That's a very lively one. Thanks!

I always forget about This Joyful Eastertide. Such a fun one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV4RJlURx6E

Love that last Alleluia, Liam! What a splendid hymn; it makes such a difference when you can hear a wonderful choir with excellent diction modeling it. It always amazes me how a great choir can take the simplest anthem and turn it into something spectacular, and sometimes the simpler it is on paper, the more gorgeous it sounds with a full choir.

At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing (my harmonizations of stanzas 2-4 and descant attached).

Hymn of Joy (aka Alleluia, Alleluia)
Christ the Lord is Risen Today (LLANFAIR)
Christ the Lord is Risen Today (VICTIMAE PASCHALI)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3v0Bd7sEOA

Fans of ENGELBERG might like my Let Easter Alleluias Fill This Place, in the WLP hymnal.

PS: PDF of Jesus Lives from Oremus

http://www.hymnary.org/page/fetch/EH1982/413/low/194

Ah, speaking of Ode to Joy, here I insert my periodic rant: please, please, please use Beethoven's original rhythm for the final line (that is, beginning with the tied pick-up, *not* squared-off as in too many hymnals). The one thing makes all the difference - without it, it goes from sublime to merely good. You may well need to prepare the congregation for it aurally by playing it through once, the right way.

You may well need to prepare the congregation for it aurally by playing it through once, the right way.

I think most congregations would have to hear it more than once to start singing it the right way. Old habits die hard.

Thanks so much for the excellent suggestions! Now I'm all fired up for the Easter season, and have just made an enormously exciting discovery online:

Hymndescants.org

A very sophisticated website offering beautifully prepared and thrilling descants, organ introductions, and bridges to Anglican hymns, with soundcloud recordings and a brief history of each hymn. I'm having such fun going through the special Easter section. This is the best Easter present ever, and many thanks to the generous folks for sharing this.

St. Albinus

St. Fulbert

Hilariter...quite fun to sing with due jocularity.

It's HILARITERIOUS!

This hymn is pure genius, Adam. I've seen it in my hymnal, but I just had to find a recording, but could only find it in the German original. It's totally medieval.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=16&v=dGvTWxQUAXs

I (heart) Byrd strongly, but I also love Gibbons, and I wish his lovely tunes and anthems were more current in Catholic circles in the US. I find it interesting that William Byrd was over 40 years older than Gibbons, but only predeceased him by less than 2 years.

Ted Marier appreciated Gibbons' tunes and made good use of a handful in his hymnal, which is more than almost any other American Catholic hymnal I can think of for the period.

Gibbon's "Hosanna to the Son of David" is a gem, it's on my "maybe some day" list for Palm Sunday.

Also wonderful is his anthem "Almighty and everlasting God", which takes it's text from the collect of the Third (?) Sunday After Epiphany. Excellent for OT

Ad coenam agni providi is especially nice, either in Latin or in J.M. Neale's exquisite translation as found at no. 125 in The English Hymnal. Too, the organ versets from Titelouze's Hymnes de l'Eglise for this hymn are wonderful pieces for the season, for use with the hymn or independently as voluntaries. If using TEH version of this, one will note that the first interval here is a fourth (sol-do), rather than the more familiar third (la-do) as found in most Roman sources. This is likely a Sarum quirk. (Or, perhaps, um, the [smirk] Roman version is the quirk.) There are, actually, a goodly number of English translations of Paschaltide office hymns in TEH. Another very lovely one is Sermone blando Angelus, ('His cheering message from the grave | An Angel to the women gave...') suggested for Low Sunday.

Also, some of these were translated by J.H. Newman; but, unfortunately, he consistently changed the metre, so it's difficult to fit them to plainchant tunes.

Julie, if I recall (but that was a long time ago), the size of the choir was probably in the 15-20 range.

You don't need a big choir to do difficult music, but you do need a culture of regular attendance, and also dependable section leaders.

Gibbons, Weelkes, and Tomkins certainly deserve much more air-time then the usually get.

I second 'Lord enthroned in heav'nly splendour', especially when sung to Bryn Calfaria. It is a marvelously powerful hymn, appropriate also (if not moreso) for Ascension.

My favourite, though, is 'Jesus lives! Thy terrors now', sung to St Albinus. It's too bad that this has yet to make it into Catholic hymnals (other than the Ordinariate's hymnal, The 1940.)

What is a canon for music?

Well, I know that you mean what would be the fundamental and definitive repertory for choir, organ, congregation, priest, deacon, cantors, etc., in the Catholic Church. The short answer was given to us by the IInd Vatican Council, and those who follow in the spirit of Vatican II are guided by it. Three, and only three, repertories of music are mentioned in the council's documents as being treasures of greater value than any others in the Church's liturgical dower. They are Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and the organ (which implies the organ's specific historic repertory). By extension, one might posit that more modern music which is grounded in this repertorial tradition is also to be treasured. To list this 'canon' would fill volumes, but we know, don't we?, what would and would not be in said volumes.

Can you imagine such a thing in the RC Church??

Yes, I can, I can imagine it. If only those who run our seminaries could imagine it! Unfortunately, they have neither the education, the learning, the cultural intelligence, nor the imagination - nor do they even care.

What is a canon for music?

This is a different sort of canon, namely, the choirmaster or master of the music at many Anglican cathedrals. One such is the choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral here in Houston, Robert L Simpson, who is 'Canon for Music'. This implies a very serious understanding of his role, and a very great deal of respect for him and it. I doubt that many Catholic cathedral rectors or people would countenance taking their masters of the music so seriously. It is near impossible for Roman Catholics to understand or appreciate the degree (the just and fitting degree) of respect that Anglicans have for the work, calling, and role of music and musicians in their parish and cathedral liturgy. (One notes that the great Jehan Titelouze, Renaissance-Baroque father of the French organ school, was made a canon at the cathedral in Rouen.)

Can you imagine such a thing the the RC Church?

Only with great difficulty and wishful thinking.
(There is, you know, so much, so very, very much about the Catholic Church [particularly with regard to liturgy] that really isn't at all very Catholic.)

Does somebody have sheet music for "Christus resurréxit, mala nóstra texit"? Was it approved for use in Church pre-Vatican II? Thank you in advance :)

Could you please give a link, I can't find it...