They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell all my bones. They stand staring and looking upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

Psalm 22 vv. 17, 18

Passiontide

The final two weeks of Lent are known as Passiontide and directly commemorate the events of the Passion of Christ, beginning on Passion Sunday, the fifth Sunday in Lent. The final Sunday in Lent, and the start of Holy Week, is known as Palm Sunday, and marks Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, when palm leaves were strewn in front of him (Mark 11:8). The liturgical colour for Passiontide is crimson. In the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, amongst others, the final three days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Saturday, are known as the  HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Triduum" \o "Easter Triduum" Easter Triduum. This period begins on Thursday evening with a Eucharist to recall the last supper. On Good Friday, usually at 3 pm, a three-hour service is held in the form of a liturgical commemoration of the Passion. On Easter Eve an evening service of vigil is held, where fire is lit, blessed and distributed. Water is also blessed and sprinkled over the people, and scripture readings on the theme of baptism and re-birth are made. The Gloria in Excelsis Deo is sung for the first time since Ash Wednesday and this leads into the first Mass of Easter. 

Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing

Herbert Howells

Take him, earth, for cherishing,
To thy tender breast receive him.
Body of a man I bring thee,
Noble even in its ruin.
Once was this a spirit’s dwelling, 
By the breath of God created.
High the heart that once was beating,
Christ the prince of all its living.
Guard him well, the dead I give thee,
Not unmindful of His creature,
Shall He ask it, He who made it
Symbol of His mystery.
Comes the hour God hath appointed
To fulfil the hope of men,
Then must thou in very fashion,
What I give return again.
Not through ancient time decaying
Wear away those bones to sand,
Ashes that a man might measure 
In the hollow of his hand:
Not though wandering winds and idle,
Drifting through the empty sky
Scatter dust was nerve and sinew,
It is given to man to die.
Once again the shining road
Leads to ample paradise;
Open are the woods again,
That the serpent lost for men.
Take, O take him, mighty leader,
Take again thy servant’s soul.
Grave his name and pour the fragrant balm
Upon the icy stone.

The words of this motet are taken from the Hymnus Circa Exsequias Defuncti, by the Roman Christian poet Prudentius (348-413). Howells dedicated this motet, written in a single sitting on June 6th 1964, to the honoured memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States. Herbert Howells is best known for his output of chamber music, solo song and church music. Amongst the last-named his most popular works are settings of the canticles for King’s College Cambridge, and for the cathedrals of St Paul’s, Gloucester, Winchester, and Chichester, as well as for several American choral establishments. Larger scale choral works include the Hymnus Paradisi and the Requiem – both written in response to the death of his son Michael, aged 9, from meningitis, an event from which Howells never totally recovered. Howells was born in Gloucestershire and, as an articled pupil of Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral, began to compose at an early age. In 1912 he won a scholarship to the R.C.M., where his teachers were Stanford and Wood, and, in 1913, Stanford himself conducted the premiere of Howells’ piano concerto. An early appointment as sub-organist of Salisbury Cathedral was short-lived because of ill-health, but in 1920 Howells followed in Stanford’s footsteps and began teaching composition at the R.C.M. – a post he filled for over 60 years, during which time he taught Britten and Tippett. Other appointments included that of Director of Music at St Paul’s Girls’ School, in succession to Gustav Holst, and Professor of Music at the University of London. A close friend of Vaughan Williams and Walter de la Mare (much of whose poetry he set to music), Howells was inspired not by religion but by poetry, by the magnificent architecture of the great mediaeval English cathedrals, and by the countryside. His style fuses skilful melodic writing with a unique approach to harmony, pushing tonal and modal boundaries and creating a truly distinctive soundworld. The music shows influence from Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius and Walton.  It is unique and highly charged, serene and subtle and yet very complex. Take Him Earth provides an exacting and deeply moving example of exemplary word setting. The choral texture is thick and the harmonic progressions are very complex. Based generally around a tonic of B, the motet provides examples of bitonality with B major and B minor featuring both separately and, at times, simultaneously.