Perhaps more beautiful than the better-known “Veni Emmanuel” is the 17th-century French chant “Rorate caeli”. The antiphon melody shoots up to the heavens before a broad, majestic fall. It is the opening track of From the Vaults of Westminster Cathedral (Hyperion, 2009), a liturgical journey from Advent to Epiphany. With expressive shaping, an ever-increasing intensity, and directness of delivery, this chanting is matchless.
Sir James Macmillan is the preeminent British Catholic composer of our time and no stranger to the Catholic Herald. Both accessible and rewarding, his “O Radiant Dawn” uses Tallis’ motet for the Transfiguration, “O nata lux”, as its musical basis. The world’s longing becomes increasingly adamant with the suspension-adorned and repeated Advent invocations, each one higher and louder than the last.
