I’ll bet a lot of people wind up googling “maundy” today. I know I do. Maundy Thursday commemorates Jesus’ washing of the feet of his disciples, the Last Supper, and the betrayal and arrest of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.
Here’s what I’ve been able to find out: “maundy” is most likely derived from the Latin word “mandatum,” as in “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new commandment I give you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”). Or it could be from the Middle English and Old French words “maund” and “mendier,” respectively, after the Latin “mendicare,” meaning to beg.
Okay, so the origins are vague. Let’s just say it ties in to the concepts of humility and service, as exemplified by Jesus’ ritual foot-washing. In any case, “maundy” has been in use since at least 1530, so we’re just going to roll with it.
Here’s an exceedingly somber work for Maundy Thursday by the Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu. Lekeu died of typhoid the day after his 24th birthday. In his short life, he managed to produce about 50 works. Admittedly, some are incomplete. If one were to judge solely from his music, he was a melancholy soul indeed.
This is “Molto Adagio,” composed by a 16-year-old Lekeu, inspired by the words of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.”
From 1999 to 2014, the Brentano Quartet served as ensemble-in-residence at Princeton University. Among its other achievements, the ensemble played on the soundtrack of the 2012 film “A Late Quartet,” starring Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, and Wallace Shawn. The group’s cellist, Nina Lee, also appeared onscreen, as a fictionalized version of herself.
Victor de Sabata is remembered primarily as a conductor, especially of opera, having led the classic recording of “Tosca” with Maria Callas. He got his start playing violin in an orchestra under Toscanini. Toscanini encouraged the young man to become a conductor, which was kind of like letting the genie out of the bottle. Their relationship status passed from mentor-disciple to friendship to bitter rivalry. For decades, De Sabata was principal conductor at La Scala. For a time, he was its artistic director. One observer described his appearance while conducting as a cross between Julius Caesar and Satan.
An interesting tension, then, between the sacred and the diabolical. De Sabata was also the composer of this beautiful and contemplative meditation for orchestra, titled “Gethsemani” [sic]. In this recording, on the Hyperion label, the conductor is De Sabata’s son-in-law, Aldo Ceccato.
Finally, from a gorgeous album of Palestrina’s music for Maundy Thursday on the Chandos label, here’s a playlist of performances by Musica Contexta.
All sensitively done, I think. There’s little maudlin in this Maundy music.
“Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,” c. 1500, by Pedro Berruguete (1450–1504)
