Music for March 6 - Laetare Sunday

Sunday is “Laetare Sunday” (also known as Rose Sunday or Refreshment Sunday) the fourth Sunday of Lent or “Mid-Lent”. Laetare is "Rejoice" in Latin and has traditionally been viewed as a day of celebration when the austerity of Lent is briefly lessened. The second prelude and opening hymn get us off to a rousing start.

The second prelude is “Forty days alone in the desert” from Dave Brubeck’s sacred jazz oratorio, “A Light in the wilderness (1968).” Like his jazz elders Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams, Brubeck turned to sacred jazz music composition. This oratorio was his way of working out a complex spiritual upbringing- as he explained it, “reared as a Presbyterian by a Christian Scientist mother who attended a Methodist Church." He also stressed that three Jewish teachers shaped his life – philosopher Irving Goleman, composer Darius Milhaud and Jesus. Brubeck’s prelude is short and powerful, laying down mixed meters and strong jazz harmonies ending in a fanfare that prepares our rousing opening hymn, “Guide me, o thou great Jehovah.”

The offertory anthem is my setting of a 1940s American Gospel Music Chorus entitled, “Only believe” taken from the Gospel of Mark. Gospel Choruses, seldom sung today in Evangelical churches, are musical mantras similar to Taize songs where short musical phrases and text are prayerfully repeated many times. I have set the piece for choir and small ensemble, elaborating the harmonies and adding key changes culminating in a full-chorus “Purcellian” phrase. An inspiration for this setting and connection to Sunday's liturgical theme is Henry Purcell’s Laetare anthem, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”