Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Music for May 28, 2017 + The Sunday after Ascension Day

Vocal Music

  • Let Us With a Gladsome Mind – Alan Ridout (1934-1996)
  • I will not leave you comfortless – Everett Titcomb (1884-1968)

Instrumental Music

  • Prière du Christ montant vers son Père ("Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father") - Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
  • Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song – James Biery (
  • Toccata in G - Théodore Dubois (1837 –1924)

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 R37 - Glorify Your Name (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
  • Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
  • Hymn 214, omit st. 3 - Hail the day that sees him rise (LLANFAIR)
  • Hymn 315 - Thou, who at thy first Eucharist didst pray (SONG 1)
  • Hymn 460 - Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL) 
  • Psalm 68:1-10, 33-26 Exsurgat Deus – Tone VII
Everett Titcomb was an American composer of sacred choral and organ music who contributed a vast amount of works for the Episcopal Church in the first half of the twentieth-century.  A native of Massachusetts, he was largely self-taught, though he was influenced by many of the well-known composers stationed in the Boston area during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Eugene Thayer, Dudley Buck, George Chadwick, and Horatio Parker; yet at the same time he was keenly interested in plainchant and the polyphonic style of the 15th and 16th century Italians. For fifty years, Titcomb served the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston as their organist and choirmaster.

His motet for Pentecost, I Will Not Leave You Comfortless (1934) reflects his interest in Renaissance polyphony. It begins with a broad, unfolding line and emphasizes the Veni, creator chant (Come, Holy Spirit) which forms a cantus firmus in the bass voice in the Alleluia section. This motet is among his best work, and one which has remained a part of sacred and university choral repertoire into the 21st Century. It is significant for its selection to be in the official program of the 1936 English Church Music Festival in London where it was performed by 4000 voices with Titcomb in attendance. It was the first time an American composer had been featured in the festival. Subsequently, it was made famous in the United States by its inclusion in several coast-to-coast radio broadcasts of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In many ways, it launched his career as an internationally recognized composer of sacred music. (1)

The opening voluntary is the last movement of a suite written for Ascension Day by the French composer Olivier Messiaen which he arranged from his orchestral suite L'ascension. This movement is titled "Prière du Christ montant vers son Père", ("Prayer of Christ ascending to his Father"), and is accompanied by this quotation from this week's Gospel, John 17:6, 11.
I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world... And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.
This piece represents the actual ascent of Christ, wafting slowly up into the heavens, into the light of the Father, with movement beginning in the bottom register of the organ and rising to the top.
Christ's ascension is extremely slow, solemn, and full of emotion. It is written for the tender sound of the string stops on the organ. As the piece begins, it is a little sad,  but comforting. It is the sadness of those left behind who have hope that they will again see their loved one.

From the middle of the piece onward, a marvelous transformation of emotion takes place - from the sadness of the beginning to an inner confirmation of profound faith - and, as we reach the end, which continues to crescendo, the light that radiates from heaven floods the observers of this miraculous ascension with hope and love. The end is ecstatic. When we reach that point (that is, when we can no longer hear any music), we are left with the feeling that Christ's journey through the firmament continues that he is so far away that we, still here on earth, are no longer able to observe his ascent. (2)

(1)  Online diary of William Harris (March 14, 2013) retrieved from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/14/1194153/-Thursday-Classical-Music-Op-C109-Everett-Titcomb
(2) Gillock, Jon, Performing Messiaen's Organ Works: 66 Masterclasses. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp 47 

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Music for May 21, 2017 + The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Rogation Sunday

Vocal Music

  • If Ye Love Me – Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585)
  • Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree – Elizabeth Poston (1905-1987)

Instrumental Music

  • Prelude on Dunedin – David Dahl (b. 1937)
  • The Infinite Meadows of Heaven – Paul Mealor (b. 1975)
  • Earth and All Stars – arr. Keith Kolander (b. 1955)

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

  • Hymn 405 - All things bright and beautiful (ROYAL OAK)
  • Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
  • Hymn 455 - O love of God, how strong and true (DUNEDIN)
  • Hymn 705 - As those of old their first fruits brought (FOREST GREEN)
  • Hymn R250 - O Lord my God (O STOR GUD)
  • Hymn R54 - I sing the almighty power of God (Ellacombe)
  • Psalm 66:7–18 - Jubilate Deo – Mode 2
In addition to being the Sixth Sunday of the Easter Season, today is Rogation Sunday. Rogation Sunday is the day when the Church has traditionally offered prayer for God’s blessing on the fruits of the earth and the labors of those who produce our food. The word “rogation” is from the Latin rogare, “to ask.” Historically, the Rogation Days (the three days before Ascension Day) were a period of fasting and abstinence, beseeching God’s blessing on the crops for a bountiful harvest. Few of us today directly derive our livelihood from the production of food, yet it is good to be reminded of our dependence upon those who do and our responsibility for the environment.

Elizabeth Poston
In recognition of this day, I have chosen the beautiful setting by Elizabeth Poston of the text, Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree. One of my choir members asked what an apple tree had to do with Jesus. I found a great meditation by Joan Halmo in The Hymn, the journal of the Hymn Society of America that had some great food for thought.

Trees have always been revered in every culture, as they bring shade to the earth, refuge for living creatures, food for our bodies as well as materials for home and every day living. Not only are they functional, but they are beautiful as well. Trees are also a sign of hope in the annual season of rebirth and renewal. As Dr. Halmo says, "The tree is in truth a bearer of life and of healing for humanity and the earth. (1)

The poet, Richard Hutchins, was a Calvinist Baptist minister who served at Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England.  For years this text was thought to be by Anonymous, but the poem was attributed to "R.H." in The Spiritual Magazine, 1761 and collected into the book Divine, Moral, and Historical Miscellanies, in Prose and Verse... (London, 1761). Since The Spiritual Magazine was a magazine for Calvinistic Baptists, "R.H." contributed additional poems to this magazine, one of which identifies him as being from Long Buckby and as a minister by the name of Richard Hutchins served the Calvinist Baptist congregation in Long Buckby from about 1759-1765, it is likely that "R.H." refers to Richard Hutchins.

Hutchins was probably not well schooled in theology, yet he displays a keen vision of Christ as the tree of life, "laden with fruit and always green."

Paul Mealor
The piano piece at communion is a new piece by the Welsh composer Paul Mealor. He may not (yet) be the biggest name in classical music, but he has composed music for one of the biggest ceremonial events of the past decade, the marriage of Prince William and Catherine (Kate) Middleton. Mealor's motet, a setting of Ubi Caritas et Amor, was commissioned by Prince William for his wedding at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011, when it was sung by the Choirs of Westminster Abbey and Her Majesty's Chapel Royal during the signing of the registry.

Topping the Classical Charts for six weeks with his bestselling album, A Tender Light in November 2011, he also broke records by being the first classical composer to hold both the classical and pop chart No. 1’s at the same time in December 2011, securing the UK Christmas No. 1 with his piece for The Military Wives Choir and Gareth Malone, Wherever You Are. Wherever You Are entered the UK Pop Singles Chart at number 1 that same month, selling over 556,000 copies in one week, more than the rest of the Top 12 combined, and was nominated for Best British Single in the 2012 BRIT Awards. It has been named as the fastest selling single since Elton John’s Candle in the Wind. In April of 2012 Mealor was voted the nation’s favorite living composer during the UK Classic FM Hall of Fame.

The Infinite Meadows of Heaven is a quote from H. W. Longfellow.
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie
This slow and expressive piece is underpinned by oscillating thirds in its outer sections that accompany a melody using the upper end of the keyboard. A low pedal octave also accompanies the first section. The middle section is more agitated but all returns to a blissful calm.

The opening voluntary is an organ interpretation of the hymn tune which we will be singing before the Gospel this morning. DUNEDIN is a tune written in 1971 by Vernon Griffiths, an English organist and teacher  who moved to New Zealand in 1926 to accept a position at the Christchurch Teachers' Training College. This tune, DUNEDIN, is named after the town where his second position at as music master at King Edward Technical College. (2)

This setting is from the Bayoubuchlein, the collection of organ preludes on hymn-tunes from the last 50 years that was compiled for the 2016 American Guild of Organists National Convention here in Houston. This prelude was debuted at a service at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston. It is in three parts: In the first verse the melody is played on a stopped called a Krummhorn (similar to a clarinet) while the right hand accompanies with a single flute stop. In verse two we find a canon at the octave between the two hands, playing on separate manuals (keyboards). The final stanza has the melody in the pedal on a trumpet and trombone sound while the right hand punctuates the musical phrases with fanfare-like chords.

David Dahl
David P. Dahl is Professor of Music and University Organist Emeritus from Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, retiring in 2000 after thirty-five years of teaching. In August, 2010, he retired as Director Emeritus of Music Ministries at Christ Episcopal Church, Tacoma, where served for forty years. During his career he has been an active recitalist, including performances for national conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society. He is a published composer of organ music and has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the Organ Historical Society, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Pacific Lutheran University. (3)

(1) Halmo, Joan, "Hymn Interpretation ['Jesus Christ the Apple Tree']", The Hymn, July 2002, Volume 53, Issue 3, Pages 52-54, print
(2) Rachael M. Hawkey. 'Griffiths, Thomas Vernon', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/4g21/griffiths-thomas-vernon (accessed 19 May 2017)
(3) David Dahl biography (2016, June). Retrieved from http://agohouston2016.com/conference/composers/david-dahl

Friday, May 12, 2017

Music for May 14, 2017 + The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

  • The Call – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

  • Quiet Praise – Dan R. Edwards (b. 1951) (HANDBELLS)
  • Prelude on Adoro Te Devote – Jacob B. Webber (b. 1988) (HANDBELLS)
  • Now the Green Blade Riseth – Mark Sedio (b. 1954)

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

  • Hymn 2 - Father, we praise thee, now the night is over (CHRISTE SANCTORUM)
  • Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
  • Hymn 379 - God is love, let heaven adore him (ABBOTT’S LEIGH)
  • Hymn 188 - Love’s redeeming work is done (SAVANNAH)
  • Hymn R217 - You satisfy the hungry heart (GIFT OF FINEST WHEAT)
  • Hymn R220 - Let the hungry come to me (ADORO TE DEVOTE)
  • Hymn 525 - The Church’s one Foundation (AURELIA)
  • Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 - In te, Domine, speravi – Mode 1

Contemporary American Composers.
(Living) Contemporary American Composers.
(Living) Contemporary American (Men) Composers.
(Living) Contemporary American (White) (Men) Composers: That's what the composers of all the vocal and instrumental music have in common this week. Everyone of the composers was born in the last half of the 20th century.

David Ashley White is Professor of Composition at Moores School of Music, with degrees from the University of Houston (B.M. and M.M.) and the University of Texas at Austin (D.M.A.). He served
as Director of the Moores School from 1999-2014.

David Ashley White
A seventh-generation Texan, White is an active member of the Houston arts community, serving on boards that include a mayoral appointment to the Houston Arts Alliance. He has recently been appointed composer-in-residence at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, his home parish. In addition, he has been designated the Distinguished Composer by the American Guild of Organists for its national convention held last year in Houston, where his anthem, With a Shining Like the Sun, was premiered.

His anthem, The Call, is a simple and moving setting of this famous text by George Herbert. (Come, my Way, my Truth, my Light.) It's a perfect anthem for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, where this text is almost mandated by the Gospel Reading. The most famous version of this text is the solo by Ralph Vaughan Williams (found as a hymn in our hymnal). White's setting is almost like a waltz.

The closing voluntary is a toccata-like setting of the French noel, NOEL NOUVELET, which was originally a Christmas carol (I mean, "NOEL"!) But the text that has become even more popular (at least in the States) with the tune is the Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Riseth. Mark Sedio puts fragments of the melody all throughout his composition, most often in the pedal part. If you want to stay and listen to the whole piece, it won't take long; it's about 90 seconds to play. You will still get to Mother's Day brunch on time.

Mark Sedio
Sedio currently serves as Cantor at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis where his responsibilities are varied: organist, choirmaster, resident composer, worship planner and educator. In addition he has held teaching positions both at Augsburg College and Luther Seminary.

Born in Minneapolis, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education with choral and organ music concentrations in 1976. In 1979 he received a Master of Arts degree in choral conducting and literature from the University of Iowa. He also studied at Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary.
Dan Edwards
The Handbell Choir is playing the opening and communion voluntaries this Sunday, playing music by two different composers. They prelude is an original piece for bells by Dan Edwards.

Edwards was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and studied at Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth and James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. He has taught music in elementary and high schools and has worked as a church musician in a number of different denominations. He resides with his wife in Chesapeake, VA.

Jacob Webber
Jacob B. Weber wrote the communion bell piece on the Eucharistic hymn ADORE TE DEVOTE. He is a 2010 graduate from Bethany Lutheran College, Mankato, MN and is currently enrolled in the Masters of Church Music program at Concordia University Wisconsin.  He has studied organ with Dr. Kenneth Logan (Andrew’s University), Prof. Judith Kresnicka (Bethany Lutheran College), and currently with Dr. John Behnke (Concordia University Wisconsin).  

Having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Church Music, he presently serves as Kantor at Emmanuel Lutheran Church and School (LCMS) in Dearborn, MI, fulfilling worship planning, teaching and organ responsibilities.  He also directs numerous adult and children’s ensembles at Emmanuel, including the choir, handbells, and brass.


Friday, May 5, 2017

Music for May 7, 2017 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

  • Loving Shepherd of thy Sheep – Philip Ledger (1937-2012)

Instrumental Music

  • Prelude on “Brother James' Air" – Searle Wright (1918-2004)
  • Sheep May Safely Graze – J.S. Bach (168501750)
  • Preludium in G BWV 568 – J.S. Bach

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

  • Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100TH)
  • Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
  • Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The strife is o’er, the battle done (VICTORY)
  • Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
  • Hymn R195 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
  • Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
  • Psalm 23 - Dominus regit me (Mode 6)
Brother James’ Air is a hymn tune written in 1914 by James Leith Macbeth Bain, a Scottish mystic, minister, and poet who became known to his peers simply as Brother James.  The tune is most commonly used as the tune for the hymn text, “The Lord’s My Shepherd,” although in our hymnal it is used for the text “How lovely is thy dwelling-place.” (Hymnal 1982 #517) Because the Fourth Sunday of Easter is the Sunday normally referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” I am thinking of the Psalm 23 paraphrase as the text as I play it this Sunday.

The arrangement is by Searle Wright, a native of Pennsylvania who grew up in Binghamton, New York. As a teenager he made money playing the organ at the Palace Theatre in Binghamton, but his future lay in Classical organ.  He studied in New York City with T. Tertius Noble and at Columbia University, where he later served the faculty as well as at the Union Theological Seminary. In 1977, he returned to Binghamton as the Link professor of music at the State University of New York in Binghamton. (SUNY)

In this setting you hear the tune three times: First, it is played on the strings in the Swell division, then the melody is heard in the pedal division, played (by the feet, of course) on a soft trumpet stop. After a brief interlude that begins on full organ and then gradually decreases in volume, the melody returns as it began, on the soft strings sounds of the Swell Division.

Philip Ledger
The offertory anthem this morning is a little gem by Sir Philip Ledger, an English organist and choral director best known for his years as director of the King's College Choir in Cambridge.

Ledger was born in Bexhill and educated at King's College, Cambridge. When appointed Master of Music at Chelmsford Cathedral, he became the youngest cathedral organist in the United Kingdom.
As Director of Music at the University of East Anglia, he worked closely with Benjamin Britten as an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival before returning to King's College, Cambridge as Director of Music. There he conducted the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols which is broadcast each year on Christmas Eve, made an extensive range of recordings with the famous choir and directed recitals and tours throughout the world. He then became Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

This anthem is a setting of a simple 12-bar melody, which itself is divide into two, almost identical, parts. On the first verse the trebles sing, followed by the men on verse two in a new key. The third stanza has the entire choir singing in four parts, unaccompanied, with a new theme in the melody. The final stanza returns to the original tune sung by all voices entering at different times.

Last week I played a piece by J. S. Bach that he had arranged for organ from one of his vocal works. This week, I'm playing another work arranged for organ from one of his solo vocal cantatas, but this time it is arranged by the 20th century organist E. Power Biggs.

Sheep May Safely Graze is from his secular cantata BWV 208, Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd (The lively hunt is all my heart's desire). Originally performed by a soprano, two recorders, and basso continuo, here the melody is played in the left hand on the organ stop called a Chromhorne (or Krummhorn), the right hand plays the two recorder parts on the flute stop, and the pedal fills in the basso continuo line.

This cantata, often called The Hunting Cantata, was composed in 1713 by Bach for the 31st birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels. Despite its BWV number (#208 out of 216 cantatas that we a sure Bach wrote), this is Bach's earliest surviving secular cantata, composed while he was employed as court organist in Weimar. The work may have been intended as a gift from Bach's employer, William Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, for his neighboring ruler, Duke Christian, who was a keen hunter.