Music for April 26

For the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the choir will sing Sir Philip Ledger’s 1994 arrangement of “This joyful Eastertide.” Ledger (1937–2012) was an English classical musician who served as Director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. This familiar Dutch Easter carol was first published in 1894 in Carols for Easter and Ascensiontide with words by George Ratcliffe Woodward and harmonization by Charles Wood. The text begins, “This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow! My Love, the Crucified, hath sprung to life this morrow. Had Christ, that once was slain, ne'er burst his three-day prison, our faith had been in vain; but now hath Christ arisen.” See Hymn 192 for the remaining verses.