Music for October 19, 2014 + The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Judge Eternal – Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)
• The Old Hundredth Psalm Tune – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Instrumental Music

• Trio Sonata in E Minor: III. Un poco Allegro, BWV 528 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness, BWV 654 - Johann Sebastian Bach
• Prelude in G Major, BWV 568 - Johann Sebastian Bach

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 408 – Sing praise to God who reigns above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Psalm 96: 1-9 (Tone 1g )
• Hymn 377 – All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100th)
• Hymn 325 – Let us break bread together (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 544 – Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (DUKE STREET)

Today it's English Choral music and the organ music of J. S. Bach. First, let's talk about the choral music,

Malcolm Archer

Judge Eternal is a very rhythmic setting of a hymn from our hymnal (#596) which was written in 1902 by the English priest Henry Holland, Canon at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. This setting is by a former Director of Music at St. Paul’s, Malcolm Archer, who is currently Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College in the heart of England, where conducts the choirs and teaches organ and composition. He has enjoyed a distinguished career in cathedral music, which has taken him to posts at Norwich, Bristol, and Wells Cathedrals, as well as St. Paul's. The first stanza is repeated at the end with the sopranos singing a soaring descant.


The hymn before the Gospel reading is the well known hymn All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100th) as arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953, It was the only hymn used at the coronation, and this setting, with it's thrilling opening fanfares, has become loved and sung by choirs the world over. The fourth stanza is actually a harmonization by John Dowland, (1563?-1626) who was the most famous musician of his time.

Ursula and Ralph Vaughan Williams at their wedding in 1953. RVW was 81 at the time.

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is like scripture to me. In practicing the works of that great Baroque master I can find peace and solace akin to the feeling I get from struggling in prayer and studying the daily scripture readings. Sometimes I stumble, and put away a difficult piece. The opening voluntary was one of those pieces. Twenty plus years ago I began to learn the three-movement Trio Sonata in  E Minor by Bach. I learned the first two movements, but for some reason, I never got the third movement learned. This past Summer, I was looking through my volumes of Bach's organ music and came across the six trio sonatas (music Bach had written to train his own son how to play the organ) and decided to finish the work. I am playing it this Sunday with no little feeling of self-satisfaction. 

The "Trio Sonata" is a musical form that was popular in the 17th and early 18th centuries. A trio sonata was written for two solo melodic instruments and basso continuo, making three parts in all, hence the name trio sonata. In the organ version, the right hand plays one melody line, the left hand plays the second melodic line, while the feet play the bass line. It's like rubbing your stomach and patting your head while dancing a jig.

The Communion voluntary is from the last volume of music that Bach worked on before going to his great reward. The so-called "Great Eighteen" was a collection of various chorales that he had written in previous years, but for some reason was never published. The first 15 of the chorales were copied in his own hand, but as his eyesight failed and his vitality diminished, he turned the pen over to his son-in-law to write down the last three. He never lived to see the book published.

There are three large arrangements with a florid, ornamented melody in the Eighteen Chorales. This setting of Hymn 339 in the Hymnal 1982 is one of those. Robert Schumann described it in a letter he wrote to Felix Mendelssohn  in 1840:

Around the cantus firmus (the melody) were hung gilded garlands, and such happiness had been poured into it that you yourself confessed to me that, if life were to deprive you of all hope and faith, this one chorale would restore them to you.

Bach expands the introduction and accompaniment into an independent music concept in opposition to the highly decorated melody.