Different Christian traditions commemorate the week in a variety of ways but for all traditions it is one of the most important weeks in the Church calendar and, along with the days preceding Christmas, is one of the busiest for cathedral musicians.
In Western Christianity, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and finishes on Holy Saturday (the day before Easter Day). Eastertide, or the Easter season, begins with the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday and lasts for 50 days (to Pentecost Sunday).
The term ‘Easter’ is, perhaps surprisingly, derived from the name of an Anglo Saxon goddess, Ēostre. The Saxon historian, the Venerable Bede, reported that the Christian festival coincided with feasts in the goddess’s honour. Some other languages take their name for the season from the Latin word ‘paschalis’, which recalls the Jewish feast of the Passover that was celebrated by Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. The term ‘paschal’, in relation to Easter, is often also used in English.
Each day of Holy Week is marked by special services and customs, many of which involve music. Scroll down to read more about each day, or select a particular day from the ‘menu’.
Menu
Fig Monday and Temple Tuesday
Palm Sunday commemorates Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. According to the gospels, Jesus was greeted by crowds waving palm branches and laying them in his path. This is remembered today in some Christian traditions by the blessing and distribution of crosses made of palm leaves.
Congregants are given these to take home for the year. They are sometimes returned to church just before Lent the following year, to be burned and used in the ‘ashing’ on Ash Wednesday.
In many Christian traditions, Palm Sunday includes a processional service, which may take place outside and sometimes involves a real donkey. Famous hymns such as ‘Ride on, Ride on in Majesty’, ‘All Glory, Laud and Honour’ and ‘Hark the glad sound! The Saviour comes’ are often sung during Palm Sunday processions. Anthems using these texts are also often sung.
In both the Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions, the entire Passion story from one of the gospels, according to the lectionary for that year, will either be read or sung during Mass/Eucharist. An example is the St Mark Passion by John Joubert.
Bach’s famous St Matthew and St John Passions are rarely used in a liturgical context, but many cathedrals in the UK will stage a concert performance during or just before Holy Week.
The Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week are known as Holy Monday/Tuesday or sometimes Fig Monday and Temple Tuesday. Traditionally, these days recall Jesus’s cursing of the fig tree and his ‘cleansing of the Temple’ by driving out merchants and money lenders.
Services on these days may include motets or anthems that reflect on these or other events of Holy Week. Settings of ‘Drop, drop slow tears’ (such as that by Kenneth Leighton) may be performed on Holy Monday, as the theme of this anthem forms part of the lectionary for this day.
Tenebrae is the Latin word for ‘shadows’ or ‘darkness’ and the Tenebrae service is characterised by a gradual descent into darkness as candles are extinguished one by one until the cathedral is almost completely dark, when a ‘strepitus’ or loud noise will be heard. This symbolises the earthquake that the Bible tells us occurred after Christ’s death on the cross.
Tenebrae services have taken a range of forms in different traditions and at different times. The original Roman Catholic Tenebrae was celebrated over several offices on each of the last three days of Holy Week. They featured either plainchant recitations or polyphonic settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (also known as the ‘tenebrae lessons’). The Gregorian chant to which the Lamentations is recited is recognised as sounding especially mournful.
Polyphonic settings include those by Palestrina, Tallis and Lassus.
Historically, the Tenebrae lessons would have been followed by the Tenebrae responsories. A famous example are by the Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, which are characterised by arresting dissonances and striking chromatic writing, used to emphasise Christ’s suffering and St Peter’s anguish at his denial of Jesus.
Some cathedrals and churches hold a service inspired by the ancient office of Tenebrae at other times during Holy Week. Westminster Cathedral’s, for example, is held on Holy Saturday.
Maundy Thursday traditionally features two services.
The first is the Chrism Mass or Eucharist, when Holy Oils are blessed by the diocesan bishop (although cathedrals may choose to celebrate this service on a different day of Holy Week).
The second, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, however, is always celebrated on Maundy Thursday. It commemorates the Last Supper, when Jesus identified bread and wine with his body and blood and called upon his disciples to eat the bread and drink the wine ‘in remembrance’ of him.
At the Last Supper, the Bible tells how Jesus washed the disciples feet, and this practice is often built into a Maundy Thursday Eucharist, when the priest will wash the feet of selected members of the congregation. Settings of the text ‘Ubi caritas et amor’ (Where charity and love are, there is God’) are often sung, sometimes during the foot-washing. This early Medieval text is used as the offertory in the Catholic liturgy. Probably the most famous, and particularly beautiful, setting is that by Maurice Duruflé, which is based on the text’s plainchant melody.
Stripping the altar
At the end of the Eucharist of the Last Supper, many churches and cathedrals will ‘strip’ the altar, leaving it bear of any decoration, or, in some traditions, drape the altar in black cloth. Sometimes this is accompanied by music, for example the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Bairstow.
Music for the Mass/Eucharist may include a setting of ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ (Hail, True Body), possibly by Byrd, Elgar or the famous setting by Mozart. Contemporary settings, such as those by William Mathias, Colin Mawby or Malcolm Archer may also be chosen.
The word ‘Maundy’ is a Middle English corruption of the Latin word ‘Mandatum’, meaning ‘mandate’ or ‘commandment’, referring to the ‘new commandment’ Jesus gave to his disciples at the Last Supper to ‘love one another’. The service may include Tallis’s setting of this text. Another motet often sung at this service (and at other services during Holy Week) is Bruckner’s powerful setting of ‘Christus factus est’, whose biblical text translates as, ‘Christ became obedient for us unto death, even to death on the cross.’
The Royal Maundy Service
In the UK, the ancient Royal Maundy service is held on Maundy Thursday, where the King will distribute ‘Maundy money’ to one male and one female senior citizen for each year of his age. The coins distributed are specially minted for the occasion, although, technically, they are legal tender. Historically, recipients would have been needy people of the diocese but today they are selected in recognition of service to their community. The Royal Maundy service is held at a different cathedral every year.
Many Christians fast or eat more simply on Good Friday, for example, by skipping a meal or replacing meat with fish.
Mass is not celebrated between Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil (on Holy Saturday), so bread distributed during services on Good Friday has been blessed the day before. On Good Friday, services recount the trial and execution of Jesus. Usually at 3pm (recognised as the hour at which Jesus died) a service commemorating the Passion is held. Before this, there may be other observances, such as the Stations of the Cross and the ‘Three Hours’ Devotion’, which recognises the three hours during which Christ hung on the cross.
Good Friday Liturgy
The service begins in silence, when the priests may prostrate themselves before the altar. It will include the account of the Passion from the Gospel of John, and this is often sung by the choir in settings such as that by Victoria or Lassus.
The ‘Proclamation of the Cross’ occurs after the Passion. Often a setting of ‘Crux Fidelis’ (Faithful Cross) will be sung at this point. This might either be the traditional setting (attributed to King John IV of Portugal) or a contemporary setting, such as that by Sarah Macdonald. Alternatively, the hymn ‘Sing my tongue the glorious battle’ may be sung.
The Good Friday Liturgy also includes the ‘Reproaches’, a series of responses in Latin or the vernacular which represent Christ’s admonishment of his people, with the words such as, ‘What have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me!’ These can be sung in Gregorian chant or in polyphonic settings by Renaissance composers such as Palestrina or Victoria. There are also contemporary settings of the Reproaches, for example, by Colin Mawby and John Sanders.
The famous ‘Crucifixus’ by Antonio Lotti often features on Good Friday, possibly during the distribution of communion. This is, in fact, a small section of a Credo from a Mass setting and exists in a number of versions for different combinations of singers.
Choirs also may perform settings of the ‘Stabat Mater’, a 13th-century text which depicts the grief of Virgin Mary, standing at the foot of the cross. Pergolesi’s famous setting for upper voices is rather extensive for inclusion in what is already a long service, but some cathedrals may perform this in a concert setting during Holy Week. An English version of the text, ‘At the cross her station keeping’, may be included as a hymn.
The anthem ‘O vos omnes’ (originally part of the Tenebrae Responsories) is sometimes performed, as is John Stainer’s ‘God so loved the world’ (from The Crucifixion).
Other hymns often sung on Good Friday include ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’, ‘My song is love unknown’ and ‘There is a green hill far away’.
Holy Saturday: The Easter Vigil
The Service of Light
A fire is lit in a brazier, just inside the west door of the cathedral. From this, a large, beautifully decorated candle, known as the paschal candle is lit. Members of the congregation will also all be holding small candles. The first few are lit from the paschal candle, and the light is then passed from one to another until the whole cathedral glows in candlelight. This represents the light of the resurrection of Jesus, and, in some ways is a counterpart to the extinguishing of candles that takes place during a Tenebrae service. The climax of the Service of Light is the Easter Proclamation, or the Exsultet, which begins ‘Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!’
The Liturgy of the Word
The Easter Vigil continues with a number of Old Testament readings. In the Roman Catholic tradition, canticles are sung between each reading, including, for example, the Jubilate, ‘Laudate Domino’ (Praise the Lord) and a setting of ‘Sicut cervus’ (Like as the hart).
The climax comes with the Easter Acclamation, where the president says ‘Alleluia. Christ is risen’ and the congregation responds ‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia.’ At this point there may be a ‘joyful fanfare’, the ringing of bells or noise made in some other way.
The word ‘Alleluia’ has been absent from the liturgy for the six weeks of Lent. This makes its repetition at several points throughout the Easter Vigil all the more meaningful.
Following this, the Gloria from the Mass setting is sung and the cathedral’s lights will be switched on.
The Liturgy of Initiation
The Easter Vigil is a traditional time for baptisms and confirmations and, if there are candidates for either, these will take place at this point in the service.
Eucharist
As well as the usual sung elements of the Mass, music will punctuate the spoken liturgy throughout the service. Anthems will reflect the theme of light (such as Elgar’s ‘The Light of Life’) and the risen Christ.
Congregational singing will include famous Easter hymns such as ‘Christ the Lord is Risen Today’, ‘Thine be the Glory’ and ‘Hail Thee Festival Day’.
It is customary to hold a jubilant service of Mass/Eucharist in the morning of Easter Sunday and Anglican cathedrals will celebrate Evensong in the afternoon. Cathedrals will often choose a particularly triumphant or elaborate Mass setting and may include additional instruments such as a small string orchestra or brass ensemble.
The ‘Easter Anthems’ may be sung. These are short passages of scripture which may be chanted.
Choral anthems on Easter Sunday can be joyful, uplifting or reflective and could include extracts from Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (such as the Hallelujah Chorus) or settings of texts such as ‘Now the Green Blade Riseth’ and ‘This Joyful Eastertide’. Taverner’s ‘Dum Transisset Sabbatum’ (‘When the Sabbath was past’, the text taken from the Respond to the third lesson at Matins) may also feature.
A well-earned break
Many Choristers will enjoy a chocolatey treat on Easter Sunday, courtesy of the Dean and Chapter, as a ‘thank you’ for all their hard work. As long as the school holidays allow, they also have a much-deserved rest after an extremely busy week of singing.