Category Archives: Music Notes

Music Notes | Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Favorite hymn no. 6 ‘Joyful, joyful, we adore thee’, like last week’s no. 7, ‘All creatures of our God and King’, takes nature as inspiration to praise God and live in harmony with one another. It was written in 1907 … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The ‘Canticle of Brother Sun, Praises of the Creatures’, by St Francis of Assisi, is an example of the Italian vernacular religious poetry that flourished in the early thirteenth century. Sometime in the first two decades of the twentieth, it … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Favorite hymn no. 8 ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’ derives from a hymn sung at the Offertory procession in the Liturgy of St James, the oldest complete Eucharistic rite of the Eastern Church. The hymn may be even older than … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Favorite Hymn No. 9 This week we begin our countdown of favorite hymns of St. David’s, which parishioners selected from a list of hymns best known and best loved in the parish. Our first, ‘I want to walk as a … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’ was written by John Newton, slave-ship captain turned Anglican clergyman, abolitionist, and hymnist (he was also the author of ‘Amazing grace! how sweet the sound’ [671] and ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds’ … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Last week our two hymns were Psalm-paraphrases by Isaac Watts (‘O God, our help in ages past’ [680]) and Henry Francis Lyte (‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’ [410]). As it happens, this week we sing two more metrical … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Official translations of the Scriptures into Western European languages, reasonably emphasizing content over form, have usually not attempted to render Biblical Hebrew poetry either in anything like its original verse-form, or in the verse-forms typical of those European languages, settling … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

‘We the Lord’s people’ [51] is a remarkable modern hymn for the Lord’s Day by John Bowers, a Church of England priest. The directness of its diction and the absence of rhyme mark it, within the realm of English verse, … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

Although the composer of Sunday’s anthem, Dieterich Buxtehude, and the author and composer of the hymn and tune upon which it is based (Johann Franck and Johann Crüger, respectively) are important figures in church music, let us look instead at … Continue reading →

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Music Notes | Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

The Yigdal is a hymn (perhaps written around 1400, and sung in many Jewish traditions at morning and evening services) based upon the 13 Articles of Faith compiled by Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides), the medieval Sephardic rabbi, Torah scholar, philosopher, … Continue reading →

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