Music for December 14, 2014 + The Third Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• There Shall a Star from Jacob Come Forth - Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• God’s Great Lights – Helen Kemp (b. 1918)

Instrumental Music

• Savior of the Nations, Come – Wayne Wold (b. 1954)
• O Savior, Throw the Heavens Wide – Rolf Schweizer (b. 1936)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 616 – Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (ES FLOG EIN KLEIN WALDVÖGELEIN)
• Hymn 59 - Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R-92 – Prepare the way of the Lord (TAIZÉ)
• Hymn R-128 – Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN)
• Psalm 126 – tone  VIII.a

The choir's anthem for this Sunday is There Shall A Star by Felix Mendelssohn. This choral piece is from Mendelssohn's oratorio "Christus" (op 97), which was unfinished at his untimely death at the age of 38, when he died suddenly from a series of strokes. "Christus" is based upon biblical texts of Jesus and libretto by J.F. von Bunsun. The first part of the text comes from Numbers 24:7. The anthem is divided into four parts. In the first section, Mendelssohn supports the text with fluid, calm lines and ascending passages. He also supports the text with soft triplets in the instrumental accompaniment, giving a sense of movement. Each voice has a slightly independent line.

In the second section, the music becomes more intense and passionate as the chorus describes what the star from Jacob will do. The accompaniment continues with its rhythmic triplets. In the third section, Mendelssohn combines the ascending lines about the star of Jacob coming forth with the intense statements about vanquishing the enemy. That section returns to the texts and structure of the first section, with the ascending lines reaffirming the appearance of the King of Judaea.
Mendelssohn concludes the section with Bach's harmonization of  Philipp Nicolai’s (1556-1608) famous hymn, As bright the star of morning gleams (Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern). The chorus begins a cappella. Mendelssohn adds intermittent accompaniment in the same pattern as at the beginning of the movement. The selection concludes with soft, instrumental accompaniment. 

Helen Kemp

The St. Gregory Choir sings another anthem refering to Jesus as the morning star ("great light") with a lilting anthem by America's Grand Dame of Children's music, Helen Kemp. Mrs. Kemp was married to one of America's leading church musicians, and the mother of another (Michael Kemp), but it was her own work with children's choirs that garnered her fame as a director and composer. She understands the child's voice and writes music that will bring out the best in the child as well as the child's voice. She has worked with children and youth choirs for over 70 years!

The opening voluntary is a simple setting of the German Advent Chorale, Savior, of the Nations, Come, arranged for keyboard by Wayne Wold. Wold is the Associate Professor of Music and College Organist at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, and an active church musician, composer, performer, author, and clinician. As an active composer, Wold has published many compositions for organ and choirs. He is also the author of numerous books including Tune My Heart to Sing, and Preaching to the Choir: The Care and Nurture of the Church Choir. This simple setting starts of with an ostinato in the bass which plays continuously throughout the first section of the prelude while the right hand plays the melody in the soprano part. The second entrance of the hymn-tune is in a new key in a simple four-part harmony setting, before returning to the first section with its bass ostinato.

• Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (ES FLOG EIN KLEIN WALDVÖGELEIN) James Montgomery (1771-1854) led a thoroughly unremarkable life. The son of a Moravian minister, he tried business until settling down as a newspaper editor in Sheffield, England, where he also wrote poems and hymns. This hymn is his best psalm rendering. It is based on Ps. 72 and was originally written in eight stanzas for, and included in, a Christmas Ode which was sung at one of the Moravian settlements in the United Kingdom in 1821. It was published in the following year in the Evangelical Magazine and entitled "Imitation of the 72d psalm." The tune,  ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN, a German folk tune, and was first published in an early-seventeenth-century manuscript collection from Memmingen, Germany.
• Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON) This hymn was translated from a Latin hymn from the 5th century by Edward Caswall, a 19th century priest who left the Anglican church to become a Roman Catholic after his wife died. The text is perfect for the scriptures about the prophet "crying in the wilderness." The tune is by William H. Monk (1823-1889) who composed MERTON and published it in 1850. The tune has been associated with this text since the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. The tune's title is thought to refer to Walter de Merton, founder of Merton College, Oxford, England.
• Prepare the way of the Lord (TAIZÉ) - This simple round from the Taizé community in France is much more lilting and upbeat than most of their quiet, contemplative refrains. It fits in quite nicely with the theme of the morning, the voice of one that crieth in the wilderness, "Prepare ye a way for the Lord."
• Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN) -  Here we have a paraphrase of The Song of Zechariah, (Luke 1:68-79) by the contemporary American Episcopal priest, Carl P. Daw (b. 1944) He has written over 80 hymns which appear in over 20 hymnals since the mid 1980s. The tune is a lovely English folk tune arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams.