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