Category Archives: Music

“Hosanna” – Streaming Page CXVI Day 6

Monday Before Lent Atrophied your knees, Weary your feet, Rusty the locks of the ancient gates – Prepare the way. Cry, Blessed is He! as He comes, To save, to rule, to save. Stagnant your hopes, Vacant your dreams, Silent and silenced the voice which cries – In the wilderness prepare the way! See, HeContinue reading ““Hosanna” – Streaming Page CXVI Day 6″

“Your hearts and minds, prepare them…” – Streaming Page CXVI Day 5

The moment in the Easter narrative that always captures my attention most powerfully is the story of Palm Sunday, of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, hailed as king yet his death from that moment assured. This is the theme of today’s Page CXVI song, the beautiful “This Blessed Day”, accompanied by my new poem forContinue reading ““Your hearts and minds, prepare them…” – Streaming Page CXVI Day 5″

“Fast from… Feast on…” – Streaming Page CXVI Day Four

When I was younger, comfortable in low-evangelical churches where Lent was not observed, the season and its observances always seemed a semi-Catholic imposition. Our school chaplain would wear purple and people gave up eating sugar. That was mostly all I knew about it. When I came slowly to understand its value, it came with theContinue reading ““Fast from… Feast on…” – Streaming Page CXVI Day Four”

“Were you there…?” – Streaming Page CXVI Day Three

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? None of us today can answer “yes”. Yet the truth and power of that moment is never diminished, how much time stretches between us and it. Today’s track from Page CXVI’s “Lent to Maundy Thursday” combines two old hymns: “Were You There?” and “O The Deep, Deep LoveContinue reading ““Were you there…?” – Streaming Page CXVI Day Three”

“Before the throne of God above…” – Streaming Page CXVI Day 2

Well, as Lent approaches, so does the release of Page CXVI’s “Lent to Maundy Thursday”, and so it is with great excitement that I am posting the second track of the album, one of my favourite hymns: “Before the throne of God above”. When we could use this season before Easter as a time toContinue reading ““Before the throne of God above…” – Streaming Page CXVI Day 2″

“And can it be that I should gain…”: Streaming Page CXVI’s “Lent to Maundy Thursday”

What is the first note of Lent? Ash Wednesday – this year on March 5th, next Wednesday in fact, will in most churches sound a low and melancholy tone, pregnant with penitence and reflection. But contemporary hymnsters, Page CXVI, begin their “Lent to Maundy Thursday” with jubilation: Charles Wesley’s classic “And can it be thatContinue reading ““And can it be that I should gain…”: Streaming Page CXVI’s “Lent to Maundy Thursday””

Passacaglia in G Minor (After Les Murray’s “An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow”)

For those who have not encountered Les Murray’s poetry before, his work always strikes me with the way in which it blends profundity with earthiness. One of his most beautiful poems for me is his “An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow”, a description of a man crying in the middle of Sydney’s city centre, his tears somehowContinue reading “Passacaglia in G Minor (After Les Murray’s “An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow”)”

Crux

Yesterday I posted my own poem written in response to Peter Steele’s heartbreaking “Crux”. Here, as an additional kind of tribute to my old teacher, is a musical setting of the poem that I wrote and recorded. Steele’s words, from his liturgical sequence, “A Season in Retreat”, are included below for you to read asContinue reading “Crux”

Hymn of the Rock

Continuing my project of setting John Newton and William Cowper’s Olney Hymns to new music, here is my latest, a hymn which Newton called “That Rock Was Christ”, after 1 Corinthians 10:4. Newton’s words are, as always, beautiful, verging on heartbreaking. I have tried to capture them with my tune. It is perhaps the recordingContinue reading “Hymn of the Rock”