There’s more than one way to choose appropriate music for World Communion Sunday, and today we’re combining two: Place and Practice; Geography and Creed…

First – France and Catholicism… Jehan Alain (1911-1940), French organist and composer, wrote music that is all the more revered because his output lasted but 10 years – cut short by his death in action at the beginning of World War II. This setting of the ancient Latin hymn, ‘O Salutaris Hostia,’ is unmistakably both – Richly Gallic and rooted in Renaissance Roman Catholic polyphony.

Robert Kreutz (1922-1996) stuck a universal chord with “Gift of Finest Wheat,” written for the International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in1976, a meeting which eventually DID find common ground around Christ’s table…

Sebastián Durón (1660-1716) was born in Brihuega, Spain and was trained by the Master of the Music at Cuenca Cathedral. He later served in France, finally settling in Pau. He was ‘accused’ of bringing ‘decadence’ into the church in the form of the “Italian Style…”

Bach’s ‘Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto (Concerto after the Italian taste) was first published in 1735 as the first half of ‘Clavierübung, Part II,’ and is in an ‘arioso’ style.

The traditional Zulu tune, ‘Siyahamba,’ is here arranged by Canadian composer Doreen Rao.

-Keith Weber