Music for January 29, 2017 + The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Servants of Peace – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Praise Ye the Triune God – Friedrich F. Fleming
• You Are My Hiding Place – Michael Ledner, arr. Mark Hayes (b. 1952)
• Praise Him With the Sound of the Trumpet – Carl Simone (1918-2003)

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

• Hymn 616 - Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (ES FLOG EIN KLEINES WALDVÖGELEIN)
• Hymn 605 - What does the Lord require (SHARPTHORNE)
• Hymn 441 - In the cross of Christ I glory (RATHBUN)
• Hymn R243 - You shall cross the barren desert (BE NOT AFRAID)
• Hymn R305 - Lord, you give the great commission (ABBOT’S LEIGH)

A contemporary setting of the traditional prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi is the text of the anthem this Sunday, which is a perfect match for the readings this week. (Micah 6:1-8 and the Beatitudes.) The  Prayer of St. Francis is a famous prayer which first appeared around the year 1915 A.D., and which embodies the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi's simplicity and poverty.

According to Father Kajetan Esser, OFM, the author of the critical edition of St. Francis's Writings, the Peace Prayer of St. Francis is most certainly not one of the writings of St. Francis. According to Father Schulz, this prayer first appeared during the First World War. It was found written on the back of a holy card of St. Francis. The prayer bore no name; but in the English speaking world, on account of this holy card, it came to be called the Peace Prayer of St. Francis.

The music is by Alabama native K. Lee Scott. He is widely known throughout the United States as a conductor and composer of choral music. His more than 250 published compositions, arrangements, and editions are represented in the catalogues of 15 publishing companies. In addition to many choral works, he has written an opera and has published works for organ, solo voice, and brass.

A graduate of the University of Alabama School of Music with two degrees in choral music under the tutelage of Frederick Prentice, Scott has served as an adjunct faculty member at both the University of Alabama School of Music and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Music. His appearances as guest conductor and clinician have taken him throughout the United States, to Canada, and Africa. 

The closing voluntary is by one of the many musicians of the past century who wrote music which filled a need for the the many organists, often un-trained or with minimal training, who played at the various churches across the country at a time when the organ was THE instrument for worship. Carl Simone was a native of Los Angeles, and having been an "early bloomer", became organist in a Lutheran church in his early teens. He later studied theory and composition with Arnold Schoenberg at the University of California before World War II altered his plans and he became an army cryptographer, assisting the chaplains from time to time as an organist. After his army stint, it was back to school to earn a master's degree at USC, followed by a period of public school teaching, where one of his students was Debbie Reynolds. He also played club engagements (at one time he played organ intermissions for the Harry James Orchestra in Santa Monica, California), a TV program called "Inspirational Hour", and Sunday worship services. 

Music for January 22, 2017 + The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Dear Lord and Father of Mankind – C. H. H. Parry (1848-1918)

Instrumental Music

• O God, Thou Faithful God– Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• How Brightly Shines the Morningstar – Andreas Armsdorff (1670–1699)
• Improvisation on “Praise to the Lord” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 381 - Thy strong word did cleave the darkness (TONY-Y-BOTEL)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn 321 - My God, thy table now is spread (ROCKINGHAM)
• Hymn R102 - The Lord is my light (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm 27:1, 5-13 - Dominus illuminatio (simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachem)

The choir sings one of our favorite anthems this Sunday, the beautiful Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by the British composer Charles Hubert Hastings Parry.  This hymn, now one of England’s favorites, began life as the ballad of Meshullemeth (‘Long since in Egypt’s plenteous land’) in Act I of Judith, Parry's oratorio of 1888. It was only after Parry’s death that permission was granted by Novello and Parry’s estate to allow George Gilbert Stocks, the head of music at Repton School, to adapt the music to this text for the school’s hymn book, at which time the melody became known as REPTON.  It was also published in 1941 as the hymn-anthem (which we are singing today) in which much of the original music of the aria was restored.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Ironically, the author of this beautiful and much-loved hymn deeply disapproved of singing in church. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) was an American Quaker who firmly believed that God was best worshipped in silent meditation and who deplored the histrionics associated with both the High Church and the Evangelical movement.

He did, however, allow these verses to be used in a hymn book published in 1884. They are drawn from an interlude in his long and eccentric poem called The Brewing of Soma, which describes in shocked terms the Vedic Hindu habit of drinking hallucinogenic concoctions as a way of whipping up religious enthusiasm. Michael Hawn, professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology at SMU, tell's of the hymn's origins here.

Whittier advocated waiting instead for "the still small voice of calm" – an injunction beautifully suggested in the climax to this tune composed by Parry.

It will also be sung as a congregational hymn at the Hymn Festival this Sunday night. Make plans to come!

Music for January 15, 2017 + The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Wondrous Love – Steve Pilkington

Instrumental Music

• Ritournello on “Liebster Jesu, Wir sind Her” – Aaron David Miller (b. 1962)
• Soul, Adorn Yourself With Gladness – Ann Krentz Organ (b. 1960)
• Poco Vivace, Opus 9, No. 6  –Hermann Schroeder (1904-1984)

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

• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works (LYONS)
• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ASSAM)
• Hymn 550 - Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult (GALILEE)
• Psalm 40:1-11 - Expectans, expectavi

Sometimes nothing can beat a simple, plaintive melody for its beauty. Such is my opinion of the Southern folk hymn, What wondrous Love Is This? In the version the choir sings this week, you never hear the voices in more than two-part harmony, and that is when they are singing in canon (The men echoing the women four beats later.) Their singing is accompanied on the piano with a flowing, eighth-note piano part, with the addition of handbells playing growing chord clusters or ringing randomly during the last stanza. The text in the hymnal does not match exactly the text in our music, so here is the text for the solo stanza (stanza two) which will be sung by Bidkar Cajina.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul?
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of life
to lay aside his crown for my soul?

As we read the Gospel lesson about Jesus beginning his ministry, I thought this anthem raised some valid questions to stimulate thought about why Jesus  would "lay aside his crown for (our) soul."

The arranger, Steve Pilkington, serves on the faculty of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. as Associate Professor of Sacred Music. He also oversees all the music ministries at Christ Church United Methodist in  New York City, where he has been Director of Music and Organist since 1994. 

Aaron David Miller

Aaron David Miller serves as the Director of Music and Organist at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and maintains an active recital schedule. He has been a featured performer at four National Conventions for the American Guild of Organists since 1996, the most recent being the 2016 convention here in Houston. He also is a prolific composer, and Dr. Miller’s many solo organ, choral, and orchestral compositions are published by Augsburg Fortress, Oxford University Press, Paraclete Press, ECS, Morning Star and Kjos Publishing House. 

One of his shorter compositions is the opening voluntary. It is a setting of our hymn before the Gospel, hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (tune name: LIEBSTER JESU). A Ritournello (more commonly spelled Ritornello) is a Baroque form where a repeated section of music, the ritornello (literally, "the little thing that returns") alternates with freer episodes. You'll actually hear several fragments of melody returning in the organ prelude which alternates meters in a dance-like way.

Speaking of alternating meters, the closing voluntary is full of changing time signatures. If you are trying to clap along, have fun finding a steady beat!) This piece by German composer Hermann Schroeder, the only composer of those featured this morning to be neither American or living. He was born in Bernkastel and spent the greatest part of his life’s work in the Rheinland. His activity as composer was supplemental to his career in education. 

Schroeder's main accomplishments as a composer were in Catholic church music, where he attempted to break free of the lingering monopoly held by Romantic music. His works are characterized by the employment of medieval elements such as Gregorian chant, modal scales, and fauxbourdon which he combined with quintal and quartal harmonies and 20th-century polyphonic linear, sometimes atonal writing. In the work played this week, the last number in a collection of short preludes and intermezzi, you'll hear an initial Fanfare-like flourish characterized by octave leaps in the manuals and pedals.  In the middle section, linear, angular melodies are heard in each hand before returning to the initial fanfare section.

Music for January 8, 2016 + The First Sunday after the Epiphany

The Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ

Vocal Music

• Christmas Joy – Mark Schweitzer (b. 1956)

Instrumental Music

• Christ Our Lord to Jordan Came, BuxWV 180 – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• When Christ’s Appearing Was Made Known,– attributed to Dietrich Buxtehude
• Præludium in C Major BuxWV 137 – Dietrich Buxtehude

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

• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s bank, the Baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn R157 - We believe in God Almighty (DIVINUM MYSTERIUM)
• Hymn 135, st. 1&2 - Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)
• Hymn - Shall we gather at the river (HANSON PLACE)
• Hymn 132 - When Christ’s appearing was made known (ERHALT UNS, HERR)

The first Sunday after the Epiphany is the Sunday when we remember Christ's own baptism. It marks the beginning of his ministry on earth, and reminds us of our own call to be his followers. Epiphany itself marks the end of the Christmas Season. It is fitting and proper to remove all Christmas decorations.

But the spirit of Christmas should not be taken down. That's why we are singing this beautiful anthem by composer, author, and publisher Mark Schweitzer, using a text by African-American author, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman. He served as dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University from 1932 to 1944 and as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965. It was his theology of radical nonviolence that influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr. The text  follows:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky has withdrawn,
When the kings see their prophesy rightly fulfilled,
When the princes and shepherds have gone;

 Then the true work of Christmas begins.

To find the lost,
To heal the broken hearts,
To feed the hungry,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among all brothers,
To make music in the heart.

All of the organ music today is by Dietrich Buxtehude, the North German organist who served as an inspiration to a young Johann Sebastian Bach.
Two of the pieces are based on German chorales that refer to Christ's baptism. The communion voluntary is based on a hymn that is not well known among Episcopalians, but is in our hymnal. You'll discover the tune and a contemporary translation of the hymn at number 139 in the Hymnal 1982. The other hymn is also in our hymnal, but is better known among us Anglicans. Hymn 132, When Christ's appearing was made known, is set to the tune ERHALT UNS, HERR, which we also use for the Lenten hymn The glory of these forty days (hymn 143) and the baptism hymn Descend, O Spirit, purging flame (hymn 297).
The setting which I am playing has been attributed to Buxtehude, but many authorities doubt that claim, thinking it may by by Samuel Scheidt or another long-forgotten church musician.