Music for February 14, 2016 + Lent I

Vocal Music

• Jesu, Grant Me This I Pray – C. H. Kitson (1874-1944)
• God be in my Head – John Rutter (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, All My Gladness – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Psalm 91:9-15 – Tone II.a
• Hymn 529 - In Christ there is no East or West (McKee)
• Hymn 150 - Forty days and forty nights (Aus der Tiefe rufe ich)
• Hymn R112 - You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord (On Eagles Wings)
• Hymn 559 - Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us (Dulce Carmen)

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when our liturgical actions change to reflect the meaning and purpose of Lent. This means the music changes, too. A time of penitence and quiet reflection cannot embrace music that jumps for joy and is all “happy-clappy!” The organ becomes quieter (or drops out altogether, such as the closing voluntary, which we omit during Lent), the service music changes to include a Kyrie (Lord, Have Mercy) and Agnus Dei (Jesus, Lamb of God.) And on the first Sunday of Lent, we'll dispense with the opening voluntary and hymn, and begin the service singing The Great Litany, an intercessory prayer of various petitions that are sung by the priest, with fixed responses by the congregation. It is sung in procession, and because we take a longer, circuitous route through the nave to give us time to sing the entire thing, it is often called "The Holy Pretzel."

Later in the service the choirs will sing a setting of a Lenten hymn by English poet and priest, Sir Henry W. Baker. Baker may be best known to us as the writer of the hymn setting of Psalm 23, "The King of Love my Shepherd Is," and "Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven," as well as his translation of "O Sacred Head, Once Wounded." He was editor of the premier English hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1859.

C. H. Kitson combined Baker's hymn, Jesu, Grant me this I pray, with Orlando Gibbons' Song 13 to create a calm litany in today's anthem. It is simply set, with stanza one and three sung in a unison setting, and stanza four, the final stanza, presented as a simple, a capella hymn. The second stanza is the most intricate, with the lower three voice parts (alto, tenor, and bass) singing a flowing accompaniment in 12/8 time while the trebles sing the Gibbons melody.

Charles Herbert Kitson was an English organist and teacher, author of several books on harmony and counterpoint. He was better known as a educator than as a composer. He was born in Yorkshire, and attended school in Ripon. Intending originally to take holy orders, he took his BA and MA  at Cambridge, where he was also the organ scholar of Selwyn College. Between those dates, he also took the BMus and DMus degrees at Oxford.

His first important post was as organist at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, in 1913 – a post which he combined with the post of Professor of Theory at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. In 1920, he resigned both posts and returned to England, settling in London, where he joined the staff of the Royal College of Music.

a contemporary reconstruction of Bach's face based
on research of Scottish forensic experts.

During communion I am playing two short organ settings of the chorale, Jesu, Meine Freude, as written by the great Johann Sebastian Bach. Unlike his other great organ chorales, these short pieces are very simply set. The first one, BWV 1105, is from a relatively recent discovery (or re-discovery) of 31 of Bach's organ chorales in The Neumeister Collection,  a compilation of chorale preludes for organ assembled by Johann Gottfried Neumeister sometime after 1790. This handwritten manuscript included 31 compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1090–1120) that were uncatalogued until scholars rediscovered the manuscript in the 1980s. It has been suggested that the collection may have been copied from a single source, possibly a Bach family album put together in J.S. Bach's early years.  Some time after 1807 the manuscript passed to Christian Heinrich Rinck, whose library was bought by Lowell Mason in 1852. After Mason's death in 1873, his collection was acquired by Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut,  where it was rediscovered "early in 1984" by musicologists.

The other setting, BWV 753, is from an unfinished arrangement which has been completed by Charles Callahan. It is for hands alone (no feet)