Church Music Corner › Fifth Sunday of Lent 2026 [loc-003M]

Iudica me Deus, et discérne causam meam de gente non sancta: ab hómine iníquo et dolóso éripe me: quia tu es Deus meus, et fortitúdo mea.

This final Sunday before Holy Week at All Saints Ainslie was an Evensong sunday, so I sang for the morning service and directed our choir for evensong. In the morning I sang Dowland's In this trembling shadow accompanied by Callum Tolhurst-Close on the organ.

In this trembling shadow, cast

From those boughes which thy winds shake

Farre from humane troubles plac’d

Songs to the Lord would I make

Darknesse from my minde then take

For thy rites none may begin

Till they feele thy light within.

For Evensong, I sang the Venite chant followed by the Choir singing Stainer's Hail, Gladdening Light, ferial preces and responses, my own tonus peregrinus arrangement with organum for the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis from Orlando Gibbons' Short Service. For the anthem we sang Wesley's Lead Me, Lord. This was the first time I've directed a choir for Evensong.

Lead me, Lord.

Lead me in thy righteousness.

Make thy way plain before my face.

For it is thou, Lord,

Thou, Lord, only,

That makest me dwell in safety.