March 31, 2013 - Easter Day

Light's Glorious Morn Bedeck's the Sky - Horatio Parker
Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One - Healey Willan

Hymns:#207 Easter Hymn, #193 Puer Nobis, #182 Truro

The gradual anthem was written by Horatio Parker (1863-1919) who, like most American organists at that time was educated in Europe. Before going abroad he studied with George Chadwick and upon leaving for Munich he studied with Josef Rheinberger. In 1885 he returned to the US and was appointed to Trinity Church in NYC (1888-1893) and Trinity Church, Boston (1893-1901). In 1893 he was appointed professor of theory at Yale University. Like many composers from this time period, Horatio Parker’s music is largely been banished to obscurity. His oratorio Hora Novissima was widely performed at the time of its composition but has since fallen out of favor. Most of Parker’s output was very popular at the time it was written but today only a select few works are performed. His anthem Light’s Glittering Morn Bedecks the Sky is a setting of a seventh century Latin text translated by John Mason Peale. The piece opens with a festive organ fanfare followed by full choir in unison. After two verses of this celebratory text and organ trumpetings that could denote the end of the piece, the bass soloist enters with a more subdued melody in 6/8. This is followed by a quartet of soloists quietly singing of Christ the “King of gentleness.” The bass soloist starts again with his invocation for Christ to abide while the choir sings lines of The Strife is O’er softly underneath. The choir then bursts forth into an array of “Alleluias” which lead to the Doxology followed by another proclamation of Alleluias and a final Amen. This piece does everything that an Easter anthem should do. It is full and strong and filled with Alleluias.

The communion anthem is quite different from the bombastic gradual anthem. Healey Willan’s Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One is the fifth of eleven Liturgical Motets. Healey Willan (1880-1968) was a Canadian composer who began his musical career as a chorister and then devoted most of his musical life to the church. Willan is credited with bringing English plainchant to the Anglican Church. The Church forbade Latin and because of this did not have the Latin plainchants available to them. Willan went about setting, editing, arranging, and publishing his chant settings which added greatly to the musical language of the Anglican Church. Willan wrote music for choir, orchestra, and organ as well as a few chamber works but virtually nothing for the piano. The text for this anthem is taken from the second chapter of the Song of Solomon. It is the third in a set of three motets to Our Lady composed between 1928 and 1937 for the Church of St Mary Magdalene where Willan served as organist and choirmaster for over forty years. This piece is about renewal and spring. It is also a harbinger of the Ascension which is still to come.