Music for August 23, 2016 + The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• All Who Hunger Gather Gladly – attr. to William Moore, 1825, Margie VanBrackle, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Tranquillo, ma con moto – Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
• Choral Dorian – Jehan Alain (1911-1940)
• Allegro impetuoso – Herbert Howells

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

• Hymn R250 How great thou art (O STOR GUD)
• Hymn 671 Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 324 Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn 562 Onward, Christian soldiers (ST. GERTRUDE)\

More Bread? Yes, please! This Sunday we hear the last of the Gospel of John's Bread passage, and in response, Margie VanBrackle will accompany herself on guitar as she sings Sylvia Dunstan's beautiful Eucharistic hymn, All Who Hunger, which draws on the 6th chapter of John as well as other scripture for its inspiration.

All who hunger, gather gladly;

holy manna is our bread.

Come from wilderness and wandering.

Here, in truth, we will be fed.

You that yearn for days of fullness,

all around us is our food.

Taste and see the grace eternal.

Taste and see that God is good.

All who hunger, never strangers;

seeker, be a welcome guest.

Come from restlessness and roaming.

Here, in joy, we keep the feast.

We that once were lost and scattered

in communion’s love have stood.

Taste and see the grace eternal.

Taste and see that God is good.

All who hunger, sing together;

Jesus Christ is living bread.

Come from loneliness and longing.

Here, in peace, we have been led.

Blest are those who from this table

live their lives in gratitude.

Taste and see the grace eternal.

Taste and see that God is good.

- Sylvia G. Dunstan, © 1991, GIA Publications, Inc.

The tune is an American tune from Columbian Harmony, 1825, a shaped-note hymnal compiled by William Moore, who is suspected to have written the tune. When Sylvia Dunstan, a United Church of Canada minister,  attended the Hymn Society of America's annual convocation in South Carolina in 1990, she was introduced to this melody, and later worked the text out in her head while strolling up and down the South Carolina coastline. 

The organ music is all 20th century organ works, with two little-known works by Herbert Howells book-ending the service. Howells was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.  He showed a keen interest in composition early in his life and, at the age of eighteen, began studying with the organist of Gloucester Cathedral. At twenty he received a scholarship to the Royal College of Music and studied under Charles Villiers Stanford, Walter Parratt, Charles Wood and Hubert Parry.

His focus on sacred music began with the Hymus Paradisi (1938) and continued into the 1940s with a series of compositions setting Mass texts and Canticles, most notably the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from the Anglican Evensong service. The two organ works I'm playing today are from a posthumously published set of six small works for organ. He had begun work on these before his death, and students pieced together his notes and sketches to come up with these finished works. The opening voluntary title means "peacefully, but with motion."

The communion voluntary is a quiet piece by the short-lived French composer Jehan Alain, whose bright star on the organ-world's horizon was tragically cut short by the German offensive of May 1940. Alain took part in the struggle, displaying exceptional bravery and confidence, but neither faith nor music could help him. He was killed by enemy fire on 20 May 1940.

This Sunday's hymns includes 3 from our continuing review of the top 17 hymns chosen by the congregation this past June. There is no middle ground about these three hymns; you either love them or hate them. One parishoner told me she was going to the 5 PM service this Sunday so she would not have to sing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The militaristic tenor of this text causes many sincere, dedicated, peace-loving Christians to cringe. Tom Long, an ordained Presbyterian Minister who was on the faculty of Emory University's Candler School of Theology wrote an interesting article which shows both sides of this coin: I will not quote it, but give you the link so that you can read the entire inspiring article and the comments which follow. (I avoid reading comments on web pages. They often just give me heart-burn. These, however, are thought provoking.)