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Your Church Choir<br />
Can Sing Mendelssohn!<br />
most emotionally poignant<br />
episodes.” 24<br />
When the A section returns it begins in<br />
G major but quickly fi nds the home key.<br />
Melodically, the piece opens with a theme<br />
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that moves through<br />
each voice featuring<br />
white notes with a<br />
single dotted-quarter-eighth<br />
rhythm<br />
(Figure 8). In the<br />
theme of the B<br />
section this rhythm<br />
becomes the dominant<br />
factor (Figure<br />
9). The Gloria Patri<br />
is a straight-forward<br />
hymn-like setting.<br />
Cooper praises the<br />
Amen for its “artful<br />
chain of suspensions<br />
in an extended cadential descent,<br />
[which] offers a deceptively simple but<br />
highly effective close to one of the Gospel’s<br />
Opus 69, No. 2<br />
The Jubilate in A major has<br />
two possible Gloria Patri settings.<br />
It is composed in three<br />
disparate sections, the outer<br />
sections in A major and alla<br />
breve, the middle section in<br />
A minor and common meter.<br />
The fi rst section, Allegro moderato, is made<br />
up of points of imitation. For seven measures,<br />
a rhythmic motive made up of the last three<br />
quarters in each measure drives the second<br />
half of this section to its E-major cadence. In<br />
the second section, Moderato, a single theme<br />
is initiated and carried throughout (Figure<br />
10). The hymn-like third section, Andante,<br />
repeats a single sixteen-bar phrase three<br />
times and then closes with a shortened<br />
version of the phrase. The A minor Gloria<br />
Patri composed for the Anglican version<br />
resembles Anglican chant in its fi rst twelve<br />
measures, which feature two almost identical<br />
phrases in which soprano and alto answer<br />
tenor and bass. Renaissance-like imitation<br />
leads to the conclusion of this version. In the<br />
Gloria Patri for the German edition, a statement<br />
that expands to eight parts is made<br />
and then repeated. Following this, an Amen<br />
is added, which pyramids from bass II at<br />
one-bar intervals through soprano I with the<br />
men’s entrances outlining an F major-seventh<br />
chord and the women’s entrances outlining<br />
a B ♭ major six-four chord. In this Gloria<br />
Patri, four of the seven phrases are unison<br />
and the others are eight-part. The German<br />
Gloria Patri was borrowed by the publishers<br />
from Mendelssohn’s Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79<br />
and transposed up one-half step to create<br />
a more uplifting ending. Neither version<br />
makes use of soloists. With alternate notes<br />
provided in one measure for the basses, this<br />
Jubilate presents the most moderate ranges<br />
for the singers of any of Mendelssohn’s<br />
choral works. The Anglican version is a<br />
beautifully subtle expression of joy.<br />
<br />
42 Choral Journal • April 2010