For All the Saints

While children (and many adults!) look forward to Halloween, at church we look forward to All Saints' Day.  This past weekend, we celebrated Halloween on Friday and All Saints' Day on Saturday.  Therefore Sunday became All Saint' Sunday.

At St. Dunstan's, the choir works hard under the tutelage of Tom Gibbs.  We are often fortunate to have musicians from both within and outside the church perform with the choir. This past Sunday, we enjoyed hearing violinist Martha Woodruff, who just happens to be one of the daughters of parishioner Priscilla Davis.

The Voluntary before the service was Sonata III: Adagio by George Frideric Handel.
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Our opening hymn was "For all the saints, who from their labors rest," sung lustily by the congregation, followed shortly thereafter with "I sing a song of the saints of God" as the sequence hymn.

As expected, Tricia's sermon was about All Saints, but was more special this year as St. Dunstan's celebrates its 50th Anniversary.  We heard some fun tidbits about the early days of St. Dunstan's, including the origins of our first communion set.
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The Offertory Anthem was "How Bright These Glorious Spirits" by Richard Slater. Martha added a beautiful dimension to the piece as she accompanied the choir.
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I don't know how many people are conscious of the music during the Communion (at St. Dunstan's or any other church). It's primarily background music because, of course, the focus is the Eucharist taking place at the altar. Because the Gospel was Matthew 5:1-12, also known as The Beatitudes, the anthem at communion was Hymn 560, sung a capella by the choir.
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As he is often wont to do, Tom wrote a descant for the exit procession, "Ye watchers and ye holy ones," which the sopranos performed beautifully.
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Our last musical treat for the day was another Voluntary by Martha, accompanied by Tom on the piano, Arioso (frm Cantata No. 156) by Johann Sebastian Bach.
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