This Sunday+

Along with “Christmas Carols,” there is also a small group of “Easter Carols,” of which our Offertory Anthem, This Joyful Eastertide, can be found at the top of the list. The melody first appeared in 1685 in what is now the Netherlands, and was associated with 1 Corinthians 13 (“If speak in the tongues of mortals …). Like many a Christmas Carol, the version we now know and love was the result of a new text set to an old tune: in this case, an Easter text by the Rev. George Woodward, in Carols for Easter and Ascensiontide (1894), a joint publication with the organist and. composer Charles Wood. Our Opening Organ Voluntary is a quietly joyful setting of the melody by Alec Wyton, former Director of Music at NYC’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Our Communion Anthem is the first of Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, all settings of poetry by George Herbert. Come, my way, my truth, my life is perhaps the most well-known of the set.