Libby Larsen

Music for Sunday, 20th May: Pentecost (Whitsunday)

Kathryn

The readings for this Sunday are:

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

…you still have to use Acts as the first or second reading.

The reading from Ezekiel is one of my favourites: the valley of dry bones, put back together when Ezekiel prophesies to them as instructed by God, and brought back to life when Ezekiel prophesies to the breath, the wind, to go into them. The bones are, of course, a metaphor for the people of Israel — and some would say for the church today, waiting for God’s spirit to bring us back to life too.

Acts is a description of the coming of Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when the followers of Jesus began speaking in many different languages. Some of the onlookers are amazed, others scoff that they’re obviously drunk. Peter sets them right, explaining that this is part of the prophecy from Joel about the last days.

The portion from Psalm 104 is about how great God is, and particularly the way in which living things depend on God’s spirit or breath for life.

Romans 8:22-27 is about waiting for the redemption of our physical bodies, about not knowing how to pray but the Spirit praying within us in “sighs too deep for words”.

The reading from John is Jesus promising to send the Advocate (that is, the Spirit of truth), who will speak truth and tell the disciples the rest of what he has to tell them.

A good hymn for Pentecost would be “O Breath of Life” by Bessie Porter Head, to the tune SPIRITUS VITAE by Mary Jane Hammond:

1 O Breath of life, come sweeping through us,
revive your church with life and power.
O Breath of life, come, cleanse, renew us;
and fit your church to meet this hour.

2 O Wind of God, come bend us, break us,
till humbly we confess our need.
Then in your tenderness remake us;
revive, restore, for this we plead.

3 O Breath of love, come breathe within us,
renewing thought and will and heart.
Come, love of Christ, afresh to win us;
Revive your church in every part.

There are a bunch of anthems that would be suitable, too. Carol Barnett’s SATB (with divisi) setting of Veni, Sancte Spiritus is fairly long at seven and a half minutes, but would work in a setting where you expect a large number of people coming up for Communion, or perhaps if you’re allowing extra time for healing prayer.

Andrea Ramsey also has a setting of Veni Sancte Spiritus, for SSAA + djembe or TTBB + djembe, which might suit better if you’re looking for something shorter (four minutes) and more energetic. Here it is on YouTube.

If you want something in English, and quieter, my own SATB setting of verses from Herrick’s Litany to the Holy Spirit, Sweet Spirit, Comfort Me is available to download from CPDL, and there’s a demo recording on YouTube. I tend to think of it as suitable for Evensong rather than a main service.

And finally, Libby Larsen has an organ prelude on Veni Creator Spiritus which looks from the sample page as if it would be worth playing.

Music for Easter Day

Kathryn

It’s almost time… what might people sing tomorrow? Or even tonight?

Easter Day tends to be a time for combining strong opinions about music people know and love with exhausted church musicians who have been at church more than home for the past week. Easter Eve, if you have a service then, is similar, but often with a smaller congregation. So while there’s plenty on the Easter page here, it can be more challenging at Easter than at some other times to make changes to “the usual” music.

This is a great shame, not least because of the role of women in the discovery that Jesus was not, as expected, in the tomb, but risen. Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s Dialogo fra Maria Magdalena details that Easter morning scene at the empty tomb in a conversation between Mary Magdalen and two angels. It’s set for SAAT and continuo, and there’s a recording on Youtube:

…okay, maybe that’s more the sort of thing for an Easter afternoon concert than your average parish Eucharist. It’s great stuff, though; do have a listen.

Judith Ward has a unison setting of “Now the Green Blade Riseth” which is thoughtfully and charmingly composed, with a piano accompaniment that supports the singers without resorting to doubling every note — and there are a couple of bars of unaccompanied voice every once in a while. It would work well for a small choir or even a solo singer, and I think the piano part would transfer well to the organ, too. It’s available from the Small Choirs International site — you’ll have to scroll down or search for it, though.

If you’re after something crunchier, Libby Larsen has an a capella Alleluia — there’s a media player of some sort in that page, which I can’t embed here. It’s published by Schirmer and there are a few pages of a perusal score.

I could go on and on here, but there are several more weeks of Easter to come and I don’t want to use everything up! So I’ll end with some organ music. Alison Willis has a set of Three Easter Chorale Preludes at Composers’ Edition, available for purchase in deadtree or download format. Here’s one of them, Paschalia, on Soundcloud: