Everyone knows that Easter is coming, but how many realise that in the past few days there has also been Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday and that we are now in the season of Lent ? As for hot cross buns – they’ve been in Sainsbury’s since New Year.
Before going any further let me reassure you that this blog is not a religious message, though it does have an ulterior motive, which is to publicise pieces by me which are now on the Sibelius site ! (http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/index.php?sm=account.details&uid=123464)
What I am interested in is the fact that the Easter story is another part of our heritage, because people here have believed in it for the past 2000 years (and many still do). So knowing about it, just as knowing about Stonehenge, the Battle of Britain and Wimbledon tennis is something which I think anyone who lives here has a right to know about.
Also, as someone involved in the arts, I feel that you do not have to believe in the literal truth of the Christian story, to find in it a moving reflection of human experience which still relates to us now. And it is those elements which have on two occasions led me to create music (back to the commercial plug!)
For Christians, Easter celebrates the time when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brought us the chance of forgiveness (by God) for our sins through his own death (at the Crucifixion) and then returning to life ( the Resurrection).
The early Church was not above being opportunist, and so they realised that there were already popular Spring festivals – in the case of our ancestors, related to the goddess Eastre (get it ?). It also seemed to them that the time when life returns to Nature, after the winter, was a very suitable time to celebrate the new spiritual life offered by Christ.
Before moving to the key part of the story, I’ll answer a couple of other questions.
The first is “Why is Easter not celebrated, like Christmas, on the same date every year?”
First of all, because the Easter story takes place at the time of the Passover, a major Jewish religious festival, which was celebration of Spring and is celebrated at the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. – around March 21, when day and night are of equal length.
The Christian church fixed the date of Easter at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
The whole story is of nightmarish complication, but basically the decision was that Easter must fall upon the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal(Spring) Equinox, but, if the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter should be the Sunday after !!!! Therefore Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25. So now you know!
As for the other times mentioned, Lent is a period of 40 days leading up to Easter. For religious people it is a period spiritual preparation, involving fasting, prayer and repentance. (This is why people “give up things for Lent”) Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, when the priest marks the believer’s forehead with ashes in the sign of the cross, saying "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." This comes from the burial service, and in meant to remind us that we all must die.
The last day before Lent is Shrove Tuesday, which children used to know as “Pancake Day”. It is believed that pancakes were originally cooked in order to use up all the fat, eggs and dairy products. In many countries this is also the occasion for Carnival (from the Latin “carne vale” – “goodbye meat!”) – the most famous is that in Rio de Janeiro.
So back to the Christian story. What Christians know as Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday. In the period before this, Jesus had become extremely popular, and on this day (the first of the Jewish week) Jesus rode into Jerusalem to cheering crowds who threw palm leaves in front of him as a token of respect.
During the following days Jesus made himself very unpopular with the priests, but they did not dare not touch him because of his popularity. But then one of his own disciples (followers), named Judas Iscariot, went to the priests and offered to betray Jesus. (Readers who are fans of Bob Dylan will remember a famous live recording when Dylan went electric and a member of the audience called out “Judas”).
On the Thursday, in English known as Maundy Thursday, Jesus hosted a meal for his disciples – this was the Last Supper. He knew what was going to happen to him, and so gave them bead and wine in a very formal way. This action is highly important to Christians, and is the origin of Holy Communion, when bread and wine taken as part of a religious service.
After the supper Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed for God to spare him from suffering. The disciples were supposed to keep watch but fell asleep, and Judas was able to lead the priests to Jesus. The disciples ran away, and one (Peter) denied knowing him.
There was then what we would now call a “show trial” for “blasphemy” (meaning in this case claiming to be divine). During this the people present beat Jesus and spat on him.
At this time Israel was part of the Roman Empire, and so in the morning of what we know as Good Friday, the priests took Jesus to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, and demanded his death. Pilate wished to release him, but the crowd demanded Jesus’ death. Pilate decided to avoid trouble, but washed his hands (another of our modern sayings) to show that he did not accept responsibility.
Jesus was taken away, was mocked by the soldiers and the crowd, and was crucified, which is why the Christian symbol is a cross. When Jesus had died, Joseph of Arimathea (who is believed by many people today to have later come to Glastonbury) went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. He took it down, and laid it in a tomb. (The picture at the top of the blog is the beautiful statue by Michaelangelo, in St Peter's, Rome, which portrays Jesus' mother grieving over her dead son).
So we have a situation in which, within a week, Jesus was received by cheering crowds, who later turned against him and welcomed his execution. He was deserted even by his own most faithful supporters.
For Christians, though, the climax of the story happens on Easter Sunday, when Christ’s women followers went to prepare the body for burial. They found the rock rolled away and the body gone. An angel was there who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Poets, musicians and sculptors have often taken as their inspiration the anguish of
Jesus’ mother, Mary (the Virgin Mary). One of the most famous of these is shown in the picture.
However, my song The Lament of Mary Magdalene, starts from a different point. Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’ closest associates – to the extent that, as is widely known because of the popularity of The Da Vinci Code, some people believe that she was his wife. The song was written well before the book, and came after the realisation that there are very many works which are based on Good Friday (the day of the Crucifixion) and Easter Sunday, but that the Saturday was a day without any special interest. I asked myself “What must it have felt like to have been one of Jesus’ friends or disciples on the Saturday – when the Resurrection had not happened, and when they did not even know that it was going to happen ?” Mary expresses her grief through a love song – using such a medium for religious purposes was common in the Middle Ages.
The other work is a composition called Easter Overture or Festa Pasquale (Italian for “Easter Festival”). This was written originally for the Easter Festival of the EFL Cultural Programme of the University of Westminster. Its aim was to set the mood for the week of events. It was inspired by seeing an Easter procession and celebration in Attina, Italy, so it has a songlike theme of lament, a church procession theme, and jollity from the not very competent town band. The original recording can be downloaded from this website (look under Westminster Reels), and on Sibelius Music there is a free (simplified) score for amateur orchestra.
I hope you will enjoy these attempts to catch features of what is, as I have said, a powerful human story, to which people can still relate strongly, even they do not accept the religious implications. How often have we seen the media turn upon someone who was previously a hero ?
Oh yes – and hot cross buns ?
Before going any further let me reassure you that this blog is not a religious message, though it does have an ulterior motive, which is to publicise pieces by me which are now on the Sibelius site ! (http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/index.php?sm=account.details&uid=123464)
What I am interested in is the fact that the Easter story is another part of our heritage, because people here have believed in it for the past 2000 years (and many still do). So knowing about it, just as knowing about Stonehenge, the Battle of Britain and Wimbledon tennis is something which I think anyone who lives here has a right to know about.
Also, as someone involved in the arts, I feel that you do not have to believe in the literal truth of the Christian story, to find in it a moving reflection of human experience which still relates to us now. And it is those elements which have on two occasions led me to create music (back to the commercial plug!)
For Christians, Easter celebrates the time when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brought us the chance of forgiveness (by God) for our sins through his own death (at the Crucifixion) and then returning to life ( the Resurrection).
The early Church was not above being opportunist, and so they realised that there were already popular Spring festivals – in the case of our ancestors, related to the goddess Eastre (get it ?). It also seemed to them that the time when life returns to Nature, after the winter, was a very suitable time to celebrate the new spiritual life offered by Christ.
Before moving to the key part of the story, I’ll answer a couple of other questions.
The first is “Why is Easter not celebrated, like Christmas, on the same date every year?”
First of all, because the Easter story takes place at the time of the Passover, a major Jewish religious festival, which was celebration of Spring and is celebrated at the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. – around March 21, when day and night are of equal length.
The Christian church fixed the date of Easter at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
The whole story is of nightmarish complication, but basically the decision was that Easter must fall upon the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal(Spring) Equinox, but, if the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter should be the Sunday after !!!! Therefore Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25. So now you know!
As for the other times mentioned, Lent is a period of 40 days leading up to Easter. For religious people it is a period spiritual preparation, involving fasting, prayer and repentance. (This is why people “give up things for Lent”) Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, when the priest marks the believer’s forehead with ashes in the sign of the cross, saying "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." This comes from the burial service, and in meant to remind us that we all must die.
The last day before Lent is Shrove Tuesday, which children used to know as “Pancake Day”. It is believed that pancakes were originally cooked in order to use up all the fat, eggs and dairy products. In many countries this is also the occasion for Carnival (from the Latin “carne vale” – “goodbye meat!”) – the most famous is that in Rio de Janeiro.
So back to the Christian story. What Christians know as Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday. In the period before this, Jesus had become extremely popular, and on this day (the first of the Jewish week) Jesus rode into Jerusalem to cheering crowds who threw palm leaves in front of him as a token of respect.
During the following days Jesus made himself very unpopular with the priests, but they did not dare not touch him because of his popularity. But then one of his own disciples (followers), named Judas Iscariot, went to the priests and offered to betray Jesus. (Readers who are fans of Bob Dylan will remember a famous live recording when Dylan went electric and a member of the audience called out “Judas”).
On the Thursday, in English known as Maundy Thursday, Jesus hosted a meal for his disciples – this was the Last Supper. He knew what was going to happen to him, and so gave them bead and wine in a very formal way. This action is highly important to Christians, and is the origin of Holy Communion, when bread and wine taken as part of a religious service.
After the supper Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed for God to spare him from suffering. The disciples were supposed to keep watch but fell asleep, and Judas was able to lead the priests to Jesus. The disciples ran away, and one (Peter) denied knowing him.
There was then what we would now call a “show trial” for “blasphemy” (meaning in this case claiming to be divine). During this the people present beat Jesus and spat on him.
At this time Israel was part of the Roman Empire, and so in the morning of what we know as Good Friday, the priests took Jesus to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, and demanded his death. Pilate wished to release him, but the crowd demanded Jesus’ death. Pilate decided to avoid trouble, but washed his hands (another of our modern sayings) to show that he did not accept responsibility.
Jesus was taken away, was mocked by the soldiers and the crowd, and was crucified, which is why the Christian symbol is a cross. When Jesus had died, Joseph of Arimathea (who is believed by many people today to have later come to Glastonbury) went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. He took it down, and laid it in a tomb. (The picture at the top of the blog is the beautiful statue by Michaelangelo, in St Peter's, Rome, which portrays Jesus' mother grieving over her dead son).
So we have a situation in which, within a week, Jesus was received by cheering crowds, who later turned against him and welcomed his execution. He was deserted even by his own most faithful supporters.
For Christians, though, the climax of the story happens on Easter Sunday, when Christ’s women followers went to prepare the body for burial. They found the rock rolled away and the body gone. An angel was there who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Poets, musicians and sculptors have often taken as their inspiration the anguish of
Jesus’ mother, Mary (the Virgin Mary). One of the most famous of these is shown in the picture.
However, my song The Lament of Mary Magdalene, starts from a different point. Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’ closest associates – to the extent that, as is widely known because of the popularity of The Da Vinci Code, some people believe that she was his wife. The song was written well before the book, and came after the realisation that there are very many works which are based on Good Friday (the day of the Crucifixion) and Easter Sunday, but that the Saturday was a day without any special interest. I asked myself “What must it have felt like to have been one of Jesus’ friends or disciples on the Saturday – when the Resurrection had not happened, and when they did not even know that it was going to happen ?” Mary expresses her grief through a love song – using such a medium for religious purposes was common in the Middle Ages.
The other work is a composition called Easter Overture or Festa Pasquale (Italian for “Easter Festival”). This was written originally for the Easter Festival of the EFL Cultural Programme of the University of Westminster. Its aim was to set the mood for the week of events. It was inspired by seeing an Easter procession and celebration in Attina, Italy, so it has a songlike theme of lament, a church procession theme, and jollity from the not very competent town band. The original recording can be downloaded from this website (look under Westminster Reels), and on Sibelius Music there is a free (simplified) score for amateur orchestra.
I hope you will enjoy these attempts to catch features of what is, as I have said, a powerful human story, to which people can still relate strongly, even they do not accept the religious implications. How often have we seen the media turn upon someone who was previously a hero ?
Oh yes – and hot cross buns ?
Children used to sing a song that went:
Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons,
One a penny, Two a penny,
Hot Cross Buns !
Traditionally they were baked and eaten on Good Friday. I always thought, as many people do, that the cross on the top was to remind us of the Crucifixion, but some have suggested that the sign represents the four quarters of the moon, and that the buns were eaten by the Anglo-Saxons in honour of the goddess Eastre. Whatever the truth of it, I like them ! So have a good Easter – and lots of chocolate if you feel like it!
