Lauda Sion

(Lat.: ‘praise, O Sion’).

The sequence for Corpus Christi (LU, 945); the text is by Thomas Aquinas, set to a melody originally used for several of Adam of St Victor’s sequences, resembling most closely that of Laudes crucis. It was one of the four sequences retained by the Council of Trent (1543–63). There are settings by Brumel (an alternatim paraphrase of the plainchant) as well as by Lassus, Victoria and Palestrina (three) (see Sequence (i), §11). Among more recent settings is the imaginative work by Edmund Rubbra, for double chorus with soprano and baritone soloists.

JOHN CALDWELL