''O sacrum convivium!'' ( la, O sacred banquet) is a short

offertory The offertory (from Medieval Latin ''offertorium'' and Late Latin ''offerre'') is the part of a Eucharistic service when the bread and wine for use in the service are ceremonially placed on the altar. A collection of alms (offerings) from the c ...

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

for four-part mixed chorus by French composer

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically ...

, setting "

O sacrum convivium "O sacrum convivium" is a Latin prose text honoring the Blessed Sacrament. It is included as an antiphon to Magnificat in the vespers of the liturgical office on the feast of Corpus Christi. The text of the office is attributed with some probabilit ...

". It was composed and published in 1937.

Composition

The composition of the motet on a Latin text for the

of the

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

was commissioned by a clergyman, Abbé Brun, and Messiaen presumably completed it within the first months of 1937, when he was 29. He was a faithful

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

for life, and composed many works related to religious topics, but never wrote any other sacred compositions meant to be performed in

Catholic liturgy In the Catholic Church, liturgy is divine worship, the proclamation of the Gospel, and active charity. Catholic liturgies are broadly categorized as the Latin liturgical rites of the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic liturgies of the Easter ...

. Even though it is very likely that this piece was performed the year of its completion (probably with organ accompaniment), the first known performance was early the next year, in a concert by Les Amis de l'Orgue, at Sainte-Trinité, Paris, on 17 February 1938, where Messiaen and other composers performed their own compositions. The score was published in June 1937, soon after its completion, by

Éditions Durand Éditions Durand are a music publishing company of French origin, among the most important in the field of classical music, which includes three previously independent publishers: * Éditions Durand — the oldest of the three companies — estab ...

. The piece ultimately became popular, but the initial 1000-copy printing took over 16 years to sell. It was reprinted 18 times between 1954 and 1991, with a total of over 138,000 copies in print.

Structure

This 35-bar piece is scored for four-part mixed chorus. Messiaen said that four unspecified solo voices could also be a suitable scoring for the piece, along with an optional accompaniment of an

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

(''ad libitum''), which is unusually flexible for him. Since the date of its first known performance (Messiaen performed the piece together with either Mme Bourdette-Vial or Lucile Darlay), Messiaen also accepted a different scoring variation: soprano and organ. But in 1986, he listed the composition as for "mixed chorus a cappella", and this is the way it is most performed today. The tempo indication at the beginning of the piece is ''Lent et expressif'' (Slow and expressive) and performers are asked to count

eighth notes image:Eighth notes and rest.svg, 180px, Figure 1. An eighth note with stem extending up, an eighth note with stem extending down, and an eighth rest. image:Eighth note run.svg, 180px, Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together. An eighth no ...

, as no time signature is provided (as became usual in future Messiaen compositions). The number of eighth notes per bar varies greatly. The text is taken from "

", a Latin text celebrating the

Blessed Sacrament The Blessed Sacrament, also Most Blessed Sacrament, is a devotional name to refer to the body and blood of Christ in the form of consecrated sacramental bread and wine at a celebration of the Eucharist. The term is used in the Latin Church of the ...

. This was the first time Messiaen used a Latin text, instead of a text in French. A mainly tonal work, it is in F-sharp major, Messiaen's favorite key. As in '' Le banquet céleste'', F-sharp major expresses the mystical experience of "superhuman love". Some scholars dispute the tonal aspect of the work and offer different explanations based on a system Messiaen later came to call " modes of limited transposition". Though one of the composer's best-known works, he said it was not representative of his style.

References

{{Olivier Messiaen 1937 compositions Choral compositions Compositions by Olivier Messiaen