of all we think and are

Dear lovers of music, mystery, and meaning,

Candlemas has come and gone, meaning we are at the mid-point between winter and spring.

In a sermon given at Westminster Abbey, I learned that Judas is briefly let out of hell, on Candlemas, at least according to some traditions.

And while that was completely new to me, this week was otherwise a time for things I had not heard in a while.

🧺 It is rare that a hymn stops me in my tracks, but this happened with the hymn tune ‘Cloth Fair’ by the late John Scott. It was sung this past Sunday morning at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City, where Scott was organist for many years.

I had heard this tune maybe once before, but I don't know it well. As I heard it in the video, I was drawn in and wanted to know where it would go next. Most importantly, I wanted to be able to sing it.

It helps that the words, by Timothy Dudley-Smith, are as singable as the tune. And they, too, seem ripe for more frequent use by the larger church.

This text and tune pairing has been included in a few modern hymnals, including the brand-new Revised English Hymnal, where Scott’s own descant is also included.

🎻 Completely unbidden — or so it seems, because wisdom would tell us these things never are — I thought of Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane. I haven’t listened to this piece in a decade or more. Here’s a video of violinist Joshua Bell performing with the New York Philharmonic.

🇫🇷 Organist Ray Nagem is blogging about Maurice Duruflé.

…there is a thorny contradiction that underpins a religious education: one must give one’s very best effort in the world, but still, the greatest human accomplishments are nothing before God. This belief is sometimes spoken out loud, but it is also powerfully implicit in every detail of architecture, stained glass, vestments, incense, polyphony, every bit of evidence that these things matter, and someone applied the best of their talents to them, despite not knowing what the future would bring, even if their effort might never be noticed.

To that, I would just add:

Christ be the vision of our lives,
of all we think and are;
to shine upon our spirits’ sight
as light of everlasting light,
the bright and morning star.

– Timothy Dudley-Smith

Until next week,
-David