Music for April 3, 2016 + The Second Sunday after Easter

Vocal Music

• Most Glorious Lord of Life – W. H. Harris (1883-1973)
• Ave Verum Corpus - Camille Saint-Saens

Instrumental Music

• O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing – Wilbur Held (1914-2015)
• Rejoice, beloved Christians, BWV 755 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Good Christians all, rejoice and sing – John Leavitt (b. 1956)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Hymn 205 - Good Christians all, rejoice and sing (Gelobt sei Gott) 
• Hymn 206 - Alleluia! O songs and daughters, let us sing (O filii et filiae)
• Hymn 193 - That Easter day with joy was bright (Puer Natus)
• Hymn 178 - Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks (Alleluia No. 1)
• Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (Finnian)

The offertory for the second Sunday after Easter is a smaller work by the English organist and choir master, W. H. Harris. From 1933 to 1961, William Henry Harris served British royalty as organist at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, and he composed a large amount of organ and choral music for the many services under his direction. Later knighted, but known affectionately to his choristers as "Doc H," Harris acquired a reputation for composing solidly crafted and conservative anthems. Harris' music is consistently devotional and quite gentle in character; and there is an unexpected intimacy to these sacred pieces that seems better suited to quiet Anglican services than to the official ceremonies for which they were used. Harris felt a particular fondness for the Tudor period, and this setting of a poem by one of that period's great poets, Edmund Spenser, follows that gentle description, even though it is a triumphant Easter text.

The congregation is singing the quintessential Second Sunday of Easter hymn, O Sons and Daughters, let us sing. It's suitable for this day because of the reference to the disciple Thomas, who was not present when Christ first appeared to the other apostles.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas - Caravaggio, c. 1601–1602

The Gospel for this Sunday is John 20:19-31, which narrates the story of Thomas wanting proof that Christ was alive. The hymn includes these verses: 

When Thomas first the tidings heard,
how they had seen the risen Lord,
he doubted the disciples' word.
Alleluia!
"My piercèd side, O Thomas, see;
my hands, my feet, I show to thee;
not faithless but believing be."
Alleluia!
How blest are they who have not seen,
and yet whose faith has constant been;
for they eternal life shall win.

The tune name, O filii et filiae, comes from the opening line in its original language, Latin.

The opening voluntary is a set of variations on that ancient hymn. Wilbur Held, composer of the voluntary, died on March 24, 2015 in Claremont, California, a few months shy of his 101th birthday. He was born  in Des Plaines, Illinois. He studied piano as a youngster and became serious about the organ in high school, going on to attend the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago where he studied organ and began to develop his compositional voice.

A conscientious objector, Held spent the final years of World War II cooking food without vitamins for a path-breaking project on nutrition now known as the Minnesota Semi-Starvation Experiment. Its findings were later published as The Biology of Human Starvation.

In 1946 Held was named professor of organ at The Ohio State University for what became a 30-year tenure. His organ studio grew quickly. Held was also able to significantly expand the church music program at OSU. Sadly, both the organ and church music degrees were phased out after his retirement.

The Bach setting of Nun fruet euch ("Rejoice, beloved Christians"), is a three-part fughetta (not the perpetual motion trio version) that is not reliably attributed to Bach. As Hermann Keller says, it is

a neatly worked-out piece that would do credit to any of Bach's contemporaries, but without reasonably clear traces of Bach's style.

Music for Easter + March 27, 2016

Vocal Music

• Now Glad of Heart - K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)
• This Joyful Eastertide – Alice Parker (b. 1925)
• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Instrumental Music

• A Prelude for Easter – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – Georg Böhm (1661-1733)
• Symphony V: Toccata – Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)

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

• Hymn 207 - Jesus Christ is risen today (Easter Hymn)
• Hymn 417 - This is the feast of victory (Festival Canticle)
• Hymn 210 - The day of resurrection! (Ellacombe)
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (Salzburg)
• Hymns R29 - He is Lord, he is Lord (He Is Lord)
• Hymn 179 - “Welcome, happy morning!” (Fortunatus)

Three different styles of anthems encompass the varied emotions we experience at Easter. The anthem by K. Lee. Scott, Now Glad of Heart, is the typical barn-burner, a bright, rhythmic anthem employing full organ, starting with repeated Alleluias that are reminiscent of the Mission: Impossible theme,  a rollicking melody (which always reminded me of riding in a speed boat over a bounding main), a big choral fanfare in the middle, and more alleluias, this time tumbling down from Soprano to Bass like a cascading water fall.

The first communion motet is a short setting of the Dutch Easter Carol, VERUCHTEN, which was originally a seventeenth-century love song "De liefde Voortgebracht." It became a hymn tune in 1685 as a setting for "Hoe groot de vruchten zijn." The tune is distinguished by the melismas that mark the end of stanza lines and by the rising sequences in the refrain, which provide a fitting word painting for "arisen." 

Alice Parker arranged this in the early 1950s for Robert Shaw's choral group which was making a series of commercially successful recordings of hymns, carols and folk songs. She only set the first stanza. I was tempted to have us repeat this setting, singing the second stanza:

My flesh in hope shall rest,
And for a season slumber;
Till trump from east to west,
Shall wake the dead in number.

Can you guess why I was tempted to include it? God has a sense of humor, but I decided to go against my inclinations.*

The final anthem is J. S. Bach's setting of the Lutheran chorale, Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands. It is an adaptation of a medieval chant Victimae Paschali laudes arranged in 1524 as a four-part chorale by Johann Walther for the hymn text by Martin Luther. One of the earliest and best-known Lutheran chorales, CHRIST LAG IN TODESBANDEN is a magnificent tune in rounded bar form (AABA).Bach incorporated it extensively in his cantatas 4 and 158. It is the closing movement of Cantata 4 that we sing this morning.

Many organ compositions are based on this tune; I am playing a highly ornamented setting by Georg Böhm, a German Baroque organist and composer who is known for his development of the chorale partita (variation) and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach. 

The opening voluntary is a beautiful improvisatory organ work by former Dallas composer Gerald Near. Starting out quietly, Near incorporates the  the ancient chant Haec dies, the Gradual for Easter day, with those beloved words so familiar to us: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! (Psalm 118: 24).  As the piece builds in tempo and volume, another Easter chant, O filii et filiae, appears, first in just subtle hints, then triumphantly in the form we recognize from the hymnal (it's hymn 203; we'll sing its cousin, hymn 206, next Sunday for the Second Sunday of Easter.)

*One hymnal has translated this verse to 

My being shall rejoice, 

secure within God’s keeping,

until the trumpet voice 

shall wake us from our sleeping

Music for Maundy Thursday + March 24, 2016

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), arr. David Blackwell (b.1961)
• Ave Verum Corpus – Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
• Communion Song – Barry McGuire (b. 1935), arr. Mac Jones

Instrumental Music

• Wondrous Love (Variations on a Shaped-note Hymn) – Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
• Now, My Tongue, the Mystery Telling – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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

• Hymn 480 - When Jesus left his Father’s throne (Kingsfold)
• Hymn 602 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (Chereponi)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi Caritas et amor (Ubi Caritas)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (The Servant Song)
• Hymn 439 - What wondrous love is this (Wondrous Love)
• Hymn 171 - God to dark Gethsemane (Petra)

Music for March 20, 2016 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna – Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1953)
• The Holy City – Stephen Adams (Michael Maybrick) (1841 – 1913)
• He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word – William M. Schoenfeld (b. 1949)
• O Savior of the World – John Goss (1800-1880)

Instrumental Music

• O Sacred Head, Now Wounded – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)

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

• Hymn 154 All glory, laud, and honor (Valet will ich dir geben)
• Hymn 458 My song is love unknown (Love Unknown)
• Hymn R235 O sacred head, now wounded (Herzlich tut mich verlangen)
• Hymn R227 Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 474 When I survey the wondrous cross (Rockingham)

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, (The Vatican)
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

This Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, and it encapsulates all the events from Christ's triumphal entry in Jerusalem to his death on the cross. It's an arduous journey which is made more real for us with the use of the art forms which we have available to us. In the past, that meant music, but this year we are fortunate to have the lovely paints of the stations of the cross that Jessica Dupree created last year, and liturgical dance provided by our dance troupe. 

One of the pieces we are singing is a beautiful arrangement for choir, piano, and cello on the Spiritual, "He Never Said a Mumbalin' Word." Alex Philips, a junior at Kingwood High is playing the cello, and Melissa Vann will be playing the piano. It is stunning in its simplicity.

The other piece is what we refer to as a chestnut, a musical piece that has been repeated to the point of staleness. The Holy City was sung every Palm Sunday for years at my home church in Tiptonville, Tennesse, by Mr. Hugh Whitford. It's a song that, much like the service on Palm Sunday, includes not only the triumphal entry but the crucifixion. The third stanza, however, goes on to detail the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. This will literally be heaven on earth. It is referred to in the Bible in several places (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:10; 12:22–24; and 13:14), but it is most fully described in Revelation 21. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate fulfillment of all God’s promises.

Michael Maybrick
(Stephen Adams)

The song was written by Michael Maybrick, an English musician, best known today under his pseudonym Stephen Adams as the composer of The Holy City. He studied keyboard and harmony in Germany, but later decided to train as a baritone  in Milan. After gaining experience in Italian theaters, he appeared with great success at all the leading concert venues in London and the provinces, as well as in English opera. He even toured America to great success. The Holy City was his biggest hit. He sang it in concert much like Michael Crawford sang On Eagle's Wings when he concertized.

Now, here comes the fun part of today's story. Maybrick was a keen amateur sportsman, being a cricketer, a yachtsman and a cyclist, and a Captain in the Artists Rifles. His friends spoke of his charming personality, but others thought him arrogant and vain. In 1893 he married his forty-year-old housekeeper, Laura Withers, and retired with her on the Isle of Wight. They were joined there by the two children of his brother, James Maybrick, later a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case, and whose wife Florence was convicted of his murder in 1889. (A re-examination of her case resulted in her release in 1904.) He died in 1913.

In October of 2015, screen writer Bruce Robinson published a huge tome called They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper. It was a culmination of 15 years of research in the study of the Jack the Ripper case. Based on his research (which some experts dispute), he points the accusing finger at Michael Maybrick (not his brother James) as detailed in this report.

Music for March 13 + The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), arr. David Blackwell (b.1961)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, Lead Thou On – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• Rockingham – Robert Buckley Farlee 

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

• Hymn 398 - I sing the almighty power of God (Forest Green)
• Hymn R122 - Surely it is God who saves me (First Song of Isaiah)
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (Rockingham)
• Hymn R149 - I, the Lord, of sea and sky (Here I Am, Lord)
• Hymn 610 - Lord, whose love through humble service (Blaenhafren)
• Psalm 126 - In convertendo

Upon first glance, one might think today's anthem is straight out of the  Elizabethan age, but not entirely. The tune was composed by the eminent English organist and composer, Orlando Gibbons, considered to be one of the last great figures of the Tudor school. The text is by Phineas Fletcher, the English poet best known for his religious and scientific poem The Purple Island; or, The Isle of Man (1633). But the text and tune were not joined together until 1906 for the English Hymnal under the editorship of Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Phineas Fletcher

Orlando Gibbons

It's hard to imagine that the two weren't meant to be together. (Text and tune, not Dearmer and Vaughan Williams, though that could be argued, I suppose.) But this short, eight-bar hymn tune first appeared as part of a Christmas Hymn, As on that Night.

In this arrangement of the melody, English musician David Blackwell has the choir sing unaccompanied. In stanza two, the melody moves from part to part, first heard in the alto line, then the soprano, then briefly in the tenor, before ending up somewhere in the alto voice. Good luck finding it. All is well again on the final stanza when the sopranos reclaim their rightful part.

If Martin Luther called music one of the most delightful gifts God has given us, then Robert Buckley Farlee is really blessed. He is both an ordained Lutheran Pastor and a practicing church musician. He is the Cantor (music director) at Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis and senior editor for worship and music at Augsburg Fortress Press. He is also married to a Lutheran minister. That's a lot of church, and church music. He holds Master of Divinity and Master of Sacred Theology degrees from Christ Seminary-Seminex. He is a former president of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and a composer with hundreds of published works.

Music for March 6 + The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Thou Knowest, Lord, the Secrets of Our Hearts – Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Instrumental Music

• Solemn Melody – H. Walford Davies (1869-1941)
• Aria for Handbells - Dale Wood (1934-2002)

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

• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (Cwm Rhondda)
• Hymn R249 - Great is thy faithfulness (Faithfulness)
• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (Nettleton)
• Hymn 693 - Just as I am, without one plea (Woodworth)
• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (St. Thomas (Williams)

I was shocked (shocked, I tell you) when I noticed that I have not scheduled any music of Henry Purcell in the two-plus years I've been writing these notes on this blog. Born in 1659, Purcell is generally considered to be one of the greatest English composers; no other native-born English composer approached his fame until the 20th century's Edward Elgar.

Henry Purcell

His father (also named Henry) was master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey. Though dad died when young Henry was but five, music had already taken hold of the young boy, and he became a chorister at the Chapel Royal. It’s said that he began composing at the age of 9, with his earliest known work an ode for King Charles’ birthday in 1670. He began studying with John Blow at the Chapel Royal, and by 20 had succeeded him as organist at Westminster Abbey. Legend has it that the elder musician stepped aside in recognition of the greater genius, and it is true that on Purcell's death in 1695 Blow returned to the post, and would write a noble Ode on the Death of Purcell. Purcell is buried next to the Westminster Abbey organ.

Purcell wrote secular and sacred music - odes for chorus and orchestra, cantatas, songs, catches, anthems, Services, chamber sonatas, keyboard works and incidental music for 49 plays. The largest part of his theatre music was composed during the last years of his life. It was during this period that he composed the chamber opera Dido and Aeneas, which is a very important landmark in the history of English dramatic music. 

The anthem today is taken from the Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, written by Purcell, for the funeral of Queen Mary II in 1695. She had died in December 1694, but her funeral was not until March 1695. Purcell composed a setting of the sixth of the seven sentences of the Anglican Burial Service (Thou Knowest Lord) for the occasion.  The anthem was performed at his own funeral in November of the same year.

And as to the pronuncation of his name: Nicholas McGegan, the famed conductor, sets us straight:

For some reason, people often mispronounce Purcell’s name. It’s “PUR-cell.” It should rhyme with “rehEARsal"

Not "Pure HELL"

Sir Henry Walford Davies

Another Henry who makes his first appearance in this blog (though not in our services) is Sir Henry Walford Davies, an English musician who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941. At various times in his 45-year career, Davies enjoyed wide recognition as a composer, teacher, organist, and lecturer and in the latter capacity, he became England's first popular radio personality on the subject of classical music. In 1926 the newly-formed British Broadcasting Corporation, in an effort to bring the very best in cultural information, began broadcasting his lectures on music on a program called Music and the Ordinary Listener, which lasted until the outbreak of war in 1939. and brought him great popularity with British radio audiences.

But as a composer he is represented only by a few short works including some church anthems, the World War I favorite R.A.F. March Past, and this morning's opening voluntary, Solemn Melody. It first appeared in 1908 in a version for organ with a version for cello and orchestra a year later. It is in a simple song form. The tune is rich, warm, and flowing, and avoids either a feeling of British pomp or a sense of religiosity.

Dale Wood

Finally I want to comment on the Aria for Handbells by Dale Wood. It is a lovely, quiet bell piece based on an old Finnish hymn by C. G. Liander called Via Delorosa. The text, like the melody, is perfect for Lent.

A way to Calvary leadeth from dark Gethsemane,
May every one behold him who weary walks that way.
The way doth lead to perfect bliss, but a way of pain it is