Tenebrae
factae
sunt
for
unaccompanied SATB choir
5 minutes
Excerpt: sound score
(pdf)
performed
by The Indiana
Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Carmen Tellez, conductor
There
was darkness over
all the earth.
Then Jesus
cried out
in a loud voice:
“My God, My
God, why
hast thou forsaken me?”
There
was darkness over
all the earth.
Then Jesus
cried out
in a loud voice:
“Father,
into thy hands
I commend my sprit.”
And he
gave up his ghost.
Matthew
27:46.
Luke 24:
44-46, KJV
Tenebrae factae sunt
is a setting
of a portion of the traditional liturgy for Good Friday, the day
Christians
remember Christ’s crucifixion. The opening verse (“There was
darkness
over all the earth”) appears in both English and Latin several times
during
the piece, casting a mysterious shadow over Jesus’ final, excruciating
words from the Cross. The darkness is interrupted twice by a fugato
treatment
of the Matthew’s words “Then Jesus cried out in a loud voice”, leading
each time to the words of Christ himself. The piece ends with an
exhausted but tender depiction of Jesus finally handing his soul over
to
his Father.
Additional Information
Tenebrae factae sunt was
commissioned
by Jeffrey Brillhart and the Bryn Mawr Chamber Singers in 2000, and was
premiered by them on Good Friday of that year.
In 2005 it was co-winner of
the New York
Virtuoso Singers’ composition competition.
Performance History
2005
New York
Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, conductor, Madison Avenue
Prebyterian
Church, NYC
2001:
Indiana Contemporary
Vocal Ensemble, Carmen Tellez, conductor, SCI National Student
Conference,
Bloomington, IN
2000:
Bryn Mawr Chamber
Singers, Jeffrey Brillhart, conductor, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church,
Bryn
Mawr, PA
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