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Last Sunday our principal reading in church was from John 3. For that reason the subject of this week’s post has been echoing round my head for the last few days: the setting of John 3.16-17 which forms the 9th movement of Stainer’s Crucifixion. Often dismissed as among the less fortunate outputs of a Victorian… Read more
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Continuing through Lent, I have been listening to Tallis’s settings from the Lamentations attributed to Jeremiah. Understood to have been written in the 1560s and setting the Latin vulgate (despite the English church’s general adoption of the vernacular), the setting in part one is of the first two verses of the first lamentation and the… Read more
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For Ash Wednesday, let us consider the glorious setting of a penitential psalm that constitutes one of the most famous tales of music ‘piracy’ before the internet: the setting of Psalm 51 Miserere mei in decorated falsobordone by Gregorio Allegri associated with Holy Week services in the Sistine Chapel – within the Papal palace –… Read more
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It seems potentially unjust that we are in the second year of weekly blog posts before I first reflect on a work by the giant of English Choral Music that Charles Williers Stanford undoubtedly is: giant of English Choral Music despite being Irish in origin. Probably early works, his three motets (opus 38) are unusual… Read more
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In the week which began with the observance of Candlemas, or the commemoration of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, what better to reflect on than a nunc dimittis. That said, the particular example I’m thinking of is not really a nunc, simply because it is not in Latin but rather in Church Slavonic,… Read more
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Those who read my blog regularly when published may have noticed that I sit down to write this already more than twelve hours after the time I usually publish my weekly post. Although never pleasant to feel behind on one’s plans, it is probably consciousness that I am late with this that set me to… Read more
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As the season of Epiphany continues, my intention had been to offer a short reflection on the hymn ‘Songs of thankfulness and praise’ the text of which was written by Christopher Wordsworth, nephew of the poet William Wordsworth, as part of a collection of hymns called The Holy Year in 1862 (there is a revised… Read more
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The figure of John the Baptist was, perhaps, a potential embarrassment to the early Christians: why would Jesus have implied subordination to the proclamation of another? Why would He seek baptism for repentance? And yet, all four Gospels mention him, and imply approbation. Nevertheless, and increasingly with the passage of time (if one accepts the… Read more
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This blog’s second year begins early in the season of Epiphany, and with one of the favourites of the season, popularised (for English audiences at least) in the translated version included in Carols for Choirs as Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar. Prior to inclusion in that venerable volume, it was the second version of… Read more
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A short post for the end of the year 2025, and what could the subject be but Bach’s short chorale prelude on Das alte Jahr vergangen ist (the old year is past, BWV 614) from his Orgelbüchlein. The text of the chorale thanks the Lord Jesus Christ for having guided us so faithfully in need… Read more
Theology in Music 