Tag: hymn

Most Passion dramas, in their final scenes, carefully avoid hints of the events to follow on the third day: the only joy they sometimes convey comes from the dawning realization by the centurion at the crucifixion, that Jesus truly was the Son of God. The libretto published by Barthold Heinrich Brockes (see Thursday’s post) ends […]

On Palm Sunday, the Church remembers Christ’s entry into Jerusalem to loud cheers of ‘Hosanna to the son of David!’ as the start of the rapidly unfolding sequence of events leading to his crucifixion and burial within a week. But there was another event that also prefigured the Passion, one that occurred just the day […]

This Thursday, 25 March, is the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Christian Church remembers how the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would bear a son, as recounted in Luke 1:26-38 and previously foretold in Isaiah 7:14. Unlike the dates of Lent and Easter, which shift according to the lunar calendar, […]

This Sunday, the fifth in Lent, is sometimes called ‘Passion Sunday’, marking the start of the two weeks of Passiontide (the second being Holy Week). One of the most loved Passiontide songs is O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (O Lamb of God, innocent), with a 500-year-old text and an even older tune. Both its words, from […]

‘Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity’, the fourth movement of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, has remained one of the most popular orchestral pieces for the last hundred years and has often been performed by itself without the rest of the suite. That’s not surprising: it is dazzlingly bright, uplifting music, stuffed with big tunes — four […]

After Pentecost, on Trinity Sunday the Christian Church globally celebrates the Holy Trinity: the belief in one God in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the central tenet that unites all the orthodox Christian denominations across both Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity: first adopted at the fourth-century councils of […]