ABOUT EASTERTIDE . . . The season of Easter is the celebration of the central truth of the Christian faith, that Christ is risen from the dead.  It is an historical fact that Jesus was crucified.  It is the core of the Christian faith that he rose from the dead.  But in the liturgical tradition of the Church, these are not things of the past or abstract theories.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is remembered and made present in our worship, and manifested in our common life today and always.

Grace Church follows the tradition of the Church in celebrating Easter for fifty days: from the Great Vigil of Easter through the Day of Pentecost. During this season Alleluias are multiplied, fasting and abstinence is suspended, and the general confession is omitted from the liturgy.

“Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, Alpha and Omega.
His are all times and all ages. To him be glory and dominion through all eternity."

During Eastertide we will sing the Sequence, Victimae Paschale laudes, which dates from the 11th century and is one of only four medieval sequences to survive the liturgical revisions of the Council of Trent (a fifth was added in the 18th century).

GRACE CHURCH CHOIR NOTES . . . Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is considered by many to be the greatest composer of all time. He was born into a family of musicians and spent much of his life composing for the Lutheran churches in which he worked. Church contatas, a large part of his writings, were written to be used as part of the liturgy, and he may have written over 300 of them although only about 200 have survived to this day. During periods of his life he composed one every week to provide chorale music particular to the appointed liturgical readings. 

Chorale cantatas are among these compositions, each written based on a chorale tune and text of his time.  Cantata 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands) is one of these cantatas which is based on the seven verses of a German chorale which is derived from the sequence chant Victimae Paschali laudes for Easter Day and which we have been singing for many years as our sequence hymn (Hymn 183) during the Easter season.  Bach wrote this cantata in 1707 (at age 22) while he was serving as organist in Arnstadt, and probably used an early version as part of his application for a similar post in Műlhausen.  The last movement of the cantata is Bach’s harmonization of the chorale tune itself, and appears in our Hymnal 1982 as Hymn 186.  The cantata was written for four-part choir (SATB), strings, basso continuo (keyboard and cello) and brass which Bach added several years later.  Each section is a different musical arrangement of one of the verses of the chorale, using the chorale tune as its inspiration. 
 
Cantata 4 is a very popular Bach cantata, and as of 2016 there were 77 documented recordings of the entire work dating from as early as 1931 when it was released on three 78 rpm discs.  This Sunday the men of our choir will sing verse 5, the bass aria, as the offertory anthem and the full choir will sing a portion of the hymn after communion.  Grace Church is indeed blessed to continue to be a part of this tradition. 
(adapted from Wikipedia)