Music Notes from Organist Michael Latsko:

The choir anthem is by Richard Farrant (1525-1580), an English composer and musical dramatist who, among other interesting facts, established the original Blackfriars Theatre, home to the outstanding children's companies of the Elizabethan era. The origin of “Lord for thy tender mercy’s sake” is somewhat uncertain. Although commonly ascribed to Farrant, the anthem has also been attributed to Thomas Tallis and John Hilton. There is no debate that the text is taken from Christian Prayers and Holy Meditations (1566) by Henry Bull. The prayer and choral setting enable a humble sense of repentance and calm, confident trust in grace. The full text is:

Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake,

lay not our sins to our charge,

but forgive that is past,

and give us grace to amend our sinful lives.

To decline from sin and incline to virtue,

that we may walk in a perfect heart before thee,

now and evermore. Amen.

During Spiritual Communion, I play a brief meditation incorporating the familiar Lenten hymn “Forty Days and Forty Nights” (#150 in Hymnal 1982). The text is by George Hunt Smyttan and was first published in Penny Post (1856); the stanzas have been “considerably altered” since then. The present version of the text has been in an Episcopal hymnal since 1874. The tune, called “Aus der Tiefe,” or “Heinlein” first appeared in a German song book in 1676. “Aus der Tiefe” is the German translation of “De profundis,” the opening of Psalm 130: “Out of the deep I call to you.” “Heinlein” was the supposed last name of the tune’s composer, although later scholars have debunked the theory that Mr. Heinlein ever existed. Nevertheless, there are probably only a handful of hymns, this one among them, that are instantly recognizable as associated with a particular liturgical season. The haunting, chromatic melody is played first on the organ’s oboe stop then on what’s called a “mutation,” a combination of harmonically-related stops that creates an eerie sound. You should expect to hear similar music for the next forty days (and nights).

Officiant and Homilist: The Rev. G. Miles Smith

Liturgical excerpts are from The Book of Common Prayer 1979