Music Notes for the Fifth Sunday of Lent — April 6, 2025

There Is a Green Hill Far Away – Text: Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) / Music: William Horsley (1774-1858)

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Some say that Cecil Frances Alexander wrote There is a green hill far away – this Sunday’s final hymn in church – while sitting by the bed of a sick child. Others claim that the inspiration came from a grassy hill near her home in Derry that reminded her of Calvary. While both stories are of questionable provenance, it is certain that in these stanzas the author attempted to explain, in terms children would understand, the phrase “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried” in the Apostles’ Creed. This is indeed the finest among the hymns Alexander wrote on the phrases of the Creed. Parenthetically, line 2 of stanza 1 originally had – and still does in The New English Hymnal – “without a city wall”; the author changed it to “outside a city wall” when she learned that children were puzzled by a green hill that did not have a city wall.

The customary tune to this hymn has always been called “Horsley”. It was found in Twenty-four Psalm Tunes and Eight Chants 1844, but no name was attached. Only in subsequent hymn books was the composer identified as William Horsley (1774-1858). The first appearance of this tune to There is a green hill was in the 1868 supplement to Hymns Ancient & Modern, although it was likely written sometime between 1798 and 1812.

There is a green hill far away,
without a city wall,
where our dear Lord was crucified
who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
what pains he had to bear,
but we believe it was for us
he hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,
he died to make us good,
that we might go at last to heaven,
saved by his precious blood.

There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin,
he only could unlock the gate
of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has he loved!
And we must love him too,
and trust in his redeeming blood,
and try his works to do.

Gerald Harder

 

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Music Notes for Sunday, March 30, 2025

 

Music for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

 

Litanies – Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Jehan Alain was a near contemporary of the great composer and organist Olivier Messiaen, possibly rivalling his vision and genius, but Alain’s life was cut short when he was killed in action at the age of 29, just five days before France withdrew from World War II. He had received his first organ lessons from his father and then progressed to the Paris Conservatoire. He became a brilliant keyboard player and a compulsive composer, who saw music as revelatory of states of the soul, and who was drawn to music’s power to create a sense of mystery rather than express emotions.

Jehan Alain’s most famous work is the organ piece Litanies, this Sunday’s postlude in church. The plainsong phrase which opens the music is repeated continually, propelled by a locomotive rhythm to an ecstatic climax. Alain once wrote about how to play Litanies: ‘You must create an impression of passionate incantation. Prayer is not a lament but a devastating tornado, flattening everything in its way. It is also an obsession. You must fill men’s ears with it, and God’s ears too! If you get to the end without feeling exhausted you have neither understood [Litanies] nor played it as I would want it.’ Jehan’s sister Marie-Claire was a life-long champion of his music; I had the privilege of hearing her play Litanies in recital many years ago. In keeping with the composer’s own comments about the piece, his sister related – much to the relief of the organists in attendance – that her brother was more intent on the intense effect of the very fast crashing chords near the end than on complete accuracy.

The score itself is headed with a quotation which can be related to the death of another of Alain’s sisters in 1937, the year in which it was written: ‘When the Christian soul is in distress and cannot find any fresh words to implore God’s mercy, it repeats the same prayer unceasingly with overwhelming faith. The limit of reason is past. It is faith alone which propels its ascent.’

Gerald Harder

 

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