THE poem ‘Drop, drop, slow tears’ was written by Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650). The son of an MP, he was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1600 and left as a Fellow at some point before 1616. In 1621 he took Holy Orders, and was rector of Helgay, Norfolk, until his death.
Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet,
which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace.
Cease not, wet eyes, his mercies to entreat;
to cry for vengeance sin doth never cease.
In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears;
nor let his eye see sin, but through my tears.
In 1906 Ralph Vaughan Williams, editor of the English Hymnal, paired the words with a melody by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625). At the age of 12 Gibbons became a member of the choir of King’s College Cambridge and later enrolled as a university student, his name appearing from time to time in the choir records until 1599. Nothing is known of him until 1603, but it is not out of the question that he and Fletcher encountered one another in Cambridge, making the ‘marriage’ of words and music especially apt.
Therefore I have chosen this performance by the King’s College Cambridge choir given at their 2011 Easter Service.
This is by a smaller ensemble, VOCES8.
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