Musical Notes

Hymn of the Day: ELW #462 Lord, Who the Night You Were Betrayed
Tune: SONG 1, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Text: William H. Turton (1856-1938)

This text is a prayer that the church may be one bread and body with the Trinity in “this blest sacrament of unity,” written in 1881 by W. H. Turton, a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. He published this text in “A Few Hymns written by A Layman between the Festivals of All Saints, 1880 and 1881” followed in the next 2 years by Series 2 and 3. There were 36 texts in all, and all are worthy of attention.

Orlando Gibbons was an English composer, virginalist and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. He was a leading composer in the England of his day. His choral music is distinguished by his complete mastery of counterpoint, combined with his wonderful gift for melody.

Musical Reflection: “Truro,” Michael Bedford

TRURO is an anonymous tune, first published in Thomas Williams's Psalmodia Evangelica, as a setting for Isaac Watts' "Now to the Lord a noble song." The tune is named for an ancient city in Cornwall, England, famous for its cathedral and for its pottery. The entire tune is influenced by George F. Handel's style and bears relationship to similar tunes.

Michael Bedford, a full-time church musician, currently serves as organist/choirmaster of St. John's Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he plays the organ and supervises a full graded choir program including three singing choirs, one handbell choir and a chamber ensemble. He has held similar positions in Texas and Colorado.