October 23, 2022

The prelude is a Johannes Brahms setting of the "chorale", or hymn, "O God, Thou Faithful God". This is from the collection of 11 chorale prelude settings that Brahms wrote. Although beautifully written (typical of Brahms's perfectionism), he wrote comparatively little for the organ, as compared to his output as a whole.

Our processional hymn is the familiar 20th century "Praise the spirit in creation", 506, music by Christopher Dearnley and text by Michael Hewlett. We will be singing just the first 3 verses.

In contrast, at the Gospel reading, we will sing 656, "Blest are the pure in heart", a beautiful 18th-century tune, harmonized in the 19th century. Note that the texts of different verses have different authors, and from different centuries.

The anthem uses a 17th-18th century tune by Knorr von Rosenroth, then harmonized by J S Bach, and then arranged in the 20th century by the American, Elwood Coggin. It is "Jesus, Source of My Salvation"; the 17th-century text is by E. C. Hamburg.

The first communion hymn is 711, since we intended to sing it last Sunday (in round) but weren't able to. The second hymn is 314, the wonderful and familiar French Plainsong melody, "Humbly I adore thee".

The closing hymn, 596 -- "Judge Eternal, throned in splendor", will again take us back to the 17th century for the very singable and well-known melody, but will have us singing words written sometime close to the beginning of the 20th century.

The postlude is a setting of 'O God, our help in ages past", by the 20th-century American, Alexander Matthews.