Mary Magdalene reporting the Resurrection to the apostles, St. Alban’s Psalter
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Parish of the Roman Catholic Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
EASTER SUNDAY
April 1, 2018
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass with Festal Procession
Common
Messe pour le Samedy de Pasques, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Hymns
The strife is o’er, the battle done (VICTORY)
Hail thee, festival day (SALVA FESTA DIES))
The day of resurrection (ELLACOMBE)
Jesus Christ is risen today (EASTER HYMN)
Anthems
Meine Seele hört im Sehen, G. F. Handel
I know that my Redeemer liveth, G. F, Handel
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Common
Messe pour le Samedy de Pasques, Charpentier
Hymns
The strife is o’er, the battle done
The strife is o’er, the battle done is from a 17th-century Latin hymn, translated by Francis Pott (1832-1909). The Latin text begins‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia./ Finita iam sunt proelia’ It is found in a Jesuit book, Symphonia Sirenum Selectarum, published in Cologne in 1695 in the section of Easter hymns.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
1 The strife is o’er, the battle done;
Now is the Victor’s triumph won;
Now be the song of praise begun.
Alleluia!2 Death’s mightiest pow’rs have done their worst,
And Jesus hath His foes dispersed;
Let shouts of praise and joy outburst.
Alleluia!3 On the third morn He rose again
Glorious in majesty to reign;
Oh, let us swell the joyful strain!
Alleluia!4 He closed the yawning gates of hell;
The bars from heaven’s high portals fell.
Let hymns of praise His triumph tell.
Alleluia!5 Lord, by the stripes which wounded Thee,
From death’s dread sting Thy servants free
That we may live and sing to Thee.
Alleluia!
Here is the National Cathedral.
The hymn has been brilliantly served by its tune, VICTORY, a free adaptation by William Henry Monk for the first edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern of the ‘Gloria’ in Palestrina’s Magnificat Tertii Toni (‘Magnificat on the third tone’).
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Hail thee, festival day
The refrain of Hail thee, festival day! comes from the 20th couplet of Venantius Fortunatus’ (c. 540—c. 600) long Latin poem (110 lines!) celebrating the conversion of the Saxons by Felix, Bishop of Nantes (c. 582): Salve feste dies toto venerabilis aevo. Venantius, who traveled around the Germanic kingdoms of Europe as a wandering minstrel, devoted his life to the cause of Christian literary elegance. As poet to the Merovingian court, he became a friend of the mystic Queen Radegund, and he later became Bishop of Poitiers. The poem was translated by George Gabriel Scott Gillett (1873-1948).
Hail thee, festival day!
blest day to be hallowed forever;
day when our Lord was raised,
breaking the kingdom of death.
1 All the fair beauty of earth,
from the death of the winter arising!
Every good gift of the year
now with its Master returns; [Refrain]
2 Rise from the grave now, O Lord,
the author of life and creation.
Treading the pathway of death,
new life you give to us all: [Refrain]3 God the Almighty,the Lord,
the Ruler of earth and the heavens,
guard us from harm without;
cleanse us from evil within: [Refrain]4 Jesus the health of the world,
enlighten our minds, great Redeemer,
Son of the Father supreme,
only begotten of God: [Refrain]5 Spirit of life and of power,
now flow in us, fount of our being,
light that enlightens us all,
life that in all may abide: [Refrain]6 Praise to the giver of good!
O lover and author of concord,
pour out your balm on our days;
order our ways in your peace: [Refrain]
Here is a version with brass.
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed the tune SALVA FESTA DIES for the translation by Maurice Frederick Bell, both done for the 1906 English Hymnal. Vaughan Williams’ music adds a regal manner to its religiosity, thereby bearing a resemblance to much English church music from the nineteenth century, but also demonstrating the composer’s vigor in its march-like gait. The main theme is glorious and celebratory without ever veering into a secular sound or mood.
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The day of resurrection (ELLACOMBE)
The day of resurrection is from a Greek hymn by St John Damascene (ca. 655 – ca. 745). It was translated by John Mason Neale (1818-1866). Neale’s translation was printed in his Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862) in ‘The Second Epoch’ of Greek Hymnody, which Neale dated from 726 to 820. The three verses, beginning ‘Αναστáσεως ήμέρα’, made up Ode I of the ‘Canon for Easter Day, called the Golden Canon, or, The Queen of Canons’, from the Pentekostarion Kharmosynon (‘Joyful Pentecostarion’), used from Easter Day to the first Sunday after Pentecost. It had nine ‘Odes’ or sub-divisions, and was sung first at midnight on Easter Eve. With his enthusiasm for the glories of the Eastern Church, Neale quoted a description of the occasion. At midnight, a cannon was fired to announce that 12 o’clock had struck: ‘Then the old Archbishop elevating the cross exclaimed in a loud exulting tone, “Christos anesti, Christ is risen!” and instantly every single individual of all that host took up the cry, and the vast multitude broke through and dispelled for ever the intense and mournful silence which they had maintained so long, with one spontaneous shout of indescribable joy and triumph, “Christ is risen!” “Christ is risen!”’
1 The day of resurrection!
Earth, tell it out abroad;
the Passover of gladness,
the Passover of God.
From death to life eternal,
from this world to the sky,
our Christ hath brought us over,
with hymns of victory.2 Our hearts be pure from evil,
that we may see aright
the Lord in rays eternal
of resurrection light;
and, list’ning to His accents,
may hear, so calm and plain,
His own “All hail!” and, hearing,
may raise the victor strain.3 Now let the heav’ens be joyful!
Let earth the song begin!
Let world resound in triumph,
and all that is therein;
let all things seen and unseen
their notes in gladness blend;
for Christ the Lord hath risen,
our joy that hath no end.
Here is the choir of Gloucester Cathedral.
Published in a chapel hymnal for the Duke of Würtemberg (Gesangbuch der Herzogl, 1784), ELLACOMBE (the name of a village in Devonshire, England) was first set to the words “Ave Maria, klarer und lichter Morgenstern.” During the first half of the nineteenth century various German hymnals altered the tune. Since ELLACOMBE’s inclusion in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern, where it was set to John Daniell’s children’s hymn “Come, Sing with Holy Gladness,” its use throughout the English-speaking world has spread. ELLACOMBE is a rounded bar form (AABA), rather cheerful in character, and easily sung in harmony.
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Jesus Christ is risen today (EASTER HYMN)
Jesus Christ is risen today is from Lyra Davidica (1708). Entitled ‘The Resurrection’, this was in three stanzas in 1708:
Jesus Christ is Risen to day, Halle-Hallelujah
Our triumphant Holyday
Who so lately on the Cross
Suffer’d to redeem our loss.Hast ye Females from your Fright,
Take to Galilee your Flight:
To his sad Disciples say,
Jesus Christ is Risen to Day.In our Paschal Joy and Feast,
Let the Lord of Life be blest,
Let the Holy Trine be prais’d,
And thankful Hearts to Heaven be rais’d.
It is a translation of part of an anonymous Latin hymn, ‘Surrexit Christus hodie’, which explains the reference to the ‘Females’ (‘Mulieres o tremulae, In Galilaeam pergite’).
The basic text of the form in which it is generally found in hymnbooks dates from 1749. It was printed in the 2nd edition (of seven, 1741-79) of The Compleat Psalmodist by John Arnold (ca. 1715-1792). It follows Lyra Davidica for much of stanza 1 (line 3 has ‘Who did once upon the Cross’, replacing ‘Who so lately’) but then continues with new verses 2 and 3:
Hymns of praises let us sing
Unto Christ our heavenly King
Who endur’d the Cross and Grave
Sinners to redeem and save.But the pain that he endured
Our Salvation has procured
Now above the Sky he’s King
Where the Angels ever sing.
Here is King’s College, Cambridge.
The tune is from Lyra Davidica, usually entitled EASTER HYMN. The composer is unknown.
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Anthems
Meine Seele hört im Sehen, G. F. Handel
Meine seele hört im Sehen,
wie, den Schöpfer zu erhöhen,
alles jauchzet, alles lacht.
Höret nur, des erblühnden Frühlings Pracht
ist die Sprache der Natur,
die sie deutlich durchs Gesicht
allenthalben mit uns spricht.
Here is Beverly Sills. And Nuria Rial.
This is from Handel’s 9 Deutsche Arien (9 German Airs)). Possibly composed around the time that the composer made a final journey to Germany to take leave of his ailing mother, they were Handel’s last settings of texts in his native language. It seems likely that these circumstances contributed to the intimate character of these highly personal works, in combination with the texts themselves. Barthold Heinrich Brockes’ poems point ahead towards the Enlightenment, establishing as their setting a harmonically organised world, in which benevolent Nature is the prime example of God’s bounty.
I know that my Redeemer liveth, G. F. Handel
The Air for soprano “I know that my Redeemer liveth” draws from both Job and Paul. It begins with the “ascending fourth”, a signal observed by musicologist Rudolf Steglich as a unifying motif of the oratorio, on the words “I know”, repeated almost every time these words appear again. “For now is Christ risen” is pictured in a steadily rising melody of more than an octave.