mass movements open derives from the Pange lingua chant (text by St. Thomas Aquinas) which is used every year at the conclusion of the Holy Thursday Mass, on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, and regularly at Vespers and Benediction in our cathedral.
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