LORD, HAVE MERCY Music for February 26, 2023 + The First Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin – John Hilton (1599-1657), Peter Crisafulli, arr.

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4, – Frédéric François Chopin (1810 –1849)
• Sarabande in d minor – George Frederic Handel (1685-1759)
• Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

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

• Hymn 142 Lord, who throughout these forty days (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 143 The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R 172 In our lives, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn R107 You are my hiding place (HIDING PLACE)
• Hymn 688 A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Psalm 99 – Tone IIa

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when our liturgical actions change to reflect the meaning and purpose of Lent. And the music changes, too. A time of penitence and quiet reflection cannot embrace music that jumps for joy and is all “happy-clappy!” The organ becomes quieter (or drops out all-together), the service music changes to include a Kyrie (Lord, Have Mercy) and Agnus Dei (Jesus, Lamb of God.)

John Donne

Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin

The choir sings an anthem that certainly supports the penitential mood. Hymn 140 in our hymnal is not known to our congregation, so it makes a perfect anthem. It's text is from the poem A Hymn to God the Father by the English Renaissance writer John Donne. If you don't have a hymnal nearby, you can read the entire poem here. You can see that Donne was convicted of his sin.

The music is by John Hilton, an English composer, who was organist and lay clerk at St Margaret's Westminster from 1628 to 1644 and was buried in the church in 1657. He was the son of John (died 1608) who was organist and composer at Trinity College in that city. John junior graduated from that college in 1626 and leased a house from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster in the Almonry, near the Abbey. He was also a lutenist to Charles I. He ceased to be organist as Parliamentary forces ordered organs to be removed from churches and psalms to be said, not chanted.

John Hilton

This hymn has been arranged for quartet in Elizabethan style by the American Composer Peter Crisafulli. Born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, in 1946, Crisafulli earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Northwestern University. His musical formation in the service of the church began at age seven as a chorister in the Men and Boys Choir of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston. He has been serving as Minister of Music at All Saints Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, Maryland, since 1988. Many of his compositions were written for All Saints Church. 

Prelude in E Minor

Frédéric Chopin wrote a number of preludes for piano solo. His cycle of 24 Preludes, Op. 28, covers all major and minor keys. The Prélude Op. 28, No. 4, by Frédéric Chopin, is considered by many to be one of the most famous of the Chopin preludes. By Chopin's request, the piece was played at his own funeral by Franz Liszt on a pipe organ. (I'll be using the piano, as originally planned.)

The famous German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow called the prélude "suffocation", due to its sense of despair. In fact, Chopin's last dynamic marking in the piece is smorzando, which means "dying away". But the prelude may have once been given a title. According to George Sand's daughter Solange, who stayed with the composer at the monastery in Majorca when the preludes were written, "My mother gave a title to each of Chopin’s wonderful Preludes; these titles have been preserved on a score he gave to us." That titled score is lost. But Solange did record the names of the preludes, apparently without assigning the names to the prelude numbers. It is believed that the title "Quelles larmes au fond du cloître humide?" ("What tears (are shed) from the depths of the damp monastery?") corresponds to Prelude No. 4.