Sunday 10 March 2024

Sunday 10th March 2024 Lent 4 Mothering Sunday

  John Stainer “God so loved the world” from “The Crucifixion”


“The Crucifixion: A Mediation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer” was composed in 1887 and first performed on 24th February of that year. It was dedicated to his friend and pupil W Hodge and the choir of Marylebone Church.  It is a sacred oratorio for tenor and bass soli, SATB choir and organ. W J Sparrow Simpson wrote the libretto.  The work has been dismissed in the past, even Stainer himself calling it “rubbish” but it is continued to be a staple of church music since its first performance, especially around Easter. “God so loved the world” is one of the choral pieces, but the text can be used at any time in the church calendar, as it is reflecting part of the Eucharist.

Sir John Stainer (1840 – 1901) was an English composer and organist.  He was very popular during his life, but now little of his music is performed other than “The Crucifixion”. He was the Heather Professor of Music at Oxford, and his training of choristers and organists set standard that remain influential today.

He was born in Southwark, London, son of a cabinetmaker.  He was a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral at the age of ten. At sixteen he was appointed organist at St Michael’s College, Tenbury.  He was later organist at Magdalen College, Oxford and the St Paul’s Cathedral. Whilst at Magdalen he was allowed to study as long as it did not interfere with his duties as organist.  He chose to do so and in 1864 gained his BA with his MA coming 2 years later. Due to poor eyesight he had to retire from St Paul’s whist in his forties and returned to Oxford to take up his chair. Queen Victoria honoured him with his knighthood in 1888 for his services to British music, the same year he retired from St Paul’s. He died unexpectedly whilst holidaying in Italy.

picture from Wikipedia


Andrew Carter  Grannies and Grandads, a movement taken from Bless The Lord, a subset of movements from his work, Benedicite.

The junior choir sang excerpt from this long piece, picking out the verses applicable to family and "Mothering" as we heard from Fr Chris that anyone is capable of mothering, no matter what gender or age.

Benedicite is a composition for choir, children's choir and orchestra by Andrew Carter. He set the hymn Benedicite from the Book of Common Prayer, and additional free texts based on the model in three movements for unison children's choir. The work was published in 1991 and dedicated to Andrew Fairbairns. A subset of the music for children's choir was published as Bless the Lord.

History
Benedicite was commissioned for the 1989 Singing Day in Edinburgh by the British Federation of Young Choirs. Carter, an English composer and church musician in York, was inspired by the restoration of roof bosses at the southern transept of York Minster, which had been destroyed in a fire in 1984. They depict around 60 images of creatures. The music is written to convey a child-like perspective of the wonders of Creation.

Benedicite was published in 1991 and dedicated to Andrew Fairbairns. A subset of the music for children's choir was published as Bless the Lord.

Structure and music
Carter set the hymn Benedicite from the Book of Common Prayer in six movements, and interspersed three additional movements, whose texts are free variations on the model, to be sung by a unison children's choir.

The movements are titled:

O all ye works of the Lord
Green Things
Sun and Moon
Badgers and Hedgehogs
Ice and Snow
Whales and Waters
Butterflies and Moths
Thunder and Lightning
Spirits and Souls
Grannies and Grandads
O let the earth bless the Lord
The duration is given as 35 minutes. The first movement, beginning "O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord", is marked Molto ritmico (Most rhythmic) and is in 2+2+2+3/8 time.

The three movements based on added text to be sung by a children's choir were also published separately as Bless the Lord, which is concluded with the final movement. The movements are:

Badgers and Hedgehogs (Benedicite No. 4)
Butterflies and Moths (Benedicite No. 7)
Grannies and Grandads (Benedicite No. 10)
O Let The Earth Bless The Lord

Taken from Wikipedia

Andrew Carter’s music is performed worldwide. As composer, guest conductor and workshop leader he has travelled extensively in the United States, Antipodes and Europe. A twenty-five year association with Oxford University Press has established his reputation as a writer of both choral miniatures and larger scale concert works for chorus and orchestra. Of these latter the widely performed Benedicite was followed by Te Deum, Musick’s Jubilee, Horizons, Song of Stillness, and Laudate Dominum. Of similar scale, the Magnificat (MorningStar 2004), is already proving popular. In a lighter vein, the Three Nonsensical Songs for upper voices and orchestra were premiered by Quad Cities Symphony in 2005. After conducting his Magnificat in North Carolina in April 2008, Andrew gave workshops in Toronto and attended the celebrated St Olaf’s College in Minnesota as composer-in-residence.

A particular honour in the field of church music was the invitation to write Missa Sancti Pauli for the 1997 tercentenary celebrations of Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral. Over the years several of Andrew’s carols have been included in the renowned Christmas Eve broadcast from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, with Mary’s Magnificat featuring again in 2009. Andrew Carter’s Christmas Carols, conducted by the composer with John Scott at the organ, was named amongst the ‘ten best ever’ Christmas CDs in the BBC Music Magazine (Nov, 2007).

Andrew’s lifelong love of the organ is reflected in the festive Organ Concerto (MorningStar 2008) and an album of organ pieces (Oxford) which includes the much acclaimed Toccata on Veni Emmanuel. More recently, the substantial 22-variation Passacaglia (Banks 2007), written to honour Francis Jackson’s 90th birthday, was premiered by John Scott Whiteley in York Minster.

Born in Leicester in the English Midlands, Andrew Carter studied music at Leeds University before settling in York. During his time as a bass songman at York Minster, he founded the Chapter House Choir, the award winning mixed-voice concert group which he conducted for seventeen years, and for whom he penned many of his early published arrangements.


Taken from Andrew Carter's website


Sunday 3 March 2024

3rd March 2024 Lent3

 O Lord, Increase Our Faith  H. Loosemore

Henry Loosemore was born in Devon.  He was a chorister and afterwards a lay clerk in one of the Cambridge colleges. At some time he was organist at King's College. In 1660 he became organist at Exeter Cathedral.  He died suddenly in 1670 whilst in Exeter. 

O Lord Increase Our Faith has incorrectly been attributed to Orlando Gibbons in the past, and in Gibbon's version, has the word "our" replaced by "my".  However a manuscript was found of Loosemore's which allowed the correct attribution and also the correction of the text.

 

Sunday 25 February 2024

Sunday 25th February 2024 Lent 2

 Lord For Thy Tender Mercy's Sake  Music could be by either Farrant or John Hilton. This arrangement is by Anthony Green. Words from Bull, Christian Prayers and Holy Mediaition (1568)


Richard Farrant (c. 1525 – 30 November 1580) was an English composer, musical dramatist, theatre founder, and Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. The first acknowledgment of him is in a list of the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal in 1552. The year of his birth cannot be accurately determined. During his life he was able to establish himself as a successful composer, develop the English drama considerably, found the first Blackfriars Theatre, and be the first to write verse-anthems. He married Anne Bower, daughter of Richard Bower who was Master of the Chapel Royal choristers at the time. With Anne he conceived ten children, one of whom was also named Richard.

Queen Elizabeth I
As a member of the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, Farrant was active in ceremonies surrounding the royal family. He began his work with the Chapel Royal around 1550 under the reign of Edward VI. Fortunately, for Farrant, this is a time that saw huge developments in Latin Church Music. Composers like William Byrd and Christopher Tye were busy expanding and elaborating on the Church Music of the day. In Farrant's twelve years with the Chapel Royal, he was able to participate in funerals for Edward VI and Mary I, and coronations for Mary I and Elizabeth I. After his work there, he took up a post as lay vicar and organist at St. George's Chapel at Windsor.

For Farrant, the post at Windsor became a permanent one that he retained for the rest of his life. Along with this, he also acquired the position of Master of the Chapel Royal choristers in November 1569. Having the choirs of both of these institutions at his disposal gave him an outlet to showcase all of his compositions and plays. In fact, every winter he was able to produce a play for the Queen herself. These positions also allowed him to move back to London in 1576 and begin a public theater of sorts where he rehearsed some of his choir music openly. It was soon after, in 1580, that he died, having left his house to his wife.

Unlike many composers of his day that stuck to only music composition, Farrant also wrote many plays. One of his most important contributions to drama in England is of course the creation of the first Blackfriars Theatre. This eventually became one of the most important places in London for drama to develop during the Renaissance. Farrant is also one of the earliest and most well known composers that began to mix the two mediums of music and drama. It was this uncommon mixture that allowed him to begin to develop the composition style of 'verse.' This becomes prominent in a lot of his pieces including the anthems When as we sat in Babylon, Call to remembrance and Hide not thou thy face.


John Hilton (the elder) (1565 – 1609(?)) was an English countertenor, organist and composer of mainly sacred works.

Hilton is best known for his anthems "Lord, for Thy Tender Mercy's Sake" (which may actually be by one of the Farrants) and "Call to Remembrance".

Hilton was born in 1565. By 1584 he was a countertenor at Lincoln Cathedral. At the start of 1594 he became organist at Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was the father of John Hilton the younger, also a composer, which makes definitive assignation of their combined sacred works problematic; whereas his only secular work appears to have been the madrigal Fair Oriana, beauty's Queen, which he wrote for The Triumphs of Oriana.

He died, probably in Cambridge, prior to 20 March 1609.


Henry Bull (died 1577) was an English Protestant theological writer. He is now remembered as an ally of John Foxe in documenting the Marian exiles and recent religious history.

A native of Warwickshire, Bull was a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1535, and full fellow and B.A. in 1540. He was a prominent reformer in the college, in a group that included Thomas Cooper, Robert Crowley and John Foxe. He became rector of Courtenhall in early 1553.

When Mary I of England came to the throne later in 1553, Bull, with the help of Thomas Bentham, snatched a censer from the hand of the officiating priest and was expelled from Magdalen. A visitation of the college was held and, on 23 October 1553, the visitors deprived Bull of his fellowship. Anthony Wood says that he went into exile, which cannot be documented, but Strype states that he lived quietly at home as a Protestant.

After the accession of Elizabeth I of England, Bull held benefices, according to Wood. He collected correspondence and manuscripts, that were kept by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and worked in parallel with Foxe's Actes and Monuments.

Bull edited the Apology of Bishop John Hooper (1562) and, in the same year, Hooper's Exposition of Psalm xxiii. Other commentaries of Hooper's on three psalms appeared in Certeine comfortable Expositions of … Master John Hooper on Psalms 23, 62, 72, 77, gathered by Mr. H. B. (1580). He was also the editor of Christian Praiers and Holy Meditacions which appeared first by 1570; an earlier work from Bull's collection was Lidley's Prayers (1566). Christian Praiers was reprinted later in the century, and by the Parker Society.

The major martyrological collection, Certain Most Godly, Fruitful and Comfortable Letters of such True Saintes and Holy Martyrs as in the Late Bloodye Persecution Gave their Lyves, was published in 1564, as by Miles Coverdale. In effect, it was by Bull.

Bull translated from Martin Luther A Commentarie on the Fiftene Psalmes called Psalmi Graduum, printed by Thomas Vautroullier (1577), with a preface by Foxe.

Biographies from Wikipedia

Sunday 18 February 2024

Sunday 18th February 2024 Lent 1

Jubilate Deo in B flat Stanford

Taken from the Novello  Copy
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford has a perverse relationship with posterity.  Remembered today largely for his choral miniatures, this restless symphonist was the unwilling Janus of British music.  A significant presence on the European scene in his own lifetime, he was an outspoken critic of Wagner, Strauss and modernism in general. Nevertheless, as a formalist with flair and skill, his influence catalysed much of the great English music of the 20th century.  As fellow composer George Dyson said: "In a certain sense the very rebellion he fought was the most obvious fruit of his methods."

The Jubilate in B flat displays the composers trademark mastery of thematic structures.


O Lord My God  Samuel Sebastian Wesley 

This is known as King Solomon's prayer based on 1 Kings 8.

O Lord my God,
Hear thou the prayer thy servant prayeth,
Have thou respect unto his prayer?
Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place,
And when thou hearest Lord, forgive.


Samuel Sebastian Wesley (14 August 1810 – 19 April 1876) was an English organist and composer. Wesley married Mary Anne Merewether and had 6 children. He is often referred to as S.S. Wesley to avoid confusion with his father Samuel Wesley.

Biography
Born in London, he was the eldest child in the composer Samuel Wesley's second family, which he formed with Sarah Suter having separated from his wife Charlotte. Samuel Sebastian was the grandson of Charles Wesley. His middle name derived from his father's lifelong admiration for the music of Bach.

After singing in the choir of the Chapel Royal as a boy, Samuel Sebastian embarked on a career as a musician, and was appointed organist at Hereford Cathedral in 1832. While there he married the sister of the Dean, John Merryweather. S.S. Wesley was, like his father Samuel Wesley, a Freemason. He was initiated in Palladian Lodge No.120 in Hereford on 17 September 1833. He moved to Exeter Cathedral three years later, and joined St George's Lodge No.129 Exeter on 10 December 1835. He subsequently held appointments at Leeds Parish Church (now Leeds Minster) (from 1842), Winchester Cathedral (from 1849), Winchester College and Gloucester Cathedral (1865-1876). In 1839 he received both his Bachelor of Music degree and a Doctor of Music degree from Oxford. He became a Professor of Organ at the Royal Academy of Music in 1850. He died at his home in Gloucester on 19 April 1876 aged 65. He is buried next to his daughter in St. Bartholomew's Cemetery in Exeter by the old City Wall. There are memorial tablets to him in Exeter Cathedral and Winchester Cathedral, and his memorial at Gloucester Cathedral is in stained glass.

Famous in his lifetime as one of his country's leading organists and choirmasters, he composed almost exclusively for the Church of England, which continues to cherish his memory. His better-known anthems include Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace and Wash me throughly. He also wrote several rather late examples of verse anthems, which contrast unison and contrapuntal sections with smaller, more intimate passages for solo voice or voices. Blessed be the God and Father, The Wilderness and Ascribe unto the Lord are of considerable length, as is his Service in E.

The popular short anthem Lead me, Lord is an extract from Praise the Lord, O my soul. Several of his pieces for solo organ have enduring value and continue to be played in recitals now and then.

Of his hymn tunes the best-known are "Aurelia" and "Hereford." "Aurelia" has been widely adopted in the United States, and is regularly heard there. Usually now sung to the words "The Church's One Foundation", Wesley composed the tune for the hymn "Jerusalem the Golden", hence the name "Aurelia".

One notable feature of his career is his aversion to equal temperament, an aversion which he kept for decades after this tuning method had been accepted on the Continent and even in most of England. Such distaste did not stop him from substantial use of chromaticism in several of his published compositions.

While at Winchester Cathedral Wesley was largely responsible for the Cathedral's acquisition in 1854 of the Father Willis organ which had been exhibited at The Great Exhibition, 1851. The success of the Exhibition organ led directly to the award of the contract to Willis for a 100-stop organ for St George's Hall, Liverpool built in 1855. Wesley was the consultant for this major and important project, but the organ was, arguably, impaired for some years by Wesley's insistence that it be tuned to unequal temperament.

Wesley, with Father Willis, can be credited with the invention of the concave and radiating organ pedalboard, but demurred when Willis proposed that it should be known as the "Wesley-Willis" pedalboard. However, their joint conception has been largely adopted as an international standard for organs throughout the English-speaking world and those exported elsewhere.

Taken from Wikipedia



Wednesday 13th February 2024 Ash Wednesday

Lord For Thy Tender Mercy's Sake  Music could be by either Farrant or John Hilton. This arrangement is by Anthony Green. Words from Bull, Christian Prayers and Holy Mediaition (1568)


Richard Farrant (c. 1525 – 30 November 1580) was an English composer, musical dramatist, theatre founder, and Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. The first acknowledgment of him is in a list of the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal in 1552. The year of his birth cannot be accurately determined. During his life he was able to establish himself as a successful composer, develop the English drama considerably, found the first Blackfriars Theatre, and be the first to write verse-anthems. He married Anne Bower, daughter of Richard Bower who was Master of the Chapel Royal choristers at the time. With Anne he conceived ten children, one of whom was also named Richard.

Queen Elizabeth I
As a member of the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, Farrant was active in ceremonies surrounding the royal family. He began his work with the Chapel Royal around 1550 under the reign of Edward VI. Fortunately, for Farrant, this is a time that saw huge developments in Latin Church Music. Composers like William Byrd and Christopher Tye were busy expanding and elaborating on the Church Music of the day. In Farrant's twelve years with the Chapel Royal, he was able to participate in funerals for Edward VI and Mary I, and coronations for Mary I and Elizabeth I. After his work there, he took up a post as lay vicar and organist at St. George's Chapel at Windsor.

For Farrant, the post at Windsor became a permanent one that he retained for the rest of his life. Along with this, he also acquired the position of Master of the Chapel Royal choristers in November 1569. Having the choirs of both of these institutions at his disposal gave him an outlet to showcase all of his compositions and plays. In fact, every winter he was able to produce a play for the Queen herself. These positions also allowed him to move back to London in 1576 and begin a public theater of sorts where he rehearsed some of his choir music openly. It was soon after, in 1580, that he died, having left his house to his wife.

Unlike many composers of his day that stuck to only music composition, Farrant also wrote many plays. One of his most important contributions to drama in England is of course the creation of the first Blackfriars Theatre. This eventually became one of the most important places in London for drama to develop during the Renaissance. Farrant is also one of the earliest and most well known composers that began to mix the two mediums of music and drama. It was this uncommon mixture that allowed him to begin to develop the composition style of 'verse.' This becomes prominent in a lot of his pieces including the anthems When as we sat in Babylon, Call to remembrance and Hide not thou thy face.


John Hilton (the elder) (1565 – 1609(?)) was an English countertenor, organist and composer of mainly sacred works.

Hilton is best known for his anthems "Lord, for Thy Tender Mercy's Sake" (which may actually be by one of the Farrants) and "Call to Remembrance".

Hilton was born in 1565. By 1584 he was a countertenor at Lincoln Cathedral. At the start of 1594 he became organist at Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was the father of John Hilton the younger, also a composer, which makes definitive assignation of their combined sacred works problematic; whereas his only secular work appears to have been the madrigal Fair Oriana, beauty's Queen, which he wrote for The Triumphs of Oriana.

He died, probably in Cambridge, prior to 20 March 1609.


Henry Bull (died 1577) was an English Protestant theological writer. He is now remembered as an ally of John Foxe in documenting the Marian exiles and recent religious history.

A native of Warwickshire, Bull was a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1535, and full fellow and B.A. in 1540. He was a prominent reformer in the college, in a group that included Thomas Cooper, Robert Crowley and John Foxe. He became rector of Courtenhall in early 1553.

When Mary I of England came to the throne later in 1553, Bull, with the help of Thomas Bentham, snatched a censer from the hand of the officiating priest and was expelled from Magdalen. A visitation of the college was held and, on 23 October 1553, the visitors deprived Bull of his fellowship. Anthony Wood says that he went into exile, which cannot be documented, but Strype states that he lived quietly at home as a Protestant.

After the accession of Elizabeth I of England, Bull held benefices, according to Wood. He collected correspondence and manuscripts, that were kept by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and worked in parallel with Foxe's Actes and Monuments.

Bull edited the Apology of Bishop John Hooper (1562) and, in the same year, Hooper's Exposition of Psalm xxiii. Other commentaries of Hooper's on three psalms appeared in Certeine comfortable Expositions of … Master John Hooper on Psalms 23, 62, 72, 77, gathered by Mr. H. B. (1580). He was also the editor of Christian Praiers and Holy Meditacions which appeared first by 1570; an earlier work from Bull's collection was Lidley's Prayers (1566). Christian Praiers was reprinted later in the century, and by the Parker Society.

The major martyrological collection, Certain Most Godly, Fruitful and Comfortable Letters of such True Saintes and Holy Martyrs as in the Late Bloodye Persecution Gave their Lyves, was published in 1564, as by Miles Coverdale. In effect, it was by Bull.

Bull translated from Martin Luther A Commentarie on the Fiftene Psalmes called Psalmi Graduum, printed by Thomas Vautroullier (1577), with a preface by Foxe.

Biographies from Wikipedia

Monday 12 February 2024

Sunday 11th February 2024 Sunday before Lent

 Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face To Face   Percy Whitlock (1903-1946) Words H Bonar (1808-1889)


Percy William Whitlock (1 June 1903 in Chatham, Kent – 1 May 1946 in Bournemouth), was an English organist and post-romantic composer.
Percy Whitlock studied at London's Royal College of Music with Charles Villiers Stanford and Ralph Vaughan Williams. From 1921-1930, Whitlock was assistant organist at Rochester Cathedral in Kent. He served as Director of Music at St Stephen's Church, Bournemouth for the next five years, combining this from 1932 with the role of that town's borough organist, in which capacity he regularly played at the local Pavilion Theatre. After 1935 he worked for the Pavilion Theatre full-time. A tireless railway enthusiast, he wrote at length and with skill about his interest. Sometimes, for both prose and music, he used the pseudonym "Kenneth Lark." He worked closely with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra; the orchestra's conductor from 1935-1940 was Richard Austin, whose father Frederic Austin dedicated his Organ Sonata to Whitlock.
Whitlock was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1928. Near the end of his life, he lost his sight altogether, and he died in Bournemouth a few weeks before his 43rd birthday. For decades afterwards he remained largely forgotten. This neglect has eased in recent times, in particular through the activities and publications of the Percy Whitlock Trust, founded in 1983. The Percy Whitlock Trust was wound up in 2017, due to the expiry of copyright on Whitlock's compositions, and its assets and archive transferred to the Royal College of Organists.

Percy Whitlock from the Percy Whitlock Trust


Here O My Lord, I See Thee Face To Face is number 2 of 3 Introits, published in 1929.

Horatius Bonar (known to his friends as Horace Bonar) was the son of James Bonar (1758-1821), Solicitor of Excise for Scotland, and his wife Marjory Pyott Maitland. The family lived in the Broughton district of Edinburgh. He was educated in Edinburgh.
He came from a long line of ministers who served a total of 364 years in the Church of Scotland. One of eleven children, his brothers John James and Andrew Alexander were also ministers of the Free Church of Scotland He married Jane Catherine Lundie in 1843 and five of their young children died in succession. Towards the end of their lives, one of their surviving daughters was left a widow with five small children and she returned to live with her parents.
In 1853, Bonar received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Aberdeen.
He died at this home, 10 Palmerston Road in the Grange, 31 July 1889. They are buried together in the Canongate Kirkyard in the lair of Alexander Bonar (and his parents), near the bottom of the eastern extension.

All information from Wikipedia.

Horatius Bonar - Project Gutenberg eText 13103.jpg
H Bonar from Wikipedia





Sunday 4 February 2024

Sunday 4th February 2024 Candlemass

Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in D   Charles Wood

Today, the choir sang only the Nunc Dimittis, otherwise known as The Song Of Simeon as he sees Jesus being presented in the temple and knows that Jesus is the Messiah.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation;
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel
(Luke 2.29-32)
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be world without end. Amen.

Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church 

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D is a choral setting by the Irish composer Charles Wood of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for the Anglican service of Evening Prayer. Scored for four-part choir and organ, it was written in 1898. It is also known as Evening Service in D major.

Wood won an organ scholarship to the University of Cambridge where he became the organist at Caius and, later, a fellow of the college, having graduated with a doctorate in music. He set the combination of Magnificat and Nunc dimittis several times for the Evening Prayer of the Anglican Church, taking the words from the Book of Common Prayer. Evensong is a traditional daily service combining elements of vespers and compline. Wood's setting in D is his earliest, and has been regarded as his most popular version of the canticles. It has been said, together with the Evening Service in B-flat by Stanford, to mean for many "the epitome of Church of England worship".

Magnificat (Song of Mary) and Nunc dimittis (Song of Simeon) are biblical canticles. Simeon sings the Nunc dimittis ("Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace") when Jesus is presented in the temple (Luke 2:29–32). Each canticle is concluded by a doxology. The canticles are part of the daily service of Evening Prayer in the Anglican church and have been set to music often.

Wood set the text for a four-part choir and organ. He set each canticle as one movement. Both are concluded by the same doxology.

In the Nunc dimittis, set in triple meter and marked Adagio, the basses alone sing most of the canticle text of the old Simeon. After the first line, the upper voices echo the text "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace" in homophony. After the second line, the upper voices repeat their first echo, but now in E major. After the third line, the upper voices repeat the last words, "Thy people Israel", ending in A major, and followed by the doxology.

Taken from Wikipedia