Music for March 13 + The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), arr. David Blackwell (b.1961)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, Lead Thou On – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• Rockingham – Robert Buckley Farlee 

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 398 - I sing the almighty power of God (Forest Green)
• Hymn R122 - Surely it is God who saves me (First Song of Isaiah)
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (Rockingham)
• Hymn R149 - I, the Lord, of sea and sky (Here I Am, Lord)
• Hymn 610 - Lord, whose love through humble service (Blaenhafren)
• Psalm 126 - In convertendo

Upon first glance, one might think today's anthem is straight out of the  Elizabethan age, but not entirely. The tune was composed by the eminent English organist and composer, Orlando Gibbons, considered to be one of the last great figures of the Tudor school. The text is by Phineas Fletcher, the English poet best known for his religious and scientific poem The Purple Island; or, The Isle of Man (1633). But the text and tune were not joined together until 1906 for the English Hymnal under the editorship of Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Phineas Fletcher

Orlando Gibbons

It's hard to imagine that the two weren't meant to be together. (Text and tune, not Dearmer and Vaughan Williams, though that could be argued, I suppose.) But this short, eight-bar hymn tune first appeared as part of a Christmas Hymn, As on that Night.

In this arrangement of the melody, English musician David Blackwell has the choir sing unaccompanied. In stanza two, the melody moves from part to part, first heard in the alto line, then the soprano, then briefly in the tenor, before ending up somewhere in the alto voice. Good luck finding it. All is well again on the final stanza when the sopranos reclaim their rightful part.

If Martin Luther called music one of the most delightful gifts God has given us, then Robert Buckley Farlee is really blessed. He is both an ordained Lutheran Pastor and a practicing church musician. He is the Cantor (music director) at Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis and senior editor for worship and music at Augsburg Fortress Press. He is also married to a Lutheran minister. That's a lot of church, and church music. He holds Master of Divinity and Master of Sacred Theology degrees from Christ Seminary-Seminex. He is a former president of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and a composer with hundreds of published works.