Madonna Quarters
Madonna Quarters is a piece written on August 28, 2014 in 25 minutes for the chime melody used to ring the quarters and hour for the new bells of Madonna della Strada Chapel. It was written by Steven Betancourt, Director of Music for the chapel.
The melody consists of four different permutations of four pitches in the key of B Flat
The notes used are:
1) D, C, D, F
2) C, Bb, C, D
3) C, F, C, Bb
4) D, C, Bb, C
5) F, D, C, Bb
Played as quarter notes and a half note. These are always played in the order 1,2,3,4,5, and each set is used twice every hour. Set (1) is played at the first quarter, sets (2) and (3) at the half, sets (4), (5) and (1) at the third quarter, and sets (2), (3), (4) and (5) at the hour, as follows:
A prayer for the hour chime was created by Ms. Lorraine Enlow of New York City. She visited the chapel in June of 2014 when her husband was in town playing a recital on the Kathryn “Kay” Stamm Memorial organ. The prayer reads:
O God of pow’r
Who stills the waves
Be our strong tow’r
At ev’ry hour.
Information based on the article on Westminster Quarters found on Wikipedia.
