Easter Festival To Be Recorded For Broadcast

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28253, 15 April 1957, Page 12

Easter Festival To Be Recorded For Broadcast

An Easter Festival of nine lessons with hymns and carols is to be recorded in the Christchurch Cathedral on Saturday by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. It will be broadcast by YA stations and 3YZ, Greymouth, on Easter Day at 2.30 p.m. Arrangements to record the service are the result of co-operation between the Dean and Chapter of Christel.urch Cathedral, the organist and master of the choristers of the Cathedral, and the broadcasting service. The service is based on ‘‘An Easter Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” prepared for the E.B.C. by the Rev. Richard Tatlock. In the ‘ Easter Festival the readings, from the Authorised Version carry the Easter story from the visit of Mary Magdalene to* the empty sepulchre through Christ’s appearances to his disciples, and end with a magnificent reading from the beginning of the First Epistle of St. Peter: ‘‘Blesed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which . . . hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. . . .” The hymns will be the well-known Easter hymns but the carols will be new to New Zealand listeners. They will be ancient carols taken from the Cowley Carol Book. The service will begin with the well-known Easter hymn “Jesus Christ is Risen Today. ’ from the Lyra Davidica, 1708. This

> will be followed by a bidding ; prayer adapted from a bidding prayer in the ninth century Leo- ■ fric Missal, spoken by the Bishop ; of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. ' A. K. Warren). The nine lessons . will follow, interspersed with . hymns and carols. The hymns > will be sung by the choir and . congregation together, and the ' carols will be sung by the Cathej dral choir under the master of j the choristers, Mr C. Foster I Browne. The readers of the lessons will be Mr Basil Clarke, i of N.Z.B.S. Productions, Mr Cor- : bet Woodall, of station 2YA, and > Mr Anthony Cowan, of Christchurch. The service will end with the Blessing given by the ■ Bishop. 1 The recording of the festival for the New Zealand Broadcasting Service will be under the direc- ■ tion of Mr Peter Cape.