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.