In the Salt Lake tabernacle Brigham Young built, 360 voices blend with frontier history
SALT LAKE CITY - There's nothing particularly Mormon, or American, about "Ubi Caritas." It's a Gregorian chant at least 11 centuries old, was rearranged by French composer Maurice Durufle in 1960 and has been sung by church choral groups around the world.
But I can tell you that when it is performed by a certain famous choir in a certain quirky old building in downtown Salt Lake City, that melody works a particular magic.
The voices rise and fall, singing a cappella in Latin. The sound ripples to the back of the hall, guided by the curving plaster ceiling. The final "amen" grows to 10, 15, 20 syllables, each one a slow-motion acrobat in flight.
That's how it went on a recent Sunday morning at the Salt Lake Tabernacle at Temple Square, a singular American music venue commissioned by Brigham Young and completed in 1867.
The 360 singers who call this building home are known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir - or rather, they were until Oct. 5, when leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renamed them the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
In the world
