Good Friday 19th April 2019

A Meditation in Words and Music for Good Friday

The service started with prayers.

Were You There?  Arr. Francis Westbrook 1903 - 1975
This is an old American Spiritual,  first published in 1899, but likely composed by enslaved African - Americans.  It was the first spiritual to be published in an American hymnal.

Francis Westbrook, taken fromm Praise.org.uk  b Thornton Heath, Surrey 1903, d Harpenden, Herts 1975. Whitgift (now Trinity) Middle Sch, Croydon; Didsbury Theol Coll Manchester; ordained 1930 (Wesleyan Methodist). Distinguished pianist; BA (London), FRCO, MusD (Manchester, while in circuit ministry). Prof at London Coll of Music 1968–75; Principal, Williams Sch of Church Music, 1971–75. Held office at RSCM and Methodist Ch Music Soc; edited The Choir 1948–64. 2 tunes and 20 arrangements in The School Hymn Book of the Methodist Church 1950, which he helped to edit, as also Hymns and Songs, 1969. H&S had 6 of his tunes, Praise for Today (1974) had 3. Other music includes cantatas, motets, and anthems. Methodist though he was, FBW commended John Merbecke’s plainsong Music for the Congregation at Holy Communion (1550, some 6 years after JM compiled the first-ever English Bible concordance) as a work ‘which for simplicity and beauty has never been surpassed’; he also believed that, unlike N American churches, British ones did not offer their members ‘anything that deserves to be called a hymn book’—since they hand out no more than word-books! (Or often, not even that.) Fred Pratt Green’s tribute in verse, among Ten Friends, begins ‘Of all the people I have known well, you were the nearest to being a genius.’

Our biblical readings came from John's gospel, telling the Passion story.

John 19: 14-16 Jesus before Pilate

However interspersed between these and the hymns and motets were poems.

When Jesus Came To Golgotha  Studdert Kennedy

John 19: 16-27 Jesus is crucified

Drop, Drop Slow Tears   Orlando Gibbons

Drop, drop, slow tears is a devotional reflection, sung at Passiontide but not specific to that season. Like The King of love and Let all mortal flesh, it was a Vaughan Williams ‘marriage’: in The English Hymnal he joined a poignant text by the Jacobean poet and clergyman Phineas Fletcher to one of Orlando Gibbons’s hymn tunes (Song 46, published in 1623). Interestingly, poet and composer are linked by their connection with King’s College, Cambridge, where Gibbons was a chorister and Fletcher a student. Taken from hyperion-records.co.uk

Gibbons sang in the choir of Kings College Cambridge between 1598 and 1598, where his eldest brother was master of the choristers. He gained his Bachelor of Music in 1606. King James 1 appointed him a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and he was organist there from around 1615 until his death, being senior organist from 1623. He was also a keyboard player in the privy chamber of Prince Charles (later Charles 1) and organist at Westminster Abbey. He died suddenly at the age of 41.

He wrote a large number of pieces for keyboard, madrigals and many verse anthems.

John 19: 28-30 Jesus dies on the cross

Ah Holy Jesu   Johann Cruger 1598-1662 Words Johann Heermann 1585-1647

This is a German hymn for passion tide. It was written in 1630 and first published in Devoti Musica Cordis.

Johann Cruger was born the son of an Inn keeper in Gross Breesen and educated in the Lateinschule nearby. He composed numerous works and also wrote about music education.

Johann Cruger from Wikipedia

Johann Heermann  was born in Raudten. He started to write poetry at the age of 17. His earlier works were written in Latin with a few lines of German and based on the Gospels, but he then moved to German. Some of his works were set to music by J S Bach.

Johann Heerman from Wikipedia

Am I A Stone  Christina Rossetti

John 19: 31-37 Jesus is brought down from the cross

In Evil Long I Took Delight  John Newton

O Saviour Of The World  John Goss 1800 - 1880


Sir John Goss was a boy chorister in The Chapel Royal and later a pupil of Sir Thomas Attwood, organist at St Paul's cathedral.  He spend a short time in the chorus of an opera company before being organist at a number of churches, finally at St Paul's where he worked hard to improve the musical standards. His works are mostly vocal, both sacred and secular.  From 1827 until 1874, he was a professor at The Royal Academy of Music teaching harmony.  He taught Arthur Sullivan and John Stainer who succeeded him as organist at St Paul's.

Sir John Goss from Wikipedia

By Faith We Serve Him  Parminer Summon

The service concluded with prayers.