Abendlied for Mother Alfred Moes

In Giving We Receive, our concert to honor the Sisters of Saint Francis, will include a piece to celebrate the visionary founder, Mother Alfred Moes, who proposed building a hospital after the 1883 tornado, convinced the Mayo surgeons to staff it, raised the money, and opened St Marys on September 30, 1889.

Choral Arts Ensemble will sing Joseph Rheinberger’s gorgeous six-part motet, Abendlied, since at the same time Mother Alfred, then young Maria Catherine Moes, was deciding to leave a comfortable life in Europe to follow a call to America, Rheinberger, writing near her birthplace, was creating this setting of the words spoken to Jesus by the travelers on the road to Emmaus: Stay with us, for it is evening and the day is now far spent.