The Lord’s my shepherd

Music for Sunday 10th December: Advent 2 (Year B)

Kathryn

The readings for this Sunday are:


Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Isaiah: Comfort ye my people. Make the way straight. The Lord is coming, and he will feed his flock like a shepherd.
Psalm: A prayer for God’s favour. Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
2 Peter: It’s all a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey… The Lord is not slow, but patient; and then some stuff about what it will be like when God does turn up, new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. In the meantime we are to wait patiently and strive to be found at peace.
Gospel: good old John the Baptist, telling us who’s coming next. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

I was expecting to run into a Sunday eventually where I couldn’t make many recommendations yet, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.

There’s always Crimond, if you didn’t use it last week, given the feeding of flocks like a shepherd; but that isn’t particularly Advent-y.

So, I wrote a hymn tune myself, to some words by Percy Dearmer.

Music for Sunday 26th November: Christ the King (Year A)

Kathryn

It’s the very last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year this Sunday: Christ the King. For year A, the readings are:

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100 or Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

Amy Beach set “All hail the power of Jesu’s name” as an anthem for SATB and piano or organ. You can download the score from MusOpen. It’s pretty straightforward and rather dramatic, but it does require a good top A of your sopranos. I haven’t found a recording of it yet, though, so if you know of one then do drop me a line in comments.

The hymn tune CRIMOND is also by a woman (I only found this out on Tuesday!), Jessie Seymour Irvine; so if you’ll be singing “The Lord’s my shepherd”, as well you might with that Old Testament reading, and you have no other music by women, then CRIMOND is a good and reliable choice of tune; and it’s in most hymnals (sometimes attributed to David Grant), and very well-known.