On this All Soul’s Day, I am remembering my sister, Mary Ruth, my Dad and my Mom. Mary died on August 10, 1997. Dad died on November 13, 2004, and Mom died on June 30, 2018.
“Most Wondrous Mystery” is a Christmas motet I composed for them the Christmas of 1990. During my collegiate days in the Chorale of the College of St. Catherine’s, under the direction of Dr. Maurice A. Jones, I was introduced to the wonderful Christmas Motets composed by the French composer, Francois Poulenc. “Most Wondrous Mystery” was my attempt to recapture the power of those motets, specifically, Poulenc’s “O Magnum Mysterium.”
This is the text I wrote for my motet.
Most wondrous mystery, Word of God Incarnate,
In your humanity, you raise us up to heaven.
Sweet sacrifice of our redemption,
within your infant form
lay the source of our creation.
Most wondrous act of love
from the heart of God’s great love,
in your small hands contain
freedom from our from our sin and pain.
Sweet child nestled on your mother’s breast,
within your heart so small
dwells our source of all hope, peace, and rest.
(c) 1990, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
This Christmas, I am releasing piano creations of all the Advent and Christmas music I composed when I was the music/liturgy director at St Hubert Catholic Church in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Psalm Offering 6 Opus 11, Most Wondrous Mystery, is one of the piano new creations of this music. It is classified as variations on a theme.
The choral motet is stated first as the theme. Following the theme are six variations, ending with a recapitulation of the original theme, though this restatement is in itself, a variation on the original theme.
If you know Poulenc’s music, the original theme utilizes much of the harmonic structure of his music. For the variations, I fell back on my experience of learning Felix Mendelssohn’s “17 Variations On A Theme”, 30 pages of piano virtuosity, frustration, hard practice, a small dent in the plaster wall of my parent’s home (the result of pounding my head in the wall), and night sweats leading up to my graduation recital. It was the concluding music in my 90 minute program (unlike other instruments, all piano recitals must have all music memorized) … I had a mental block on the 17th variation and just let finger memory carry me through to where I could see the score again in my head.
Here is the new piano recreation of the Christmas Motet, “Most Wondrous Mystery.”
Psalm Offering 6 Opus 11, Most Wondrous Mystery. (c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
