Overview and Interpretation
The above is a setting of Ego Sum Panis Vivus (St. John 6:51-52) I recently composed for the women’s schola at my parish. The text of the composition is as follows:
Ego sum panis vivus, qui de caelo descendi. Si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in aeternum: et panis quem ego dabo, caro mea est pro mundi vita.
St. John 6:51-52
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.
With this setting I tried to suggest the sweetness of the gift Jesus is promising, together with its effects, and how unexpected his words were to his listeners. Surely, Jesus spoke plainly to his audience, without embellishment; yet the setting imagines hearing those words for the first time.
Musically, the climax is at beat 1 of measure 46, where all three voices naturally rise in intensity, Soprano and Mezzo striking together a major second apart, with the Alto resolving her phrase pro vita mundi from Ti to Do. A secondary but lesser climax occurs a few measures later at m. 49, where the Alto again moves into a La-Ti-Do rising phrase, though this time without the corresponding strength in the other voices, which naturally comes either before (Soprano) or after (Mezzo).
At the end, it would be simple enough to split the Soprano rather than Mezzo, if preferable, in which case Mezzo would sing E and Soprano G and C.
In this discourse, Jesus spoke plainly and literally, to which the conclusion of the chapter testifies, wherein many found his saying hard and followed him no more. Yet rather than state they had misunderstood him, Jesus turns to his disciples and asks if they too will leave. Hence we believe that “[his] flesh is meat indeed: and [his] blood is drink indeed.” (St. John 6:61)
As usual, the score may be used freely under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license. Free download is available at the bottom of this post.
About the Featured Image
The featured image is Christ Preaching to the Multitude by Heinrich Hofmann. It is in the public domain in the United States.
