of a boundless theology of glory, but man, oh, man do I love the music for All Saints. Wes blessed us with trumpet, Sonya with timpani, and the congregation rose to the occasion by belting out the hymns with encouragement from the choir. We started with the joy of "Ye Watchers," the standard festival setting of "For All the Saints" but it was the final setting of Starke's great Te Deum that led to the loudest singing. What a great setting by Mark Bender! The choir verse was outstanding, and the musical painting on the Christological verse - words simply fail! The whole leaves you begging that the song not cease, that it just go on forever. "May we with saints be numbered where praises never end in glory everlasting. Amen, O Lord, Amen!"
You can listen to the hymn here - from the Grand Rapids Higher Things Conference - you'll just have to bend your head! Or here from Nashville Higher Things. Gotta love those young voices belting it out!!!
4 comments:
Where'd you get the timpani? Does the church own them?
One of my beloved members donated them some years back. We don't use them often, but I love it when we do. Some members love them; some members hate them. I figure its all part of "bearing with one another" in the Body of Christ that we forgo hearing them sometimes and they get to forgo not hearing them sometimes.
Fr. Weedon,
I know you like that Te Deum, but I can't stand it. It's most unpleasing aesthetically. Plus the translation leaves much to be desired (and I'm speaking as a strict Latinist here).
Oh, how I long to say that the music in my church has anything to do with "the theology of glory." Anyhow, if there's ever a time to celebrate the victory it's easter... then Christmas... then All Saints. I say, if we can't revel in the fact that the saints who have finished their course in faith are given a crown of righteousness, then maybe we don't really understand the theology of the cross. It's not that things are bad and therefore we should always talk about suffering and death -- it's that through the death of Christ comes victory!
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