Music to End the Day, Sunday 27 September 2020
Good evening everyone
Domenico Scarlatti was born in1685, the same year as Bach and Handel. In many ways he was the most radical of the three composers, creating a new sound and texture which look beyond the mature baroque to the new classical era of Haydn and Mozart. His Sonata in E minor is one of more than 550 written for keyboard!
Sonata in E
K380 L23 composed by Domenico Scarlatti in 1754
We end our Music to end the Day with a wonderful song of service and inclusion.
Tom Colvin, born in 1925, trained as an engineer and worked in Burma and Singapore in the late 1940s. After studying Theology at Trinity College, Glasgow University, he was ordained in the Church of Scotland in 1954. He served as a missionary in Nyasaland (now Malawi) from 1954 to 1958, then in Ghana from 1958 to 1964. While in Ghana he wrote down some of the folk melodies he heard being sung spontaneously, and with the help of the Ghanain people created this beautiful hymn. Long-term members of our church will remember that it used to be a Cornerstone favourite during the 1990s.
Kneels at the feet of his friends,
silently washes their feet,
Master who acts as a slave to them:
Jesu, Jesu,
Fill us with Your love,
show us how to serve
The neighbours we have from You.
Neighbours are rich folk and poor,
neighbors are black, brown, and white,
neighbors are nearby and far away:
These are the ones we should serve,
these are the ones we should love;
all these are neighbours to us and you:
Loving puts us on our knees,
serving as though we are slaves:
this is the way we should live with you:
Jesu, Jesu,
Fill us with Your love,
show us how to serve
The neighbours we have from You.
Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love
Composed by Tom Colvin in 1963. Tune: CHEREPONI (Ghana) transcribed by Tom Colvin in 1963.
To end our evening, a prayer:
Lord, thank you for letting us work with you to share your joy with the world. Help us not to take for granted what a wonderful gift it is to share your gospel with the nations, and with our neighbours. Help us to have eyes to see the needs around us and to respond to those needs with joy and hope. Thank you so much Lord for all your love and care for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Goodnight everyone.
Adrian Boynton
