Music for February 22, 2015 + The First Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Lead Me, Lord – Samuel S. Wesley (1810-1876)

Instrumental Music

• Prélude au Kyrie – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 150 Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH)
• Hymn 693 Just as I am, without one plea (WOODWORTH)
• Hymn 142 Lord, who throughout these forty days (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 143, st. 5 O Father, Son, and Spirit blest (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Psalm 25:1-9 TONE II

Lead Me, Lord, is actually a part of a longer anthem by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Praise the Lord, O My Soul, written in 1861. Wesley was the grandson of hymn-writer Charles Wesley, and the son of Samuel Wesley, another English musician, but it was Samuel Sebastian (named after Johann Sebastian Bach) that became the famous as one of his country's leading organists and choirmasters. He composed almost exclusively for the Church of England, writing some exquisite music, including the hymn-tune AURELIA (The Church's One Foundation). 

Jean Langlais. You can tell
he's French. Look at that beret!

At communion we hear the opening movement from a collection of organ music by French organist Jean Langlais, written as a homage to the 17th century Italian organist, Girolamo Frescobaldi. It features the melody of the Kyrie from the Gregorian Mass IV - Cunctipotens Genitor Deus  played on a flute stop in the pedal, but only after a lengthy, improvisatory section in the manuals that demonstrates Langlais's ideal of mysticism. The slow tempo and long sustained chromatic chords draw the listener into a state of contemplation through the suspension of time. 

Langlais, like a number of organists, was blind, but he easily managed the manifold aspects of the organ without his sight.  As usually happens with the blind, his other sense made up for what he lacked.  By the sheer sound of a student’s playing, he could tell what fingering he was using.  In one famous story, Langlais was giving a lesson and told the student to use the third finger on a particular note.  The student ignored him, figuring that he’d never know.  “You are so stupid," Langlais exclaimed after failing to get through to him.  “The third finger!  Use the third finger!”   

As is my custom during Lent, I omit playing a festive closing voluntary, opting instead to let the Lenten worshiper leave the church in contemplative silence.

• Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH) - George Smyttan based this hymn on the Gospel reading for today, Mark 1:12-13, dealing with Christ's temptation in the desert, but seemingly it is concerned chiefly with the physical setting rather than the inner spiritual struggles which are more clearly delineated in the other Gospels. It is a great hymn for the first Sunday in Lent (but not of Lent! Sundays don't count!)
• Just as I am, without one plea (WOODWORTH) - "Every head bowed, and every eye closed!" If you ever went to a revival meeting in the South (or even just a regular service in the Southern Baptist Church), you've sung this hymn while the minister pleaded for the wayward sinner to come to the altar and give their life to Christ. The hymn was written by Charlotte Elliott, an invalid daughter of a minister, in 1836, and has since be included in almost every hymnal in the English speaking world, and translated in almost every major lanquage.
• Lord, who throughout these forty days (ST. FLAVIAN) - As a result of her life-long interest in religious education, Claudia Hernaman wrote 150 hymns for children. This one attempts to explain the deeper meaning of the forty days of Lent - fasting, praying, tempatations, and penitence which point to the joys of Easter which follow the penitential season.
• O Father, Son, and Spirit blest (ERHALT UNS, HERR) - Our presentation hymn is the last stanza of the Lenten hymn The glory of these forty days. Since the last stanza is doxological in nature (praising God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), it is a good choice for this spot in the service. The tune is the same tune that was used as the presentation hymn for the Sundays after Epiphany, though in its original rhythmic form. The Lenten version of the tune is a harmonization by J. S. Bach.