Music for Advent IV and Christmas Services

Since we have three consecutive days of holiday services, here is the list for all of them!

December 23, 2018 + Advent VI

Only One Service at 10:15 AM

Vocal Music

The Provençal Carol – Donald Busarow (b. 1934)

Instrumental Music

• Savior of the Nations, Come BWV 599, 699– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• The Angel Gabriel – Robert Lau (b. 1943)
• Savior of the Nations, Come – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 74 - Blest be the King whose coming (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)
• Hymn R129 - Sing, my soul, sing out (PLEADING SAVIOR)
• Hymn 54 - Savior of the nations, come (NUN KOMM, DER HEIDEN HEILAND)
• Hymn 60, st 6 - Creator of the stars of night (CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM)
• Hymn 56 - O come, O come, Emmanuel (VENI, VENI, EMMANUEL)
• Hymn 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (STUTTGART)

December 24, 2018 + Christmas Eve 

4 PM  Family Service with the Coventry Choir, Good Shepherd Handbells and Flute

Vocal Music

• What Can I Give Him? – Terry Barham (b. 1940)
• Twas in the Moon of Wintertime – arr. Robert Hobby (b. 1962)
• Do You Hear What I Hear? – Gloria Shayne Baker (1923-2008)

Instrumental Music

• Noel Suisse - Louis Claude D'Aquin (1694-1772)
• Christmas Carols for Bells:– arr. Jason W. Krug (b. 1978)
• Good Christian Friends, Rejoice 
• Away in a Manger
• In the Bleak Midwinter
• Infant Holy, Infant Lowly 
• Flourish on “Joy to the World” – Michael G. Dell (b. 1959)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O Come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 115 - What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the World (ANTIOCH)

6:30 Service with Choir, organ and oboe

Vocal Music

• Mass For the Nativity – Richard Shephard (b. 1949)
• Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day – John Gardner (1917-2011)
• What Sweeter Musick – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)
• The Provençal Carol – Donald Busarow (b. 1934)

Instrumental Music

• Noel Suisse - Louis Claude D'Aquin (1694-1772)
• Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• In the Bleak Midwinter – Jerry Westenkuehler (Contemporary)
• Flourish on “Joy to the World” – Michael G. Dell (b. 1959)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 87  - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 115  - What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 79  - O little town of Bethlehem (ST. LOUIS)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world! the Lord is come (ANTIOCH)

10 PM Service with Christine Marx, soprano

Vocal Music

• O Holy Night – Adolphe Adam
• Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head – arr. John Edmunds

Instrumental Music

• Noel Suisse - Louis Claude D'Aquin  (1694-1772)
• Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Flourish on “Joy to the World” – Michael G. Dell (b. 1959)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 115 - What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world! the Lord is come (ANTIOCH)

December 25, 2018 + Christmas Day

10 AM with organ and hymns

Instrumental Music

• The Angel Gabriel – Robert Lau (b. 1943)
• Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Flourish on “Joy to the World” – Michael G. Dell (b. 1959)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal.)

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 89 - It came upon a midnight clear (CAROL)
• Hymn 115 - What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world! the Lord is come (ANTIOCH)

Music for December 16, 2018 +The Third Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music 

• Rejoice in the Lord Alway – 16th C. Anon. 

Instrumental Music 

• Veni Emmanuel -  Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
• Savior of the Nations, Come – Gerald Near 
• Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding – Gerald Near 

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

• Hymn 59 - Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON) 
• Hymn R122 - Canticle 9 - The First Song of Isaiah (Jack Noble White) 
• Hymn R276 - Soon and very soon (Andrae Crouch) 
• Hymn 60 - Creator of the stars of night (CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM) 
• Hymn R229 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY) 
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé Community) 
• Hymn 68 - Rejoice, rejoice, believers (LLANGLOFFLAN) 

The choir sings a setting of the words from today's Epistle reading, the fourth chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is the anonymous sixteenth-century anthem Rejoice in the Lord alway which was formerly attributed to John Redford. The only known source of this anthem is in the Mulliner Book which is held in the British Library. The Mulliner Book is a historically important musical book compiled, probably between about 1545 and 1570, by Thomas Mulliner, about whom practically nothing is known, except that he is listed as modulator organorum of Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1563.

The music—a careful setting of the words—varies between imitative passages and homophonic sections as, for example, at the words ‘Let your softness be known unto all men," where the entire choir sings the same words at the same time.

The text is appropriate for the third Sunday of Advent, which is known as Gaudete Sunday. Its name is taken from the entrance antiphon of the Catholic Mass, which is the same as our Epistle reading.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.
Indeed, the Lord is near.

The color for the"Rejoice" Sunday is rose, a deviation from the blue we use on the other three Sundays of Advent.

My opening voluntary is the great Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel, as set by the early 20th century English composer Edward Bairstow. Better known in his time as an organist, Bairstow is best remembered today for his Choral music, particularly for "Save Us, O Lord," "Blessed City," and "Let all mortal flesh keep silence." He also wrote much other sacred music and a handful of organ and piano compositions.

Edward Bairstow

Bairstow received his education at the University of Durham, where he studied organ and music theory, graduating in 1894. He obtained a doctorate degree in music from that university in 1901. He was organist at several parish churches until 1913, when he became organist at York Minster, a position he would retain for the rest of his life.

Bairstow accepted a professorship at Durham University in 1929, but remained a resident in York owing to the light teaching demands at his alma mater. Bairstow received knighthood in 1932.

Music for December 9, 2018 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• There’s a Voice in the Wilderness  – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)

Instrumental Music

• Benedictus – Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
• Partita on Comfort, comfort, ye my people (PSALM 42) – Johann Pachelbel (1661–1733)
• Prepare the Way, O Zion – Paul Manz  (1919-2009)

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 R128 - Canticle 16 – The Song of Zechariah: Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn 67 - Comfort, comfort, ye my people (PSALM 42)
• Hymn 60, st 6 - Creator of the stars of night (CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM)
• Hymn R152 - I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn R92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Taizé Community)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (BEREDEN VAG FOR HERRAN)

The offertory is an anthem setting of a hymn that is in our hymnal, but has probably never been sung in our church. Here's the story behind it.

In 1925, the Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches in Canada united as the United Church of Canada. To celebration this union, the journalist and poet James Lewis Milligan wrote the hymn, There's a voice in the wilderness crying. It's a paraphrase of the passage from Isaiah 40. In 1938, the committee for the Hymnal for the Anglican Church in Canada wanted to use this text, but could not come up with a suitable tune. Hugh Bancroft, then organist and choir master at All Saints Church, Winnipeg, was hosting the group in his home, and he told about the struggle to find a fitting melody.

Each one they tried was poor indeed. I suggested that I should go down to the basement, where there was a piano, and see if I could evolve something better. I came up about a half an hour later with a rough sketch of the tune, ASCENSION.

The resulting tune was folk-like in its form and simplicity, and its union with the poem by Milligan has been so successful that it has been included in ten different hymnals, including The Hymnal 1982.
Our choir sings an arrangement of this hymn by the California composer and church musician, Craig Phillips. Phillips preserves the rustic feel of the folkish melody.

As you know, each Sunday we sing a Psalm that is part of the lectionary readings for the day, but this year, three of the four Sundays in Advent designate a Canticle be sung instead of a Psalm. (A Canticle is a hymn or chant, typically with a biblical text, forming a regular part of a church service. The most common Canticle is Glory to God in the highest (Gloria in excelsis), which is Canticle 6 (Rite I) or 20 (Rite II). The canticle for Advent II is Canticle 4 or 16, The Song of Zechariah (Benedictus Dominus Deus). That's why I am playing a piece called Benedictus for the opening voluntary. However, it is not based on the canticle, but on two lines from a poem by Christina Rossetti, a litany of praise entitled: "All Thy Works Praise Thee, O Lord: A Processional Of Creation".  Those two lines are

I bring refreshment —  I bring ease and calm.

Because so much of Rossetti's poetry is Christian, one can assume that Rossetti is talking about Christ. But in this poem (very much like a canticle, actually), Rossetti has each individual piece of creation sing a three line hymn of praise, starting with seraphs, cherubs, angels, heavens, sun, moon, comets, winds, fire, heat, winter, spring, frost, night, light, thunder, clouds, until we finally get down to Medicinal Herbs, who sing:

I bring refreshment,—
                      I bring ease and calm,—
I lavish strength and healing,—
                                I am balm,—
We work His pitiful* Will and chant our psalm.

Alec Rowley was an English composer, organist, and pianist who taught composition at Trinity College in London. His name was known to many through his writing and through the many educational pieces that he wrote, staple fare for many a beginner or amateur player. His more demanding work as a composer has been unfairly neglected, save for the music he wrote for choirs and organ.

Alec Rowley

* at Rossetti's time, 'pitiful' still had the alternate meaning of 'compassionate.'

Music for December 2, 2018 + Advent I

Vocal Music

• Christ Hath a Garden – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Missa Oecumenica in Byzantine Style - Richard Proulx (1937-2010)

Instrumental Music

• Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott (BWV 602) – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Creator of the stars of night – Gerald Near
• Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes-Sohn (BWV 601) – Johann Sebastian Bach

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 KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN)
• Hymn 57 - Lo! he comes with clouds descending (HELMSLEY)
• Hymn 60, st 6 - Creator of the stars of night (CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM)
• Spiritual - Steal away to Jesus (STEAL AWAY)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé Community)
• Hymn 436 - Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (TRURO)
• Psalm 25:1-9 – Tone Ig

This anthem by the American organist and composer Gerald Near was published in 1973. The tune is based on the Scottish folk song "O Waly, Waly," best known as "The Water Is Wide" or "The Gift of Love." The words are from a hymn by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), a Nonconformist minister and prolific hymnodist whose many well-known works include the words to the carol "Joy to the World" and "O God, Our Help in Ages Past."

Watts's original verses ("We are a garden walled around / Chosen and made peculiar ground; / A little spot enclosed by grace / Out of the world’s wide wilderness") were adapted in the late 19th century by Robert Bridges – physician, future poet laureate of the UK and a selfless champion of the work of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins, whom he knew to be a much better poet. I love the last two stanzas, which are appropriate for Advent:

Awake, O wind of heav'n and bear
Their sweetest perfume through the air:
Stir up, O south, the boughs that bloom,
Till the beloved Master come:

That he may come, and linger yet
Among the trees that he hath set;
That he may evermore be seen
To walk amid the springing green.

Near also wrote the communion organ voluntary based on the Gregorian hymn for Advent "Conditor alme siderum." (Hymn 60 - we'll be singing it each Sunday as the presentation hymn.) This same chant is the basis for the melody of the Advent chorale Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott. 

J. S. Bach included that chorale in his Orgelbuchlein, a collection of organ works based on hymns from the Lutheran church. Bach had planned 146 chorale preludes arranged according to the seasons of the church year, but only finished 46. Bach provided titles of two texts for this chorale. The first of these, Praise to the almighty God, an Advent hymn, is the likely basis for the prelude. The second, actually a table grace, bears no liturgical relationship to Advent or Christmas. It is the last of four Advent hymns in the collection.

Music for November 29, 2018 + Christ the King Sunday

Vocal Music

• Christ the Glory - Jean - François Lallouette (1651-1728)
• And Still the Bread is Broken – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Praeludium in A – Johann Krieger (1651–1735)
• The Peace May Be Exchanged – Dan Locklair (b. 1949)
• Praeludium from Suite in D Minor – Johann Krieger

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 57 - Lo, he comes with clouds descending (HELMSLEY)
• Hymn 450 - All hail the power of Jesus’ name (CORONATION)
• Hymn R229 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn R227 - Jesus, remember me (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 544 - Jesus shall reign (DUKE STREET)
• Psalm 93 - Tone VIIIa

The last Sunday of the liturgical year is Christ the King Sunday, where we commemorate the Kingship of Christ. We'll sing many of your favorite hymns which refer to crowns and kingdoms.
The anthems, too, that Jesus is the King.

Lalouette

The offertory anthem refers to Jesus as the King of Glory. It is a work by a little known French composer of the Baroque period (ca. 1600–1750), Jean-François Lalouette. A very talented musician, he was a student of composition with the great opera composer Jean-Baptiste de Lully. Appointed as Lully’s assistant, Lully asked Lalouette to complete the internal parts of some of Lully’s opera, Isis. However, after Lalouette claimed credit for writing the better part of the opera, Lully fired him as his aide.

He must have been a difficult person with which to work, as he was fired from or denied opportunity to apply for several jobs during his lifetime. However difficult he must have been, he must have also been talented, as he won appointments at both the Cathedral in Rouen and Notre Dame in Paris, where he ended his career.

Born the same year as Lalouette, but in Germany, was the composer Johann Krieger. Krieger was renowned in his time, often put on par with J. S. Bach and Georg Frideric Handel. G.F. Handel himself confessed how much he owed to Krieger. Today, however, his fame fails in comparison to those great masters.

The Communion voluntary is a movement from Rubrics, a liturgical suite for organ in 5 movements by the North Carolina composer Dan Locklair. It was composed during the spring of 1988 in Winston Salem on a commission from the Organ Artist Series of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for their 10th anniversary year celebration, culminating in April 16, 1989 with the world premiere of Rubrics in Pittsburgh by the American organist, Mary Preston. The titles for each movement are from the instructions (rubrics) to the services for the book of common prayer. The Peace May Be Exchanged is from the Thanksgiving for the birth of a child, page 445. This lyrical Aria, featuring a solo diapason color parentheses accompanied by strings and double pedal throughout close parentheses, is based in D major.

Music for November 18, 2018

Vocal Music

• Here, O My Lord – Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Old Hundredth” – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light – arr. Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)
• Toccata in C – Johann Pachelbel

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 48 - O day of radiant gladness (ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN)
• Hymn 51 - We the Lord’s people, heart and voice uniting (DECATUR PLACE)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world in mercy broken (RENDEZ À DIEU)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of ages, cleft for me (TOPLADY)
• Hymn 571 - All who love and serve your city (CHARLESTOWN)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA)
• Psalm 16 – Tone VIIIa

Traditionally, women have never been leaders in the classical music scene. (Or any scene, for that matter.) I've come to realize (and often joke about) that the majority of the music we hear in church was written by dead white men. That's why I purposely looked for new music this summer that was written by women (dead or alive). Our budget for new music is woefully small, so I only bought a handful of new titles this summer, but the majority, I am proud to say, are by women. This Sunday features two works by women.

Eleanor Daley

The anthem this Sunday is a setting of the communion text, "Here, O My Lord," by the Canadian composer Eleanor Daley. Born and raised in Parry Sound, Ontario, Daley received her Bachelor of Music Degree in Organ Performance from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and holds diplomas in piano and organ from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto and Trinity College, England. She has been the Director of Music at Fairlawn Avenue United Church (formerly Fairlawn Heights) in Toronto, Ontario since 1982. During this time, she has established a thriving choral program for which much of her music has been composed. You can read about this music program at their website, http://www.fairlawnchurch.ca/spirituality/music/

Cathy Moklebust

The Good Shepherd Handbell Guild is playing an arrangement of that favorite hymn "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light," by the American Cathy Moklebust. Trained as a percussionist, she was first introduced to handbells when she was 12 years old at First Lutheran Church in Brookings, South Dakota. She has developed and directed handbell music programs since 1983. As one of today's most popular handbell music composers, she has approximately 250 published compositions and arrangements to her credit, many of them reaching bestseller status. Moklebust's music has been broadcast on "Today," "Good Morning, America," public television, public radio, and SiriusXM satellite radio.

I'm also playing a couple of organ works by the South German baroque composer, Johann Pachelbel. Yes, he's most famous today for his "Canon in D," but in his lifetime Pachelbel was known for his works for organ, and was considered one of the great organ masters of the generation before J.S. Bach. Pachelbel also taught organ, and one of his pupils was Johann Christoph Bach, who in turn gave his younger brother Johann Sebastian Bach his first formal keyboard lessons.

The opening voluntary is a chorale-prelude on the ubiquitous tune OLD HUNDREDTH, which we know as "the Doxology." The pedal carries the melody while the manuals (hands) provide the accompaniment.

The closing voluntary is a toccata which displays a lot of manual dexterity, but the pedal literally just sits on a low C. It's perfect for the lazy church organist. 

Music for November 11, 2018 + Kirking of the Tartans

Vocal Music

• Thou Art God – Lionel Bourne

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral - James D. Wetherald, arr., Richard Kean, piper
• Lascia ch’io Pianga – G. F. Handel

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

• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn S-204 - Glory be to God on High - Old Scottish Chant
• Hymn 429 - I’ll praise my maker while I’ve breath (OLD 113TH)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn R172 - In my life, Lord, be glorified (LORD BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn R27 - O how he loves you and me (PATRICIA)
• Hymn - In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful (Jacques Barthier)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 579 - Almighty Father, strong to save (MELITA)
• Psalm 146 – Tone VIIIa

This is a favorite Sunday for many parishoners at Good Shepherd when we “Kirk (or bless) the Tartans.” This is a relatively new rite, beginning in the early 1940s, when Peter Marshall (the Presbyterian minister who was chaplain of the Senate - not the game show host) held prayer services at New York Avenue Presbyterian in D.C to raise funds for War Relief. At one of the services, he preached a sermon called “Kirking of the Tartans,” and thus a legend was born. You can read the entire fascinating history here on the Tartan Authority Website.

Samuel Seabury

We do it every year around Samuel Seabury day, the first American Anglican bishop who was consecrated by the Scottish Bishops of the Anglican church during the Revolutionary War. Ironically, Samuel Seabury was born on November 30, 1729, the day of St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, which may have presaged his future consecration as the first American Bishop when he was consecrated at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Aberdeen, Scotland

Seabury as
portrayed in the
musical "Hamilton"

Thus we commemorate his consecration by wearing our tartans, hanging them in the church, and hearing the bagpipes play. We begin the service with the piper playing “Highland Cathedral” and end with him playing “Amazing Grace.”

(Seabury appears in the musical "Hamilton" in the number "Farmer Refuted". He is an active Loyalist, someone who remains loyal to an established ruler especially during a revolt, preaching against the Revolution in front of important members of the American government and supporters of the Revolution. Hamilton then backs him down and eventually wins the debate after important members of the congress backed Hamilton. Seabury wrote his defense of the Loyalist position under the name A. W. Farmer, or A Westchester Farmer, hence "The farmer refuted.")

The anthem is a work by Lionel Bourne, Organist & Director of Music at the church of St John the Divine, Kennington (London). Bourne has been at St John’s since 2006.  A graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire, he has many years’ experience as a church musician under his belt as well as a career in music at the BBC.

The text is by the Reverend Canon David Adam, former Vicar of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Lindisfarne is famous for its medieval religious heritage. In 635AD Saint Aidan came from Iona and chose to found his monastery on The Holy Island of Lindisfarne, thus making it a center of Celtic spiritualism. Mr. Adam’s poem sounds eversomuch like an ancient Gaelic Rune.

Bourne has scored this piece for four vocal parts (SATB) and organ. Marked "Flowing, but not too fast", the music is in G major and 3/4 time. The choir begins singing in unison, but by the second stanza begins to unfold into four parts. piece. Dynamically, the music begins softly and stays that way until the beginning of the third stanza, when a gradual crescendo climaxes on the text “Thou art the light, the truth, the way,” with pronounced breaks after “Light,” “truth,” and “way.” There is a diminuendo to a very soft ending as the choir repeats the final line “Thou art my Savior this very day.”

Lascia ch’io pianga (Let Me Weep) is an aria from the opera Rinaldo by George Frederick Handel. I'll admit it has nothing to do with church, per se, but it is very spiritual in nature. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato's includes it on her recent album with conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro, In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music. On this recording, she uses Baroque arias to explore the pain and possibilities of these troubled times. A companion website invites anyone and everyone to answer the simple but loaded question, "In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?"

The piano arrangement I'm playing is from an old Etude magazine from 1919 - one year after World War I ended. It is arranged by Moritz Moszkowski, a German composer, pianist, and teacher of Polish-Jewish descent. He took quite a few liberties in his "transcription."

November 4, 2018 + All Saints Sunday

Vocal Music

• By All Your Saints – Joel Martinson

Instrumental Music

• Here I Am, Lord – Daniel Schutte
• Concerto in A Minor (First Movement) – Antonio Vivaldi

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

• Hymn 287 - For all the saints, who from their labor rest  (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 286 - Who are these like stars appearing (ZEUCH MICH, ZEUCH MICH)
• Hymn 822 - Through North and South and East and West (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 620 - Jerusalem, my happy home (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 293 - I sing a song of the saints of God (GRAND ISLE)
• Hymn 618  - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)
• Psalm 24

All Saints Day is November 1. (Which is why we have All Hallow's Eve - Halloween - on October 31.) All Saints’ Day is when the church honors all Holy Ones, known and unknown. Our English word “saint” literally means “holy.” The next day, November 2, is All Soul's Day, the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. In other cultures the celebration is known as Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos in Spanish-speaking countries.)

Here at Good Shepherd we combine the two and observe them on the Sunday following. That's why we sing all the good old All Saints hymns (For All the Saints is regularly voted as one of the favorites of the congregation to sing) and read the list of names of those dear to us who have died. (This would be a good time for you to watch the animated movie Coco. (I think its the best of the Disney movies, able to be enjoyed by children and adults alike).

I am out of the country this week, so my good friend Rob Carty will be playing the organ for me in my absence. 

Music for October 28, 2018

Vocal Music

• Alleluia from Exultate Jubilate, K.165  – W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) Christine Marku, soprano
• Look at the World – John Rutter (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Declare the Maker's Praise - Joseph D. Daniel / arr. Tammy Waldrop
• Arioso from Cantata 156 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Sinfonia from Cantata 79: Wir Danken dir, Gott – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
• Hymn 302 - Father, we thank thee who hast planted (RENDEZ A DIEU)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 693 - Just as I am, without one plea (WOODWORTH)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (PADERBORN)
• Psalm 126 – Tone VIIIa

There's only one service this Sunday as we begin our 2018 Stewardship emphasis. Because of this, we pull out most of the stops for music this week!

We'll start out with an opening voluntary played by the Good Shepherd Handbell Guild. These 10 women meet each Wednesday morning during the school year. It's an interesting mix of ages, as the the youngest is 13 (we have three home-schooled youth). There are two sets of mother/daughters and one set of sisters. We have people with over 20 years of playing experience down to those playing for the first time.

The piece is an original composition by Joseph Daniel, a free-lance musician living in Michigan, with degrees in music from Baylor and the University of Michigan.

Then the Good Shepherd Choir will be joined by the Coventry Choir in John Rutter's beautiful anthem, Look at the World. Rutter is considered one of the leading living composers of sacred music. His anthem is perfect for our Stewardship emphasis as it enumerates the natural beauties that God created in the world and for which we give thanks.

Every good gift, all that we need and cherish,
Comes from the Lord in token of his love.
We are his hands, stewards of all his bounty,
His is the earth and his the heavens above.

Praise to thee, O Lord for all creation,
Give us thankful hearts that we may see
All the gifts we share, and every blessing,
All things come of thee

Mozart, age 18

Venanzio Rauzzini
engraved by Samuel Freeman 

Then at the offertory, Christine Irwin Marku will sing the soprano show-piece, Alleluia, from Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate.

Mozart was just 16 when he wrote this. The man (yes, man) for whom Mozart wrote it, Venanzio Rauzzini, was the Italian soprano castrato of choice for the musical chattering classes of Milan. The composer and performer had been flung together to produce Mozart’s early opera, Lucio Silla, in which Rauzzini starred. The singer would eventually, after a couple more adulatory years wowing them in Italy, move permanently to the unlikely destination of Bath, England, living largely off his reputation by teaching and mounting subscription concerts.

Music for October 21, 2018 + Good Shepherd School Sunday

Vocal Music

• I Know I’m a Child of God - Lonnie Stanford

Instrumental Music

• Dona nobis Pacem - Traditional, arr. Tom Anderson
• Rhosymedre – Ralph Vaughan Williams 
• Symphony No. 9 “Ode to Joy” - Beethoven, arr. Tom Anderson      

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

• Hymn 8 - Morning is broken (BUNESSAN)
• Hymn 405 - All things bright and beautiful (ROYAL OAK)
• Hymn 380 - From all that dwell below the skies (OLD HUNDREDTH)
• Hymn R289 - Jesu, Jesu (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (SERVANT SONG)
• Song - The Lord is my shepherd
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm 91:9-6 Tone

Today is Good Shepherd School Sunday at the 10:15 service in the nave. The children of our day school will sing the offertory anthem today, and their Bell/Boomwhacker ensemble will play the opening and closing voluntaries. Karen Silva is the music teacher at our school and does a fabulous job teaching them rudiments of music in addition to learning to sing.

Founded in 1984, Good Shepherd School began with 2 classes and 22 children. Today, we have over 15 classes and maintain a regular student roster of over 300 students. We have school-year programs for children ages 1 through Kindergarten.

Music for October 14, 2018

Vocal Music

• Prayer – Mark Schweitzer (b. 1956)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on “St. Anne” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• I. Theme
• II. Adagio
• V. Pastorale
• VI. Fugue-finale

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

• Hymn 680 - O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn R145 Lord, I want to be a Christian (I WANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN)
• Hymn R152 I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn 408 Sing praise to God who reigns above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Psalm 90:12-17 – Tone VIIIa

North Carolina composer Mark Schweitzer has written a lovely, gentle setting of the hymn "King of Glory, King of Peace" which is deceptively simple sounding. It's easy to listen to because of the lyrical melody which beautifully aligns with the lyrics, as well as the luscious harmonies that support the melody, but it is much harder to sing than it would appear because of those harmonies. You have different parts singing suspensions, appoggiaturas, and other challenging harmonic devices. You have an accompaniment that, which supporting the singers, is still very independent.

George Herbert

The hymn King of glory, King of peace is by the British poet and priest George Herbert. Born to a wealthy Welsh family in 1593, he attended Trinity College, Cambridge in and graduated with a Bachelor's and a master's degree in 1616 at the age of 23. It looked like he was headed to a career in public service with his appointment to Parliament in 1624, but God had other plans, and he entered the priesthood in 1629. He was appointed as rector of the small rural parish of St. Andrew's in  Bemerton,  Wiltshire, near Salisbury. Here he preached and wrote poetry in Latin, Greek, and English.

His time at Bemerton was short-lived, however.  Having suffered for most of his life from poor health, in 1633 Herbert died of consumption only three years after taking holy orders. Shortly before his death, he sent a collection of his English poems, called The Temple to a friend, reportedly telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul", otherwise to burn them. Thankfully, they were published not long after his death.

King of Glory, King of Peace can be found as a hymn in our hymnal, at no. 382, sung to another tune. In fact, we have two other settings of this text in our choir library, composed by Harold Friedell and Gerald Near.

The opening hymn for Sunday is the grand old hymn, O God, our help in ages past, by Issac Watts. Since the Psalm for this Sunday is the last half of Psalm 90, I decided to sing this hymn, which is considered to be one of the best paraphrases of the first six verses of Psalm 90 by Watts.  All of the organ music will be from Paul Manz's set of variations on the hymn tune forever associated with that text, St. Anne. These variations were probably improvised by Manz during a recital or one of his Hymn Festivals, and later published as Partita on St. Anne.

Music for October 7, 2018

Vocal Music

• For the Beauty of the Earth – John Rutter (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Benediction – Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
• Suite Liturgique: III. Communion– Denis Bédard (b. 1950)
• Now Thank We All Our God – Sigfrid Karg-Elert

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew and "L" which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn R250 - O Lord, my God (O STOR GUD)
• Hymn 480 - When Jesus left his Father’s throne (KINGSFOLD)
• Hymn L218 - Jesus loves me, this I know (JESUS LOVES ME)
• Hymn R173 - O Lord, hear my prayer (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)
• Psalm 8 – Tone VII

John Rutter (right), looking startled to be caught
standing next to your organist in 2017. We have
same haircut.

That John Rutter became one of the world’s most well-known composers of church music should surprise no one. He sang as a boy chorister at London’s prestigious Highgate School, and proceeded to study at Clare College, Cambridge, where he later became director of music. Rutter leapt to prominence in 1970, as co-editor of the second volume in Oxford University Press’s Carols for Choirs series. Since then, his name has become synonymous with English church music, especially for the Christmas season. He now lives near Cambridge, and conducts a professional choir, the Cambridge Singers.

This Sunday the choir sings one of his anthems with a Texas connection. Rutter wrote his setting of the nineteenth-century hymn, For the beauty of the earth, for Rosemary Heffley and the Texas Choral Directors Association in 1980. Foregoing the tune found in most hymnals (though not the Hymnal 1980!), Rutter crafted a lyrical, rising melody that joyfully concludes with an off-kilter rhythm and flamboyant turn. It has since become a standard in choir libraries, sung by choirs the world over. It's been  arranged for women's voices and men's voices in addition to the regular mixed voice choir, in addition to arrangements for concert band!

The author of the text is the otherwise neglected nineteenth-century English poet Folliott Pierpoint, who taught classics at Somersetshire College in southwest England. Much of Pierpoint’s poems deals with nature, and For the beauty of the earth is believed to have been a rhapsodic response to a springtime vista in the Somerset countryside when he was 29.

Two pieces by Sigfrid Karg-Elert open and close our 10:15 service. Karg-Elert was a German composer of considerable fame in the early twentieth century, best known for his compositions for organ and harmonium (reed organ). He was born as Sigfried Karg, but his concert-agent suggested early in his career that he add  a variant of his mother's maiden name (Ehlert) to his surname, and adopt the Swedish spelling of his first name.

Karg-Elert regarded himself as a musical outsider. Notable influences in his work include composers Johann Sebastian Bach (Germany), Edvard Grieg (Norway), Claude Debussy (France), Alexander Scriabin (Russia), and early Arnold Schoenberg (Austria). In general terms, his musical style can be characterized as being late-romantic with impressionistic and expressionistic tendencies.

I was interested to discover that, though Karg-Elert was well received and appreciated outside of Germany (especially in the US and the UK, where the Organ Music Society of London held a ten-day festival in his honor in 1930), the cultural climate in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was very hostile to the internationally oriented, French-influenced Karg-Elert. This is during the time that Adolph Hitler was on the rise, promoting his "Mach Deutschland wieder groß" (Make Germany Great Again) campaign.

Karg-Elert died in Liepzig in 1933 of complications from diabetes, at age 55.

Music for September 30, 2018 and St. Michael and All Angels

10:15 Service in the Nave

Vocal Music

• Seek to Serve – Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003)

Instrumental Music

• Four settings of If thou but trust in God to guide thee, BWV 642, 647, 691, 690 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but trust in God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 609 - Where cross the crowded ways of life (GARDINER)
• Hymn R291 - Go forth for God, go to the world in peace (GENEVA 124)
• Psalm 19:7-14 - Tone VIIIa

5PM Service for St. Michael and All Angels

Vocal Music

• Command Thine Angel That He Come – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Missa Oecumenica – Richard Proulx (1937-2010)

Instrumental Music

• Minuets No. 1 and 3 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Angelica Rodriguez, cello
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is – Daniel Burton, arr.(b. 1944), Daniel Boyd, cello
• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)

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

• Hymn 460 - Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn R114 - Bless the Lord, my soul (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 282 - Christ, the fair glory of the holy angels (CAELITES PLAUDANT)
• Hymn 618 - Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 324 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)

The composer of this morning's anthem is 20th Century composer, choral director, and teacher Lloyd Pfautsch, who was one of my professors  at Southern Methodist University in Texas.

Born in a little Missouri town where the primary industry was the manufacture of corncob pipes, Pfautsch was raised within the rich cultural, musical and hymnic tradition of German Evangelical churches which then extended from Pennsylvania across the mid and upper Midwest.  His worship-song roots were the Lutheran-style chorale, and he often reminded his students and colleagues that music is a living voice of the Gospel, a gift from God never to be trivialized.

When teaching aspiring vocal professionals, Pfautsch challenged the frequent assumption that one's solo voice could be damaged by singing in choirs, proving that solo and choral singing need never be incompatible.  And to his students studying choral conducting he often said: “Your choirs can sing anything you can teach them.” (We'll test this theory Sunday night.)

If you want to read some beautiful and inspiring memories of this man, check this out.

The melody (if you will) for the anthem comes from chant, the Missa Simplex. These are the words taken from Scripture which Lloyd Pfautsch used for this anthem:

May I live in the world as one who always seeks to serve.
May I live as one who knows the love of God.
Lord, teach me how to live and how serve.

With my ears may I hear.  With my eyes may I see.
With my lips may I speak.  May your word be heard through me.
Thus as I live each day may love sustain the will to serve. Amen.

©  1983, Agape, a division of Hope Publishing Company

All the organ music for 10:15 is based on one hymn, and all arranged by J. S. Bach. If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee is set to the tune WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT. Published in 1657, Bach also used the tune in no less than EIGHT of his cantatas. Many other composers have also written organ preludes on this tune. WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT is in a bar form (AAB). It is a great hymn, and one that deserves to be sung more by our congregation. (If for no other reason than it has just TWO stanzas!)

Here is the story of this hymn, from the website Hymnary.com

When Georg Neumark was 18 years old, he was traveling across Germany to school when he was robbed of all his personal possessions and money. He spent the next two years looking for work amidst the economic hardships of the Thirty Years War. Finally, at the age of 20, he found employment as a tutor for a judge in Kiel. He was apparently so relieved and grateful that later that night he wrote this text of trust and gratitude, saying, “This good fortune, which came so suddenly and, as it were, from heaven, so rejoiced my heart that I wrote my hymn ‘Wer nur...’ to the glory of my God on that first day.”
Neumark knew of the trials we face every day – whether they are economic, emotional, spiritual, or physical. And he knew that, even if it is not how we would have first asked or imagined, God provides for His people. During those two years of living in the unknown, Neumark knew one thing: God was always with him. Later in his life he again lost all his possessions to a fire, but he had these words of trust to say in the face of adversity. And in the face of our own hardships, we sing these words of trust, knowing that God is with us.

At the evening service for the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, the choir will sing Befiehl dem Engel, dass er komm (Command Thine Angel that He Come), a short cantata by Dietrich Buxtehude
which is perfect for this feast of All Angels.

In this cantata Buxtehude sets the sixth and seventh verses of the chorale "Christe, du bist der helle Tag", by Erasmus Alberus.  As in many of his other cantatas, Buxtehude places the melody of the chorale in the soprano, though he ornaments the melody of the chorale a bit more than in many of his other works.

The mass setting is from the late Richard Proulx, called Missa Oecumenica in Byzantine Style.
This masterful setting beautifully weaves elements of chant from Eastern Orthodox Christianity with music of  Alexander Arkhangelsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Music for September 23, 2018

Vocal Music

• Cantique de Jean Racine – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Instrumental Music

• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
• Preamble – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• Prelude on “Engleberg” – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)

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 R148 - Brother. Let me be your servant (SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world, in mercy broken (RENDEZ A DIEU)
• Hymn 660 - O Master, let me walk with thee (MARYTON)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn 477 - All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine (ENGLEBERG)
• Psalm 54 – Tone VIIIa

"How do you choose the music you use for worship at Good Shepherd?" asked one person at Daughters of the King that night I talked to them about Growing Old Gracefully. (Note to self: stick with what you know.)

I always start with the congregational music, choosing hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs that support and magnify the scripture readings for the day.  Everything else comes from those choices.

Often I can find an organ or piano piece based on a hymn-tune that we are singing that Sunday. Such is the case this week, as I have two works based on the opening and closing hymns.

The opening voluntary is a chorale-prelude based on the German chorale LOBE DEN HERREN (Praise to the Lord.) It is by the  German organist and composer Johann Gottfried Walther. A cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach, his life paralled that of his now-famed relative not only in the years spanned but also in their profession. (For a time they both lived in Weimar, Bach as court musician, and Walther as organist at the Weimar Stadtkirche. Walther remained at that post until his death.)

In the prelude this Sunday you will hear the melody played in the pedal on a trumpet stop. This setting is what is called a "gapped" chorale setting - a movement in which the chorale melody is heard phrase by phrase against a continuously moving texture in counterpoint to it.

Likewise, the closing voluntary is based on the closing hymn. ENGELBERG was composed in 1904 by the British composer Charles Villiers Stanford for the hymn "For All the Saints." It was fashionable in the earlier 20th century until it was eclipsed by the immensely popular SINE NOMINE, which Ralph Vaughan Williams composed for the same hymn in 1906.

Craig Phillips

It regained its prominence when it was paired with the  hymn "When in Our Music God Is Glorified" in 1972. Other texts that have been paired with this tune are "We Know that Christ Is Raised" and today's hymn, "All Praise to Thee, for Thou, O King Divine."

The organ piece by Craig Phillips, Prelude on "Engleberg," is more "Prelude" than "Engleberg." It starts with an opening fanfare before going into an original melody on the solo trumpet. It is a noble, heroic melody with a fanfare-like rhythm that goes on for three pages of music before we finally hear the familiar hymn-tune, played through, just once, with each phrase interrupted with a pedal solo reminiscent of the heroic melody from the first section. The piece ends with a recapitulation of the opening "A" section.

Louis Vierne

The other organ piece is the first piece from 24 Pièces en style libre op. 31, by the famed French organist Louis Vierne. Blind since birth, it is said that, at two years old, he heard his first piano. A pianist played a Schubert lullaby for him, and when he finished young Louis promptly began to pick out the notes of the lullaby on the piano. He attended the Paris Conservatoire and then became assistant to the organist Charles-Marie Widor at the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris in 1892. He subsequently became principal organist at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, a post he held from 1900 until his death in 1937. He died at the organ of Notre-Dame at the end of his 1750th recital.

I've chosen it to compliment the other French piece today, the Cantiqe de Jean Racine by Gabriel Faure. We sang this piece a year ago, so go here to read about it.

Music for September 16, 2018

Vocal Music

• Day by Day – Martin How (b, 1931)

Instrumental Music

• Voluntary in G Major – William Boyce (1710-1779)
• Variations on Jesu, Meine Freude (Hymn 701) – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
• Sinfonia from “Sampson” – George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “x” which are from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 525 - The Church’s one foundation (AURELIA)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn 433 - We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing (KREMSER)
• Hymn L136 - I have decided to follow Jesus (ASSAM)
• Hymn L144 - I can hear my Savior calling (NORRIS)
• Hymn 522 - Glorious things of thee are spoken (AUSTRIA)
• Psalm 116:1-8 - tone VIIIa

I love Baroque music (music from @1600-1750), and particularly the well-defined musical forms of the period. In Germany one of the prevailing tendencies was pairing the Prelude and Fugue together. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature with a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece, while a fugue is a sophisticated compositional technique of two or more voices, built on a musical theme that is introduced at the beginning, then imitated at different pitches and which recurring frequently during the composition.

In England, composers didn’t seem to pair the two forms as much as combine them into one piece called voluntaries. Originally, the term voluntary was used for a piece of organ music that was free in style and was meant to sound improvised (the word voluntary in general means "proceeding from the will or from one's own choice or consent"). [1] This probably grew out of the practice of church organists improvising after a service.

Later, the voluntary began to develop into a more definite form, like the today’s voluntary by William Boyce. It begins with an improvisatory section (prelude) before ending with a fugue – and in this instance, it’s a Double Fugue, with two subjects that are developed simultaneously.

William Boyce was the leading native-born composer in England during Eighteenth Century, second only in popularity to that German intruder, Georg Friedrich Händel (who later Anglicized the spelling of his name as George Frederick Handel.) He was known for his set of eight symphonies, his church anthems and his odes. He also wrote three operas and some chamber music.

At the age of 48, Boyce went deaf, and had to give up playing the organ. He devoted himself to editing the collection of church music which bears his name and completing the compilation Cathedral Music that his teacher Maurice Greene had left incomplete at his death. This led to Boyce editing works by the likes of William Byrd and Henry Purcell. Many of the pieces in the collection are still used in Anglican services today.

Boyce was largely forgotten after his death and he remains a little-performed composer today. The great exception to this neglect is his church music, which was edited after his death and published in two large volumes in 1780 and 1790.

The first movement (Allegro) of Boyce's Symphony No. 1 in B-flat was the first piece of music played during the procession of the bride and bridegroom at the end of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018.

To balance the understated elegance of Boyce’s Voluntary, I will end the service with a transcription of a Sinfonia from the Oratorio Solomon by his greatest rival, Handel. This Sinfonia, which opens act 3, is more commonly known as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.” It was featured at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.

[1] "voluntary". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 14 September 2018.

Music for September 9, 2018

Vocal Music

• O God, My Heart Is Ready – Simon Lindley (b. 1948)

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• I. Chaconne 
• II. Sarabande on “Land of Rest”
• III. Final 

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew, and the communion hymn which is from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

• Hymn 429 - I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath (OLD 113TH)
• Hymn 371 - Thou, whose almighty word (MOSCOW)
• Hymn R266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (GIVE THANKS)
• Hymn R191 - O Christ, the healer (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn  - Heal me, hands of Jesus (SHARPE)
• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Psalm 146 - Tone VIIIa

Simon Lindley

The Good Shepherd Choirs sings a spirited anthem by the British composer Simon Lindley  who is retired as Organist of Leeds Parish Church and of Leeds Town Hall; He continues on Music Director of St Peter's Singers, one of England's leading Chamber Choir; and of the Sheffield Bach Society. He is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford and the Royal College of Music.

The anthem is based on verses from Psalm 108, and is perfect for the beginning of a new choir season. "O God, my heart is ready. I will sing, and give praise with the best member that I have." Though we have already sung two Sundays, it is still appropriate. It is described as a "carillon." I am not sure how he came about that denotation; A carillon is a set of  10 or more chromatically tuned bells, fixed in place and played by hammers (clappers) controlled from a keyboard. I suppose the accompanying ostinato pattern could be imagined as a peal being rung by bells.

All the organ music is from a Suite for organ by the prominent American composer of organ and church music, Gerald Near. He was a composition student of Leo Sowerby at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago before going to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he studied composition),  organ, and conducting. He continued his composition studies at the University of Minnesota under Dominick Argento .

After working as a choirmaster at the Calvary Church in Rochester, Minnesota, Near was musical director and organist at St. Matthew's Cathedral , Dallas, Texas, and Composer in Residence at the Cathedral of St. John, Denver, Colorado. Eventually he became choirmaster and cantor at the Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The suite opens with a chaconne, a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era which involves numerous variations on a repeated short harmonic progression, in this case a two measure repetitive bass-line (ground bass) which is the outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention.

The second movement is a sarabande on the familiar tune LAND OF REST. A sarabande was a old dance form in triple meter. There will be no dancing during communion, however, as I play this.

Music for September 2, 2018

Vocal Music

• I Give to You a New Commandment – Peter Nardone (b. 1965)

Instrumental Music

• Onse Vader in hemelrijck – Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)
• Ayre in F – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1757)
• Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise – arr. Michael Burkhardt (b. 1957)

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

• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible, God only wise (ST. DENIO)
• Hymn R122 - Surely it is God who saves me (FIRST SONG OF ISAIAH)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn R145 - Lord, I want to be a Christian (I WANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN)
• Hymn R172 - In our lives, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn 556 - Rejoice, ye pure in heart (MARIAN)
• Psalm 15 - paraphrase by Christopher Webber, 1986 (ST. ANNE)

The choir sings a lyrical anthem by the Scottish composer Peter Nardone. He sets a text from John 13:34-35 (I give to you a new commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you) to a lovely melody, which is sung by the treble voices. He then combines that melody with the Latin chant Ubi caritas, sung by the gentlemen of the choir.

Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor. Exsultemus et in ipso jucundemur. Timeamus et amemus Deum vivum. Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.
[Where charity is true, God is there. The love of Christ has gathered us into one. Let us rejoice and be glad in him. Let us fear and love the living God. And from a sincere heart let us love one another.]

Peter Thomas Nardone is a Scottish countertenor, organist, choirmaster, and composer. He has sung with the Monteverdi Choir, the King's Consort, and the Tallis Scholars. He has been Director at Chelmsford Cathedral and is currently Organist and Director of Music at Worcester Cathedral, and Artistic Director of Three Choirs Festival.

Peter Nardone, conducting the Three Choirs Festival

From the 14th century on, The Netherlands were known for their organs, and organ builders from the Lowlands influenced organs built all across Europe. I find it strange, then, that Dutch organ playing failed to keep up with the innovative organs being built in the 15th and 16th century. Most local organists played transcriptions of vocal literature. When a few prominent English organists moved to the Lowlands as religious exiles, the Dutch were exposed to what the keyboards were capable of. In Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Netherlandish organ music found its first significant organist of native birth. He was able to combine the polyphonic heritage of Netherlandish choral composers with foreign keyboard traditions.

The two variations of the German chorale Vater Unser in Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven), with which I open today's service, are examples of that. In the first, we hear a basic four-part setting, with the melody in longer, sustained notes on top. This is very much like a choral work of the period, though with more 16th note passages in the lower voices. (You can follow this melody by looking in our hymnal at hymn 575). The second variation changes key, and has the melody, or the cantus firmus, in the alto line. The organ of Sweelinck's time, as innovative as it was, still did not have much of a pedal division, and was used mainly to solo out the melody. Though this variation is not written specifically with that in mind, I will be playing the alto melody on the pedal reed, so you will hear it prominently featured in this arrangement.

There are several different variations on this chorale that are attributed to Sweelinck, and most of them are spurious compositions, with their authenticity in question. The volume in which these two variations are published feels as though these two, at least, are authentic. So I feel validated. (Smug grin.)

The communion voluntary is a transcription of an instrumental work by Georg Phillipe Telemann. Telemann was another Lutheran organist, living and working in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century. But for a composer to have written over 3000 works in his lifetime, he is relatively unknown today.

a marmot. (Not Telemann)

Telemann became a composer in spite of his mother’s firm disapproval. She wanted him to become a priest, and when she discovered that young Telemann had been secretly
learning the violin, she confiscated the instrument, lest it inspire her son to trade in his ecclesiastical aspirations for some kind of low-class, show-biz job like "a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot trainer."

A marmot trainer, no less.

But, she need not have worried. By his early 20s, Telemann's music had already established the composer as one of the most distinguished individuals in the city of Leipzig. Throughout the decades that followed, he was perhaps the greatest musical celebrity of his time. In his early 40s, he even turned down the most prestigious church music gig in Leipzig, which eventually went to the city council's third choice: Johann Sebastian Bach.

Music for August 26, 2018 + Rally Day

Vocal Music

• Jubilate Deo – Dale Wood (1934-2003)

Instrumental Music

• A Joyous Peal – Michael Bedford (b. 1949), Handbell Ensemble
• Lord, enthroned in Heavenly Splendor – Larry Shackley (b. 1956)
• Serenade for Organ - Derek Bourgeois (1941-2017)

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

• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 548 - Soldiers of Christ, arise (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world, in mercy broken (RENDEZ A DIEU)
• Hymn R195 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn R218 - Broken for me (Janet Lunt)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA)
• Psalm 34:15-22 – Tone VIIIa

We welcome the Good Shepherd Choir back to the loft this Sunday after their summer break. The choir celebrates Rally Day with the upbeat setting of a paraphrase of Psalm 100, Jubilate Deo, by the American composer Dale Wood. Wood was a highly respected composer of sacred music during the 20th century, with over 8 million copies of his music published in America and abroad. He was also an active organist-choirmaster, working in Lutheran and Episcopal churches in Hollywood, Riverside, and San Francisco, California.

Michael Bedford

A small ensemble from the Handbell Choir will be playing the opening voluntary. A Joyous Peal is by my friend Michael Bedford, Organist/Choirmaster Emeritus of St. John's Episcopal Church in Tulsa, where he served for over 25 years before retiring in 2015. He is now serving as national president of the American Guild of Organists. He has earned the BMus, BMusEd, and MMus degrees from Texas Christian University, and, in 1972-73, he studied organ with Michael Schneider at the Hochschule fur Musik in Cologne, Germany on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1998 he earned the DMA degree in organ performance from the University of North Texas.

A peal is a loud ringing of a bell or bells. Often it implies a repetitive pattern of bells. This piece builds on a repeated motif, adding layers and notes as it progresses.

The British Isles have provided us with some simple and often haunting folk melodies. Many of these tunes have been matched with hymn texts and become a treasured part of our hymnody. This is true with the tune SLANE which we sang last week to the words "Be thou my vision." On the other hand, composers such as the Welshman William Owens wrote original tunes which are so close to their "folk" roots that it's easy to assume they are traditional melodies. Such is the case of Owen's tune BRYN CALFARIA which we have been learning this month. Ralph Vaughan Williams, editor of The English Hymnal (1906) first paired this tune with the text "Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor," a pairing that has perdured the test of time. Larry Shackley, a free-lance composer from Columbia, South Carolina, has written a lovely piano meditation on BRYN CALFARIA that I'll be playing at communion.

Larry Shackley

A native of Chicago, Shackley attended Eastman School of Music (M.M) and the University of South Carolina (D.M.A). He has had a varied career, from teaching at Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina, to working at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, creating original music and producing radio programs for the Moody Broadcasting Network, to composing for over 30 films, videotapes, and radio dramas. He has also served churches such as Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois as well as several churches in South Carolina. Shackley is also an active studio musician, arranger, and orchestrator. Recently, he has devoted most of his composing to music for the church, writing over 450 keyboard arrangements and 250 choral pieces for a variety of publishers.

The closing voluntary is a fun piece by the English composer Derek Bourgeois. Bourgeois was born in Dulwich, South London, England, studied music at Cambridge, and lectured in music at Bristol University for some years before becoming Director of the National Youth Orchestra. As a composer his energy was directed into major forms such as the symphony, oratorio and sonata, but he also has time for a joke in the true Haydn tradition and a sense of joie de vivre. His less 'serious' works include a 'Wine' Symphony, a Cantata Gastronomica, and this work for organ.

Derek Bougeouis

Bourgeois wrote this Serenade for his own wedding, to be played by the organist as the Bridal party left the ceremony. Not wishing to allow them the luxury of proceeding in an orderly 2/4, the composer wrote the work in 11/8, and in case anyone felt too comfortable, he changed it to 13/8 in the middle! "As the number of beats in a bar becomes increasingly odd, the listener is left wondering whether the music was designed to amuse the composer's musical bride as she walked up the aisle, or confuse his eminent Director of Studies who was in the congregation. Certainly he would have been able to unravel a hint or two of a famous Bolero from the music." [1]
This piece has become very popular with brass bands.

[1] Ian Carson, liner notes to "Organ Fireworks, Vol. 2, Christopher Herrick," Hyperion, CDA66258, CD © 1988

Music for August 19, 2018

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on Bryn Calfaria – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
• Ornament of Grace – Bernard Wayne Sanders (b. 1957)
• Cantilena (Sonata in D Minor) – Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)
• Trumpet Tune in D – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)

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

• Hymn 427 - When morning gilds the skies (LAUDES DOMINI)
• Hymn 488  - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BYRN CALFARIA)
• Hymn R288 - Eat this Bread (Taizé)
• Hymn 420 - When in our music God is glorified (ENGLEBERG)
• Psalm 34:9-14 – tone VIIIa

Grace Tice and I, after playing an Advent Recital
at Northwoods Presbyterian Church in Houston.
It looks like our prom photo.

This week I am delighted to welcome one of my best friends, oboist Grace Tice, to Good Shepherd. Grace has a Masters Degree in oboe from Rice University, and plays with the Houston Ballet Orchestra in addition to being a free-lance musician around Houston. She will play two pieces for us this Sunday.

Last week I played a piece by Bernard Sanders, and in the comments about his career, I mentioned that he had written a prize-winning composition. This week we will get to hear that work. Ornament of Grace was the first prize winner of an international competition sponsored by the American Guild of Organist in 2008 to promote An International Organ Celebration, a year-long global effort to promote the use of the organ within the church and concert hall. The contest was for a piece of music for organ and one other instrument. Part of the honor was that organists world-wide were encouraged to perform Ornament of Grace on the world's largest organ recital on October 19, 2008. I had the pleasure of performing the Houston premiere of this piece along with Grace at the Organ Spectacular held in Houston at Christ Church Cathedral.

The title comes from verses from scripture which refer to an “ornament of grace.” Proverbs 1:9 asserts: "For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck." The whole chapter refers to receiving instruction and having understanding. Verse eight speaks specifically of receiving the instruction of a father and the law of a mother. Again in Proverbs 4:9 we read: "She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee." Then in Proverbs 25:12 it states: "As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover [sic]upon an obedient ear." It becomes evident that obedience to instruction gives added beauty to the life of a Christian – an ornament; an embellishment.

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger
anon., prior to 1901

The other work, heard at communion, is an arrangement for oboe and organ of the second movement of the organ Sonata No. 11 in D minor, Op. 148 ("Cantilène") by Josef Rheinberger. It reminds me so much of the second movement from J. S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3, the "Air." The bass line is a typical Baroque walking bass line, which is in constant motion. And like the Bach, Rheinberger's bass line is really just octave leaps or step-wise motion, as if moving through a scale. The melody, too, is much like the melody of the "Air," (had Bach written the melody to be played by one instrument, instead of first and second violins.) It's a long, intricate melody with graceful leaps and turns.

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was an Catholic organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein but spending most of his life in Germany. He was a very talented boy, and by age nine was sent to Munich to study at the Munich Conservatorium. Here, his talents as organist were much admired, and he began to earn his living as an organist and private teacher. At the age of twenty, he began to teach theory and piano at the conservatory, and his first opus, four piano pieces, appeared.

We continue learning the hymn-tune BRYN CALFARIA. In addition to singing the hymn, I will play Ralph Vaughan William's organ setting of the tune for the opening voluntary. Unlike the pieces I played the last two weeks, which set out the tune quite plainly and simply, this one is a fantasia, a composition with a free form and in an improvisatory style. You'll hear bits and pieces of the melody, most notably the first four notes of the melody, and the "alleluia" portion of the hymn at the end.