Christ The Lord Is Risen Today

Begins a hymn of Charles Wesley's and is also the first line of a hymn prepared for Sunday-school use by Mrs. Storrs, wife of the late Dr. Richard Salter Storrs of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Wesley's hymn is sung--with or without the hallelujah interludes--to "Telemann's Chant," (Zeuner), to an air of Mendelssohn, and to John Stainer's "Paschale Gaudium." Like the old New England "Easter Anthem" it appears to have been suggested by an anonymous translation of some more ancient (Latin) antiphony.

Jesus Christ is risen to day, Hallelujah! Our triumphant holy day, Hallelujah!

* * * * *

Who endured the cross and grave. Hallelujah! Sinners to redeem and save, Hallelujah!

AN ANTHEM FOR EASTER.

This work of an amateur genius, with its rustic harmonies, suited the taste of colonial times, and no doubt the devout church-goers of that day found sincere worship and thanksgiving in its flamboyant music. "An Anthem for Easter," in A major by William Billings (1785) occupied several pages in the early collections of psalmody and "the sounding joy" was in it. Organs were scarce, but beyond the viols of the village choirs it needed no instrumental accessories. The language is borrowed from the New Testament and Young's Night Thoughts.

The Lord is risen indeed! Hallelujah! The Lord is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

Following this triumphant overture, a recitative bass solo repeats I Cor. 15:20, and the chorus takes it up with crowning hallelujahs. Different parts, per fugam, inquire from clef to clef--

And did He rise? And did He rise?-- Hear [the answer], O ye nations! Hear it, O ye dead!

Then duet, trio and chorus sing it, successively--

He rose! He rose! He rose! He burst the bars of death, And triumphed o'er the grave!

The succeeding thirty-four bars--duet and chorus--take home the sacred gladness to the heart of humanity--

Then, then I rose,

* * * * *

And seized eternal youth, Man all immortal, hail! Heaven's all the glory, man's the boundless bliss.