Coming soon after an extra licensing service for our new priest in charge, Holy Week was put together largely out of works already in our repertoire. I missed Maundy Thursday but otherwise was kept busy with Palm Sunday (Weelkes’ Hosanna to the Son of David and Philip Moore’s It is a thing most wonderful) and the music and readings service for Good Friday. The latter included eight choir items with lots of variety without requiring more than four parts, including Leighton’s Solus ad Victimam, Bruckner’s Christus Factus Est and the Crux Fidelis attributed to King John of Portugal. I had to break it to our conductor that the last of these is almost certainly 19th-century pastiche, so I’ve probably ruined it for him forever now. Choir members were invited to prepare solo items, and I contributed Thy rebuke/Behold and See from Messiah.
On Easter Sunday we brought out that old favourite Blessed be the God and Father by Wesley, a piece about half of us had performed at our weddings.