This was actually my first Good Friday singing in the church choir (I’d been away the last two years), and this year the service took the form of Stations of the Cross with musical interludes. There were some new pieces which were new to me: Leighton’s Solus ad victimam (not as daunting as it seemed because much of it is in unison), and de Morales’ Parce mihi, Domine, setting a rather unusual text from the funeral service.
On Easter Day we opened the service with Ola Gjeilo’s Prelude, whose text is a variant of that set by Mozart in his Exultate, Jubilate. Gjeilo had obviously been listening to Duruflé’s Tota pulchra es when he wrote the central section.