Lauda Sion Salvatorem

On MISSION ROAD, the GRAMMY award-winning male vocal group Chanticleer - renowned worldwide as an orchestra of voices - performs a selection of authentic, rich vocal repertory from the Mexican Baroque canon and other musical treasures of New Spain. The music explores what native Californians would have heard 200 years ago, both inside and outside the mission walls, and is from a series of acclaimed concerts celebrating Chanticleer's 30th anniversary that were performed at nine historic California missions in 2008. The final concert took place at San Francisco's Mission Dolores, where Chanticleer staged their very first concert in 1978.

A fascinating contemporary realization of early music from El Camino Real, the audio CD's highlights include: Friar Juan Bautista Sancho's Misa en sol (Mass in G); premieres of selected works by Mexican Baroque master Manuel de Sumaya - America's Handel - only recently discovered in the archives of the Mexico City Cathedral; and various vocal compositions (introit, processional, alleluia, and recessional) by anonymous Spanish/Mexican composers of the late 18th century, including pieces that were originally part of the pageantry for feast days. On a number of selections, Chanticleer is accompanied by instrumentalists, blending folk and traditional idioms.

The DVD presents the 34-minute film Mission Road: Our Journey Back, a behind-the-scenes chronicling of Chanticleer's mission era-inspired journey with concert footage, one-on-one interviews and a stunning collection of mission landscapes. Sonically and visually, MISSION ROAD is an extraordinary way to experience the music of the mission era, with its rich sense of discovery and faith, performed in the context for which it was composed centuries ago.

Sion, lift up
    thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior
    and thy King,
Praise with hymns
    thy shepherd true.

All thou canst, do
    thou endeavour:
Yet thy praise
    can equal never
Such as merits
    thy great King.

See today before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread,
Theme for praise and joy profound.

The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our incarnate Lord,
Giv'n to His Apostles round.

Let the praise be loud and high:
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt today in every breast.

On this festival divine
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.

On this table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite.

Here, for empty shadows fled,
Is reality instead,
Here, instead of darkness, light.

His own act, at supper seated
Christ ordain'd to be repeated
In His memory divine;

Wherefore now, with adoration,
We, the host of our salvation,
Consecrate from bread and wine.

Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.

Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending
Leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see.

Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire, confessed to be.

They, who of Him here partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break:
But, entire, their Lord receive.

Whether one or thousands eat:
All receive the self-same meat:
Nor the less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food:
But with ends how opposite!

Here 'tis life: and there 'tis death:
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before.

Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form:
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.

Lo! bread of the Angels broken,
For us pilgrims food, and token
Of the promise by Christ spoken,
Children’s meat, to dogs denied.

Shewn in Isaac's dedication,
In the manna's preparation:
In the Paschal immolation,
In old types pre-signified.

Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living bread, thy life supply:
Strengthen us, or else we die,
Fill us with celestial grace.

Thou, who feedest us below:
Source of all we have or know:
Grant that with Thy Saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.

Amen. Alleluia.

(Text for documentary provided by Chanticleer, and is used here without permission or shame.)
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