First Sunday music
At Saint Philip’s this Sunday, April 3, a special ensemble will sing Gerald Finzi’s crowning choral work, his Eucharistic anthem Lo, the full, final sacrifice. The very substantial text by the English Metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw (c. 1613-1649) was a kind of artistic translation of poems by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), ‘Adoro Te’ and ‘Lauda Sion Salvatorem’, which Finzi took and recombined to make a single anthem text.
What a glorious text it is—by turns ecstatic, introspective, triumphant, exhilarating, ardent, and lofty. Indeed, it is nothing short of a miracle that Finzi was able to connect such a long and winding text into 15 minutes of gorgeous melodies, pungent counterpoint, and brilliant organ writing that hold together in a logical sequence. The result is one of the finest anthems in the English language.
Please join our lay clerks, advanced choristers, and Canterbury Youth Apprentices this Sunday for a celebration of the Eucharist on this Old Passion Sunday, Finzi style!
What does “Finzi style” mean? To my mind, his music evokes an immediately accessible vocabulary, and with that a sense of longing for eternity, redeeming memory, and gentle introspection in the present. This profound style seems eminently appropriate for our Lenten journey.
Lo, the full, final sacrifice and Finzi’s exquisite wedding anthem My lovely one will be sung twice, at the 9:00am and 11:15am services.
—Justin Appel, Director of Music
Lo, the full final sacrifice; Gerald Finzi, Bath Abbey Choir
Lo, the full, final sacrifice
On which all figures fix’d their eyes,
The ransom’d Isaac, and his ram;
The Manna, and the Paschal lamb.
Jesu Master, just and true!
Our Food, and faithful Shepherd too!
O let that love which thus makes thee
Mix with our low Mortality,
Lift our lean Souls, and set us up
Convictors of thine own full cup,
Coheirs of Saints. That so all may
Drink the same wine; and the same way.
Nor change the Pasture, but the Place
To feed of Thee in thine own Face.
O dear Memorial of that Death
Which lives still, and allows us breath!
Rich, Royal food! Bountiful Bread!
Whose use denies us to the dead!
Live ever Bread of loves, and be
My life, my soul, my surer self to me.
Help Lord, my Faith, my Hope increase;
And fill my portion in thy peace.
Give love for life; nor let my days
Grow, but in new powers to thy name and praise.
Rise, Royal Sion! rise and sing
Thy soul's kind shepherd, thy heart's King.
Stretch all thy powers; call if you can
Harps of heaven to hands of man.
This sovereign subject sits above
The best ambition of thy love.
Lo the Bread of Life, this day's
Triumphant Text provokes thy praise.
The living and life-giving bread,
To the great twelve distributed
When Life, himself, at point to die
Of love, was his own Legacy.
O soft self-wounding Pelican!
Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.
All this way bend thy benign flood
To a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood.
That blood, whose least drops sovereign be
To wash my worlds of sins from me.
Come love! Come Lord! and that long day
For which I languish, come away.
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the unseal'd source of thee.
When Glory's sun faith's shades shall chase,
And for thy veil give me thy Face.
Amen.