Hermann Schroeder: Motet, "Rorate Caeli"

Описание: Hermann Schroeder (1904 - 1984): Motet, "Rorate Caeli" for SATB choir.

Performance: Ars Musicae Ensemble
Album: Incipit

For Hermann Schroeder (1904 - 1984) – German composer, conductor, organist, and pedagogue – music was a "practical" commitment to the "mandatory inheritance" from Bach. When asked what composers he considered “modern leading figures”, his list would hardly be considered “modern” by contemporary standards, citing predominantly Paul Hindemith and Max Reger. Seeming unquestionably old-fashioned, his music is typically characterized as Neoclassical, especially when compared to his prominent avant-garde peers and modernist predecessors. However, rather than merely attempting to mimic or return to aesthetic precepts associated with Classicism, Schroeder saw himself in a continuing lineage, able to look both forward and backward while interacting with and reacting to his contemporaries to create an eclectic yet internally cohesive modern musical language. Schroeder’s concert and chamber oeuvre composed during the 1950s and thereafter form a repertoire of music that demonstrates his commitment to recasting sounds, styles, and forms of the past.

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Original Latin Text:

Roráte caéli désuper,
et núbes plúant jústum.

Ne irascáris Dómine,
ne ultra memíneris iniquitátis:
ecce cívitas Sáncti fácta est desérta:
Síon desérta fácta est:
Jerúsalem desoláta est:
dómus sanctificatiónis túæ et glóriæ túæ,
ubi laudavérunt te pátres nóstri.

Consolámini, consolámini, pópule méus:
cito véniet sálus túa:
quare mæróre consúmeris,
quia innovávit te dólor?
Salvábo te, nóli timére,
égo enim sum Dóminus Déus túus,
Sánctus Israël, Redémptor túus.


English Translation:

Drop down ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness:

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,
neither remember iniquity for ever:
behold, the holy city is a wilderness:
Sion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation:
the house of your sanctification and your glory,
where thee our fathers praised.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
my salvation shall not tarry:
why wilt thou waste away in sadness?
why hath sorrow seized thee?
Fear not, for I will save thee:
for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.