AN IRISH choir is deputising this weekend for one of the world's major choirs in Westminster Cathedral, London, tomorrow.
The Lassus Scholars, under its director Ite O'Donovan, is singing Missa 'Qual Donna' by Lassus as well as motets by him and his great contemporary, Palestrina, in Westminster Cathedral tomorrow.
On Sunday morning, the choir will sing Schubert's Mass in C and in the afternoon perform Solemn Vespers, and all while the famous Westminster choir takes a holiday.
Westminster Cathedral is the only Catholic church in the world in which a full Latin Mass and vespers is sung every day. Its choir, which was established in 1903 by Richard Terry, a conductor and composer who pioneered the revival of early English and other European Renaissance music, is internationally regarded as equal to the great university choir of King's College, Cambridge.
This is the first time in a decade that the Westminster Cathedral choir, which consists of men and boys, has invited a choir to perform its full weekend duties.
For the Lassus Scholars, a chamber choir of 25 male and female voices, it is both an honour and also further consolidation of its growing international reputation.The event is coming within a week of performing Schubert's Mass in C in Dublin.
The choir was founded in 1996 by Ite O'Donovan and named in honour of the Renaissance composer Orlande de Lassus (c.1532- 1594). The Lassus Scholars of the Dublin Choral Foundation, which also has a junior choir, has performed throughout Europe, with many concerts in Rome, Krakow, Strasbourg, Moscow, Essen and in Cologne's famous cathedral, as well as New York and Boston, grant-aided by Culture Ireland.
Invited to Rome last year to give a concert to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the excavations under the church at San Clemente, which were initiated in 1857 by the Irish Dominican priest and amateur archaeologist Fr Joseph Mullooly, the choir performed music ranging from early plain chant to Stanford and Durufle, to reflect the span of centuries contained within the church site.
A fourth-century basilica and the tomb of St Cyril were discovered under four layers of previous churches.
One of Ireland's most distinguished conductors, O'Donovan previously worked with the Palestrina Choir. She subsequently founded the Dublin Choral Foundation and the Lassus Scholars. She had the objective of presenting concert-goers with an exciting repertoire of secular and sacred music spanning the Renaissance and Baroque periods, as well as works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. She also includes later pieces such as Fauré's Requiem and works by Irish contemporary composers.
"We want our audiences to enjoy listening to this glorious music as much as we enjoy singing it," she says.
Over the recent Passion week period, the Lassus Scholars was among the busiest choral groups in Ireland. It has performed a diverse programme of work including the magnificent Responsories for Tenebrae by Spanish composer Victoria; Palestrina's Miss Brevis; Lassus's Missa 'Qual Donna' and three performances of Allegri's haunting Miserere mei, Deus (Have mercy on me, God) with its soaring phrases.
(This was a piece so unique and closely guarded by the Vatican that Mozart furtively made a copy of it during a visit to Rome in 1770.)
It also performed the Mozartian-style Schubert Mass in C, with motets by Lassus and Palestrina choirs on Easter morning at the Church of Adam and Eve in Dublin.
Having conducted the Palestrina choir in Westminster Cathedral four times, O'Donovan is not making her first visit to the great cathedral, but her choir is. "This will be another important experience for our singers," she says.
