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.