Vexilla Regis: A Sequence of Music from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday

The Choir of Westminster Cathedral is world famous for its staple of plainsong and polyphony. The choir explores a wealth of music from this repertoire for the richest of liturgical seasons: Holy Week. Masterpieces of the Renaissance by William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria are woven together with ancient Gregorian chants, including Pange lingua and Adoro te, and later penitential works by Anton Bruckner and Maurice Duruflé. Three of the Cathedral’s illustrious Masters of Music, all of whom have contributed to the Church’s treasury of liturgical music, are also represented. The sequence culminates in a setting of Saint John Henry Newman’s poem Praise to the Holiest in the height by Sir Richard Runciman Terry, the Cathedral’s pioneering Master of Music.