Music for the Triduum 2018

THE TRIDUUM is a fancy word meaning the Three (tri) Days (duum) that bring Holy Week to a close. Here are the music lists for the Maundy Thursday Service (7 PM March 29), Good Friday Service (Noon on Friday March 30) and the Easter Vigil (7 PM on Saturday, March 31)

March 29, 2018 + Maundy Thursday + 7 P.M.

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) 
• Ave Verum - Robert Lucas de Pearsall (1795-1856) 

Instrumental Music 

• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness – Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795) 
• Ubi Caritas - Michael Larkin (b. 1951) 

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

• Hymn 439 -  What wondrous love is this (WONDROUS LOVE) 
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM) 
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG) 
• Hymn 602- Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI) 
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas et amor (Jacques Berthier) 
• Hymn 479 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN) 
• Hymn 171 - Go to dark Gethsemane (PETRA) 
• Hymn R169 - Stay with me (Jacques Berthier) 

Drop, drop, slow tears is a devotional anthem which we will sing during the foot washing. Like The King of love and Let all mortal flesh, Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘married’ a poignant text by the Jacobean poet and clergyman Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650) to one of Orlando Gibbons’s hymn tunes (Song 46, published in 1623) for The English Hymnal in 1906. Interestingly, poet and composer are linked by their connection with King’s College, Cambridge, where Gibbons was a chorister and Fletcher a student. 

March 30, 2018 + Good Friday + Noon 

Vocal Music 

• The Crucifixion – Samuel Barber
• Christine Marku, soprano 
• Were You There? - Spiritual 
• Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music 

• O Sacred Head – Pamela Decker (b. 1955)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.) 

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

Christine Marku will be singing the haunting solo, "The Crucifixion", by Samuel Barber as part of our Good Friday service. Barber wrote this solo as part of his song cycle, Hermit Songs, which he wrote for the American soprano Leontyne Price in 1953, when she was barely 27, a recent graduate of Julliard. Hermit Songs takes as its basis a collection of anonymous poems written by Irish monks and scholars from the 8th to the 13th centuries. "The Crucifixion" is from the 12th century collection The Speckled Book, translated by Howard Mumford Jones. Listen for the bird's cry in the piano accompaniment.

At the cry of the first bird
They began to crucify Thee, O Swan!
Never shall lament cease because of that.
It was like the parting of day from night.
Ah, sore was the suffering borne
By the body of Mary's Son,
But sorer still to Him was the grief
Which for His sake
Came upon His Mother.

Ms. Marku will present a vocal recital in our nave on April 22, 2018.

The beautiful Passion Hymn, O Sacred Head, Once Wounded, is arranged in a meditative setting for organ by Pamela Decker, Professor of Organ/Music Theory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, and organist at Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Tucson. She is also active as a composer and organ recitalist.

March 31, 2018 + Easter Vigil + 7 P.M.

Vocal Music 

• Come, Ye Faithful – R. S. Thatcher 

Instrumental Music 

• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – Johann Ludwig Krebs 
• Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing – Healey Willan 

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

• Hymn 580 - God, who stretched the spangled heavens (HOLY MANNA) 
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s Land (GO DOWN, MOSES) 
• Hymn R9 - As the deer pants for the water (Marty Nystrom) 
• Hymn 880 - Christ our Passover (SINE NOMINE) 
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (SALZBURG) 
• Hymn 187 - Through the Red Sea brought at last (STRAF MICH NICHT) 

The title of the communion organ voluntary sounds like its more appropriate for Good Friday, and the minor key of the chorale would lead you to think you were right, but the text reveals the true meaning of the hymn, written by Martin Luther.

Christ lay in death's bonds
handed over for our sins,
he is risen again
and has brought us life
For this we should be joyful,
praise God and be thankful to him
and sing allelluia,
Alleluia

Krebs was one of the prized pupils of J. S. Bach. Although it is impossible today to view Krebs outside of the shadow of his musical mentor, Krebs established an independent reputation as a virtuoso organist, organ expert, and organ teacher. When Bach died, Krebs was immediately considered as his possible successor at Leipzig. Like Bach, Krebs perpetuated his career through his children: his son succeeded him as organist at the church in Altenburg, Germany, as did his grandson.

This piece comes from The Clavier-Übung of Krebs, a collection of 39 pieces based upon 13 favorite chorales of the 18th century.  In this setting of the Easter chorale, we hear the melody clearly, played in the left hand on a pungent reed stop, while the right hand plays a lilting, almost dance-like obbligato in triplets. The pedal furnishes a walking bass line.