Mount Calvary Church

Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue

Baltimore, Maryland

A Parish of the Roman Catholic Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter

Anglican Use

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

The Solemn Vigil of Easter

March 31, 2018

8:30 PM

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Common

Missa de S. Maria Magdalena, Willan

Hymns

At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (SALZBURG)

Come ye faithful (GAUDEAMUS PARITER)

Anthems

Surrexit Christus, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736)

He is risen, Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)

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Hymns

At the Lamb’s high feast we sing 

At the Lamb’s high feast we sing is a translation by the Robert Campbell (1814-1868) of the seventh century Latin hymn, Ad regias agni dapes, which was sung by the newly baptized at Easter when they were first admitted to communion. Our victorious King through His death and resurrection has caused the angel of death to pass over us. We are redeemed by His blood, which opens Paradise to us where we will live forever.  The LORD brought Israel out of Egypt through the sea into the promised land by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus through His death brings us through the wilderness of this life by feeding us with Himself, the true manna that comes down from heaven.

1 At the Lamb’s high feast we sing
praise to our victorious King,
who hath washed us in the tide
flowing from his piercèd side;
praise we him, whose love divine
gives his sacred blood for wine,
gives his body for the feast,
Christ the victim, Christ the priest.
2 Where the Paschal blood is poured,
death’s dark angel sheathes his sword;
Israel’s hosts triumphant go
through the wave that drowns the foe.
Praise we Christ, whose blood was shed,
Paschal victim, Paschal bread;
with sincerity and love
eat we manna from above.
3 Mighty victim from the sky,
hell’s fierce powers beneath thee lie;
thou hast conquered in the fight,
thou hast brought us life and light.
Now no more can death appal,
now no more the grave enthral:
thou hast opened paradise,
and in thee thy saints shall rise.
4 Easter triumph, Easter joy,
sin alone can this destroy;
from sin’s power do thou set free
souls new-born, O Lord, in thee.
Hymns of glory and of praise,
risen Lord, to thee we raise;
holy Father, praise to thee,
with the Spirit, ever be.

Raised a Presbyterian, the Edinburgh advocate Robert Campbell joined the Episcopal Church of Scotland. While he was a Scottish Episcopalian (imagine!), he translated this hymn in 1850 and other Latin hymns for relaxation. In 1852, he joined the Roman Catholic Church. Much of his life, both as a Protestant and a Catholic was dedicated to the education of Edinburgh’s poorest children. He authored a report, Past and present treatment of Roman Catholic children in Scotlandby the Board of Supervision for Relief of the Poor (1863).

The hymn Ad regias Agni dapes has a checkered history. It was originally Ad coenam Agni providi a sixth-century Ambrosian hymn, that is, a hymn composed in iambic tetrameter, after the model of the hymns that St. Ambrose had composed after the model of Roman marching songs. This meter is close to the meter of rythm prose and is also easily adopted to music. The hymn was composed when Latin was still a spoken language. For example, it treats stolis albis candidi [bright with white garments] as if it were istolis albis candidi (eight syllables): ist– is how they pronounced st– in the ‘Vulgar Latin’ period. I presume that the Spanish habit of adding a syllable before an s comes form this: Estarbucks. The hymn also used words from Christian Latin, such as coena, the word used for the Last Supper.

  1. Ad coenam Agni providi,
    stolis salutis candidi,
    post transitum maris Rubri
    Christo canamus principi.
  2. Cuius corpus sanctissimum
    in ara crucis torridum,
    sed et cruorem roseum
    gustando, Dei vivimus.
  3.  Protecti paschae vespero
    a devastante angelo,
    de Pharaonis aspero
    sumus erepti imperio.
  4.  Iam pascha nostrum Christus est,
    agnus occisus innocens;
    sinceritatis azyma
    qui carnem suam obtulit.
  5. O vera, digna hostia,
    per quam franguntur tartara,
    captiva plebs redimitur,
    redduntur vitae praemia!
  6. Consurgit Christus tumulo,
    victor redit de barathro,
    tyrannum trudens vinculo
    et paradisum reserans.
  7. Esto perenne mentibus
    paschale, Iesu, gaudium
    et nos renatos gratine
    tuis triumphis aggrega.
  8.  Iesu, tibi sit gloria,
    qui morte victa praenites,
    cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
    in sempiterna saecula. Amen.

Here is John Mason Neale’s translation:

  1. The Lamb’s high banquet we await
    in snow-white robes of royal state:
    and now, the Red Sea’s channel past,
    to Christ our Prince we sing at last.
  2. Upon the Altar of the Cross
    His Body hath redeemed our loss:
    and tasting of his roseate Blood,
    our life is hid with Him in God,
  3. That Paschal Eve God’s arm was bared,
    the devastating Angel spared:
    by strength of hand our hosts went free
    from Pharaoh’s ruthless tyranny.
  4. Now Christ, our Paschal Lamb, is slain,
    the Lamb of God that knows no stain,
    the true Oblation offered here,
    our own unleavened Bread sincere.
  5. O Thou, from whom hell’s monarch flies,
    O great, O very Sacrifice,
    Thy captive people are set free,
    and endless life restored in Thee.’
  6.  For Christ, arising from the dead,
    from conquered hell victorious sped,
    and thrust the tyrant down to chains,
    and Paradise for man regains.
  7. We pray Thee, King with glory decked,
    in this our Paschal joy, protect
    from all that death would fain effect
    Thy ransomed flock, Thine own elect.
  8. To Thee who, dead, again dost live,
    all glory Lord, Thy people give;
    all glory, as is ever meet,
    to Father and to Paraclete. Amen.

And so the hymn was sung for a thousand years.

Urban VIII, by Pietro da Cortona (1627)

And then came the Renaissance and Maffeo Barbarini was elected to the papal throne as Urban VIII (reigned 1623-1644). The new liturgical books of Pius V had just been approved, but Urban found the Latin tasteless and inelegant and barbarous. So he and his assistants “improved” the ancient hymns. As one annoyed hymnologist writes: “Ambrose and Prudentius took something classical and made it Christian; the revisers and their imitators took something Christian and tried to make it classical. The result may be pedantry, and sometimes perhaps poetry; but it is not piety.”

So Ad cenam Agni providi in 1632 became Ad regias Agni dapes, the version translated by Campbell.  This hymn us used at Vespers from Easter Sunday until Ascension. Notice I say used, because the classicized hymns were not untended to be sung, but recited privately.

Ad regias Agni dapes,
Stolis amicti candidis,
Post transitum maris Rubri,
Christo canamus Principi.

2. Divina cuius caritas
Sacrum propinat sanguinem,
Almique membra corporis
Amor sacerdos immolat.

3. Sparsum cruorem postibus
Vastator horret Angelus:
Fugitque divisum mare,
Merguntur hostes fluctibus.

4. Iam Pascha nostrum Christus est,
Paschalis idem victima:
Et pura puris mentibus
Sinceritatis azyma.

5. O vera caeli víctima,
Subiecta cui sunt tartara,
Soluta mortis vincula,
Recepta vitæ praemia.

6. Victor subactis inferis,
Trophaea Christus explicat,
Caeloque aperto, subditum
Regem tenebrarum trahit.

7. Ut sis perenne mentibus
Paschale Iesu gaudium,
A morte dira criminum
Vitæ renatos libera.

8. Deo Patri sit gloria,
Et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito,
In sempiterna saecula. Amen.

Dapes, a classical poetic word, is substituted for the Christian coena, obscuring the reference to the Last Supper and to the Eucharist. The original reference to the roasted (torridum) body of Christ , was eliminated, and Victorian commentators, although they understood the reference to the Paschal Lamb, found the image horrifying.

The Benedictines and the Dominicans would have nothing to do with such innovations, and continued to use the original version of the hymn. Their attitude was Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini.

Ad regias agni dapes is mentioned in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. Here is the context:

Pater patruum cum filiabus familiarum. Or, but, now, and, ariring out of her mirgery margery watersheads and, to change that subjunct from the traumaturgid for once in a while and darting back to stuff, if so be you may identify yourself with the him in you, that fluctuous neck merchamtur, bloodfadder and milkmudder, since then our too many of her, Abha na Lifé, and getting on to dadaddy again, as them we’re ne’er free of, was he in tea e’er he went on the bier or didn’t he ontime do something seemly heavy in sugar? He sent out Christy Columb and he came back with a jailbird’s unbespokables in his beak and then he sent out Le Caron Crow and the peacies are still looking for him. The seeker from the swayed, the beesabouties from the parent swarm. Speak to the right! Rotacist ca canny! He caun ne’er be bothered but maun e’er be waked. If there is a future in every past that is present Quis est qui non novit quinnigan and Qui quae quot at Quinnigan’s Quake! Stump! His producers are they not his consumers? Your exagmination round his factification for incamination of a warping process. Declaim!

—Arra irrara hirrara man, weren’t they arriving in clansdestinies for the Imbandiment of Ad Regias Agni Dapes, fogabawlers and panhibernskers, after the crack and the lean years, scalpjaggers and houthhunters, like the messicals of the great god, a scarlet trainful, the Twoedged Petrard, totalling, leggats and prelaps, in their aggregate ages two and thirty plus undecimmed centries of them with insiders, extraomnes and tuttifrutties allcunct, from Rathgar, Rathanga, Rountown and Rush, from America Avenue and Asia Place and the Affrian Way and Europa Parade and besogar the wallies of Noo Soch Wilds and from Vico, Mespil Rock and Sorrento, for the lure of his weal and the fear of his oppidumic, to his salon de espera in the keel of his kraal, like lodes of ores flocking fast to Mount Maximagnetic, afeerd he was a gunner but affaird to stay away, Merrionites, Dumstdumbdrummers, Luccanicans, Ashtoumers, Batterysby Parkes and Krumlin Boyards, Phillipsburgs, Cabraists and Finglossies, Ballymunites, Raheniacs and the bettlers of Clontarf, for to contemplate in manifest and pay their firstrate duties before the both of him, twelve stone a side, with their Thieve le Roué! and their Shvr yr Thrst! and their Uisgye ad Inferos! and their Usque ad Ebbraios! at and in the licensed boosiness primises of his delhightful bazar and reunited magazine hall, by the magazine wall.

Completely clear, I hope.

A helpful commentary explains:

The tune is SALZBURG,  by Jakob Hintze (1622-1702),who in 1666 became court musician to the Elector of Brandenburg at Berlin; but he retired to his birthplace in 1695, and died at Berlin with the reputation of being an excellent contrapuntist.

Here is At the Lamb’s high feast sung at at the most appropriate occasion: Communion at Easter.

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Come ye faithful 

Come ye faithful, raise the strain is from a  Greek hymn attributed to St John Damascene (ca. 655- ca. 745), and was translated by John Mason Neale (1818-1866).

This translation of the Greek ‘άσωμεν πάντες λαοί’ (Asomen pantes laoi’) is from the ‘Second Epoch’ of Greek hymnody (726-820) in Neale’s Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862). It was ‘Ode I’ for St Thomas’s Sunday (Neale’s explanatory note in the Preface explained that ‘A Canon consists of nine Odes — each Ode containing any number of troparia from three to beyond twenty’ (p. xxix). This was Ode I of ‘the three first of our Saint’s Canon for S. Thomas’s Sunday, called also Renewal Sunday: with us Low Sunday.’ It had four verses. The hymn is notable for its beautiful linking of spring with the resurrection, and for its use of the crossing of the Red Sea as a type of the liberating work of Jesus Christ in verse 1. It is based on the Song of Moses in Exodus 15.

Come, ye faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness;
God hath brought his Israel
Into joy from sadness;
Loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s sons and daughters;
Led them with unmoistened foot
Through the Red Sea waters.

‘Tis the spring of souls today;
Christ hath burst his prison,
And from three days’ sleep in death
As a sun hath risen;
All the winter of our sins,
Long and dark, is flying
From his light, to whom we give
Laud and praise undying.

Now the queen of seasons, bright
With the day of splendor,
With the royal feast of feasts,
Comes its joy to render;
Comes to glad Jerusalem,
Who with true affection
Welcomes in unwearied strains
Jesus’ resurrection.

Neither might the gates of death,
Nor the tomb’s dark portal,
Nor the watchers, nor the seal,
Hold thee as a mortal:
But today amidst thine own
Thou didst stand, bestowing
That thy peace which evermore
Passeth human knowing.

The tune GAUDEAMUS PARITER is by Johann Horn (1490-1547).  His original name was Johann Roh, but he styled himself Cornu in Latin and Horn in German. He was ordained priest in 1518 and became a senior cleric in the Moravian church. He is known for two books: his Písnĕ chval božských (Prague, 1541), and his edition of the Bohemian hymnbook Ein Gesangbuch der Brüder in Behemen und Merherrn published in Nuremberg in 1544. One medieval melody found in 15th-century Bohemian collections with the words ‘Gaudeamus pariter, omnes et singuli’ was sung across much of central Europe and later achieved considerable popularity.

Here is a version for brass. Here is a toccata for organ. An arrangement for handbells. I like the jaunty variation. Here is Flor Peeters’ arrangement for organ. A little slow for my taste.

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Anthems

Surrexit Christus, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Surrexit Christus vere de sepulchro, alleluia.

Christ is truly risen from the grave, alleluia.

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He is risen, Percy Whitlock

He is risen! He is risen! Tell it with joyful voice. He has burst his three days’ prison; Let the whole wide earth rejoice. Death is conquered; man is free. Christ has won the victory. 2. Come, ye sad and fearful-hearted, with glad smile and radiant brow; Lent’s long shadows have departed, all his woes are over now; and the passion that He bore: sin and pain can vex no more. 3 Come with high and holy hymning; Chant our Lord’s triumphant lay. Not one darksome cloud is dimming yonder glorious morning ray, breaking o’er the purple east, brighter far our Easter feast.

Percy William Whitlock (1903-1946) was an English organist and composer best remembered for his post-romantic styled organ, choir, and orchestral works. Whitlock was born in Chatham, Kent. From 1920-1924, he held a Kent Scholarship and studied music at the Royal College of Music in London; among his teachers were Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Henry Ley. Whitlock was the assistant organist at Rochester Cathedral in Kent from 1921 to 1930. He was appointed the Director of Music and organist for St. Stephen’s Anglican Church in Bournemouth, serving in that capacity from 1930 to 1935. From 1932 until his death, he was the civic organist for Bournemouth where he regularly performed concerts at the Pavilion Theatre, collaborated with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, and performed for the BBC live broadcasts.

Throughout his adult life, Whitlock endured health problems that ultimately ended his life early. In his twenties, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and suffered from hypertension. Toward the end of his life, he completely lost his eyesight.

Whitlock’s compositional style is characterized by his use of lush harmonies, which were popular among composers of his generation. He was influenced by his teachers, Vaughan Williams and Stanford, and combined various elements of their output with other composers of the era: Edward Elgar, Roger Quilter, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Following Whitlock’s death, music aesthetics were quickly changing; romanticism was supplanted by modern and experimental styles of composition. As a consequence, much of Whitlock’s music was neglected, rarely performed, and largely forgotten. A recent renewal of interest in the works of composers of Whitlock’s era has generated a revival of his works and his oeuvre is now appreciated.

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