Sunday 16th November 2025 Second Sunday before Advent

Benedictus in C    C V Stanford

This is the Canticle of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist,  and is taken from Luke's Gospel (Luke 1:68-79) It is sung daily at Morning Prayer.

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) thought to be one of our great British composers was actually Irish, born in Dublin, although educated at The University of Cambridge and then studied music in Leipzig and Berlin.

Whilst an undergraduate, he was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge and was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life.  He was also Professor of Music at Cambridge.  His pupils included Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams whose fame went on to surpass his own.

He is best remembered for his sacred choral compositions for church performance in the Anglican tradition. Along with Hubert Parry and Alexander Mackenzie, he was thought responsible for the renaissance of music in the British Isles.

C V Stanford in 1921 from Wikipedia

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring   J S Bach

This is the common title of the 10th and last movement of the cantata “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” (BVW 147) composed in 1716 and 1723.  It is commonly played at weddings and Christian festive seasons of Easter and Christmas.  Much of the music of this cantata comes from Bach’s Weimar period (the 1716 parts) finished in 1723 in Leipzig.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He was a highly respected organist in his lifetime, although not recognised as a composer of magnitude (possibly one of the greatest) until a revival of his works in the first half of the 19th century. He showed considerable skill in counterpoint and harmony. He was able to adapt rhythm, form and texture from abroad. He was a prolific composer of church music due to the demand for huge numbers of cantatas over the Christian year.  It is thought her wrote over 300 with only around 200 surviving. He also wrote many other works sacred and secular.  It is now agreed that his music has technical command, intellectual depth and artistic beauty.

Sunday 9th November 2025 Remembrance Sunday

So They Gave Their Bodies  Peter Aston (1938- 2013)  From Pericles' Funeral Oration (Athens 431BC) translation Alfred Zimmern

Peter Aston was born in Birmingham.  He studied at The Birmingham School of Music and The University of York.  In 1964 he was a lecturer in music at The University York. Ten years layter he was appointed Professor of Music at The University of East Anglia and eventually Emeritus Professor of Composition.  He is best known for his liturgical works although also wrote chamber works for voice and instrument, choral and orchestral works and an opera for children. He was a lay canon in Norwich Cathedral and founded the Norwich Festival of Contemporary Church Music. He founded the Tudor Consort and English Baroque Ensembles.

Peter Aston from The Morley Consort of Voices

Pericles' Funeral Oration was written by Thucydides for his history of the Peloponnesian war. Pericles delivers the oration to not only bury the dead, but to praise democracy.

"So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion may require."

Pericles' Funeral Oration by Philipp Foltz

 

Sunday 2nd November 2025 All Saints

Family Service and Evensong.

Give Us The Wings Of Faith   Words Issac Watts  Music Ernest Bullock

This anthem was written for All Saints' Day, but can be used on any Saint's day, the words from a hymn by Isaac Watts.

Sir Ernest Bullock (1890-1979) was not primarily a composer, but an educationalist and organist.  He was born in Wigan, where he became organist at his parish church. He was then assistant organist at Leeds Parish Church in 1907.  In 1908, he received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Durham, gaining his Doctor of Music in 1914. In 1912, he was assistant organist at Manchester Cathedral.  After WW1 he was organist at St Michael's College, Tenbury, almost immediately moving to Exeter as cathedral organist in 1919.  In 1928 he succeeded Sir Sidney Nicholson as Master of Choristers in Westminster Abbey.  He provided music for the coronation of King George VI, writing most of the fanfares for that and also the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.
 In 1941, Bullock went to Glasgow as the Gardiner Professor in Music at the university. In 1952 he became director of the Royal College of Music.  He was knighted in 1951 and he retired in 1960.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was born in Southampton, the son of a committed religious nonconformist. His father, also Isaac was twice incarcerated for his beliefs.  He received a classical education at the King Edward VI school, but was barred from attending Oxford or Cambridge universities as they were restricted to Anglicans. He went to the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690. He was pastor of a large independent chapel in London where he helped train preachers.  However, his religious opinions were more ecumenical than was usual for a nonconformist. He promoted education and scholarship rather than preaching for a particular sect. He is famous for the writing of the words of hymns. He promoted hymn singing and his prolific hymn-writing helped to usher in a new era of English worship.

Isaac Watts, by unknown artist {Wikimedia commons]

 

Saturday 1st November 2025 Service for All Souls

 Requiem Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Gabriel Fauré, born in 1845, was appointed titular organist a La Madeleine, Paris, in 1896 and director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1905.

Fauré started to think about the composition of a requiem in 1885 after the death of his father.  Unlike Berlioz and Verdi he removed the Dies Irae sequence, which he considered over theatrical.  Hence the Offertorium comes up much sooner than is usual in a requiem mass setting.  He permits himself only a brief reference to the “day of wrath” in the Libera me baritone solo.

Gabriel Fauré

Fauré’s Requiem happily lends itself to a liturgical performance by amateur choirs, being particularly popular with English choirs, with the organ taking the place of the orchestra. This seems to have been recognised early on its life, coinciding as it did with liturgical experimentation in the Church of England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – experiments now adopted and sanctioned for universal use with the introduction in 1980 of the Alternative Service Book and more recently the Common Worship services. These owe their formation to the proposed 1928 Prayer Book and the English Missal (1933) and their structure, including additions to the Book of Common Prayer, fit best with Fauré’s arrangement of sections. The 1928 Prayer Book and English Missal largely formalised a variety of liturgical practices which had been used in sung Communion services previously. 

The service is an act of worship, to include remembrance of the departed, and may sound something like a similar service in an English church at about the time of Faurés death in November 1924, when sections of his requiem were sung at his funeral at La Madeleine.

Faure in 1907 from Wikipedia

26th October 2025 19th Sunday after Trinity

Alleluias of Saint James  (Let all mortal flesh keep silence) Words Liturgy of St James  Music Trad. French melody arr. A. J. Greening

This is a translation from the Greek Liturgy of St James. It is usually set to the traditional French tune of Picardy. Today's arrangement of this hymn tune was verses 1 and 3 in unison and verses 2 and 4 sopranos and tenors being the leader and altos and basses the follower singing in canon, but to a slightly different tune.

Most people will recognise this as the hymn "Let all mortal flesh keep silence".

October 12th 2025 Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

 Ave Verum Corpus    Edward Elgar

Ave verum corpus  is traditionally a communion hymn written by Pope Innocent VI, set to music by many composers over the years.

Edward Elgar (1857-1937) was born in a village close to Worcester.  His father had a music shop in Worcester and tuned pianos. Elgar was mostly self taught.  His influence grew in the 1880's and 1890's  despite his being a Roman Catholic in a largely Anglican community. In 1889 he married one of his pupils, Caroline Alice Roberts, against opposition from her family. She played a major part in his career development.

Elgar is one of the great English composers, who has left a legacy of great orchestral and choral works.

from Wikipedia

 

Sunday 5th October Harvest and Evensong

  "Thou Visitest The Earth" from "Thou O God Art Praised in Sion" Dr Maurice Greene (1696 - 1755)

"Thou Visitest The Earth" is a setting of Psalm 65 for solo tenor or baritone and SATB chorus.  In our case today, the solo was taken by one of our altos.  It is commonly used as a Harvest anthem speaking of God's blessings on the earth.

Maurice Green was born in London, his father, Thomas Greene, was chaplain of the Chapel Royal and canon of Salisbury. Young Maurice began his studies under Jeremiah Clarke and Charles King at St Paul's Cathedral. In 1714 he gained his first musical post as organist at St Dunstan-in-the-West on Fleet Street. In 1717 he became organist at St Paul's Cathedral.

Greene was a founder member of the Castle Society, established in 1724. He also helped found the Academy of Ancient Music.

In 1730, Greene was admitted "Doctor in Musica" at Cambridge University and later was made a professor of music there.

In 1735, Greene was elected Master of the King's Music, the highest musical position in the land.

Originally a friend of Handel, Handel had a disagreement with another composer, Giovanni Bononcini, but when Greene continued his friendship with Bononcini, this upset Handel and a lifelong feud ensued.