Sunday, April 14, 2024
Music for Meditation: “This Joyful Eastertide” – setting, Charles Callahan
This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow!
My love, the Crucified, hath sprung to life this morrow.
Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst his three-day prison,
our faith had been in vain.
But now is Christ arisen, arisen, arisen!
(George Ratcliffe Woodward, 1894, alt.)
The Dutch tune “Vruechten,” a sprightly and folk-like melody, has traditionally been paired with the exultant hymn text “This Joyful Eastertide,” by George Ratcliffe Woodward. Charles Callahan’s setting reflects the melody’s qualities in its lightness and sparkle.
Offertory: Prelude on the Welsh Hymn Tune “Rhosymedre” – Ralph Vaughan Williams
This is one of three organ preludes based on Welsh hymn tunes by the great twentieth-century English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). The melody it is based on, “Rhosymedre,” is heard first in the left hand, accompanied by a lovely, lyric counter-melody which is introduced separately at the beginning of the prelude. The “Rhosymedre” melody is then heard in the uppermost (soprano) part, with the opening music returning at the end as a coda.
Postlude: “Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing” – setting, Healey Willan
Good Christians all, rejoice and sing,
Now is the triumph of our King!
To all the world glad news we bring:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
(Cyril Alington, 1931)
This wonderful Easter hymn text has traditionally been paired with an equally strong tune, Gelobt sei Gott, by the seventeenth-century composer Melchior Vulpius. The stately setting we hear today is by Healey Willan, an outstanding Canadian twentieth-century composer; in it, the hymn melody is heard in the left hand on trumpet stops, until the very end when it is transferred to the soprano (uppermost) voice, leading to a stirring conclusion.