Category: Video

26Mar

All Glory, Laud, and Honor

Holy Week is upon us, as Christians celebrate Palm Sunday. This day recalls the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, as adoring crowds waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna to the son of David!” One of my favorite parts of Palm Sunday is the singing of the hymn, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor”, while (at least in one of my old churches) children march around with palm branches. The hymn is rendered beautifully in the following recording by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge:

This hymn is based on “Gloria laus, et honor” by St Theodulph of Orleans, a ninth century poet and bishop, who died in 821. It was translated to English by John Mason Neale (1818-1866):

Refrain:
All glory, laud and honour,
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.

Thou art the King of Israel,
Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’s Name comest,
The King and blessed One.

The company of angels
Are praising Thee on High,
And mortal men and all things
Created, make reply.

The people of the Hebrews
With palms before Thee went;
Our prayer and praise and anthems
Before Thee we present.

To Thee, before Thy passion,
They sang their hymns of praise;
To Thee, now high exalted,
Our melody we raise.

Thou didst accept their praises;
Accept the prayers we bring,
Who in all good delightest,
Thou good and gracious King.

04Sep

Ora Labora Improvisation by Gerre Hancock

In consideration of Labor Day, I am reminded of the old hymn “Come Labor On” (Ora Labora). The hymn tune was composed by T. Tertius Noble (1867 – 1953). Below is a recording of the late Gerre Hancock (1934-2012) giving a farewell improvisation on this hymn in 2004, as he was retiring from his post as organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City. The performance was recorded by Dr. Alan van Poznak, and posted to YouTube by a YouTube community member named “contratromba858”. The words to the hymn are below.

Come, labor on.
Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain,
while all around us waves the golden grain?
And to each servant does the Master say,
“Go work today.”

Come, labor on.
The enemy is watching night and day,
to sow the tares, to snatch the seed away;
while we in sleep our duty have forgot,
he slumbered not.

Come, labor on.
Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear!
No arm so weak but may do service here:
by feeblest agents may our God fulfill
his righteous will.

Come, labor on.
Claim the high calling angels cannot share–
to young and old the Gospel gladness bear;
redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly.
The night draws nigh.

Come, labor on.
No time for rest, till glows the western sky,
till the long shadows o’er our pathway lie,
and a glad sound comes with the setting sun.
“Servants, well done.”

15May

Two NY Pastors on Freedom and Bondage

Introducing a new video:

We have stitched together two brief audio excerpts from prominent New York pastors Andrew Mead (Rector emeritus at Saint Thomas Church 5th Avenue) and Timothy Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian Church), that discuss the idea of Christian freedom versus bondage to sin. All the pertinent source materials are listed at the Youtube website.

From the 1928 Book of Common Prayer:
“Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us
the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known
to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns
with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
for ever. Amen.”

03May

Brother James Air

In honor of the recently passed milestone of 100 posts, I feel it a fine time to play the actual “Brother James Air” (the music by that name, not my airs). This is performed by the choristers of Canterbury Cathedral in England. The text is a variation of Psalm 23. The piece was written by Scottish minister and hymn writer James Leith Bain (1860–1925).

26Mar

Glory of the Resurrection

2000 Years ago something truly extraordinary happened…

Photo Credits
________________________________

1. Partially Sealed tomb, from Renewal Journal blog, online at: https://renewaljournal.wordpress.com/…
2. Sealed tomb: http://www.catholiclane.com/wp-conten…
3. Inside burial chamber: http://www.matrix24.gr/2014/09/agonia…
4. Mount Carmel tomb, from http://www.standwithisrael.net/images…
5. Image of empty grave: “Empty Tomb Picture, 6”, available at http://www.turnbacktogod.com/empty-to…
Shaft of Light, Westing, by Mike Pennington, UK, 2007, obtained from Wikimedia commons, used in accordance with creative Commons 2.0 license
6. Robed man, altered from photo available at http://www.metallyrica.com/lyrica/avi…
7. Mary Magdalene at the tomb, unknown original source, obtained from blog: http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-mac…
8. Image of empty grave: “Empty Tomb Picture, available at http://www.turnbacktogod.com/empty-to…
9. Shaft of Light, Westing, by Mike Pennington, UK, 2007, obtained from Wikimedia commons, used in accordance with creative Commons 2.0 license

Audio effects and music
________________________________

1. The Scripture is read from KJV, in public domain by LibriVox.
2. The Paschal Chant is public domain, obtained from Archive.org
3. The other sound effects were from soundbible.com

28Sep

Another Minecraft Video–Enjoy!

 

The text is Ephesians 6:10-17, the famous “armor of God” passage, from the World English Bible.

10Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.
11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
13Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
14Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15and having fitted your feet with the preparation of the Good News of peace;
16above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.
17And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;

I should make one note about the text here; the World English Bible renders a portion of verse 12 as follows: “…against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age”. I omitted the word “world’s” because the text reader stumbled over it and the meaning of the text isn’t significantly changed by its omission. This is also identical to the wording of some versions, such as the New King James Bible.

The music is by Franz Liszt, from his Elegy, no. 2, op. 131bis, for piano and violin, performed by Mauro Tortorelli. We have used it under the terms of the Creative Commons 3.0 license, available here. You can listen to the entire work at MusOpen.

03May

Minecraft Psalm 23, another video project

We are pleased to announce our second video offering, a bit of (respectful) whimsy that utilizes the creative game of Minecraft:

The Text here is from the King James version of the Holy Bible.

The images are screen shots from a minecraft game.

The music is by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907), from his Piano Concerto in A minor, Op 16: Adagio section. This is a public domain recording available on the musOpen website.  This is an early work, written when he was 24 while visiting Søllerød, Denmark, and is the only concerto completed by Grieg.  It is often compared to the piano concerto by Schumann.  It is scored for piano, woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings.  The performers here are the Skidmore College Orchestra.

The Minecraft style titles are thanks to Textcraft: http://textcraft.net/

And of course I am grateful to the inventive folks at Mojang for their creative game.