Music for Easter - April 21, 2019

Vocal Music

• Achieved Is the Glorious Work – Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
• Magdalena – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Most Glorious Lord of Life – William H. Harris (1883-1973)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in D Major, BWV 532 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Fifth Symphony: Toccata  – Charles-Marie Widor (1844 –1937)
• Prière à Notre-Dame – Léon Böellmann (1862 – 1897)

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

• Hymn 179 - “Welcome, happy morning” (FORTUNATUS)
• Hymn 207 - Jesus Christ is risen today (EASTER HYMN)
• Hymn - Sing with all the saints in glory (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn - I come to the garden alone (IN THE GARDEN)
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (SALZBURG)
• Hymn 193 - That Easter day with joy was bright (PUER NOBIS)
• Hymn 210 - The day of resurrection (DIADEMATA)
• Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 - setting by Hal Hopson

Just a few notes about the music you will hear on Easter Sunday.

The first anthem is not really an Easter anthem. In fact, it is from Haydn's oratorio The Creation, found at the end of the third part, about the end of the sixth and final day of creation. It is a joyful and celebratory piece, and, as you can see from the text, not at all inappropriate for the service celebrating the Resurrection.

Achieved is the glorious work; The Lord beholds it and is pleased.
In lofty strains let us rejoice, Our song let be the praise of God.

The Offertory anthem is an English anthem by William H. Harris, who for years was organist and choirmaster at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. He  was involved in the musical education of the teenage Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, while they spent the wartime period at Windsor Castle. The story goes that every Monday he would direct madrigal practice in the Red Drawing Room at Windsor, where the two Princesses sang alongside four of the senior choristers with the lower voices augmented by Etonians, Grenadier Guards and members of the Windsor and Eton Choral Society.

The communion anthem is a four-part acapella setting of a German Folk song by the great Romantic composer Johannes Brahms. It is interesting in that it focuses on Mary Magdalena's part in the resurrection story.

My opening voluntary is the great Prelude in D Major by Johann Sebastion Bach. I like to play it on Easter because it (1) is in the bright, celebratory key of D Major, and (2) it opens with the ascending D major Scale in the pedal, symbolizing (for me) the rising of the Son of God.

I am playing an organ work during communion as a musical dedication to the indomitable spirit of the Notre-Dame de Paris, and the Paris people. Though the title refers not to the church of Notre Dame, and the composer, though French, was never on staff at the Cathedral (he worked down the street at St. Sulpice), I still wanted to do something to express my concern and relief that the fire was not as bad as it could have been.