Josef Gabriel Rheinberger: Motets, Masses and Hymns

          I was blessed last month with the gift of another CD from Gloriae Dei Cantores, the Massachusetts-based choir that has been restoring my soul since I discovered their recordings nearly two decades ago.  “Josef Gabriel Rheinberger: Motets, Masses and Hymns” is having the same effect.  

     The music this choir sings is sacred, as is the way they sing it.  I feel them praying in song.  While I listen to their recordings often, they are my absolute go-to staples when I am troubled or tired.  I feel transported from my apartment or rental car into a monastery or cathedral, and I absorb the music down to my cellular level.  It heals me in the way my twice daily centering prayer does.  

     The 40-member Gloriae Dei Cantores, under the direction of Elizabeth C. Patterson, gifts us in this recording with a repertoire that is largely unavailable elsewhere of music from the 19th century German composer and teacher.  Rheinberger wrote works reminiscent of those of Brahms and Schumann, but with a unique lyricism.  The recording includes his eight-part a cappella “Mass in E-flat Major,” “Mass in F for Male Choir” and “Mass in G Minor for Female Choir,” as well as three of his motets. 

     I was fortunate to hear this choir live when they toured New York many years ago.  I hope they come back soon.  In the meantime, their CDs will lift me when I’m down and remind me that the world is filled with beauty and mystery and, most of all, God.