Sacred Music Series

In a new summer series, OLMC music director and music professor, Ms. Andrea Covais explores the rich tradition of sacred music. Each week we will feature a new song that will be sung during that weekend’s Masses at communion. We hope these short pieces enrich and deepen your spiritual journey during these times.

Ms. Andrea Covais, OLMC Music Director

The text for Panis Angelicus comes from the Sacris solemniis, a poem written by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. The title translates to “Bread of Angels” and was written for and is usually sung at the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ) two weeks after Pentecost. The version you will hear this weekend uses that same text and has music set by the French composer César Franck (1822-1890). Franck originally scored the piece for tenor, organ, harp and cello but it is often sung with just organ and voice, or as a duet between two voices with organ. It later made its way into Franck’s Messe à troix voix  (Mass for Three Voices), one of his many liturgical compositions. Franck, one of the main liturgical composers in France during the nineteenth century was a church musician (he was the organist and music director at the Basilica of St. Clotide in Paris) as well as a Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, where he taught such famous pupils as Vincent D’Indy, Ernest Chausson, Louis Verne and Henri Duparc. Franck’s organ pieces along with this Panis Angelicus serve as his most famous works.