antiphon

“If you strip it down and go back to what the form should be,” Mr. Skinner said, “it’s about the size of a large-scale votive antiphon, the staple compositional endeavor of most composers.”

As Scott Metcalfe, the ensemble’s director, said in remarks from the stage, that single antiphon constitutes the complete works of Chamberlayne.

In “O Antiphon Preludes,” Muhly comments, sometimes with enthralled sweetness and sometimes with exuberance, on the seven “O” Christmas antiphons of Advent.

The focus is on the chants found in the manuscript, although the recording does not include some of them, such as the alternate invitatory and a string of extra antiphons at the end of Lauds.

I can’t go on, I thought, and immediately, its antiphon responded, completing Samuel Beckett’s seven words, words I had learned long ago as an undergraduate: I’ll go on.