''I Will Mention the Loving-kindnesses'' is an

anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to short ...

for

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...

. The text is taken from the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( he, ספר ישעיהו, ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC ...

, scored for solo tenor, mixed choir and organ. It was published by

Novello Novello may refer to: Places * Novello, Piedmont, a ''comune'' in the Province of Cuneo, Italy * Novello Theatre, a theatre in the City of Westminster, London, England People Given name * Clara Novello Davies (1861–1943), Welsh singer, named af ...

in 1875, dedicated to

John Stainer Sir John Stainer (6 June 1840 – 31 March 1901) was an English composer and organist whose music, though seldom performed today (with the exception of ''The Crucifixion'', still heard at Passiontide in some churches of the Anglican Communi ...

History

Sullivan was a boy chorister at the

Chapel Royal The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applie ...

from 1854 to 1857. There, he began to write anthems and songs. He then studied at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

and the

Musikhochschule Leipzig The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig) is a public university in Leipzig (Saxony, Germany). Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn ...

, returning to England in 1861. From 1861 to 1872, while beginning his professional composing career, he worked as a church organist at two fashionable London churches:

St. Michael's Church, Chester Square The Church of St Michael is a Church of England parish church on Chester Square in the Belgravia district of West London. It has been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England since February 1958. Design It was built in 1844 at t ...

Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...

, and St. Peter's, Cranley Gardens,

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

.Jacobs, Arthur
"Sullivan, Sir Arthur"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, accessed 19 August 2011 Between 1861 and 1875, Sullivan composed a wide range of music, including

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...

for plays, a ballet, a symphony, a cello concerto, concert overtures, a cantata, an oratorio, several operettas, a song cycle, and numerous hymns, parlour ballads and other pieces. Anthems were in demand in a period of choral revival in the second half of the 19th century, for smaller churches, rather than cathedrals, which still favoured Tudor music. Sullivan composed 16 published anthems, most of them during his work as church organist. For a text of this 1875

anthem, Sullivan combined passages from Isaiah, verses 63:7-9, 14-16. "I Will Mention the Loving-kindnesses" was published by

in 1875, with a dedication to Sullivan's friend, the music director

. This was the same year that

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...

's first box-office success, ''

Trial by Jury A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are used in a significant ...

'', premiered in London.

Text and music

Sullivan set a text from the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

which praises in general God's friendly attitude towards his people (in Hebrew:

Chesed ( he, חֶסֶד, also Romanized: ) is a Hebrew word that means 'kindness or love between people', specifically of the devotional piety of people towards God as well as of love or mercy of God towards humanity. It is frequently used in Psalms i ...

), guiding and saving them. The anthem is set for tenor solo, a four part choir and organ. It begins in

G major G major (or the key of G) is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative minor is E minor and its parallel minor is G minor. The G major scale is: Notable compositi ...

and common time, marked ''Andante''. After a few measures from the organ, the tenor begins with the first line, repeated with the same melody in a homophonic choral setting. This responsorial pattern is kept for several lines of the text. Then the tenor sings a longer line alone, and the choir responds with a repeat of the first line. The tenor continues with the line "So He said: Surely they are my people, children that will not lie:", and the following "So He was their Redeemer", which can be interpreted as the message of Easter, is set for the choir, singing softly in unison even long notes, with no movement even in the accompaniment. It is followed by a repetition of the first-line music from the organ. The following text, calling to praise God, begins in the solo tenor, followed by the men's voices, and then the whole choir. It modulates to

E major E major (or the key of E) is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps. Its relative minor is C-sharp minor and its parallel minor is E minor. Its enharmonic equivalent, ...

with a crescendo. The last section is for the choir, singing mostly in homophony, and ending with long-held chords on several Amens.

References

External links

* * Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A Song Concerning Lovingkindness
spurgeon.org 1873 * {{italic title Compositions by Arthur Sullivan 1875 compositions Choral compositions Music for Easter