HERE ARE FEW THINGS more frustrating than finding out about the perfect motet for a particular feast day just days before that feast day arrives. Most church choirs need weeks to learn a motet. Finding a great Ascension motet on the Fifth Sunday after Easter won’t help you this year.
That’s why I’m letting you know today about an Ascension motet my choir has enjoyed for years. It’s joyful, it’s simple, and it doesn’t require a large choir because it’s in three voices. I’m referring to Ascendit Deus by Christoph Dalitz.
Born in 1967, Mr. Dalitz is an Austrian musician with a rare knack for writing choral music that’s satisfying to sing yet relatively easy to learn. My choir has also sung his Tollite Portas during Advent and his Viderunt Omnes at Midnight Mass. Ascendit Deus is no less enjoyable than these pieces.
Inside Ascendit Deus
Mr. Dalitz’s setting is in C major. Rather than use the Offertory chant from the Ascension Mass as his template, he provides an entirely original composition in early baroque style. He takes just 17 bars to present Psalm 46, verse 6: “Ascendit Deus in jubilatione, Dominus in voce tubae. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
On the second page, Dalitz gives us verse 7 on a psalm tone. After a 12-bar polyphonic Alleluia interlude, we then encounter verse 8 on the same psalm tone. The motet concludes with a repeat of the Alleluia interlude.
Here’s a recording by the Schola Cantorum of St. John XXIII Parish in Pittsburgh, directed by John Rokosz:
What to Look and Listen for
What I love about this piece:
- It’s joyful. When I announce that we’re about to rehearse Ascendit Deus, faces light up. It’s a good motet to slip in at the end of a Thursday evening rehearsal after people have begun to droop. Who wouldn’t have enough left in the tank to sing Ascendit Deus?
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It presents few vocal demands. There’s a time and place for testing the limits of one’s choir. The Feast of the Ascension comes on the heels of Easter and falls just over a week before Pentecost. Unless you have many professional (or professional-caliber) singers in your ranks, it’s wise to program Ascension motets that won’t tire anyone out vocally during this busy time of year.
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It lets the altos enjoy the spotlight. I have been blessed with some very accomplished altos over the years, even though our alto section has never been large. Ascendit Deus begins with the altos singing alone. It’s a good, though brief, opportunity for them to practice singing soloistically.
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Shape the chant carefully. The psalm tone passages look easy because everyone sings together. But ask your singers to sing lightly and precisely, and to taper at the midpoint and end of each line. Remind them that psalm tone should have a direction to it. Rather than singing every note of equal length and weight, they should drive towards the accented syllables and let the others be lighter. Also, consider having the low voices sing the first psalm verse and the high voices sing the second—or vice versa—just to lighten the texture a bit.
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Sing with energy. Encourage your choir to consider the text carefully. God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet! I do favor a more energetic tempo than what you’ll hear in the lovely recording I posted above, but whatever you do, let your choir’s sound ring out.
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Bring down the sopranos and tenors/basses in the last three bars of both polyphonic sections. As their voices ring out, your singers may not realize who has the melody at the end of the polyphony: it’s the altos. Encourage your non-altos to decrescendo immediately after landing on the third bar from the end so that the far more interesting alto line will come through.
Mr. Dalitz generously makes his compositions available online for download. You’ll find Ascendit Deus on Choral Public Domain Library and on Mr. Dalitz’s own website. And since I’m telling you about this motet now, you’ll have nearly a year to prepare it! I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as my choir has.
