Music for Third Sunday in Lent

Today’s service opens with a short chorale prelude by the German organist and conductor Johanna Senfter. From a collection of 10 such preludes spanning as many different aesthetics, Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten is a chorale of assurance, emphasizing the importance of faith in a world that challenges us with difficulty, pain, and sorrow. Senfter moves to adjacent keys through chromatic motion (for fellow music theory enthusiasts, an almost inconceivable modulation from A-flat minor to G minor in the first five beats) to create a backdrop of uncertainty. The chorale set in the treble voice is often echoed or foreshadowed by the bass. The hymn swells out of the murky undercurrent before resting conclusively on the assurance of the final chord.

Listening to the music of George Dyson, one might be convinced that he was born one or two generations earlier than he was; his music embraces the idiom of his teachers, Parry and Stanford, more than that of his contemporaries, Britten and Howells. On the other hand, many of his choral anthems follow contemporaneous trends in setting devotional poetry of the British tradition in addition to scripture and hymn stanzas. Today’s communion motet sets the poetry of John Keble, a 19^th century priest and visionary of the Oxford movement. The text beautifully depicts the holistic unity of God’s creation, despite hardship and differences, that all creation conveys one inevitable utterance: “God made us all for good.”

Abraham Ross

 

Solemn Mass takes place at St. James’ Anglican Church, Vancouver at 10:30 am every Sunday.