Vocht, Lodewijk de

Vocht, Lodewijk de

Missa in honorem Sti Josephi (1939)

Besides being a composer, a conductor and a conservatory teacher and director, Lodewijk De Vocht was also the chapel master of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. After singing as a choirboy in the cathedral choir since 1899, De Vocht was appointed second chapel master to Emile Wambach (1854-1924), whom he would succeed as first chapel master in 1919. In addition to adding lustre to liturgical services, De Vocht sometimes performed Renaissance music with the choir outside of the cathedral. In 1949, Pope Pius XII awarded De Vocht the Order of Saint Gregory the Great (‘Ordo Sanctus Gregorius Magnus’) for his fifty years of service in the chapel of the cathedral. Afterwards, the priest Gabriël Striels (1895-1983) replaced him as chapel master.

It is self-evident that De Vocht composed a lot of liturgical music, although it was not always meant explicitly for the Antwerp cathedral. De Vocht was also very involved with the quality of the music performances in smaller parish churches.

This Missa in honorem Sti Josephi was composed in 1939 for the honorary mass of his oldest son Jozef (1914-1995), a newly ordained priest. This mass was therefore executed on 16 April 1939 during the honorary mass in the church in ‘s Gravenwezel. On All Saints’ Day of the same year, De Vocht performed this mass again in the Antwerp cathedral, with Alex Paepen at the organ.

Just like in his other liturgical work, De Vocht created plenty of different possibilities to perform the piece. Without losing any artistic ambition, he composed this mass within the capabilities of the average church choir. Tricky intervals and difficult rhythms were avoided and polyphonic passages were reduced to a minimum. Being able to understand every single word of the liturgical text was more important. De Vocht confirmed this in his introduction: ‚As I wrote this mass, I strove to let the music be the servant of the text, to help highlight the meaning of the words, following the example of Gregorian chant. Everything that could cloud the intelligibility of the text in the syllabic sections …

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