Fifth Mystery of Light : Bach, Tallis and Messiaen for this musical meditation

(Vatican Radio ) Monsignor Philip Whitmore brings us a musical meditation for the last of the Mysteries of Light: the Institution of the Eucharist.

"While they were at supper, Jesus took the bread, blessed it and broke it, gave it to his disciples and said: Take, eat, this is my body.

This musical account of the Institution of the Eucharist comes from J.S.Bach's setting of the Passion according to Saint Matthew, written in 1729 for the Good Friday liturgy at St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig. Bach had the inspired idea of giving Jesus a kind of musical halo all through the Saint Matthew Passion: whenever Jesus speaks He's accompanied by the strings..."

A programme produced by Veronica Scarisbrick

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