The Treble Choir will sing on Palm Sunday at Christ Church Cathedral

On Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025, the Treble Choir of Houston at Christ Church Cathedral will sing the Offertory Anthem at the 9:00 a.m. service.

This service will not be live streamed.

At this Palm Sunday service, the Treble Choir will sing the anthem, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" by Malcolm Archer (b. 1952). The text was written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748).

Legend has suggested that one Sunday afternoon the young Isaac Watts was complaining about the deplorable hymns that were sung at church. At that time, metered renditions of the Psalms were intoned by a cantor and then repeated (none too fervently, Watts would add) by the congregation. His father, the pastor of the church, rebuked him with "I'd like to see you write something better!" As legend has it, Isaac retired to his room and appeared several hours later with his first hymn, and it was enthusiastically received at the Sunday evening service the same night.

Although the tale probably is more legend than fact, it does illustrate the point that the songs of the church need constant infusion of new life, of new generation's praises. With over 600 hymns to his credit -- many of them classics like "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" -- Isaac Watts has rightfully earned the title, "the father of English hymnody."

Malcolm Archer's setting of this text was composed in 1990 for Barry Rose and the choir of St. Alban's Abbey in the United Kingdom.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748).

Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)