A couple of posts ago, when I said that it had never rained on our Palm Sunday parade, I was corrected by my dear husband, Carl. He wrote me, “You are wrong about not being rained out. It has happened twice during my 36 Palm Sundays at LCH (2 others were spent in Boston). One year it was so bad we met in Isenberg Hall. Luckily that year we had not planned to go around the block and used the Proulx setting with bells of All Glory Laud and Honor in the rhythmic chant version.”

Whatever — this year was bright and sunny, and as it happens every year, the singing got a little mixed up.

I also wanted to share what was written in the Sunday bulletin about the Paul Crabtree piece that was sung at the communion: Tristis est anima mea/Love Sick. Here is the text:

My soul is very sorrowful even to the point of death. Remain here and watch with me. Now you shall see the crowd who will surround me. You shall flee and I will go to be offered up for you. Behold! The hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

In 2007 the San Francisco-based, London-born composer Paul Crabtree was commissioned to wrote a set of tenebrae responses by the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Although a change in leadership at the cathedral left the project unused, he completed for the traditional Maundy Thursday Tenebrae service. To date, there are only three known performances of the set.

When asked why he linked these texts to Bob Dylan, Crabtree explains:

“In my experience of singing the traditional Tenebrae, the texts can be somewhat anti-Semitic. I have chosen to respond to that by being consciously inspired by the music of a Jewish artist. I think that interpretation of the texts has traditionally protrayed Jesus as being very mystical, whereas juxtaposing the Dylan references shows him to be more human. For example, with the betrayal by Judas, Jesus’ response is based on Dylan’s “You’ve got a lot of nerve, to say you are my friend.” With the anguish in the garden, when Jesus says “Let this cup pass from me,” the music is based on Dylan’s “Father of night, Father of day, Father who taketh the darkness away.”

“My interpretation here is to show the humanity of Christ. Here he is more the hunted animal than a resigned, designated sacrifice. Though the subject matte is dark, I don’t wield darkness like a club. The music is full of color and beauty, not all minor keys. The harmony is very approachable and pure.”