Music for April 26, 2015 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947) 

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Brother James’s Air” – Searle Wright (1918-2004) 
• Cantabile - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) 
• Allegro in D Minor – C. V. Stanford (1852-1924) 

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

• Hymn 518 Christ is made the sure foundation (Westminster Abbey)
• Hymn R-139 Halle, Halle, Hallelujah (Halle Halle)
• Hymn 304 I come with joy to meet my Lord (Land of Rest)
• Hymn 296 We know that Christ is raised and dies no more (Engleberg)

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is called the Good Shepherd Sunday, because of the scripture readings (John 10:11 - “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep") and the use of the 23rd Psalm, so it is the closest thing our congregation has to a Patronal Feast Day. For this Sunday the choir is repeating an anthem we sang last Fall by another friend of mine, William Bradley (Bill) Roberts. I encourage you to look at this earlier post to read about him and this piece. The only difference is that this time around, Matt Hawley is playing the flute part.

M. Searle Wright

In keeping with the Good Shepherd theme, I am opening the service with Searle Wright's setting of the tune BROTHER JAMES' AIR, which is most often used for the text, "The Lord's my shepherd." It was composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain, a Scottish healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James. This well-loved tune is in bar form (AAB) with an unusual final phrase that ends on a high tonic note instead of a low note.

Wright has arranged this folk-like melody in three stanzas. For the first stanza he uses manuals only, with the melody in the soprano. The string stops on the organ are used. For the next stanza, he keeps the strings for the accompaniment, but puts the melody in the pedal on the English Horn. After a developmental section that goes through several minor keys before coming back to A Major, he presents the tune very much like the beginning, adding the bass notes in the pedal for the first A section of the tune, then putting the cantus firmus (the melody)in the tenor ranger with the crommorne for last half of the stanza.

M. Searle Wright was a composer, teacher and master of both classic and theater pipe organ. He died in his hometown of  Binghamton, N.Y. when he was 86.

The closing voluntary is Charles Villiers Stanford's Allegro in D minor, an energetic piece in 6/4 time, but with a general feel of two strong pulses to the bar. It is in a three part, ABA1 form, with three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. The exposition itself is in three parts, an aba form, with the b section using a new theme. That theme forms the basis of the second main section, the development section, which is now in D MAJOR. The final section, which is a recapitulation of the first section, switches between minor and major, before ending in that bright key of D Major.

Hymns

• Christ is made the sure foundation (WESTMINSTER ABBEY) This crowd-pleaser (for a crowd of Episcopalians) is set to a hymn tune adapted from Henry Purcell's choir anthem ‘O God, Thou are my God’. It was adapted as a hymn tune in 1842 by Ernest Hawkins, a Canon of Westminster Abbey where Purcell had been organist. It did not become popular however until it was sung at Princess Margaret’s wedding in the Abbey in 1960.
• Halle, Halle, Halle (Caribbean) 'Alleluia' (Hallelujah)  is a Hebrew word which means 'Praise the Lord'. 'Alleluias' may be sung at many times of the year but are traditionally not sung during the penitential season of Lent. 'Alleluia' is often sung before the Gospel reading in a communion service to show its importance. This lively setting of the Alleluia is from the Caribbean.
• I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST) Brian A. Wren wrote this communion hymn to summarize a series of sermons on the meaning of the Lord's Supper, specifically as a post-sermon hymn to help illustrate the presence of Christ in the sacrament. He states that he wanted to express this "as simply as possible, in a way that would take the worshipper (probably without . . . recognizing it) from the usual individualistic approach to communion ('I come') to an understanding of its essential corporateness ('we'll go')."
• We know that Christ is raised and dies no more (ENGLEBERG) This hymn was written in 1967, when John B, Geyer was tutor at Cheshunt College, Cambridge.  At that time a good deal of work was going on in Cambridge producing living cells ("the baby in the test tube"). The hymn attempted to illustrate the Christian doctrine of baptism in relation to those experiments. You'll recognize the tune as the same tune for "When In Our Music God Is Glorified," though it was written for "For All the Saints"!

Music for April 19, 2015 + The Third Sunday of Easter

Music Appreciation Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hymn of Promise – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)
• Sing to the Lord – Ken Medema (b. 1943)

Instrumental Music

• Christians, We Have Met to Worship – arr. Sondra Tucker
• Beside Quiet Waters – Dan R. Edwards
• Choral Song - S.S.Wesley

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

• Hymn 492 Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 440 Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 295 Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn R 202 Sing alleluia to the Lord (SING ALLELUIA)
• Hymn 182 Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO)

This Sunday, the church is honoring the music ministry of Good Shepherd with a Music Appreciation Day. It is humbling to be honored in such a way for the work that we do, week by week, to glorify our God and King. For this weekend, I have the St. Gregory Choir and the Good Shepherd Handbell Guild joining the Good Shepherd Choir in the music for Sunday. The St. Gregory Choir will sing an anthem of praise by Ken Medema, the composer of our Spring Music, The Story-Tellin' Man II, which we will present on May 10. Then the Good Shepherd Choir will join them in one of the kid's favorite anthems, Hymn of Promise, by Natalie Sleeth.

Ken Medema is a singer/pianist who has published many works for choirs, soloists, and pianists. Born nearly blind, he began playing the piano when he was five years old, and three years later began taking lessons in classical music through braille music, playing by ear and improvising in different styles. Through his work as a music therapist, he started writing songs while at Essex County Hospital. "I had a bunch of teenagers who were really hurting," he says, "and I started writing songs about their lives. Then I thought, 'Why don't you start writing songs about your Christian life?' So I started doing that, and people really responded."

In his anthem Sing to the Lord, you'll hear the main theme presented in a pop-rock style, before going to a new theme (the B section). He returns to the first theme (A section), and when it is sung, you are introduced to more musical material in the C section of the piece. The entire anthem ends with one more visit to the A section before ending with a coda, the last line of music sung three times. The text for the anthem is a compilation of familiar verses from several psalms.

The anthem Hymn of Promise, a favorite of our choir, was first conceived as an anthem in 1985 for a festival concert on Natalie Sleeth's music at the Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg, Florida. Since then, it has been included in at least 17 hymnals, with the number growing each year.

Sleeth was as native of Evanston, Illinois. She began piano study at the age of four and gained much of her musical experience by singing in choral ensembles during her earlier years. Studying music theory, piano, and organ at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she received her B.A. in 1952.

Married to Ronald E. Sleeth, a United Methodist clergyman and professor of homiletics at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas in the late 60s and 70s, she served as music secretary at Highland Park United Methodist Church from 1969-1976. During this time, she studied music theory with Jane Marshall and audited a course in choral arranging taught by Lloyd Pfautsch at SMU. Her choral works for all ages number more than 200.

Sleeth had the ability to compose both texts and music. Hymn of Promise was written at a time when the author states that she was "pondering the ideas of life, death, spring and winter, Good Friday and Easter, and the whole reawakening of the world that happens every spring." Inspired by a T.S. Eliot line, the germ of the hymn grew from the idea "in our end is our beginning," the phase that begins the third stanza of the hymn.

While it carries the promise of spring and the hope of Easter in its beautiful metaphors, it is a very appropriate hymn for funeral and memorial services. Shortly after its composition, the composer’s husband was diagnosed with what turned out to be a terminal malignancy. Ronald Sleeth requested that Hymn of Promise be sung at his funeral service.

Michael C. Hawn, distinguished professor of church music at Perkins School of Theology, writes,

A wonderful child-like simplicity permeates "Hymn of Promise." Natalie Sleeth had a gift for composing texts on complex theological ideas that were still accessible to children. Her melodies seemed totally natural and therefore effortless for people to learn. "Hymn of Promise" is one of the most memorable hymns written by an American United Methodist in the last part of the twentieth century, and it promises to be sung for many years to come.

The Good Shepherd Handbell Choir will end it's choir season by playing two distinctly different pieces by two American composers. My friend Sondra Tucker has written an energetic piece for bells and percussion combining two Early American hymn-tunes, HOLY MANNA (Christians, We Have Met to Worship) and FOUNDATION (How Firm a Foundation). After a brief introduction you hear HOLY MANNA , then FOUNDATION as the drum drops out and the music becomes less rhythmic and more flowing. When the opening motif returns along with the drum, the two tunes are combined and played together. It's what the youth call a "mash-up."

• Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN) Though it first appeared in 1870 and was included in several hymnals of the time, our hymnal is the only major contemporary book that includes it. The tune was written in 1975 by Christopher Dearnley, an English organist, who served in Salisbury Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral.
• Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU) In this hymn, we acknowledge our need for the illumination of the Holy Spirit to fully understand God’s message to us. We also recognize and claim the promise of Christ concerning this help: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26 ESV).
• Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN) Set to a tune from the 1500s, this hymn was written by Omer Westendorf, one of the leading Roman Catholic hymn writers since Vatican II. Born in 1916, Omer first got interested in church music after World War II, when he discovered the new Mass settings in Holland.
• Sing alleluia to the Lord (SING ALLELUIA) Immensely popular, this praise chorus has been included in hundreds of songbooks, both in North America and in other continents. Linda L. Stassen-Benjamin originally composed it rather instantaneously (while she was in the shower!) in June 1974. Following oral tradition, the Renew Hymnal joins Stassen's stanza with four other stanzas derived from early Christian liturgies and the "Easter Canticle," which quotes from 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 and 15:20-22.  
• Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO) Brian A. Wren wrote the hymn during April of 1968. It was written for Easter Sunday, two weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Wren wrote: "I could not let Easter go by without speaking of this tragic event which was on all our minds. . . . The hymn tries to see God's love winning over tragedy and suffering in the world. . . . There is tension and tragedy in these words, not just Easter rejoicing."

Music for April 12, 2015 + The Second Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Come, Ye Faithful – R. S. Thatcher (1888-1957)

Instrumental Music

• Organ Concerto in F Major, Op.4 No.5: IV. Presto (Gigue) - G. F. Handel (1685-1759)
• Rejoice, Beloved Christians - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

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

• Hymn 193 That Easter day with joy was bright (PUER NOBIS)
• Hymn R 61 Lift Your Heart to the Lord (SALVE FESTA DIES)
• Hymn 490 I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn 178 Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks (ALLELUIA NO. 1)
• Hymn 325 Let us break bread together (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn R-91 Open our eyes, Lord (OPEN OUR EYES)
• Hymn R-306 We are marching in the light of the Lord (SIYAHAMBA)

Easter wore us (the musicians and choirs) OUT! So, in what is something of a tradition, the choir and organist will repeat some of the music from the Easter Vigil for Low Sunday (the Sunday after Easter).

The anthem is by R. S. Thatcher, who ended a career in music as the Principal (Head) of the Royal Academy of Music in London (1949-1955). At one time he had been Organist and Choir Master at Worchester College, Oxford. This is a splendid hymn anthem in three verses. The entire choir sings stanza one in unison. Sopranos sing stanza two and Tenors and Basses sing stanza three while all four voices join on the Alleluias in harmony. This is a perennial favorite of the choir, as we sing it every two years for Easter.

Caricature of Handel playing a chamber organ -
Joseph Goupy, 1754

Handel wrote twelve organ concertos for chamber organ and orchestra in two different sets. Written as interludes in performances of oratorios in Covent Garden, they were the first works of their kind for this combination of instruments and served as a model for later composers.

His first set, Opus 4., contained TWO concertos in the key of F Major. Today I am playing a solo organ arrangement of the final movement of the second of the two, Opus 4, Number 5. It is a lively, bright piece in the style of Gigue, or Jig, in 12/8 time. I employ the full organ for the parts played by the orchestra, and only one division of the organ for the solo portions.





Lots of hymns to sing this Sunday, from traditional high church to contemporary praise choruses.

• That Easter day with joy was bright (PUER NOBIS) - This hymn, attributed to St. Ambrose, was translated in 1852 by J. M. Neale. Its tune is used three times in our hymnal for Christmas, Epiphany, and this Easter text.
• Lift Your Heart to the Lord (SALVE FESTA DIES) - This 1982 hymn by Englishman John Bowers is set to a 1906 tune by Ralph Vaughan Williams, which is in our hymnal as Hail Thee, Festival Day. Bowers also wrote hymn 51 in The Hymnal 1982.
• I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON) - Katheen Thomerson wrote both the text and tune for this popular hymn while in Houston for a visit at Church of the Redeemer in 1966, hence the tune's name.
• Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks (ALLELUIA NO. 1) - Donald Fishel wrote this in 1972 as a response to Vatican II's encouragement of a more folk style in music. He was music director for a charismatic part of the Roman church, and he wrote it in about one hour.
• Let us break bread together (LET US BREAK BREAD) - This spiritual comes from the West African slave culture that developed in the coastal areas of South-Eastern America. It has strong Episcopal ties, as the slaves would attend church with their owners, taking communion while kneeling. We sing this in honor of First Communion Class.
• Open our eyes, Lord (OPEN OUR EYES) - The Apostle Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put ... my hand in his side, I will not believe.” So we will sing "...we want to see Jesus, To reach out and touch Him..."
• We are marching in the light of the Lord (SIYAHAMBA) - We end this service of the resurrection with a spirited song of going out.

Music for the Easter Weekend, 2015

April 2 + Maundy Thursday

Vocal Music

• Ubi Caritas – Ola Gjielo (b. 1978)
• Ave Verum Corpus - W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
• Go to Dark Gethsemane - T. Tertius Noble (1867-1953)
• Psalm 22 – Tone IVe

Instrumental Music

• Ubi Caritas– Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Ubi Caritas - Michael Larkin (b. 1951)

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

• Hymn 479 Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn 602 Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn R 148 Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn 313 Let thy blood in mercy poured (JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT)

April 3 + Good Friday

Vocal Music

• Were You There? - Spiritual

Instrumental Music

• Ah, Holy Jesus– Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• O sacred head, sore wounded– Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 158 Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended? (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 166 Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle (PANGE LINGUA)
• Renew Hymn 214:      Your only Son, no sin to hide (LAMB OF GOD)          

April 4 + Easter Vigil

Vocal Music

• Hallelujah - music by Leonard Cohen (b. 1934), Lyrics by Kelley Mooney
• Lord of the Dance – Sydney Carter (1915-2004)
• Come, Ye Faithful – R. S. Thatcher (1888-1957)

Instrumental Music

• That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright – Rudy Davenport
• At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing – Rudy Davenport
• Good Christian all, rejoice and sing – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

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

• Hymn 8 - Morning has broken (BUNESSAN)
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s land (GO DOWN, MOSES)
• Hymn Renew 122 - Canticle 9: The First Song of Isaiah (Jack Noble White)
• Hymn 180 - He is risen, he is risen! (UNSER HERRSCHER)
• Hymn 187 - Through the Red Sea brought at last (STRAF MICH NICHT)

April 5 + Easter

Vocal Music

• Five Mystical Songs: No. 1. Easter – Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sean Elgin, baritone
• A Repeating Alleluia– Calvin Hampton
• Meine Seele Hört Im Sehen – G. F. Handel, Allison Gosney, soprano; Brittany Quinones, flute.

Instrumental Music

• A Joyful Ring – Barbara B. Kinyon
• First Symphony: Final – Louis Vierne

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

• Hymn 179 - “Welcome, happy morning!” (FORTUNATUS)
• Hymn 207  - Jesus Christ is risen today (EASTER HYMN)
• Hymn 296 - We know that Christ is raised and dies no more (ENGLEBERG)   
• Hymn 205 - Now the green blade riseth (NOËL NOUVELET)
• Hymn 210 - The day of resurrection (ELLACOMBE)
• Psalm 118:1-2,14-24 - setting by Thomas Pavlechko