Music for December 20, 2015 + The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Gabriel's Message– arr. David Willcocks (1919-2015)
• Ave Maria – J. S. Bach/Charles Gounod (1818-1893)

Instrumental Music

• Savior, of the Nations, Come BWV 659, 661– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 74 - Blest be the King whose coming (Valet will ich dir geben)
• Hymn 54 - Savior of the nations, come! (Nun komm der Heiden Heiland)
• Hymn 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (Stuttgart)
• Hymn 60 - Creator of the stars of night (Conditor alme siderum)
• Hymn 436 - Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (Truro)

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner 1896

The last Sunday in Advent focuses on the Annunciation, that moment in our story when the Angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her that she is going to be the Mother of the Christ. To keep with the Gospel story, the choir sings David Willcocks' lovely a cappella setting of the Basque Carol, Gabriel's Message. This carol is based on 'Birjina gaztettobat zegoen, collected by Charles Bordes and published in the series Archives de la tradition basque, 1895. The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who wrote several novels and hymns (including 'Onward Christian soldiers) and who had spent a winter as a boy in Basque lands, translated the carol into English, reducing the original 6 stanzas to 4 and giving Gabriel the very beautiful and very Victorian 'wings as drifted snow'.

Sir David Valentine Willcocks

Sir David Willcocks, whom Britain's The Independent newspaper called "one of the most remarkable musicians of his generation," died this year at the age of 95. He became forever connected to Christmas when, in  1957 he became Organist of King's College, Cambridge, which already had a fine reputation courtesy of their annual Christmas Eve broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons And Carols. Over the coming years, this would be enhanced by greater television exposure and the newly emerging stereo LP. 

His connection to Christmas Choral music was further cemented in 1961 with the publication of the first of four volumes of choral music called Carols for Choir. His collaboration with John Rutter has influenced the course of choral music for Christmas for over 50 years. We'll be performing three of his carol arrangements on Christmas Eve (6:30 and 10 PM).

In 1853, French composer, Charles Gounod improvised a melody to Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major, which Bach published in 1722 as part of The Well Tempered Clavier - a book of clavier (keyboard) music Bach wrote to demonstrate the versatility of the 'new' even temperament method of tuning. Gounod's work was originally published for violin/cello with piano and harmonium, but in 1859, after receiving a request from Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann (Gounod's future father-in-law who transcribed Gounod's improvisation) Jacques Léopold Heugel released a vocal version with the melody set to the text of the Ave Maria prayer. Jade Panares, one of our choral scholars and a vocal performance major at the University of Houston, will sing this beautiful setting during communion today.

Music for December 13, 2015 + Advent III

Vocal Music

• O Thou, the Central Orb – Charles Wood
• When Jesus Came to Jordan - Attr. to William Walker (1809-1875)

Instrumental Music

• O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – Larry Dalton (1946-2009)
• Savior, of the Nations, Come – Gerald Near
• Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding – Gerald Near 

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 kleins Waldvögelein)
• Hymn 679 - Surely it is God who saves me (Thomas Merton)
• Hymn R26 - Jesus, name above all names (Hearn)
• Hymn 59 - Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (Merton)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s ban the Baptist’s cry (Winchester New)

The Good Shepherd Choir is joined this Sunday in singing two anthems, one from the body of standard Anglican repertoire, and the other from the American Folk Hymn tradition. This Sunday we will hear the Gospel reading of John the Baptist's foretelling the coming of Jesus. Perhaps we are rushing things, but the choirs will sing the hymn When Jesus Came to Jordan to be Baptized by John, by Fred Pratt Green, the prolific British Methodist pastor and hymn writer. The Rev. Mr. Green wrote this text to help explain the "why" of Jesus' baptism. It has been paired with a tune from the American songbook Southern Harmony of 1854. We will be singing a simple, austere version of this hymn-tune with bells and an ostinato (a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm) sung by the men of the choir.

We sang the other anthem, O Thou, the Central Orb, back in October, so you can read about it here. The St. Gregory Choir will be singing the anthem as part of their choral festival in January, so we though we would sing it again with them, as it is perfect for Advent, too, with the line "Come, quickly come, and let thy glory shine."

The opening voluntary is a piano arrangement of the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. What is interesting to me is that it is arranged by Larry Dalton, a Pentecostal pianist. We typically don't think of Pentecostal musicians being interested in the same hymns that we sing. I feel this goes to prove the universality of this old - and I mean old - hymn. The text comes from a 7 verse poem that dates back to the 8th century. The melody was originally music for a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional which was adapted by Englishman Thomas Helmore and published it in Part II of his The Hymnal Noted in 1854. The website Hymnary.org, a comprehensive index of hymns and hymnals, says that this hymn is found in 423 hymnals. (A Mighty Fortress is found in 586 hymnals, Amazing Grace in 1161!)

Larry Dalton was a world renowned pianist, conductor, composer and concert artist from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Big Stone Gap, VA, but he adopted Tulsa as his hometown when attending Oral Roberts University. During his college years, he traveled with the Oral Roberts ministry and later returned to serve as the Music Director for their TV ministry.

Larry was a Steinway Piano Artist, concertizing in over 40 countries, as well as arranging for many popular secular artists and Christian artists. His repertoire included music of every kind, including Southern Gospel, classical, and big band. 

He founded Living Sound, a contemporary Christian music group that ministered to the persecuted church in Poland, the USSR, Romania, East Germany and Yugoslavia. They also performed in great European cathedrals and at St. Peters in Rome hosted by Pope John Paul II.

Also, the keen eye will notice, in perusing the list of hymns and their tune names, that the tune name for the hymn Jesus, Name Above All Names is HEARN. It has nothing to do with me, but is named after the composer of the chorus, New Zealander Naida Hearn. I won't tell the whole story of how a 43 year old housewife came to write one of the most universal praise choruses today, but you can read the story here. 

Music for December 6, 2015 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• By All Your Saints – arr. Joel Martinson (b. 1962)

Instrumental Music

• Once He Came in Blessing – John Leavitt (b. 1956)
• Light One Candle to Watch for Messiah – Wayne L. Wold (b. 1954)
• Prepare the Way, O Zion – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 67 - Comfort, comfort ye my people (Psalm 42)
• Hymn R128 - Blessed be the God of Israel (Forest Green)
• Hymn 53 - Once he came in blessing (Gottes Sohn ist kommen)
• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (Hyfrydol)
• Hymn R92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (Berenden vag for Herran)

In the Gospel reading today, we learn that somewhere near the year 29 A.D., John the Baptist began proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, 

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’

You will hear (and sing) those words several times this Sunday as we remember that prophecy.

St John the Baptist Preaching - Anastasio Fontebuoni

The only piece of music that does not directly tie into the theme of today's Gospel is the organ voluntary at communion by Wayne L. Wold. Wold is professor, organist, and chair of the music department at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, and also director of music ministry at First Lutheran Church of Ellicott City, Maryland.  In 1984 Wold wrote an Advent hymn using the Yiddish tune Tif in Veldele (Deep in the Forest)as the melody. It's in A Minor, as typical of many Jewish folk tunes, and has a lovely, haunting quality about it. The hymn and this tune have since been included in 4 hymnals, two Lutheran hymnals, one Catholic, and the newest Presbyterian Hymnal, Glory to God. Each line begins with this simple statement.  

Light one (two, three, four) candle(s) to watch for Messiah: let the light banish darkness. 

What I find charming about this organ prelude based on the Yiddish melody is that Wold has written it in the style of César Franck's lyrical Prelude, Fugue, and Variation. I will be playing just the first (prelude) and last (variation) movements of the piece. 

Hymn Spotlight - Hymn R128 - Blessed be the God of Israel (Forest Green)

The Prayerbook suggests a canticle as an alternative to the usual Psalm for the second Sunday of Advent. The Song of Zechariah (father to John the Baptist) is found at Luke 1:68-79. Carl Daw, an Episcopal priest now located at Boston University, wrote a hymn based on this canticle in 1989, and it is included in our Renew hymnal to the tune “Forest Green”  by the famous English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Music for November 29, 2015 + Advent I

Vocal Music

• Advent Message – Martin How

Instrumental Music

• Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 850 – Johann Sebastian Bach
• I want to walk as a Child of the Light – arr. James Biery
• Fantasy on Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – Marilyn Biery

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

• Hymn 73 - The King shall come when morning dawns (St. Stephen)
• Hymn 615 - “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (St. Flavian)
• Hymn 57 - Lo! he comes with clouds descending (Helmsley)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world, in mercy broken (Rendez à Dieu)
• Hymn 490 - I want to walk as a child of the light (Houston)
• Hymn 56 - O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni, veni, Emmanuel)

This Sunday marks the first Sunday of the church calendar, also known as the First Sunday of Advent. (Liturgy refresher: Advent is the season that occurs four weeks prior to Christmas. It is a time of reflection, waiting and preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. Our liturgical color is blue. During the Middle Ages, when blue was an expensive color to reproduce, purple was often used instead. This is why you still see some churches using purple in Advent. Also, purple was used by churches that followed the Roman rite as opposed to the Sarum Rite. Theologically, however, blue is the proper color for this season, because Blue is the color of the Blessed Virgin, and Advent is all about Mary as we await with her the arrival of the Incarnate God. Blue is the color of hope, expectation, confidence, and anticipation. These are all adjectives which describe the season of Advent.

Music for Thanksgiving, 2015

Instrumental Music

Variations on “The President’s Hymn” – William H. Muhlenberg
Now Thank We All Our God – Charles Callahan
Now Thank We All Our God – Jacob B. Weber

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

• Hymn 290 - Come, ye thankful people, come (St. George’s Windsor)
• Hymn 288 - Praise to God, immortal praise (Dix)       
• Hymn 433 - We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing (Kremser)   
• Hymn R266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (Give Thanks)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (Nun danket Alle Gott)

Thanksgiving in the United States has been observed on various dates throughout history. From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date Thanksgiving was observed varied from state to state. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a presidential proclamation stating Thanksgiving to be the final Thursday in November in an attempt to foster a sense of American unity between the Northern and Southern states. Inspired by this, Episcopal priest William Augustus Muhlenberg wrote a hymn for the occasion with the text

Give thanks all ye people, give thanks to the Lord,
Alleluias of freedom with joyful accord;
Let the East and the West, North and South roll along,
Sea and mountain and prairie, one thanksgiving song.

According to a letter to the editor of The New York Times, he asked President Lincoln permission to call it "The President's Hymn," which became its official title.

It is variations of that hymn tune by Muhlenberg that we use as an opening voluntary tonight. The hymn is introduced in a simple setting with full organ, then three variations of that hymn are played. The third variation imitates the sound of fife and drum while the melody is being played, and the last variation includes The Star Spangled Banner, played on the pedals of the organ while the hymn is played on the manuals.

Appearing in over 560 hymnals, Now Thank We All Our God is the quintessential Thanksgiving hymn. The text was written by Martin Rinkart, a minister in the city of Eilenburg during the Thirty Years War. Apart from battles, lives were lost in great number during this time due to illnesses and disease spreading quickly throughout impoverished cities. In the Epidemic of 1637, Rinkart officiated at over four thousand funerals, sometimes fifty per day. In the midst of these horrors, it’s difficult to imagine maintaining faith and praising God, and yet, that’s exactly what Rinkart did. Sometime in the next twenty years, he wrote the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” originally meant to be a prayer said before meals. Rinkart could recognize that our God is faithful, and even when the world looks bleak, He is “bounteous” and is full of blessings, if only we look for them. Blessings as seemingly small as a dinner meal, or as large as the end of a brutal war and unnecessary bloodshed are all reasons to lift up our thanks to God, with our hearts, our hands, and our voices. (from www.hymnary.org)

Music for November 22, 2015 + Christ the King Sunday + The Last Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Sing We Merrily Unto God Our Strength – Sidney Campbell (1909-1974)
• O Bone Jesu – attr. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (16th C.)/probably by Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (1547-1592)

Instrumental Music

• Come, Ye Thankful People, Come – Ron Boud/Don Hustad (20th C.)
• Prelude on Picardy – Sondra Tucker (21st C.)
• Suite Gothique: IV. Tocatta – Léon Boëllmann (19th C.)

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

• Hymn 494    Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Hymn 488    Be thou my vision (Slane)
• Hymn 544    Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (Duke Street)
• Hymn 324    Let all mortal flesh keep silence (Picardy)
• Hymn 598    Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (Mit Freuden zart)

Today we have two widely different anthems for the last Sunday of the Christian year, Christ the King Sunday, officially known as the last Sunday after Pentecost. The offertory anthem is a mid-century piece by the British composer Sidney Campbell. Campbell was organist and master of the choristers at Canterbury Cathedral when he wrote this piece in 1960 just before going to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, where he remained until his death. This anthem features an independent organ accompaniment with much syncopation and a driving rhythm which supports the rather athletic choral part. Several words are set to long melismas (several notes to one syllable), such as God, noise, and merrily.

The second anthem is an Italian renaissance motet O Bone Jesus. This hauntingly simple setting  has often been attributed to Palestrina but is now generally recognized to have been the work of Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. He was close friends with Pope Gregory XIV, who was intimately involved with the reforms of the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent, and this influence is present in his music, which usually shows the simplification and clarity of the Palestrina style. His masses are simple, short, and relatively homophonic, often outdoing Palestrina for clarity and simplicity.

The opening voluntary is out of the ordinary for us Anglicans. One of our church members, Jill Kirkonis, retired this past year as organist from First Baptist Church of Porter after a long association with the church. She's since played for us here at Good Shepherd, and she brought an arrangement of the hymn Come, Ye Thankful People, Come to my attention. It was arranged for organ and piano by Don Hustad and Ron Boud. Don Hustad was the long-time organist for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team, and Ron joined him at the piano in later years. In the small-world category, Ron Boud ended his full-time career as organ professor at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, the Baptist School in the same town as Lambuth College, where I got my undergraduate degree. His last church job before retirement was at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, where I had my first church job after leaving SMU.

To further the small world/West Tennessee connection, the Communion Voluntary is a setting of the familiar hymn, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence for organ and handbells by my friend Sondra Tucker, who now serves as organist at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church in Collierville, TN. Holy Apostles is the church I served before moving to Kingwood.

Music for November 15, 2015 + The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost + The Kirking of the Tartans

Vocal Music

• Arise, My Soul, Arise – Dale Wood (1934-2003)
• Day by Day – Martin How (b. 1931)

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral – James D. Wetherald, arr., Stanley Fontinot, piper
• The Saints Delight – Dale Wood

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

• Hymn 51 - We the Lord’s people, heart and voice uniting (Decatur Place)
• Hymn 282 - Christ, the fair glory of the holy angels (Caelites plaudant)
• Hymn 665 - All my hope on God is founded (Michael)
• Hymn 571 - All who love and serve your city (Charleston)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (New Britain)
• Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (Shine Jesus Shine)

This Sunday is our annual "Kirking of the Tartans" service at Good Shepherd, a Sunday where we honor our Scottish heritage. (If you really get into history, you can read more about our annual tradition, as well as the beginnings of "Kirking" here.) As usual, we will have a piper here to play Highland Cathedral and Amazing Grace on the bagpipe.

Highland Cathedral is a popular melody for the great highland bagpipe, so it might surprise you that the melody was composed by German musicians Ulrich Roever and Michael Korb in 1982 for a Highland games held in Germany! It has become so popular in such a relatively short time that it has been proposed as the Scottish national anthem to replace unofficial anthems Scotland the Brave and/or Flower of Scotland.

The offertory anthem is by the renowned composer, organist, and choral director Dale Wood, who was best known for his church music compositions.  Wood's career as a composer was launched at the age of 13 when he became the winner of a national hymn-writing competition for the American Lutheran Church. His first choral anthem was accepted for publication one year later.

Dale Wood at his home, October 2002.
Photo courtesy Ivan de la Garza.

Wood has served as organist and choirmaster for Lutheran and Episcopal churches in Hollywood, Riverside, and San Francisco, California. Hymns and canticles composed by Dale Wood are found in every major hymnal except ours!

Wood's musical activities have not been limited to sacred music. While still a college student, he entertained as organist at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and appeared on television shows produced in Hollywood. In 1975, he was employed by the Royal Viking Line to entertain passengers on a 70-day cruise of the South Pacific and Orient.

Wood used the Finnish folk tune NYT YLÖS, SIELUNI as the basis for the anthem "Arise, My Soul, Arise," with text by Swedish writer Johan Kahl. The anthem was written in 1976 based on a Finnish folk tune. The sturdy tune is first sung in unison before being sung in canon on the second stanza. Wood's creative compositional style is evident in the accompaniment of this verse, which at first seems unrelated to the melodic material the choir sings, but up closer examination you realize that it is actually the original tune, but in augmentation, a compositional device where a melody is presented in longer note-values than were previously used. During the third line of that stanza, the whole choir sings the tune in augmentation, without accompaniment. The third stanza returns to the original rhythm and feel with an abrupt but strong ending.

The Good Shepherd Choir is joined by the St. Gregory Choir at the communion anthem, Day by Day, using a prayer ascribed to the 13th-century English bishop Saint Richard of Chichester as its text. The music was composed by Martin How, a British composer and organist. (He is the son of the late Most Revd J C H How, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church - another Scottish connection!)

Martin How

Born in Liverpool, where his father was Rector of St Nicholas Church. The family then moved to Brighton, where Martin's father was Vicar at St Peters Parish Church. The family then moved to Glasgow just before the second world war, and Martin spend most of his childhood there.

Trained in music at Repton School and Clare College, Cambridge, he was in the Army for two years before taking a post as Organist and Choirmaster at Grimsby Parish Church in Lincolnshire. But it was at the Royal School of Church Music where How spent most of his career, principally as a choir trainer specializing in the training and motivation of young singers. In this capacity he initiated and developed the RSCM Chorister Training Scheme which has since been used in various forms in many parts of the world. 

Has traveled widely as a choral conductor, accompanist, lecturer and adjudicator. In this capacity he has worked in the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Appointed MBE for 'Services to Church Music' in the 1993 New Year Honors List.

Music for November 8, 2015 + The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lord, Make Us Servants (hymn 593)– Lee Hastings Bristol (1923-1979)

Instrumental Music

• Processional Celebration – Anna Laura Page (b. 1943)
• What a Friend We Have in Jesus – Linda R. Lamb (b. 1947?)
• Festival Piece – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)

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

• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (Nettleton)
• Hymn 429 - I’ll praise my maker while I’ve breath (Old 113th)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (Hollingside)
• Hymn R172 - In my life, Lord, be glorified (Lord, be glorified)
• Hymn 705 - As those of old their first fruits brought (Forest Green)

This Sunday we feature our Good Shepherd Handbell Choir in two works. The opening voluntary is an original composition by Anna Laura Page. Active as a composer, clinician and organist, she served on the Music Committee of the Southern Baptist 1991 Hymnal Committee and has received the ASCAP Standards Award for the past several years. She has taught organ as an adjunct faculty member at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and theory/organ as an adjunct faculty member at Lander University in Greenwood, South Carolina. She served as director of the Austin Peay Community Children's Chorus in Clarksville, Tennessee for three years. She is married to Dr. Oscar C. Page, President of Austin College in Sherman, Texas.

Processional Celebration was written in two parts - the first section is written with 4 lines of music. Each one enters after the preceding line is played once. It was designed to be played in procession from memory - which is why we are playing it

The communion voluntary is a setting of the old hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" by Linda R. Lamb. Lamb has been involved with handbells since 1992, as director, composer, and sometime ringer. She is the handbell director at Lexington Park Baptist Church, Lexington Park, Maryland, where she directs one adult choir and one youth quartet. She graduated from Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, with a B. A. in sociology, and from Concordia University in Wisconsin with a Master of Church Music (emphasis in handbells).

This arrangement makes use of both our set of English Handbells and our smaller set of choir chimes, which Lamb uses on the second verse to highlight the melody.

The offertory anthem is a hymn setting of a poetic rendering of the famous Prayer of St. Francis by Lee Hasting Bristol. Though Bristol was studied music at Ham­il­ton Col­lege, Clin­ton, New York (BA); Trin­i­ty Col­lege of Mu­sic, Lon­don (or­gan stu­dies); and the In­sti­tute for In­ter­na­tion­al Stu­dies, Ge­ne­va, Switz­er­land (grad­u­ate stu­dies), he worked in New York for the Bris­tol-Me­yers Com­pa­ny (the fam­i­ly bus­i­ness) in ad­ver­tis­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions from 1948-62. From 1962-69, however, he served as pre­si­dent of West­min­ster Choir Col­lege, Prince­ton, New Jer­sey. In 1972, the Hymn So­ci­e­ty in the Unit­ed States and Ca­na­da made him a fel­low of the so­ci­e­ty.

Music for November 1, 2015 + All Saints Sunday

Vocal Music

• And I Saw a New Heaven – Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)
• O Sacred Feast – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

Instrumental Music

• Blessed Are Ye Faithful Souls Departed – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Requiem Aeternum/In Paradisum – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Hymn Prelude on “Darwall’s 148th” – Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)

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

• Hymn 287 - For all the saints, who from their labors rest (Sine Nomine)
• Hymn R-276 - Soon and very soon (Soon and Very Soon)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (Darwall’s 148th)
• Hymn 620 - Jerusalem, my happy home (Land of Rest)
• Hymn 618 - Ye watchers and ye holy ones (Lasst uns erfrueun)

This Sunday is All Saints Day, a solemn holy day of the church celebrated annually on November 1. Originally, the Catholic church dedicated this day to the saints of the Church, that is, all those who were beatified by the church, and remembered all other faithful departed on All Souls' Day on November 2. As Anglicans, we view All Saints' Day as incorporating the observance of All Souls' Day and it serves to "remember those who have died", in connection with the theological doctrines of the resurrection of the body and the Communion of Saints. That is why we remember our family and friends who have died as well as all the saints at this service.

Our beautiful All Saints anthem is by the English composer Malcolm Archer, Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College in England, where he trains and conducts the choirs and teaches organ. He has enjoyed a distinguished career in cathedral music, which has taken him to posts at Norwich, Bristol, and Wells Cathedrals, as well as Director of Music at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

This anthem begins with the sopranos singing the first verse of Revelation 21, our Epistle reading for today:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. 

The rest of the choir joins the sopranos as they repeat that lovely, peaceful melody. At the words "And I, John, saw the holy city," the men of the choir take the melody. At the end of the anthem, the words "and the former things are passed away," are repeated section by section, like an echo that fades away.

Malcolm Archer at St. Paul's Cathedral, London

The communion anthem is a motet written by Healey Willan. It is the fourth of six motets he wrote in 1924 for his choir at the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Toronto. The text is an English translation of the Latin hymn, O Sacrum Convivium. You may wonder what is the difference between an anthem and a motet. A motet a short piece of sacred choral music, typically polyphonic and unaccompanied. An anthem is also a choral composition, often based on a biblical passage, for singing by a choir in a church service. It can be accompanied by organ or piano, and can sometimes be as long as ten minutes, as are the English verse anthems 17th and 18th centuries.

The opening voluntary is one of the The Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, that Johannes Brahms composed a year before he died. They were published posthumously in 1902.

The eleven pieces are relatively short and are based on selected verses of nine separate Lutheran chorales. They were written in the summer of 1896 after Clara Schumann’s death (some may have been conceived earlier), and it is highly probable that Brahms was already aware of his own illness at that point; several are associated with texts about death and eternity, such as our organ voluntary today. This setting, with its beautiful 12/8 flow and major/minor vacillation, is the shortest.  The prelude is mostly in D minor, but the first line is almost entirely in the “relative” major key of F.  The piece is mostly played on manuals only. The 12/8 meter creates a pastoral mood in the flowing voices under the chorale melody, which is heard in the soprano (top) voice.  Brahms marks it dolce (sweetly).

Blessed are ye, faithful souls departed;
Death awakened you to life immortal.
You are delivered
of all cares that hold the world in bondage.

(English Translation by Michel-Dmitri Calvocoressi)

Music for October 25 + The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• O Thou the Central Orb – Charles Wood (1866-1926)
• Nunc Dimittis – A. H. Brewer (1865-1928)

Instrumental Music

• Fanfare-Improvisation on “Azmon” - Alec Wyton (1921-2007)
• Erhalt uns, Herr (Hymn R191) - Johann Pachelbel
• Trumpet Tune in D Major - William Boyce

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

• Hymn 493           O for a thousand tongues to sing (Azmon)
• Hymn 679           Surely it is God who saves me (Thomas Merton)
• Hymn 460           Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (st. 1, 3 &4) (Hyfrydol)
• Hymn 302           Father, we thank thee who hast planted (Rendez a Dieu)
• Hymn R191        O Christ, the healer (Erhalt uns, Herr)

Charles Wood

The choir is singing two anthems from the repertoire list of this Sunday's Diocese of Texas 56th Annual Adult Choral Festival. O Thou the Central Orb is by Charles Wood, one of the great 19th-century composers of Anglican choral music. His anthems are frequently performed, though he also wrote eight string quartets and an opera based on Dickens's Pickwick Papers. Though he studied at Cambridge and in London, he hailed from Armagh in Northern Ireland, where his father was a tenor in the choir of St Patrick's Cathedral. O Thou the central orb is without a doubt a classic of the English Anthem which defines in many people's minds the Anglican 'cathedral sound'.
This anthem is often sung in Advent, with its line

Come, quickly come, and let thy glory shine, 

as well as the line

Pure beam of the most High, eternal Light
Of this our wintry world, 

But the main theme is that of light, and it works well on any Sunday morning.

The other anthem is the Nunc Dimittis from Herbert Brewer's Evening Canticles in D Major. A contemporary of Charles Wood, Brewer was born one year earlier than Wood and died less than two years later. He was an English composer and organist who lived in Gloucester his whole life, and was the organist at two of its churches; he also founded the city's choral society in 1905. He had been a cathedral chorister in his boyhood, and began his organ studies with the organist of the same cathedral, C. H. Lloyd. As a composer, Brewer was fairly conservative; his output includes church music of all types, cantatas, songs, instrumental works, and orchestral music.

The opening voluntary this Sunday is by another English Cathedral Musician, though this one moved to America. Born in London, Alec Wyton studied at The Royal Academy of Music and Oxford University. He came to the United States in 1950 at the invitation of the Bishop of the Dallas Diocese, who wanted English-style music at his Cathedral. Four years later he was appointed organist and Master of the Choristers at St. John the Divine, New York City, where he combined his musician duties with those of Headmaster of the Cathedral Choir School. He held that position for 20 years.

He was the Coordinator for the Standing Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church which produced the hymnal which we now use.

I first heard this composition, Fanfare-Improvisation on “Azmon”, when I was in high school. It is based on that great hymn, "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing." As it begins, we hear a fanfare, and a brief statement of the closing phrase of the hymn-tune, before an ostinato pedal part begins and a melody which only hints at the well known tune begins. After two repetitions of that improvisatory hymn-like melody, he presents the well-known tune, only it's not in the familiar "short-short Long, Long" pattern of the hymn. Not until the fourth time the tune is played is the familiar hymn heard in its original rhythm. At one point, the melody is also heard in canon, and in canon in two different keys at the same time!.  The final stanza is a direct presentation of the hymn-tune complete with fanfares.

The communion voluntary is a setting of today's closing hymn, with the melody in the pedal, accompanied by the hands on the manuals. It is by the South German composer Johann Pachelbel, who's famous for that Pachelbel Canon that you hear at weddings all the time. 

Music for October 18, 2015 + Choir Dedication Sunday + The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Jubilate Deo – Michael Bedford (b. 1949)
• Oh, Sing to the Lord a New Song – John Leavitt (b. 1956)
• Bless, O Lord, Us Thy Servants – John Harper (b. 1947)

Instrumental Music

• Andantino – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Fugue in C Major, BWV 846 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Scherzo – Alan Ridout (1934-1996)

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

• Hymn 420 - When in our music God is glorified (ENGLEBERG)
• Hymn R 112 - You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord (ON EAGLES WINGS)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn R 289 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)

Sunday, October 18 has been designated as Music Sunday by RSCM America. RSCM America is the branch of the Royal School of Church Music in the United States, whose goal is to uplift the spiritual life of religious communities through high quality choral music. On this day, we celebrate the music and musicianship that are a vital and beloved part of church life. On this day we will dedicate new choristers into our choir and reaffirm the ministries of those who have already been singing in the choir. Music Sunday is also a time when we offer a special prayer for our music and musicians--the young and old, professional and amateur, singer and instrumentalist, administrator and practitioner--most of whom work without expectation of recognition but who nonetheless deserve our awareness and thanks.

One of the anthems we will sing is a setting of The Chorister's Prayer.

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,
who minister in Thy temple.
Grant that what we sing with our lips,
we may believe in our hearts,
and what we believe in our hearts,
we may show forth in our lives.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

The Chorister's Prayer in its most common form was first published by the School of English Church Music (as the RSCM was then called) in 1934 in the Choristers' Pocket Book. It has origins which extend back at least to the 4th century, for the tenth canon of the fourth council of Carthage (c 398 AD) decrees that cantors should be blessed with the words Vide, ut quod ore cantas, corde credas, et quod corde credis, operibus comprobes (“See that what thou singest with thy lips thou dost believe in thine heart, and that what thou believest in thine heart thou dost show forth in thy works”)

John Harper

This prayer is used each week at the beginning of our Children's Choirs. We who pray these words weekly carry on a tradition of many centuries and hopefully we both ‘steadfastly fulfil’ and also ‘show forth’ the tenets of our faith in our lives and music.

John Harper composed this setting of The Chorister's Prayer for the 80th anniversary of the RSCM. It was sung at St Paul's Cathedral, London on Easter Monday 2007, to mark the beginning of the RSCM's 80th anniversary celebrations. Harper is RSCM Research Professor of Music and Liturgy, and Director of the new International Centre for Sacred Music Studies (ICSMuS) at Bangor University in Wales. He is Emeritus Director of The Royal School of Church Music.

John Leavitt

The other anthem the Good Shepherd sings this day is a contemporary setting of Psalm 96 with a rippling piano accompaniment with violin obbligato. It is by the American composer, choral director and teacher John Leavitt. A native of Kansas, Dr. Leavitt received the Kansas Artist Fellowship Award from the Kansas Arts in 2003 and in 2010 he was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces to commission a new choral work in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the State of Kansas.  His music has been performed in 30 countries across the globe and his recordings have been featured nationally on many public radio stations. His compositions are represented by nearly every major music publisher in this country. In addition to his academic posts, he has served Lutheran churches in the Wichita area.

The St. Gregory Choir will sing an anthem by the Oklahoma composer and church music Michael Bedford. Bedford retired last year from St. John's Episcopal Church in Tulsa after a twenty-five year tenure as director of music and organist. This anthem, Jubilate Deo, is a setting of Psalm 100 in both Latin and in contemporary English.

Music for October 11, 2015 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Hear the Voice and Prayer – Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on “St. Anne” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• I. Theme
• II. Adagio
• VI. Fugue/Finale
• Saraband and Interlude – Herbert Sumsion (1899-1995)

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

• Hymn 680 - O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Hymn R127 - Blest are they, the poor in spirit (BLEST ARE THEY)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (I HAVE DECIDED)
• Hymn 408 - Sing praise to God who reigns above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)

The organ voluntaries at the beginning and ending of worship are from a Partita (or Variations) by Paul Manz. During his lifetime, he was one of the premier organists in the Lutheran Church, a denomination with a tradition of fine music and hymnody. Manz was well known for his improvisations on the hymns of the church, publishing volumes of his organ improvisations. As a performer, Manz was famous for his celebrated hymn festivals. Instead of playing traditional organ recitals, Manz would generally lead a "festival" of hymns from the organ, in which he introduced each hymn with one of his famously creative organ improvisations based on the hymn tune in
question. The congregation would then sing the hymn with his accompaniment. Sometimes he would play an improvisation between each sung stanza, as with these well-known variations on the tune, ST. ANNE, sung to the Isaac Watts text "Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past" with which he would traditionally end each festival. It is from this partita that I've selected the opening and closing voluntaries.
At the prelude we hear the tune in it's entirety, presented with no embellishments. It is followed by the first variation, which, like a chorale prelude of Bach or Buxtehude, presents the melody in a highly ornamented fashion, often flirting with the actual notes of the melody to give us an impression of the tune.
The closing voluntary is the finale from the partita, starting with a fugue with its original subject. It is not until we depart from the fugue that we hear the melody in the pedal with the hands playing a flashy accompaniment.

The hymn, O God, our help in ages past, is one of the biggies.  It is a standard that appears in most major hymnals and is often sung at funerals. The words are a paraphrase of Psalm 90:1-5.  (Today's Psalm is also from Psalm 90, but using the last five verses.) They were written by Isaac Watts in 1714, shortly before the death of Queen Anne of England. This was a time of great crises and turmoil, as the successor of Queen Anne was as yet undetermined, and the fear of a monarch who would reinstate the persecution of Protestants was great. King George I prevented such persecution, but the fear before Anne’s death was great. This was the context in which Watts wrote his powerful text, now lauded as “one of the grandest in the whole realm of English Hymnody” (Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns, 54).
The music was composed by William Croft in in 1708 when he was organist at St. Anne’s in Soho. The tune appears in many compositions by other composers, but the fact that the opening phrase sounds like the fugue subject in J. S. Bach’s Fugue in E-flat Major, (“St. Anne” Fugue) is probably a coincidence. I am using Bach's music as in introdution to the hymn, in an arrangement by George Thalben-Ball (which Thalben-Ball transposed to C Major just for this purpose.)

Music for October 4, 2015 + The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• For the Beauty of the Earth – John Rutter (b. 1945)
• O Kind Jesus - Robert Hunter, arr. (1929-2001)

Instrumental Music

• Air - Gerre Hancock (1934-2012)
• Jesus Loves Me- Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Now Thank We All Our God - Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

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

• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn 480 - When Jesus left his Father’s throne (KINGSFOLD)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus, stanzas 1-3 (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn - Jesus loves me, this I know (JESUS LOVES ME)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)

Of the two choral offerings this Sunday, John Rutter's For the Beauty of the Earth is by far the best known. It's joyous text and infectious melody have made it a favorite among choirs throughout the world since it was first published in 1980, after he wrote it for The Texas Choral Director's Association. It incorporates several of Rutter's distinctive musical trademarks: an interesting, singable melody, several changes in key, and syncopated rhythms used in conjunction with smooth, straight legato lines. The accompaniment, which I will be playing on the piano, stands alone, supporting but not doubling what the choral parts do.


The other anthem, based on a simple Latvian folk tune, is arranged by Ralph Hunter. A choral conductor, educator, and arranger, Hunter was born in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1921. He began his musical career as a church organist at Newark, New Jersey’s First Reformed Church. He served in the Army during World War II and then attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1955, he became the conductor of New York’s Collegiate Chorale, the second conductor after founder Robert Shaw, and held that position until 1959. In the late 1950s, he was an arranger for Harry Belafonte, conducted the Radio City Music Hall Chorus, and formed his own group, the Ralph Hunter Choir, with whom he recorded five albums. In the 1960’s, he conducted a variety of groups, including a campaign chorus for Richard Nixon, called Voices for Nixon, as well as a chorus that performed on NBC television under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. From 1969-1987, he was a music professor at New York’s Hunter College, where he taught choral literature, conducting, and arranging. He conducted and arranged a wide variety of choral music, including the temperance songs we sing today. He is known for his arrangements and conducting of classical choral works by such early music composers as Thomas Tallis and Nicholas Porpora.

Sunday's Gospel lessons is about Jesus and divorce and and Jesus and the children. I've decided to focus on Jesus and the children. That's why we are singing these two anthems and today's hymns, especially Jesus Loves Me. Preceding the singing of Jesus Loves Me (in a rocking 6/8 setting by Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer as found in Lift Every Voice and Sing II, An African American Hymnal for the Episcopal Church), I will play an very improvisatory piano piece by Charles Callahan which quotes snippets of the tune while never playing the melody outright. \

Just this past week I watched an episode of "Call the Midwife" on Netflix (watch it, if you haven't yet!) where one of the characters dies tragically. His girlfriend laments that she cannot see God in this tragedy, and the head nun responds that God is not in the tragedy, God is in the response. That could be said about Martin Rinkart, the writer of our closing hymn.

Rinkart was a minister in the city of Eilenburg during the Thirty Years War. Apart from battles, lives were lost in great number during this time due to illnesses and disease spreading quickly throughout impoverished cities. In the Epidemic of 1637, Rinkart officiated at over four thousand funerals, sometimes fifty per day. In the midst of these horrors, it’s difficult to imagine maintaining faith and praising God, and yet, that’s exactly what Rinkart did. Sometime in the next twenty years, he wrote the hymn, Now Thank We All Our God, originally meant to be a prayer said before meals. Rinkart could recognize that our God is faithful, and even when the world looks bleak, He is “bounteous” and is full of blessings, if only we look for them. Blessings as seemingly small as a dinner meal, or as large as the end of a brutal war and unnecessary bloodshed are all reasons to lift up our thanks to God, with our hearts, our hands, and our voices.

The closing voluntary is Sigfrid Karg-Elert's setting of that tune, but the melody is hidden even more than in the piano piece of Callahan's on Jesus Loves Me. I've put up a diagram showing how fragment of the opening line is used as a basis for the main theme of this organ masterpiece.

Music for September 27, 2015 + The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Treasures in Heaven – Joseph W. Clokey (1890-1960)
• O Food to Pilgrims Given – Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)

Instrumental Music

• Sonata IV: I Adagio/Vivace ,BWV 528– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Sonata IV: II. Andante, BWV 528 – J. S. Bach
• Fugue in G, BWV 577 – J. S. Bach 

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

• Hymn R49 Let the whole creation cry (LLANFAIR)
• Hymn 609 Where cross the crowded ways of life (GARDINER)
• Hymn 709 O God of Bethel, by whose hand (DUNDEE)
• Hymn R 248 O let the son of God enfold you (SPIRIT SONG)
• Hymn R 291 Go forth for God; go to the world in peace (TOULON)

Joseph Waddell Clokey

The choir's offertory anthem this Sunday is an old chestnut from the pen of Joseph W. Clokey, an American composer from the first half of the last century. Trained as a mathematician, he also took music and composition lessons, and in 1915 returned to his alma mater, Miami University, not as a member of the math faculty, but as a teacher of organ and music theory. After a tenure at Pomona College in California, Clokey returned to Florida in 1939 as chair of the Fine Arts Department.

Though he wrote symphonies, orchestral suites, operas, and chamber music, it is his sacred music for which he is largely remembered. Treasures in Heaven is probably his best known work, as its elegant simplicity makes it accessible to most church choirs. Like the rest of Clokey's music, it is not ground-breaking nor terribly creative, but it is solid musical writing that is satisfying for a choir to sing. The text isn't bad, either. (It's scripture.)

An interesting side note is that Clokey, a confirmed bachelor, adopted an orphan boy in 1933 who grew up to create the children's television show, The Adventures of Gumby.

J. S. Bach
Look at that posture, those abnormally
high wrists. He should have taken lessons
from a knowledgeable teacher.

I'm playing music by Bach (the Bach, Johann Sebastian, father of all the rest). I will unashamedly say that playing Bach's organ music is almost a spiritual exercise for me.  Learning the notes, working out the fingerings and the pedaling, making the inner voices connect and stand out is actually liberating for my mind, causing me to leave whatever make be troubling me behind and just concentrate on the music. Not only is Bach's music logical, but it is beautiful. That is particularly true for me when I work on his trio sonatas. The sonata of the Baroque period was an instrumental piece in several sections in contrapuntal style. The trio sonata was major chamber-music genre, written in three parts: two top parts played by violins or other high melody instruments, and a basso continuo part played by a cello. For the organist, one person can do all of that, with one hand playing on one keyboard, the other hand on another, and the bass line played on the pedals.

I'm playing the first two movements from Bach's fourth Trio Sonata for Organ. It's in the key of E minor. Listen for the individual parts imitating each other as the melodic material is tossed back and forth between the two hands. It's particularly easy to hear that in the second movement which I'll be playing at communion.

Since I've never learned the third (last) movement of Sonata IV, I'm going to play Bach's Fugue in G for the closing voluntary. Known as the Gigue Fugue for it's bouncy, triple meter, it is hard to sit still, whether listening or playing. There is some discussion by scholars about it's authenticity as an actual work by Bach, because there is no autograph copy, and only one or two originals floating around. My feeling is that only a genius such as Bach could write such a fun piece. I was watching a You-Tube video of a German Organist playing it, and I marveled at the activity that the hands and feet keep up during the performance. Then I thought, "I play this piece?" Perhaps I shouldn't think and just do.

J.S. Bach 'Gigue' Fugue G-Major BWV 577, Matthias Havinga, Organ

Music for September 27, 2015 + St. Michael and All Angels

Vocal Music

• Mass in the Lydian Mode - Richard Webster (b. 1952)
• Abide With Me - Richard Webster

Instrumental Music

• Improvisation on "St. Clement" - Gerre Hancock (1934-2012)
• Improvisation on “Picardy” –Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Hymn-Prelude on “Darwall’s 148th” - Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 618 - Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 282 - Christ, the fair glory of the holy angels (CAELITES PLAUDANT)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (PADERBORN)
• Hymn 324 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)

ON Sunday Afternoon, at 5 PM, Good Shepherd will celebrate the Feast of St. Michael with a choral eucharist. 

The Feast of Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year. As it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days; in England, it is one of the “quarter days”.

There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December)). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes. They were the four dates on which new servants were hired or land was exchanged and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for the beginning of university terms. We use this service to mark the beginning of service for a new class of acolytes at Good Shepherd and the rededication of 81 members of our Acolyte Guild.

St Michael is one of the principal angelic warriors, protector against the dark of the night and the Archangel who fought against Satan and his evil angels. As Michaelmas is the time that the darker nights and colder days begin - the edge into winter - the celebration of Michaelmas is associated with encouraging protection during these dark months. It was believed that negative forces were stronger in darkness and so families would require stronger defences during the later months of the year.

The music for this year's service is written by Richard Webster, Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston. His hymn arrangements for brass, percussion, organ and congregation are heard across the English-speaking world.

A native of Nashville, Mr. Webster studied organ with Peter Fyfe, Karel Paukert and Wolfgang Rübsam. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Great Britain, as Organ Scholar at Chichester Cathedral under the late John Birch.

Richard loves running, and has completed 26 marathons, including eleven Boston Marathons.

Music for September 20, 2015 + The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Cantique de Jean Racine – Gabriel  Fauré (1845-1924)
• Lord, I Trust Thee – George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

Instrumental Music

• Voluntary on “Engleberg”– Robert A Hobby (b. 1962)
• Violin Sonata in F major, HWV 370: I. Adagio – George Frederic Handel (trns. John M. Klein)
• Fanfare and Chorale on “Abbott’s Leigh” – Robert A. Hobby

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

• Hymn 379 God is Love, let heaven adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 660 O Master, let me walk with thee (MARYTON)
• Hymn 390 Praise to the Lord (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 711 Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn 477 All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine (ENGELBERG)

Gabriel Faure,
when he was young.

Two staples of choral music are included in our worship this Sunday. The first is an anthem by the French composer Gabriel Fauré. Best known for his art songs, chamber music, orchestral music, and his Requiem, this choral work was one of his first compositions, written in his final year at the Ecole Niedermeyer in1865. (He was 19 years old!) It used a religious poem by the playwright Jean Racine as its text, and it immediately made him famous as a composer. Its harmonic language is as rich and satisfying as a gateau au chocolat, and as complex as a fine cabernet sauvignon.

Great. Now I am Hungry.

By comparison, the communion anthem, Handel's setting of the 4th stanza of the hymn Deck, Thyself, my Soul, With Gladness (Hymn 339 in our hymnal), is a straight-forward chorale with a more elaborate (but still very reserved) accompaniment. It is taken from Handel's full scale setting of a libretto by Barthold Heinrich Brockes, an influential German poet who wrote Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus (The Story of Jesus, Suffering and Dying for the Sins of the World). It was Brockes re-working of the traditional form of a Passion oratorio, in whichhe added reflective and descriptive poetry. Brockes Passion was well admired among musicians, and Handel's setting, though the best known, was not the only one. Handel's setting featured soloists more than choir, and for the most part, the choral parts were simple settings of hymns such as this.

The closing hymn is F. Bland Tucker's metrical setting of one of the great biblical hymns, Philippians 2:5-11. This is one of the several New Testament creedal statements found throughout the Epistles.

Francis Bland Tucker (1895-1984), was the son of a bishop and brother of a Presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. He himself became a priest after studying at Virginia Theological Seminary. He served parishes in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Christ Church in Savannah, Ga., where the missionary John Wesley was a priest.

Having a keen interest in hymnody, Tucker served on the joint commission that produced the Protestant Episcopal Hymnal 1940 and was a language consultant to this hymnal’s successor, The Hymnal 1982.

It is set to the tune ENGELBERG which Charles V. Stanford  composed as a setting for William W. How's "For All the Saints". The tune was published in the 1904 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern with no less than six different musical settings. It is clearly a fine congregational hymn with an attractive, energetic melody with many ascending motives, designed for unison singing with no pauses between stanzas. 

Music for September 13, 2015 + The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• You Are the Christ, O Lord – Richard Wayne Dirksen (1921-2003)
• Lord, for thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – John Hilton (1565-1708?)

Instrumental Music

• Suite du Premier Ton – Louis-Nicolas Clerambault (1676-1749)
• Basse et Dessus de Trompette on de Cornet séparé, en dialogue
• Récits de Cromorne et de Cornet séparé, en dialogue 
• Sortie – Noel Rawsthorne (b. 1929)

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

• Hymn 427 When morning gilds the skies (LAUDES DOMINI)
• Hymn 675 Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn 707 Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn R 232 There is a Redeemer (GREEN)
• Hymn 522 Glorious things of thee are spoken (AUSTRIA)

Richard Wayne Dirksen at
Washington National Cathedral.

Sunday's offertory is a hymn straight out of our hymnal (hymn 254), but one that is practically unknown by the congregation. I chose it because the text amplifies the opening of the Gospel this Sunday, which is the account of Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. William H. How, the same person who wrote "For all the saints, who from their labors rest," wrote this hymn to commemorate the Confession of St. Peter (January 18). The tune used for the text is by Richard Wayne Dirksen, who was for many years the Organist and Choir Master of Washington National Cathedral. He wrote it in 1982 for use in our hymnal. It's a canon, much like "Row, row, row your boat," in that it can be sung in a round. In fact, we will do that when we repeat the first stanza at the end of the anthem. Dirksen named the tune WYNGATE CANON to honor his son's family, who lived on Wyngate Street in Bethesda, Maryland.

The communion motet is a choir favorite, Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy's Sake. It's a jewel from the English Renaissance period of choral music. Once attributed to Richard Farrant, it now is thought to be by the elder John Hilton. Check out this previous post of mine to read more about this anthem and the mystery of it's composer.

Looking at my organ music, I realize all the titles are in French! (And it's not even close to Bastille Day!) So let me do a little translating to help you understand these strange (to most) words. Louis-Nicolas Clerambault was a French musician, best known as an organist and composer. He made his living and gained fame in France much in the same way and at the time as J. S. Bach in Germany (though without the enduring popularity.) He worked as both a court and church musician, composing a large number of religious motets and hymns, more than 25 secular cantatas, sonatas for violin and basso continuo, a book of dance pieces for the harpsichord, and two suites for organ. It is the first suite that I use for my opening and communion voluntaries. It was the custom at the time for the title to describe the compositional form of the piece. Hence, the opening voluntary (Basse et Dessus de Trompette on de Cornet séparé, en dialogue) is a work featuring the Bass and Soprano of the Trumpet stop and the Cornet stop, separately, in dialogue. A Cornet (pronounced kor-neh) is a compound organ stop, containing multiple ranks of pipes which create a bright tone suggesting the Renaissance brass instrument, the cornett. The quieter communion voluntary (Récits de Cromorne et de Cornet séparé, en dialogue) would be a solo by the Krummhorn (sort of an early oboe) and the Cornet in dialogue with each other. It's been said that melodic charm wins out over religious spirit in Clérambault's organ music.