Trisagion on "Nicaea"

Thomas Vernon Griffiths (1894-1985), began his musical studies at an early age. He attended Norwich Grammar School and pursued his musical studies after moving to London in 1913 to work as a bank clerk. During the First World War he served as an officer in the Sherwood Foresters. He was invalided home and was later attached to the army's education service. After the war he won an organ scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he was the Pembroke College organist from 1919 to 1922. He gained a BA in history in 1921, and a MusB in 1922. Declining a full-time position at Cambridge, Griffiths embarked on a career in schoolteaching, later gaining his MusD in 1937. Energetic, ambitious and enthusiastic, Griffiths displayed a single-minded devotion to his career. He was genial and gracious, deeply committed to his family, students and spiritual beliefs, and an unashamed Anglophile. He composed a fair amount of liturgical and organ works, many of which have a distinctive "sound" to them.

"Trisagion on 'Nicaea'" dates from 1956 and was included in Novello's 6-volume collection of "Festal Voluntaries". This piece is based on J.B. Dykes wondeful hymntune for the Holy Trinity. It features lots of counterpoint with a LOT of rather "fussy" use of the Swell box (you can see it in the Midi file). The tune appears on the Solo Tuba in the tenor, and has something of a canon with the pedal. A lighter middle section, fugue-like, is played on the Choir, before the work builds up to a grand climax.

A "Trisagion" is part of the Eastern-rite, which has been "replaced" in the Western usage by the "Sanctus".

I know that many people enjoy midi files, so, I included one with this. It's an "early play through" and is not exactly like the finished performance... ;-)