Music for November 1, 2020 + All Saints Sunday

I'm taking the Sunday off this week (I was supposed to be on a cruise 😞) So my friend and our consummate substitute organist Rob Carty will be playing the organ for us.  Staff singer Anna Zhang will be singing the classic anthem by English composer Sir John Goss, These Are They Which Follow the Lamb, based on the passage from Revelation 14:

These are they which follow the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth.
These were redeemed from among men,
being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb.
And in their mouth was found no guile,
for they are without fault before the throne of God.

Born to a musical family, Goss was a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal, London, and later a pupil of Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul's Cathedral. After a brief period as a chorus member in an opera company he was appointed organist of a chapel in south London, later moving to more prestigious organ posts at St Luke's Church, Chelsea and finally St Paul's Cathedral, where he struggled to improve musical standards.

As a composer, Goss wrote little for the orchestra, but was known for his vocal music. You'll know his hymn tune LAUDA ANIMA, which we use for "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven." He has been  referred to as the last of the line of English composers who confined themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music.

Goss and his student John Stainer were the two most prominent Victorian composers of church music. Goss was organist of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1838 until his death, and most of his church music dates from his time there. These are they which follow the Lamb, written in 1859, belies the belief that all Victorian church music is sentimental or vulgar: it is simple, chaste, and almost completely diatonic.