The Song Easter 2016 The Empty Tomb ©2005Tim Jutsum
Why are you seeking the living among the dead?
Easter banner©2005 Tim Jutsum
Christ Church Rochester EASTER 2016
THE SONG VOL. 1 ISSUE 4 SING MEN AND ANGELS SING HYMN 475THE HYMNAL 1940
Sing, men and angels, sing, for God our Life and King
Has given us light and spring and morning breaking
Now may man’s soul arise as kinsman to the skies,
And God unseals his eyes to an awaking.
Sing, creatures, sing; the dust that lives by lure and lust
Is kindled by the thrust of life undying;
This hope our Master bare has made all fortunes fair,
And man can on and dare, his death defying.
After the winter snows a wind of healing blows,
And thorns put forth a rose, and lilies cheer us;
Life’s everlasting spring has robbed death of his sting,
Henceforth a cry can bring our Master near us.
... John Masefield (1878-1967), [1929] Songs of Praise, enl. ed.,
Ralph Vaughan Williams, et al., ed.,
Oxford University Press, 1931, n. 165, p. 48 (see the book;
see also Col. 3:16)
The painting above, also by Tim Jutsum is acrylic on canvas ©2005 titled; Jaws of Life
Editor note:
I love my house. I didn’t use to, but I do now. It was the best choice of a bad lot when we chose it. What had started out as feeling like an adventure full of promise, had ended as the disappointment of a not grand house on a busy road. My house is a kit house. It was bought mail order, trucked to the site and assembled by the people who were going to live in it. It came with everything including the paint. The basement was dug out by my next door neighbor and his uncles when he was seventeen. He was 81 when we moved here and met him. He was full of stories about the place. Those stories helped me feel friendlier toward the house. The poor thing couldn’t help it that it wasn’t particularly pretty. I made a list of things I could do to improve it. It was a brainstorm session of a list so it didn’t need to be realistic. Good thing, too, because I had six kids, ages one and a half to thirteen and that kept me from being a danger to society. (that’s a joke; it’s ok to laugh) I’ve lived here twenty five years now and had two more kids. That’s ten people in an American four square, craftsman style, four bedroom, one and a half bathroom, home.
I’ve changed the house a lot, but it has changed me more, I think. I have built rooms and added rooms. I have tried to give it some of the things its grander contemporaries had. I found, while delving into walls, that other people had left bits of their story; a foreign coin, a souvenir license plate, a hair clip. When it comes right down to it, though, I don’t care so much about the other people’s stories. I don’t care so much about the house’s story, either. This house is dear to me, now, because of my stories; all the ones that I have lived with my people. They are the love stories of my life, and my house is wrapped around them.
Being a physical human, in a physical universe, is a super power. We can grasp love and other intangibles through our senses and shoot it out again like light. We hide this amazingness in a kit house of fragile flesh. God loves the crazy, exquisite, perfection of this humble majesty. Easter, the climax of the God/Man story is where we all live, now. The delicious paradoxes spin around us to delight us. The horror has become the bliss. The physical body of Jesus is changed but still our intimate beloved, through resurrection. Our stories have real meaning and will not die with our bodies. The song of the King and the Bride, in the Song of Songs, uses the Easter refrain: “Love is stronger than death, even stronger than hell. The passion of love is a flash of fire; the flame of God.” Our bodies, our houses, and our wonderful, occasionally crumbling church building are the homes that are wrapped around our love stories. We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
Val Jutsum
Music Director's Notes
From Death to Life
This is the direction that each of us hope to follow in some way. Our liturgies from Lent to Easter, and the cycle of the seasons from winter to spring follow this trajectory as well. Each of us experience transformation when we forge the path to create something through the process of working out, thinking, considering, practicing, and rehearsing. When we do this work in a group, we transform our lives through sharing, exchanging ideas, and becoming more sensitive and aware of others. Creating not only transforms our lives but our minds and bodies as well. Muscles respond positively to use, and studies show that brain chemistry changes when we undergo the process of learning a skill. The act of creating gives benefit to the creator as well as to the person who experiences the creation. A cycle is then produced. Creation inspires others to create.
"From Death to Life" is also the title of our concert fundraiser for Christ Church's Friends of Music fund on Sunday, April 3rd . This Concert will transform Christ Church in Rochester to St. Mary’s Church in seventeenth-century Lübeck, Germany. Two notable organists served that church then, Franz Tunder from 1641 to 1667 and Dieterich Buxtehude from 1668 to 1705. Our concert will feature Eastman organ faculty Nathan Laube, William Porter, Edoardo Bellotti, and David Higgs, along with Stephen Kennedy and the Christ Church Schola Cantorum. In keeping with the Easter season, the works in our concert move from death to resurrection. Buxtehude’s solemn Praeludium in d sets the opening tone, and the text for Lasso’s motet is drawn from Jesus’s words to his disciples on the night before his death: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38) Tunder’s chorale fantasy gives extensive treatment to each phrase of Martin Luther’s famous Easter hymn: “Christ lay in the bonds of death, handed over for our sins, but he has arisen and brought us life. Therefore let us be joyful . . .” And, indeed, all the music that follows celebrates Christ’s resurrection. “Alleluia! Heaven and earth rejoice in your resurrection, Oh Christ” proclaims Handl’s motet. Buxtehude’s aria “Oh joyful hours, Oh joyful time” sets a poem by Johann Rist that describes Christ’s victory over Satan, death, and Hell. Buxtehude would have performed this work from the large organ with some of the municipal musicians, perhaps during the administration of communion on Easter Sunday. Jesus’s death is recalled in Vaet’s motet – “Christ our paschal lamb has been sacrificed” – but it is tempered with Alleluias, and Gabrieli returns us to pure rejoicing. Buxtehude’s final two praeludia continue the celebratory mood, and the ciaccona that closes his Praeludium in C ends the concert on a note of triumph.
Stephen Kennedy, Music Director
You may also support our music education and enrichment opportunities for young musicians who are dedicating their lives to the field of sacred music by contributing to Christ Church’s "Friends of Music" fund.
Please continue to follow the musical life of our parish by reading the monthly Music Notes and Calendar that are emailed from my address via MailChimp.
Praeludium in E flat minor
Johann Christian Kittel- David Higgs The Craighead-Saunders Organ
The music sound files contained here are from the many CD recordings that have we have produced over the years. These recordings are available for purchase by clicking the link below. The music used in this publication is edited.
http://www.christchurchrochester.org/recordings-cd-shop
Other links of interest are:
https://www.facebook.com/ccscholacantorum/?fref=ts