Totus Tuus – Totally yours

28 July, 2018

Our 2018 Orchestral Mass is now less than 24 hours away !! Included in our programme is the piece ‘Totus Tuus’ of Henryk Gorecki written for the third visit of St John Paul II to his native Poland in 1987. St John Paul II instituted World Youth Day and had great a regard and affection for young people so we sing this piece at our Orchestral Masses each year as a special tribute to him.

Meditating on this text, it speaks of total giving – for us, musicians, the total giving of our talents – and I think as musicians, when we truly, totally give our artistic endeavours to God, then our music really begins to speak. St John Paul II in his ‘Letter to artists’ (1999) speaks of this connection we, as artists, have to our Creator: ‘…the Divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power’.

I always marvel at how Gorecki constructed this minimalist-style piece – just a relatively small amount of actual material but so skillfully used to accomplish some amazing effects.

Consider the many repetitions of ‘Mater Mundi Salvatori’ (Mother of the world’s Saviour) with its beautifully endearing melodic outline but each one uttered with a slightly different feel – then the piece closes with repetitions of her very name: Maria, repeating and fading – it’s almost like a small child being held by its attentive mother gently falling into sleep uttering her name.

One could even think that this is possibly even inspired by the Rosary itself with its many repetitions of Hail, Mary…

May we always put our artistic endeavours in the loving hands of our blessed Mother so that we, in becoming totally hers… become totally His.