Music for Sunday, 27th May: Trinity Sunday, Year B

This week’s readings are:

Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17

Isaiah is the writer seeing the Lord, and angels worshipping him, and being purified by having a live coal pressed to his lips by an angel. THen the Lord says “Who shall go for us? Who shall I send?” and the writer says “Here am I; send me.”

Psalm 29 is about God’s greatness and power and glory, with particular reference to earthquakes, storms and floods; and it ends with a prayer for strength and peace.

Romans 8:12-17 is about how being led by the Spirit of God means we are children of God, and therefore joint heirs with Christ.

John 3:1-17 is Nicodemus visiting Jesus for a nocturnal conversation about being born of flesh and also of water and the Spirit, which Nicodemus doesn’t quite follow despite being a teacher himself. The conversation ends with the assurance that God loved the world so much that he sent his Son into the world, so that whoever believes in him might have eternal life; this is not to condemn the world but to save it.

Hilary Campbell has a setting of O Lux Beata Trinitas in the composition list at her website. I haven’t been able to find a publisher so it’s probably best to contact her for the score.

There’s also a two part setting by Carlotta Ferrari of the same text on CPDL.

If you prefer something in English, I have a two-part accompanied setting of Herbert’s poem “Trinitie Sunday”.

No recordings for any of these I’m afraid!

Some administrivia: later today I’ll be making a few changes to the site because of the EU GDPR laws. I aim not to keep any personal information about composers or other people who communicate with me, with the exception of e-mail addresses; what goes on the site and into my database is either information that’s already public (who wrote which piece and so on) or my own opinion, so this shouldn’t be onerous, but in the interests of simplicity I’ll be removing the music submission form and asking people to e-mail me with submissions instead.

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