Zephyrus

In modern life the wind is often a hostile force of nature, blowing destruction through hurricanes, tornadoes, or wildfire.  Our spring program focuses on the gentler winds of heaven that were celebrated in the Renaissance for their life-giving blessings.  The featured work is John Sheppard’s Western Wind Mass, based on the early sixteenth-century song, The Westron Wynde, a tiny fragment of verse longing for the gentle wisps of air brought by Zephyrus, the Greek god of westerly breezes, who, according to Chaucer, “inspired the tendre croppes.”  The program also combines madrigals in praise of Zephyrus with motets honoring the greatest of inspiring winds, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’s disciples in Jerusalem.