Category: Worship Music

Warm greetings, Friends. In the Lutheran Church, the singing of a hymn is introduced not by a simple ‘play over’ of the tune, but more often by a complex elaboration of the melody, either composed or improvised.  Bach wrote several hundred such chorale preludes, covering the complete spectrum of the liturgical year.  ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein’...

In St Mark’s Gospel chapter 8, set for the second Sunday of Lent, Jesus declares: ‘Anyone who wants to be a follower of mine must renounce self; he must take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the...

Good evening, friends. The six suites for unaccompanied cello by J.S. Bach are among the most ingenious and inspired of all his compositions. Written exactly 300 years ago, when Bach was Kappellmeister in Köthen, the single instrumental lines weave a miraculous pattern of implied harmonies and varied colours. The music historian Wilfred Mellers described the suites...

Before the penitential season of Lent begins, we are reminded today of the revelation of God’s glory in Christ on the Feast of Transfiguration – Jesus appears in dazzling white on the mountain with Elijah and Moses (Mark 9, 2–9). The disciples misunderstand, thinking that this is their final destination (Let us make three tabernacles, one...

Dear Friends, As you will know, we are currently in the season of Candlemas, which began last Tuesday with the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. St Luke (Chapter 2) recounts how Jesus was brought by his parents to the temple in Jerusalem, and greeted by the aged Simeon who declared the young child ‘a light...

Good evening, everyone. Traditionally on the third Sunday of Advent our thoughts turn to John the Baptist, and his proclamations of the coming of the Messiah. Tonight we begin with Charles Coffin’s great eighteenth-century hymn ‘On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh’, set to the tune ‘Winchester New’, adapted from a...

Good evening, friends. Our music to end the day features wonderful repertoire by the great baroque composers Bach and Handel. Bach wrote the glorious cantata ‘Wachet auf rift uns di stimme’ (Sleepers Wake, the watch-cry pealeth) for Advent Sunday 1724. He takes the original hymn melody by Philipp Nicolai (1599) and gives it a joyful and...

Good evening, friends. Today is the Feast of Christ the King, the climax of the church’s liturgical year. Next week we begin a ‘new year’ as we enter the season of Advent. The Kingship of Christ is powerfully represented in the image of Jesus hanging from the Cross on Good Friday. In the words of St...

In the past few days our thoughts have been with the thousands of men and women who through two world wars and more recent conflicts have sacrificed their lives in the cause of justice and peace. The poignancy of this Remembrance season has been heightened by news this week that deaths in the UK from Coronavirus...