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Maundy Thursday
April 6 @ 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Maundy Thursday Service of Word, Sacrament & Tenebrae on Thursday, April 6th at 7:30PM Prelude at 7:25PM
Meditation: “Which was Easier” Rev. Andrew W.Armstrong.
This year’s beloved Service of Maundy Thursday and Tenebrae includes a complete offering of the haunting contemporary choral masterpiece, Egil Hovland “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God) featuring the Staff Singer Octet and Gregory Newton on solo bassoon. The Choral Prelude begins at 7:25pm.
This season on Maundy Thursday, Music at First has planned a very special choral offering to the Glory of God, at the Service of Communion and Tenebrae on April 6 at 7:30PM. The rarely-performed Egil Hovland Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) will be sung and played in its entirety, over the course of the evening worship service.
This contemporary piece is challenging: both for the vocal and instrumental musicians, and for the listener. It is a piece of music that must be “experienced” to allow where it will transport the congregation within the worship service. The voice of the solo bassoon offers various states of lamentation and a host of emotions which emulate Jesus’ time alone in the garden. The anguish, worry and later acceptance of his fate of the Passion, is portrayed within the four-movement work.
The Staff Singer Octet (eight singers, singing a cappella sometimes in eight-part harmony) have a dialogue with the solo bassoon throughout the entire work, which will be offered during the Prelude, within the body of the service, following our Communion/preceding the extinguishing of lights with Scripture readings, and a short epilogue pleading with God to “grant us peace” after we read the Scripture of Christ’s death on the cross.
This very special offering will begin at 7:25PM during the Prelude, and we ask that congregation that wishes to experience the entire span of this unusual music offering, be seated in the pews by this time. The service traditionally has much silence, aside from a sung hymn or two and whatever responses the congregation participates in, prior and following the great darkness during Tenebrae.
Please consider joining us for this very special music offering in the heart of Holy Week 2023.
