Music for the Triduum 2017

Maundy Thursday, April 13
7:00 PM

Vocal Music

• As In that Upper Room – Carl Haywood (b. 1949)
• Christus Factus Est – Felice Anerio  (1560-1614)

Instrumental Music

• O Lamb of God, Most Holy (BWV 656) - J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness (BWV 654) - J.S. Bach

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

• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus  (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn R289 - Jesu, Jesus, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas et amor (TAIZÉ)
• Hymn 171 - Go to dark Gethsemane (PETRA)
• Hymn R170 - Stay here, and keep watch with me (TAIZÉ)
• Psalm 116:1, 10-17 – Tone IIa

Good Friday, April 14

noon

Vocal Music

• It Is Enough – Felix Mendelssohn 
• Were You There? – Spiritual
• Richard Murray, solist

Instrumental Music

• As Jesus Stood Beside the Cross - Samuel Scheidt

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 .)

• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus, how has thou offended? (HERZLIEBSTER JESUS)
• Hymn 441 - In the cross of Christ I glory (RATHBUN)          
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM)

Easter Vigil, April 15

7:00 PM

Vocal Music

• Hallelujah (Messiah) - George Frederic Handel
• An Easter Greeting - Martin How

Instrumental Music

• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – Georg Böhm
• Good Christians all, rejoice and sing – Paul Manz

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

• Hymn 385 - Many and great, O God, are thy works  (DAKOTA INDIAN CHANT)  
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s land (GO DOWN, MOSES)
• Hymn R-122  - Surely it is God who saves me (THE FIRST SONG OF ISAIAH)
• Canticle -  Christ our Passover (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high fest we sing (SALZBURG)
• Hymn 199 - Come, ye faithful, raise the strain (ST. KEVIN)

Triduum: A period of three days of preparation for a feast day. The term is most frequently used for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, the three days prior to Easter Sunday that are the concluding days of Holy Week, also known as the Easter Triduum. Other usage for the Easter Triduum reckons the days from the evening of Maundy Thursday through the evening of Easter Day. The term may indicate any three-day period of preparation for a feast.

We have three major services (and several small ones) in the three days leading up to Easter, and here is a list of music for all three.

Of particular interest (to me, at least) are the following pieces:

As In That Upper Room is a hymn set to a tune by Carl W. Haywood. Dr. Haywood is about to retire after 42 years on the faculty of Norfolk State University, where he originally got his undergraduate degree. Like me, he received his Master of Sacred Music (organ) at Southern Methodist University as well as the Master of Music in choral conducting (unlike me). Dr. Haywood then received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern California.

He has written several original hymns as well as a mass, Mass for Grace, written for Grace Episcopal Church in Norfolk, where he was organist/choirmaster for 26 years. He has served on the Liturgical Commission for the Diocese of Southern Virginia, the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for the Episcopal Church of America and as Director of Music for the Union of Black Episcopalians.

The two organ chorales used at the Maundy Thursday Service are from Bach's monumental collection, The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651-668. Bach compiled this collection in his final decade (1740-1750), from earlier works composed when he was court organist in Weimar, (1708-1717). The works form an encyclopedic collection of large-scale chorale preludes, in a variety of styles harking back to the previous century that Bach gradually perfected during his career. Together with the Orgelbüchlein, the Schübler Chorales and the third book of the Clavier-Übung, they represent the summit of Bach’s sacred music for solo organ.

The first thirteen chorale preludes BWV 651–663 were added by Bach himself between 1739 and 1742, supplemented by BWV 664 and 665 in 1746–7. In 1750 when Bach began to suffer from blindness before his death in July, BWV 666 and 667 were dictated to his student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol and copied posthumously into the manuscript.

The extended opening voluntary, O Lamm Gottes unschuldig [O innocent Lamb of God], is a 3 verse chorale partita. The first verse of this Good Friday hymn, is a subdued prelude in four parts based on the melody, which appears explicitly in the soprano line over the flowing eighth-note accompaniment; in the second verse the tune moves to the alto line and the eighth-note figures become more lively; in the final verse, the pedal finally appears to take up the cantus firmus, beneath a four part fugal counter-subject in triplets, first in a forthright angular figuration, then in hammered repeated notes leading to an anguished chromatic passage, indicative of the crucifixion, and finally in peaceful flowing eighth-notes.

The communion voluntary is the great communion hymn Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele [Deck thyself, my soul with gladness], for two keyboards and pedal. The soberly ornamented, melismatic chorale in the soprano (right hand) alternates with the dance-like ritornellos of the two intertwining lower
parts in the left hand above a pedal bass; the unearthly counterpoint between the four different parts creates an air of great serenity, a “rapturous meditation” on the rite of communion. The adornment in the title is illustrated by the French-style ornamentation of the upper parts.  (Thanks to St. Thomas Church, New York City, for providing the program notes to John Scott's 2014 recital of the Great 18 Chorales)