Four Easter Quartets

The four Easter hymns in this collection are presented in entirely new settings for quartet. Each setting is given with awidely-known hymn title. In some cases, the tune is almost universally associated with that title, but, in other cases,more than one text has been connected with the hymn tune. Because of such instances, some of these settings can alsobe readily used in church at times other than Easter.

1. “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” is based on the tune known as “Easter Hymn.” The tune first appeared in a Londoncollection, Lyra Davidica, in 1708. The text referenced here is based on a 14th-century Latin hymn, but some hymnalsuse, instead, the Charles Wesley text, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Alleluia.” The tune is also known with the words,“Lord Remove the Veil Away.”

2. “Christ is Alive!” is a fairly recent text but already appears in many Protestant and Catholic hymnals to the tune“Truro.” The tune comes from the 1789 Psalmodia Evangelica by Thomas Williams and is sung to many non-Easterhymns, such as the popular “Lift Up Your Heads, O Mighty Gates,” and “Great God, We Sing Thy Mighty Hand.”

3. The hymn, “Now the Green Blade Rises,” is sung to the 15th-century French carol known as “French Carol”or “Noel Nouvelet.”

4. “Thine Is the Glory” is sung to the tune “Judas Maccabeus,” adapted from G.F. Handel’s oratorio of the same name.