Music for Easter: “Sing Ye to the Lord”

At the first Easter Vigil I ever attended I heard Edward Bairstow’s “Sing Ye to the Lord.” The choir begins with a triumphant singing of the beginning of the Song of Moses: “Sing Ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously! Pharoah’s chariots and his horse hath he cast into the sea.” The triumph fades and a joyous and beautiful verse from ” At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing ” bubbles up:

Mighty Victim from the sky,
Hell’s fierce powers beneath Thee lie;
Thou hast conquered in the fight,
Thou hast brought us life and light;
Now no more can death appall,
Now no more the grave enthrall;
Thou hast opened Paradise,
And in Thee Thy saints shall rise.

A rousing chorus of “Alleluias” finishes the piece off. Here’s the choir of S. Clement’s, Philadelphia singing, with string, brass, and tympani accompaniment.