St. Martin's Hymn Sings St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Happy Easter to you all!

Join our new Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com), for the final bonus episode of our new Lenten (and Easter!) Hymn Sings series! Please, do share this video with friends and family to help spread the joy of hymn singing! (This is the audio version of the video found on YouTube.)

An impromptu addition from their rehearsal in Holy Week, this week, our choir add their wonderful voices to our Hymn Sings, raising their shouts of Easter joy to hymns: "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!", "The Strife is O'er", and "Jesus Christ is Risen Today". These can be found in the Hymnal 1982 at 460, 208, and 207 respectively.

The hymn texts are found within the transcript below.

Sincere thanks from all of us at St. Martin's for your continued support and engagement during our Hymn Sing Series!


Do keep in touch and in-the-know about what is happening at St. Martin's by regularly visiting our website: www.StMartinEC.org.
Transcript:[Tyrone] Happy Easter to you all and welcome to the final episode of our Lent & Easter Hymn Sing Series from the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia.It has been my great pleasure to produce these videos for members and friends of the church, as well as reaching new people each week from around the world!

My thanks to the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel our Rector,

the Rev. Barb Ballenger our Associate Rector,

and Natalee Hill our Associate for Communications and Administration

who added much to this series by offering their personal reflections on their favorite Lent & Easter Hymns.

There is much going on at St. Martin's, even in the midst of this pandemic.

Please do visit our website to learn more about our worship, both in-person and online, as well as details of upcoming events, including those of our music programs.

I want to thank you all for your engagement and support of this series.

Until next time, let us pause, breathe, and raise our voices to the miracle of the resurrection.

Happy Easter to you all.

[Introduction, "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!"]Alleluia! sing to Jesus!
his the scepter, his the throne;

Alleluia! his the triumph,
his the victory alone;

Hark! the songs of peaceful Zion
thunder like a mighty flood;

Jesus out of every nation
hath redeemed us by his blood.

Alleluia! not as orphans
are we left in sorrow now;

Alleluia! he is near us,
faith believes, nor questions how:

though the cloud from sight received him,
when the forty days were o'er,

shall our hearts forget his promise,
"I am with you evermore"?

Alleluia! Bread of Heaven,
thou on earth our food, our stay!

Alleluia! here the sinful
flee to thee from day to day:

Intercessor, friend of sinners,
earth's Redeemer, plead for me,

where the songs of all the sinless
sweep across the crystal sea.

Alleluia! King eternal,
thee the Lord of lords we own:

Alleluia! born of Mary,
earth thy footstool, heaven thy throne:

thou within the veil hast entered,
robed in flesh, our great High Priest:

thou on earth both Priest and Victim
in the eucharistic feast.

Alleluia! sing to Jesus!
his the scepter his the throne;

Alleluia! his the triumph,
his the victory alone;

Hark! the songs of holy Zion
thunder like a mighty flood;

Jesus out of every nation
hath redeemed us by his blood.

[Introduction, "The Strife is O'er"]
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

The strife is o'er, the battle done, the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun. Alleluia!

The powers of death have done their worst,
but Christ their legions hath dispersed:
let shout of holy joy outburst. Alleluia!

He closed the yawning gates of hell,
the bars from heaven's high portals fell;
let hymns of praise his triumphs tell! Alleluia!

Lord! by the stripes which wounded thee,
from death's dread sting thy servants free,
that we may live and sing to thee. Alleluia!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

[Introduction, "Jesus

This version of "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" was recorded on March 28, 2021 during Palm Sunday worship at Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia, PA. Sung by St. Martin's Vocal Quartet, Krystiane Cooper, Ross Druker, Alyson Harvey, and John Wentz. Led by Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com).


The final bonus episode in the series will be released on Easter Day (April 4)!


Please sing along using the lyrics below.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Permission to podcast/stream this music is obtained from One License with license #A-701187. All rights reserved.


Production, music, and photography by Tyrone Whiting, Director of Music at Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.StMartinEC.org

This version of O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded by J.S. Bach was recorded on March 28, 2021 during Palm Sunday worship at Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia, PA. Sung by St. Martin's Vocal Quartet, Krystiane Cooper, Ross Druker, Alyson Harvey, and John Wentz. Led by Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com).


The final bonus episode in the series will be released on Easter Day (April 4)!

Please sing along using the lyrics below.


1. O sacred head, sore wounded,
defiled and put to scorn;
O kingly head, surrounded
with mocking crown of thorn:
what sorrow mars thy grandeur?
Can death thy bloom deflower?
O countenance whose splendor
the hosts of heaven adore!

2. Thy beauty, long-desired,
hath vanished from our sight;
thy power is all expired,
and quenched the light of light.
Ah me! for whom thou diest,
hide not so far thy grace:
show me, O Love most highest,
the brightness of thy face.

3. In thy most bitter passion
my heart to share doth cry,
with thee for my salvation
upon the cross to die.
Ah, keep my heart thus moved
to stand thy cross beneath,
to mourn thee, well-beloved,
yet thank thee for thy death.

4. What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?
Oh, make me thine for ever!
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never,never,
outlive my love for thee.

5. My days are few, O fail not,
with thine immortal power,
to hold me that I quail not
in death's most fearful hour;
that I may fight befriended,
and see in my last strife
to me thine arms extended
upon the cross of life.


Permission to podcast/stream this music is obtained from One License with license #A-701187. All rights reserved.


Production, music, and photography by Tyrone Whiting, Director of Music at Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.StMartinEC.org

Join our new Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com), for the sixth episode of our new Lenten Hymn Sings series! Please, do share this video with friends and family to help spread the joy of hymn singing!

These are the audio versions of the weekly videos found on YouTube.

This week, our Associate Rector, The Reverend Barbara Ballenger, discusses the powerful hymn "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" and Tyrone discusses the Palm Sunday favorite "All Glory, Lord, and Honor" and plays them with which to sing along. These can be found in the Hymnal 1982 at 172 and 154 respectively.

The hymn texts are found within the transcript below.

The final bonus episode in the series will be released on Easter Day (April 4)!
Transcript:
[Tyrone] Welcome to the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia and to the penultimate episode of our Lenten Hymn Sing Series.
In this week's episode, we welcome our Associate Rector, The Rev. Barbara Ballenger who will discuss one of her favorite hymns.We have really enjoyed hearing your thoughts and feelings on our Lenten Hymn meditations and hope you will join us through Holy Week and Easter for our liturgies. More details of which can be found on our website displayed on the screen now. All previous episodes can be found on our YouTube page, and the final video will be released on Easter morning. Now let us take a moment at the end of another busy week to pause, learn and reflect, on hymns, their scripture and their histories. [Barbara] Were you There When They Crucified my Lord is a song that brings me closer to the experience of Jesus' death than any other. To say it is a favorite seems a bit strange. But I find it find in among the truest and most effecting songs I've ever sung. Its question convicts me every time I hear it - were you there, when my Lord was crucified, nailed to the tree, died upon the cross, laid in the tomb - was I there, or did I flee, avoid, look the other way?When I sing this song I can't help thinking of all the way that Christ's suffering and death on the cross is replayed in the lives of people who are tortured, rejected, killed, and all who mourn them. And then there is that lament, a wailing right in the middle. There have been times my soul has cried out and trembled right along with it.And so I take the invitation of this song to put myself in the moment of my Lord's great suffering: to mourn and weep and tremble. To let myself be there. So that I can recognize Easter when it finally breaks through.As is the case for many African American songs of worship of this time, little is known about this hymn. First appearing in print in 1899 in William Eleazar Barton's Old Plantation Hymns, Were You There is a powerful hymn with its origins firmly in the African American tradition. Described by Barton as a "tender and beautiful hymn", it first appears in the Episcopal Church's hymnal in 1940; the first spiritual to ever appear in an American hymn book. In our hymnal today, a verse begins "Were you there when they nailed him to the tree". While telling of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, this hymn also shows a parallel between the suffering of our Lord and that of enslaved people. The harmonization we use today from the Hymnal 1982 is by Canon Charles Winfred Douglas. If this priest and musician's name sounds familiar, that might be because he also wrote the harmony for the hymn Eternal Lord of Love (among many others) which featured in Episode 3 of our Hymn Sings. This hymn has been covered by many popular artists including Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, and Paul Robeson. So let us add to those interpretations with our own as we sing "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"[Introduction]Were you there when they crucified my Lord?Were you there when they crucified my Lord?Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?W

Join our new Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com), for the fifth episode of our new Lenten Hymn Sings series! Please, do share this video with friends and family to help spread the joy of hymn singing!

These are the audio versions of the weekly videos found on YouTube.

This week, our Rector, The Reverend Jarrett Kerbel, discusses the much-loved hymn "Come Down, O Love Divine" and Tyrone discusses "We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight" and plays them with which to sing along. These can be found in the Hymnal 1982 at 516 and 209 respectively.


A new episode will be released each Friday through Lent until Holy Week, as well as a special bonus episode on Easter Day (April 4), giving us all a chance to sing at home during this difficult time.

The hymn texts are found within the transcript below.Transcript:
[Tyrone] Welcome to the fifth episode of our Lenten Hymn Sing Series, here at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia.In this week's episode, we welcome our Rector, The Reverend Jarrett Kerbel, who will discuss one of his favorite hymns. We encourage you to share these videos with your friends and family and help us spread the joy of music-making at a time when many are missing it from their lives. You can find all of the previous episodes in this series on our YouTube page, and we invite you to explore our website, which is updated regularly, to learn more about St. Martin's, our worship, and our outreach.
Now let us take a moment at the end of another busy week to pause, learn and reflect, on hymns, their scripture and their histories. [Jarrett] For none can guess its grace, til Love create a place wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling. "Come Down O Love Divine" My wife and I had it as a hymn at our wedding and whenever I sing it I choke back tears. For me, it is one of those hymns that summons my whole body and soul into the singing - beauty and truth come together in this hymn and recall me to the immeasurable gift I have been given by God's love. We know that the best theology in the Episcopal Church is in our hymnal. "Come Down O Love Divine" is a perfect example. The hymn is a dialectic; it combines a positive evaluation of human desire: "and so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long" with the ultimate negation of our passions in the furnace of God's love for us embodied in the Holy Spirit: "O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming."It combines an affirmation of the heart as a seat of spiritual receptivity: "Comforter draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing" with the important insight that even our receptivity to the Holy Spirit depends on God's initiative, that is to say grace: "None can guess its grace, till love create a place, wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling."When I finish singing this hymn I am filled with gratitude for all that God has made possible for my soul. With words by a 14th-century Italian poet and music by one of the most well known British composers, "Come Down O Love Divine" is one of the finest examples of the marriage between words and music. Little is known about this hymn's author, Bianco da Siena, born in Italy in around 1350. He wrote several religious poems or "Lauda" popular in the Middle Ages, and though his early career was as a wool worker, in 1367 he entered the order of Jesuati (not to be confused with the Jesuits) founded by Giovanni Colombini of Siena in 1360. This order was abolished in the 17th century by Pope Clement the Ninth.One hundred and twenty-two poems by Da Siena were published, spanning more than twenty thousand lines of verse. His text for Come Down O Love Divine was translated into English by Richard Frederick Littledale, a 19th-century Anglo-Irish clergyman and prolific writer. This hymn's publication in the 1906 English Hymnal established its popularity. The composer of this tune "Down Ampney", Ralph Vaughan Willams

Join our new Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com), for the fourth episode of our new Lenten Hymn Sings series! Please, do share this video with friends and family to help spread the joy of hymn singing!

These are the audio versions of the weekly videos found on YouTube.

This week, our Associate for Communications & Administration Natalee Hill discusses the well known hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and Tyrone discusses the less well known "Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin" and plays them with which to sing along. These can be found in the Hymnal 1982 at 474 and 140 respectively.

The hymn texts are found within the transcript below.


A new episode will be released each Friday through Lent until Holy Week, as well as a special bonus episode on Easter Day (April 4), giving us all a chance to sing at home during this difficult time.
Transcript:
[Tyrone] Hello and welcome to the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia for the fourth episode in our Lenten Hymn Sing series.In this week's episode, we welcome Natalee Hill, our Associate for Communications and Administration, who will discuss one of her favorite lent hymns.We have really enjoyed reading your reflections and reactions on the hymns presented so far and we hope you will continue to join us each Friday through Lent, as well as joining us for a special bonus episode on Easter Day. Please do share these videos far and wide, and engage with us through the comments section and our social media pages. If you missed the first three episodes, please do visit our YouTube page where you can access all videos in the series. This week we mark one year since our lives changed in early 2020. As we pause, learn, and reflect on hymns, their scripture, and their histories, let us also remember the loss and sadness we've experienced, but also the progress and challenges overcome in the last 12 months. We will sing together again, and how wonderful that first note will be. [Natalee] When Tyrone asked me which of the Lenten Hymns he'd selected I most appreciated, I had two that I liked best...(Barb Ballenger got my first choice!) But I do also really appreciate "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross".I think how it speaks to me most, while I love the music, is in the text, (the poetry), of the hymn. I'm fairly well known as a bit of a perfectionist around the office, and elsewhere in my life, so the hymn's text about leaving behind the vanity of perfectionism, of always trying to do things right, and instead looking to the Cross and realizing that all that we do is only through God and not by our own human efforts. I find the text humbling and a good reminder for me on a regular basis.Recognized as the "Godfather of English Hymnody", the author of this hymn, Isaac Watts, was a renowned congregational minister, hymn-writer, and poet born in 1674 and dying in 1748. Watts was the son of a schoolmaster and was brought up in his father's religious non-conformist household. His father having been incarcerated twice for his views. Watts held many significant roles, and lived with former Lord Mayor of London Sir Thomas Abney at his residence of Abney Park until the end of his life, preaching and writing until his final days. Somewhat a "prodigy", Watts began studying Latin at age four and writing full verses in the same by the age of seven.Isaac Watts' prolific output of hymns helped to guide a new way of thinking about hymnody in England. His many publications, helped by earlier 16th century leaders such as John Calvin, led to the inclusion of new poetry for "original songs of Christian experience" to be used in worship.Published in 1780, the hymn tune known today as ROCKINGHAM first appears in Aaron Williams's A Second Supplement to Psalmody in Miniature and is most well known in Great Britain and North America for its connection to Isaac Watts' text.18th Century musician Edward Miller began his early adult life as an apprentice to his brick-road la