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.