Easter 3 - Earth Day - Sunday, April 22, 2012

• Organ Prelude: In Springtime – Alfred Hollins 
• Processional Hymn 427 “All beautiful the march of days” (Forest Green) 
• Psalm 4 (Tone II.1) 
• Anthem: For the beauty of the earth – Andrew Carter 
• Offertory Hymn 428 “God who gives to life its goodness” (Abbot’s Leigh) 
• Communion Hymn 409 “Before the earth had yet begun” (Craigleith) 
• Concluding Hymn 387 “All praise to thee” (Sine nomine) 
• Organ Postlude: Forest Music – G.F. Handel

Music Notes
Alfred Hollins (1865-1942) was a blind-from-birth Yorkshire organist and composer, although he lived in Scotland for most of his life. Late in the nineteenth century he became organist of Free St. George’s Church in Edinburgh, whose founding minister had virulently opposed the installation of the ‘kist of whistles’ into his church. He regarded it definitely as the thin edge of the wedge – to the sacramental system of popery and the work of the very devil himself! Fortunately, a more enlightened assistant minister persuaded the elders to move with the times and install an organ and appoint Alfred Hollins as organist. Hollins was a prolific composer. He wrote much for the organ – there are some fifty-five pieces, one of which is the very pastoral and evocative “In Springtime”, today’s organ prelude.

Recognized as the best known and one of the most highly regarded preachers in the Anglican Church, Herbert O'Driscoll (born 1928) is a former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, and former Warden of the College of Preachers at Washington National Cathedral. He is the author of 30 books, including A Doorway in Time, a reflection of his own Celtic spirituality, and Emmanuel, written during a visit to the Holy Land. O'Driscoll is at once a brilliant scholar and mesmerizing Irish storyteller. He has also written several hymns, one of which is our communion hymn this morning – “Before the earth had yet begun”.

In November 1741 Georg Frederic Handel (1685-1758) visited Dublin, Ireland where he had been asked by the Governors of Mercer's Hospital, and of the Charitable Infirmary, to compose something “special” in aid of the Dublin sick. That ‘something special’ was Messiah, which Handel composed in England in just three weeks and completed on September 14, 1741. Between November 1741 and April of 1742 when Messiah received its first performance, he participated in concerts of several of his other works, and his Irish visit ended in June with a second Messiah performance. Handel was very taken with Ireland and its folk music, and this influence can be heard in Forest Music, composed in Ireland in 1742 for a German lady friend – it is this morning’s organ postlude.