Processional: Songs of Thankfulness and Praise was written by Christopher Wordsworth (1807 – 1885), the nephew of the great lake-poet, William Wordsworth. He was educated at Winchester, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A., with high honors, in 1830; M.A. in 1833; D.D. in 1839. He was elected Fellow of his College in 1830, and public orator of the University in 1836; received Priest’s Orders in 1835; head master of Harrow School in 1836; Canon of Westminster Abbey in 1844; Hulsean Lecturer at Cambridge in 1847-48; Vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berks, in 1850; Archdeacon of Westminster, in 1865; Bishop of Lincoln, in 1868. The music is attributed to Jakob Hintze. (1622 – 1702)
Offertory: And the Glory of the Lord is taken from the First Reading – Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11. This reading from Isaiah is the text that Handel used in the first part of The Messiah.
The Marian Antiphon, Alma Redemptoris is assigned to that part of the year occurring between the first Vespers of the first Sunday in Advent and Compline of the 2nd of February (on which day it ceases, even if the Feast of the Purification should be transferred from that day).The Antiphon must have been very popular in England both before and after its treatment by Chaucer in his “Prioresses Tale”, which is based wholly on a legend connected with its recitation by the “Litel Clergeon”:
This litel childe his litel book lerninge,
As he sat in the scole at his prymer,
He Alma redemptoris herde singe,
As children lerned hir antiphoner;
And, as he dorste, he drough hym ner and ner,
And herkned ay the wordes and the note,
Till he the firste vers coude al by rote.
The Postlude Mass for the Convents ‘Plein jeu’ and ‘Fugue sur la Trompette’ by François Couperin (1668-1733) is from an alternatum mass (alternating chant and organ) in this manner:
- Kyrie 1 – Organ – Plein jeu
- Kyrie 2 – Chant;
- Kyrie 3 – Organ – Fugue sur la Trompette;
- Christe 1 – Chant;
- Christe 2 – Organ;
- Christe 3 – Chant;
- Kyrie 1 – Organ;
- Kyrie 2 – Chant;
- Kyrie 3 – Organ