April 5, 2015 - Easter Sunday

Sing Ye to the Lord - Edward Bairstow

I Have Seen the Lord - Alan Hovhaness

Hymns: #207 Easter Hymn, #205 Gelobt sei Gott, 

              #199 St. Kevin

The anthems this week are both very personal statements of faith. The first is Edward C. Bairstow’s setting of Miriam’s song, Sing Ye To the Lord and the communion anthem I Have Seen the Lord by Alan Hovhaness an account of the events at the tomb after the resurrection of Christ.  Both of these detail very base very genuine accounts of the joy of Easter day.

The gradual anthem was written by the English organist Edward C. Bairstow (1874-1946). Bairstow served as the organist at York Minster from 1913 until his death. He was known for being a rather terse and blunt individual (perhaps a reason I find him appealing.)Most of Bairstow’s compositions are for the church. Having composed nearly 30 anthems for the Anglican Church he is enjoyed a successful career. The piece goes back and forth between a strong declamatory section and some slightly more meditative sections. The piece is announced with trumpets before the choir’s first entrance. The meter changes to a flowing section in three that is still full lauding the “Mighty Victim from the sky.” The dynamics drop to pianissimo with a sequence that rises in dynamics and pitches at the idea that Christ has opened Paradise and the Saints shall rise. The triple meter theme returns in unison and builds to a return of the opening fanfare for a final “Alleluia, Amen.”

Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) was born in Somerville, Massachusetts. His father was an Armenian chemistry professor at Tufts College. His love of music began at an early age. He started piano lessons at age 7 and decided on a career in music by age 14. He studied at Tufts College and later at the New England Conservatory. He was greatly influenced by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius whom he visited in 1935. Later in his career he experienced some artistic disappointments which lead him to embrace the Armenian heritage his mother had tried to minimize. Over the course of his career he composed more than 500 pieces in various styles and mediums. I Have Seen the Lord is an Easter anthem for Soprano solo, mixed voices, Organ, and trumpet written in 1964. The anthem depicts the events in the garden on Easter morning. It opens with a trumpet solo which evokes images of the sun rising. The soprano soloist sings as both the angel and Mary while the choir acts as narrator. The trumpet returns this time without the organ underneath leading to the ending in 7/8 singing in the mode which the trumpet introduced during the interlude. In the final five measures the trumpet, choir and organ all join for a triumphal conclusion.

These two pieces speak in a vastly different musical language but both capture the joy and hope of the resurrection while not overlooking the mystery of the whole event. Both deal with the mystical images in the musical language (Hovhannes) and the text (Bairstow). The majesty and mystery of the day are captured in these two anthems.