The imagery in Collect of the Day, the Psalm, and the Gospel have all led to this Sunday in the liturgical year acquiring the moniker “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The motet “Surrexit a mortuis,” Op. 23, No. 3 by Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937) includes this same image but casts it in stentorian tones in a work that joyfully proclaims the resurrection in full sonic splendor. Widor was the organiste titulaire of Saint-Sulpice in Paris where he presided over the large Cavaille-Coll organ in the church’s West end for sixty-four years. At Saint-Sulpice the choir and the smaller organ that accompanied them were located in the East end. In a grand motet like “Surrexit” the two organs and choir volleyed back and forth across the immense Baroque space. In the version heard today, the massive interjections of sound and the accompaniment for the choir come from but a single organ. The best-known movement of Widor’s ten organ symphonies is heard as the concluding voluntary.

The English composer and cellist Annabel Rooney (b. 1973) is a graduate of Christ’s College, Cambridge who began composing in 2011. Her work has been sung by choirs of The Chapel Royal, Exeter Cathedral, Ely Cathedral and Selwyn College, Cambridge. Her motet O nata lux is sung during Communion.