Music for November 29, 2015 + Advent I

Vocal Music

• Advent Message – Martin How

Instrumental Music

• Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 850 – Johann Sebastian Bach
• I want to walk as a Child of the Light – arr. James Biery
• Fantasy on Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – Marilyn Biery

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

• Hymn 73 - The King shall come when morning dawns (St. Stephen)
• Hymn 615 - “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (St. Flavian)
• Hymn 57 - Lo! he comes with clouds descending (Helmsley)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world, in mercy broken (Rendez à Dieu)
• Hymn 490 - I want to walk as a child of the light (Houston)
• Hymn 56 - O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni, veni, Emmanuel)

This Sunday marks the first Sunday of the church calendar, also known as the First Sunday of Advent. (Liturgy refresher: Advent is the season that occurs four weeks prior to Christmas. It is a time of reflection, waiting and preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. Our liturgical color is blue. During the Middle Ages, when blue was an expensive color to reproduce, purple was often used instead. This is why you still see some churches using purple in Advent. Also, purple was used by churches that followed the Roman rite as opposed to the Sarum Rite. Theologically, however, blue is the proper color for this season, because Blue is the color of the Blessed Virgin, and Advent is all about Mary as we await with her the arrival of the Incarnate God. Blue is the color of hope, expectation, confidence, and anticipation. These are all adjectives which describe the season of Advent.

Music for Thanksgiving, 2015

Instrumental Music

Variations on “The President’s Hymn” – William H. Muhlenberg
Now Thank We All Our God – Charles Callahan
Now Thank We All Our God – Jacob B. Weber

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

• Hymn 290 - Come, ye thankful people, come (St. George’s Windsor)
• Hymn 288 - Praise to God, immortal praise (Dix)       
• Hymn 433 - We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing (Kremser)   
• Hymn R266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (Give Thanks)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (Nun danket Alle Gott)

Thanksgiving in the United States has been observed on various dates throughout history. From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date Thanksgiving was observed varied from state to state. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a presidential proclamation stating Thanksgiving to be the final Thursday in November in an attempt to foster a sense of American unity between the Northern and Southern states. Inspired by this, Episcopal priest William Augustus Muhlenberg wrote a hymn for the occasion with the text

Give thanks all ye people, give thanks to the Lord,
Alleluias of freedom with joyful accord;
Let the East and the West, North and South roll along,
Sea and mountain and prairie, one thanksgiving song.

According to a letter to the editor of The New York Times, he asked President Lincoln permission to call it "The President's Hymn," which became its official title.

It is variations of that hymn tune by Muhlenberg that we use as an opening voluntary tonight. The hymn is introduced in a simple setting with full organ, then three variations of that hymn are played. The third variation imitates the sound of fife and drum while the melody is being played, and the last variation includes The Star Spangled Banner, played on the pedals of the organ while the hymn is played on the manuals.

Appearing in over 560 hymnals, Now Thank We All Our God is the quintessential Thanksgiving hymn. The text was written by Martin Rinkart, a minister in the city of Eilenburg during the Thirty Years War. Apart from battles, lives were lost in great number during this time due to illnesses and disease spreading quickly throughout impoverished cities. In the Epidemic of 1637, Rinkart officiated at over four thousand funerals, sometimes fifty per day. In the midst of these horrors, it’s difficult to imagine maintaining faith and praising God, and yet, that’s exactly what Rinkart did. Sometime in the next twenty years, he wrote the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” originally meant to be a prayer said before meals. Rinkart could recognize that our God is faithful, and even when the world looks bleak, He is “bounteous” and is full of blessings, if only we look for them. Blessings as seemingly small as a dinner meal, or as large as the end of a brutal war and unnecessary bloodshed are all reasons to lift up our thanks to God, with our hearts, our hands, and our voices. (from www.hymnary.org)

Music for November 22, 2015 + Christ the King Sunday + The Last Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Sing We Merrily Unto God Our Strength – Sidney Campbell (1909-1974)
• O Bone Jesu – attr. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (16th C.)/probably by Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (1547-1592)

Instrumental Music

• Come, Ye Thankful People, Come – Ron Boud/Don Hustad (20th C.)
• Prelude on Picardy – Sondra Tucker (21st C.)
• Suite Gothique: IV. Tocatta – Léon Boëllmann (19th C.)

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

• Hymn 494    Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Hymn 488    Be thou my vision (Slane)
• Hymn 544    Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (Duke Street)
• Hymn 324    Let all mortal flesh keep silence (Picardy)
• Hymn 598    Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (Mit Freuden zart)

Today we have two widely different anthems for the last Sunday of the Christian year, Christ the King Sunday, officially known as the last Sunday after Pentecost. The offertory anthem is a mid-century piece by the British composer Sidney Campbell. Campbell was organist and master of the choristers at Canterbury Cathedral when he wrote this piece in 1960 just before going to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, where he remained until his death. This anthem features an independent organ accompaniment with much syncopation and a driving rhythm which supports the rather athletic choral part. Several words are set to long melismas (several notes to one syllable), such as God, noise, and merrily.

The second anthem is an Italian renaissance motet O Bone Jesus. This hauntingly simple setting  has often been attributed to Palestrina but is now generally recognized to have been the work of Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. He was close friends with Pope Gregory XIV, who was intimately involved with the reforms of the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent, and this influence is present in his music, which usually shows the simplification and clarity of the Palestrina style. His masses are simple, short, and relatively homophonic, often outdoing Palestrina for clarity and simplicity.

The opening voluntary is out of the ordinary for us Anglicans. One of our church members, Jill Kirkonis, retired this past year as organist from First Baptist Church of Porter after a long association with the church. She's since played for us here at Good Shepherd, and she brought an arrangement of the hymn Come, Ye Thankful People, Come to my attention. It was arranged for organ and piano by Don Hustad and Ron Boud. Don Hustad was the long-time organist for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team, and Ron joined him at the piano in later years. In the small-world category, Ron Boud ended his full-time career as organ professor at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, the Baptist School in the same town as Lambuth College, where I got my undergraduate degree. His last church job before retirement was at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, where I had my first church job after leaving SMU.

To further the small world/West Tennessee connection, the Communion Voluntary is a setting of the familiar hymn, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence for organ and handbells by my friend Sondra Tucker, who now serves as organist at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church in Collierville, TN. Holy Apostles is the church I served before moving to Kingwood.

Music for November 15, 2015 + The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost + The Kirking of the Tartans

Vocal Music

• Arise, My Soul, Arise – Dale Wood (1934-2003)
• Day by Day – Martin How (b. 1931)

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral – James D. Wetherald, arr., Stanley Fontinot, piper
• The Saints Delight – Dale Wood

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

• Hymn 51 - We the Lord’s people, heart and voice uniting (Decatur Place)
• Hymn 282 - Christ, the fair glory of the holy angels (Caelites plaudant)
• Hymn 665 - All my hope on God is founded (Michael)
• Hymn 571 - All who love and serve your city (Charleston)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (New Britain)
• Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (Shine Jesus Shine)

This Sunday is our annual "Kirking of the Tartans" service at Good Shepherd, a Sunday where we honor our Scottish heritage. (If you really get into history, you can read more about our annual tradition, as well as the beginnings of "Kirking" here.) As usual, we will have a piper here to play Highland Cathedral and Amazing Grace on the bagpipe.

Highland Cathedral is a popular melody for the great highland bagpipe, so it might surprise you that the melody was composed by German musicians Ulrich Roever and Michael Korb in 1982 for a Highland games held in Germany! It has become so popular in such a relatively short time that it has been proposed as the Scottish national anthem to replace unofficial anthems Scotland the Brave and/or Flower of Scotland.

The offertory anthem is by the renowned composer, organist, and choral director Dale Wood, who was best known for his church music compositions.  Wood's career as a composer was launched at the age of 13 when he became the winner of a national hymn-writing competition for the American Lutheran Church. His first choral anthem was accepted for publication one year later.

Dale Wood at his home, October 2002.
Photo courtesy Ivan de la Garza.

Wood has served as organist and choirmaster for Lutheran and Episcopal churches in Hollywood, Riverside, and San Francisco, California. Hymns and canticles composed by Dale Wood are found in every major hymnal except ours!

Wood's musical activities have not been limited to sacred music. While still a college student, he entertained as organist at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and appeared on television shows produced in Hollywood. In 1975, he was employed by the Royal Viking Line to entertain passengers on a 70-day cruise of the South Pacific and Orient.

Wood used the Finnish folk tune NYT YLÖS, SIELUNI as the basis for the anthem "Arise, My Soul, Arise," with text by Swedish writer Johan Kahl. The anthem was written in 1976 based on a Finnish folk tune. The sturdy tune is first sung in unison before being sung in canon on the second stanza. Wood's creative compositional style is evident in the accompaniment of this verse, which at first seems unrelated to the melodic material the choir sings, but up closer examination you realize that it is actually the original tune, but in augmentation, a compositional device where a melody is presented in longer note-values than were previously used. During the third line of that stanza, the whole choir sings the tune in augmentation, without accompaniment. The third stanza returns to the original rhythm and feel with an abrupt but strong ending.

The Good Shepherd Choir is joined by the St. Gregory Choir at the communion anthem, Day by Day, using a prayer ascribed to the 13th-century English bishop Saint Richard of Chichester as its text. The music was composed by Martin How, a British composer and organist. (He is the son of the late Most Revd J C H How, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church - another Scottish connection!)

Martin How

Born in Liverpool, where his father was Rector of St Nicholas Church. The family then moved to Brighton, where Martin's father was Vicar at St Peters Parish Church. The family then moved to Glasgow just before the second world war, and Martin spend most of his childhood there.

Trained in music at Repton School and Clare College, Cambridge, he was in the Army for two years before taking a post as Organist and Choirmaster at Grimsby Parish Church in Lincolnshire. But it was at the Royal School of Church Music where How spent most of his career, principally as a choir trainer specializing in the training and motivation of young singers. In this capacity he initiated and developed the RSCM Chorister Training Scheme which has since been used in various forms in many parts of the world. 

Has traveled widely as a choral conductor, accompanist, lecturer and adjudicator. In this capacity he has worked in the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Appointed MBE for 'Services to Church Music' in the 1993 New Year Honors List.

Music for November 8, 2015 + The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lord, Make Us Servants (hymn 593)– Lee Hastings Bristol (1923-1979)

Instrumental Music

• Processional Celebration – Anna Laura Page (b. 1943)
• What a Friend We Have in Jesus – Linda R. Lamb (b. 1947?)
• Festival Piece – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)

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

• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (Nettleton)
• Hymn 429 - I’ll praise my maker while I’ve breath (Old 113th)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (Hollingside)
• Hymn R172 - In my life, Lord, be glorified (Lord, be glorified)
• Hymn 705 - As those of old their first fruits brought (Forest Green)

This Sunday we feature our Good Shepherd Handbell Choir in two works. The opening voluntary is an original composition by Anna Laura Page. Active as a composer, clinician and organist, she served on the Music Committee of the Southern Baptist 1991 Hymnal Committee and has received the ASCAP Standards Award for the past several years. She has taught organ as an adjunct faculty member at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and theory/organ as an adjunct faculty member at Lander University in Greenwood, South Carolina. She served as director of the Austin Peay Community Children's Chorus in Clarksville, Tennessee for three years. She is married to Dr. Oscar C. Page, President of Austin College in Sherman, Texas.

Processional Celebration was written in two parts - the first section is written with 4 lines of music. Each one enters after the preceding line is played once. It was designed to be played in procession from memory - which is why we are playing it

The communion voluntary is a setting of the old hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" by Linda R. Lamb. Lamb has been involved with handbells since 1992, as director, composer, and sometime ringer. She is the handbell director at Lexington Park Baptist Church, Lexington Park, Maryland, where she directs one adult choir and one youth quartet. She graduated from Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, with a B. A. in sociology, and from Concordia University in Wisconsin with a Master of Church Music (emphasis in handbells).

This arrangement makes use of both our set of English Handbells and our smaller set of choir chimes, which Lamb uses on the second verse to highlight the melody.

The offertory anthem is a hymn setting of a poetic rendering of the famous Prayer of St. Francis by Lee Hasting Bristol. Though Bristol was studied music at Ham­il­ton Col­lege, Clin­ton, New York (BA); Trin­i­ty Col­lege of Mu­sic, Lon­don (or­gan stu­dies); and the In­sti­tute for In­ter­na­tion­al Stu­dies, Ge­ne­va, Switz­er­land (grad­u­ate stu­dies), he worked in New York for the Bris­tol-Me­yers Com­pa­ny (the fam­i­ly bus­i­ness) in ad­ver­tis­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions from 1948-62. From 1962-69, however, he served as pre­si­dent of West­min­ster Choir Col­lege, Prince­ton, New Jer­sey. In 1972, the Hymn So­ci­e­ty in the Unit­ed States and Ca­na­da made him a fel­low of the so­ci­e­ty.