Church Music Corner › First Sunday of Lent 2026 [loc-003A]

Invocábit me, et ego dixi exáudiam eum: erípiam eum, et glorificábo eum: longitúdine diérum adimplébo eum.

This Sunday was a busy one for me, as the choir of All Saints Ainslie sings Evensong now on the final Sunday of the month. I, along with a few of our other male singers, sang for the morning mass without the rest of the choir. I sang a special tonus peregrinus gospel acclamation, and for an anthem I sang Tallis' Why Fumeth in Sight, the famous Theme of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia fame. I've linked to a recording of me singing the first verse.

Why fumeth in sight: the Gentils spite,

In fury raging stout?

Why taketh in hond: the people fond,

Vayne thinges to bring about?

The kinges arise: the lordes devise,

in counsayles mett therto:

Agaynst the Lord: with false accord,

against his Christ they go.

Let us they say: breake downe their ray,

of all their bondes and cordes:

We will renounce: that they pronounce,

their loores as stately lordes.

But God of might: in heaven so bright,

Shall laugh them all to scorne:

The Lord on hie: shall them defie,

they shall be once forlorne.

Then shall his ire: speake all in fire,

to them agayne therfore:

He shall with threate: their malice beate,

in his displeasure sore.

Yet am I set: a king so great,

on Sion hill full fast:

Though me they kill: yet will that hill,

my lawe and worde outlast.

For Evensong we sang Psalm 51 to a nice Anglican chant, and the Nunc Dimittis from Gibbons' Short Service. We didn't get the Magnificat ready in time, so Alasdair and I just sang an antiphonal plainchant Magnificat to the tonus peregrinus. For the anthem, we sang an old favourite of mine, Morley's Nolo Mortem Peccatoris:

Nolo mortem peccatoris,

Haec sunt verba salvatoris.

Father, I am thine only Son

Sent down from heav'n mankind to save,

Father, all things fulfill'd and done

According to thy will, I have.

Father, my will, now all is this:

Nolo mortem peccatoris.

Father behold my painful smart.

Taken for man on ev'ry side;

E'en from my birth to death most tart,

No kind of pain I have denied

But suffered all, and all for this:

Nolo mortem peccatoris.

Nolo mortem peccatoris.