Music notes for Harvest Thanksgiving

As Canadians we can trace Thanksgiving in North America to Sir Martin Frobisher and his crew’s safe arrival to what is now Nunavut in 1578. The first official Canadian Thanksgiving Day was celebrated on April 5, 1872, in gratitude for the Prince of Wales’ recovery from an illness, but it was not until 1957 that Parliament declared the second Monday in October as “a day of general Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.”

Though harvest celebrations far predate Frobisher’s arrival to North America by both Indigenous and European peoples, it was in 1843 that the Rev. Robert Hawker celebrated what is now the modern British tradition of the Harvest Festival in churches. Hawker invited parishioners to a special thanksgiving service at his parish Morwenstow located in northern Cornwall. Music was central to this celebration with Victorian, Dutch, and German harvest hymns, such as Come, ye thankful people, come and We plough the fields and scatter helping to popularise his idea.

At St. Jude’s we continue this tradition of thanksgiving with hymns and anthems in celebration of the natural world that we care for and cultivate. Our anthem, Fear, Not O Land by Sir Edward Elgar sets the text of Joel 2, 21-24, 26:

Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things.
Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.
Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God.
The floors shall be full of wheat.
And ye shall eat in plenty, and praise the Name of the Lord your God. that hath dealt wondrously with you.
Amen.

Elgar’s dramatic setting of Joel 2 brings together the best of his late-Romantic style with powerful moments sung in unison by full choir and sweeping melodies that dance around the various voices.