Music for the Third Sunday of Easter

9:00

Prelude – Beautiful One

Processional - Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord

Sequence – Alleluia No. 1

Offertory – Mighty to Save

Communion – The Disciples Knew the Lord Jesus

Now the Green Blade Riseth

I Love You Lord

Recessional – Shout to the North

11:00

Prelude - Prelude and Fugue in C Major, JS Bach

Processional -  180 He is risen, he is risen!

Hymn of Praise – 204 Now the Green Blade Riseth (vs. 1&3)

Sequence 205 Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!

Offertory – I Got Me Flowers, Daniel Burton

Communion – 186 Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands

305 Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest

662 Abide with me: fast falls the eventide

Recessional 296 We know that Christ is raised and dies no more

5:00

Prelude - Now the Green Blade Riseth, Mark Hayes

Processional -  180 He is risen, he is risen!

Sequence 205 Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!

Recessional 296 We know that Christ is raised and dies no more

Several years ago I was talking with a friend about our upcoming music for the second or third Sunday of Easter and she commented that Easter is over, why are we doing Easter music? Ah! To quote another friend, Easter is so big that we can’t limit it to just one Sunday! We continue with Easter music this third Sunday of celebrating.

 At 11:00, the choir will be singing a stunning anthem on a poem by George Herbert. As many of you might know, Herbert was an Anglican priest. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill, and providing food and clothing for those in need. Unfortunately, he died a mere 3 years after taking holy orders. Shortly before his death, he sent the manuscript of The Temple, a collection of over one hundred and fifty devotional lyrics, to Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of a semi-monastic Anglican religious community at Little Gidding, reportedly telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul", otherwise to burn them. Thanks to Ferrar, they were published not long after his death.

The poem Easter is from this collection. It is Herbert’s personal reworking of Psalm 57 and is an act of emotional confession. It is a picture of a spiritual journey. The first three stanzas evoke an excited tension which is replaced in the last three stanzas by a simplicity that Herbert believes is the true essence of Easter. Our anthem is the text of the last three verses – “I Got Me Flowers”.

'Easter'

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
               Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
               With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
               With all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name,
               Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
               Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied
               And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

               I got me flowers to straw thy way:
               I got me boughs off many a tree:
               But thou wast up by break of day,
               And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

               The Sun arising in the East,
               Though he give light, and th’East perfume;
               If they should offer to contest
               With thy arising, they presume.

               Can there be any day but this,
               Though many suns to shine endeavour?
               We count three hundred, but we miss:
               There is but one, and that one ever.

The last three verses are seen as a song of joyful celebration. The poet sees the day of Christ’s resurrection as unsurpassed in glory. 'Can there be any day but this' - the sun that rises each day of the year cannot shine as brightly as the Son of God as he brings light to the world.

Music For Easter Sunday

Music for Easter Sunday

9:00

CMG

Was It a Morning Like This

He’s Alive

Congregational songs

Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

Alleluia No. 1

Revelation Song

Mighty To Save

I Am the Bread of Life

Christ Is Alive! Let Christians Sing

 Anyone listening to Contemporary Christian music in the 80’s is familiar with Sandi Patty. She gained national attention when she sang the “Star Spangled Banner” for the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Her album, “Morning Like This” was a huge turning point in her career. She sang over 200 concerts per year in the late 80’s, many in large arenas and concert halls. “Morning Like This” was awarded Best Gospel Performance in the 1987 Grammy Awards.

Don Francisco has been writing and recording since 1974.  The son of a seminary professor, bible translator and scholar, Don has been familiar with the workings of Christianity from an early age.  In 1976, he wrote the hit, "He's Alive" and began to travel giving concerts and sharing his vision of a loving and forgiving God.  Many albums followed and Don is known worldwide now, mostly for his talent for taking stories from scripture, and creating ballads from the point of view of the people in the stories.  “He’s Alive is the resurrection story as told by Peter. Ted Spafford will be the story teller, and the band will be joined by members of the Trinity Choir for the thrilling final chorus.

11:00

Instrumental

Concerto in C Major, #4       JS Bach

Tocatta in F                          Charles-Marie Widor

Vocal

Antiphonal Acclamation for Easter      Michael Bedford

Achieved is the Glorious Wok             Franz Joseph Haydn

Hallelujah                                            GF Handel

Congregational Hymns

Hail Thee, Festival Day

Welcome Happy Morning

Lift You Voice Rejoicing, Mary

Alleluia, Alleluia, Give Thanks to the Risen Lord

I Am the Bread of Life

Now the Green Blade Riseth

Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

It was Haydn's encounter with Handel's oratorios in London that sowed the seeds of his most famous and enduring masterpiece: The Creation.

At the 1791 Handel Festival in Westminster Abbey he was overwhelmed by the monumental sublimity of the choruses in Handel's Messiah and Israel in Egypt, performed by a gargantuan array of over 1000 players and singers.

In the words of an early biographer, Haydn 'confessed that ...he was struck as if he had been put back to the beginning of his studies and had known nothing up to that moment. He meditated on every note and drew from those most learned scores the essence of true musical grandeur'.

While still in London Haydn expressed a desire to compose a work on a similarly exalted biblical theme that would appeal to a broad public.

While still in London Haydn expressed a desire to compose a work on a similarly exalted biblical theme that would appeal to a broad public.

For the time being nothing came of the idea. But just before he left England for the last time, in the summer of 1795, the impresario and violinist Johann Peter Salomon handed him an anonymous English libretto on the subject of The Creation which had allegedly been intended for Handel half a century earlier.

Haydn immediately saw the musical potential in The Creation text, whose main sources were the book of Genesis, Milton's Paradise Lost (especially for the animal descriptions in Part Two, and the hymn and love duet in Part Three) and, for several of the choruses of praise, the book of Psalms.

The end result was the greatest triumph of Haydn’s career.

“Achieved Is the Glorious Work” is from Part II, celebrating the end of the sixth day. The choir will be accompanied by organ, brass and cello.

As an FYI, The Woodlands Chorale will be presenting “The Creation” in it’s entirety with orchestra on Saturday, April 29 at The Woodlands Community Presbyterian Church.

http://www.classical-music.com/article/story-haydns-creation

At the Gospel Processional, the Trinity Choir will be joined by the Junior Choir to announce the Easter Acclamation, "Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!"

Finally, as has been the tradition for the past several years, the congregation is invited to join the choir on the steps at the recessional, for the singing of Handel's magnificent "Hallelujah"! Music will be provided. Even if you don't consider yourself a singer, come up anyway and immerse yourself in the joy!

5:00

Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

Alleluia, Alleluia! Give Thanks to the Risen Lord

The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Won

Christ Is Alive, Let Christians Sing