Music for Easter 2018

Vocal Music

• Sing Unto God from Judas Maccabeus – George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) 
• Laudate Dominum from Vesperae Solennes de Confessore – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) 
• Brooke Vance, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Tuba Tune – Norman Cocker (1889-1957)
• Festival Toccata - Percy Fletcher (1879-1932) 

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

• Hymn 207 - Jesus Christ is risen today (Easter Hymn) 
• Hymn 417 - This is the feast of victory (Festival Canticle)) 
• Hymn 210 - The day of resurrection (Ellacombe) 
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (Salzburg) 
• Hymn 204 - Now the green blade riseth (Noel Nouvelet) 
• Hymn 179 - “Welcome, happy morning!” (Fortunatus) 
• Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 -Tone VIIIa,  refrain by Hal Hopson

In what may be a first, none of the choral or organ music for the big Easter services was written expressly for the season of Easter. In fact, there is not even an "alleluia" in the whole lot! But rest assured, the resurrection will be celebrated! All of the music is joyous and jubilant!

Many choirs across the globe will include one or more selections from Handel's oratorio, Messiah, in the Easter services, but we turn to another of his oratorios, Judas Maccabaeus, for our offertory. The story of a people’s triumph told in music of high drama and glorious pageantry is George Frideric Handel at his heroic best, full of rousing choruses, ravishing duets, and fiery arias. 

 

Written by Reverend Thomas Morell (based on the apocryphal book 1 Maccabees), the libretto of Judas Maccabaeus tells the tale of the Jews’ resistance toward their Syrian conquerors. Led by their king, Antiochus, the Syrians invaded Judea in 169 BC, killing many people and desecrating the Jewish temples. The Jews did not submit willingly to their captors, and under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus, fought their tormentors. Our anthem comes from the moment that the Jew's learn that Judas has not only defeated scores of enemies, but has moved into Jerusalem as well.  That's why the people of Israel "sing unto God, ...to crown this conquest with unmeasur’d praise." It's a perfect response also to Jesus' conquest over death and hell.

You'll hear many typical Handelian elements, starting with the opening theme in the altos which breaks into a joyous, melismatic run on the words "praise." There is also a juxtaposition of contrapuntal, fugal sections mixed with clear cut homophonic sections where each part sings the same words at the same time, emphasizing the words.

Brooke Vance, solist for the Mozart this Sunday.
Brooke grew up at Good Shepherd, singing in the choirs
until she entered Indiana University where she received her
undergraduate degree in music in 2017

During communion, we are so happy (and fortunate) to have Brooke Vance with us to sing the exquisite Laudate Dominum from Vesperae Solennes de Confessore by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 

Mozart composed two settings of the Vespers (Evening Service): Vesperae Solennes de Dominica, K. 321 (1779) and Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, K. 339 (1780). The title Vesperae Solennes de Confessore means that the work was composed to honor a saint. Solennes in this case means accompanied by an orchestra. 

 

The Vesperae Solennes de Confessore was the last work Mozart wrote for his taskmaster employer, Archbishop Colloredo. This service stays well under the 45-minute time limit created by the Archbishop, composed of five Psalms, followed by a canticle, the Magnificat. The Psalms flow easily from one to the other, as chant would do in such a service.  

 

For this movement, he creates one of the most lyrical and beautiful soprano solos in all of his 

compositions. It is a gentle hymn of praise, with soaring, expressive melody for the soloist, 

accompanied by liquid, flowing instrumental lines. The choir enters quietly at the Gloria patri, singing the same music that the soloist sang at the beginning of the movement while textually continuing the text. The soloist enters with exquisite embellishment at the Amen. The chorus states a final, quiet Amen, and the movement concludes with a gentle, rippling effect in the accompaniment.

The organ music comes from the early-twentieth century English school, with works by Norman Cocker and Percy Fletcher. Of the two, Cocker was more at home in the church, with Fletcher at home in the theatre.

Cocker was a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, before later becoming organist of Manchester Cathedral.   He was awarded the Organ Scholarship at Merton College, Oxford, but never completed his degree after being sent down, on his own admission, for not doing enough work. He also held appointments in various cinemas in the city. He is chiefly known for this one work, Tuba Tune, which he wrote in 1922.

Fletcher, who was born in Derby, made his living as a Musical Director in the London theatre world, fulfilling this position successively at the Prince of Wales, Savoy, Daly's, Drury Lane and from, 1915 until his death, His Majesty's Theatre. He also composed two successful musical comedies, Cairo, described as a 'mosaic in music and mime' in 1921, The Good Old Days in 1925.

He also wrote a good deal of classical music for orchestra, chamber ensembles,  brass bands, and church, but sadly Fletcher's music has now all but sunk without trace. One may still occasionally hear Bal Masqué played by a light orchestra, Labour and Love and the Epic Symphony performed by brass bands, or the rare church choir sing the Passion at Easter. Ultimately it is the organ where you now regularly hear his works, including today's closing voluntary, Festival Toccata, written in 1915.

Music for the Triduum 2018

THE TRIDUUM is a fancy word meaning the Three (tri) Days (duum) that bring Holy Week to a close. Here are the music lists for the Maundy Thursday Service (7 PM March 29), Good Friday Service (Noon on Friday March 30) and the Easter Vigil (7 PM on Saturday, March 31)

March 29, 2018 + Maundy Thursday + 7 P.M.

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) 
• Ave Verum - Robert Lucas de Pearsall (1795-1856) 

Instrumental Music 

• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness – Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795) 
• Ubi Caritas - Michael Larkin (b. 1951) 

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

• Hymn 439 -  What wondrous love is this (WONDROUS LOVE) 
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM) 
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG) 
• Hymn 602- Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI) 
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas et amor (Jacques Berthier) 
• Hymn 479 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN) 
• Hymn 171 - Go to dark Gethsemane (PETRA) 
• Hymn R169 - Stay with me (Jacques Berthier) 

Drop, drop, slow tears is a devotional anthem which we will sing during the foot washing. Like The King of love and Let all mortal flesh, Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘married’ a poignant text by the Jacobean poet and clergyman Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650) to one of Orlando Gibbons’s hymn tunes (Song 46, published in 1623) for The English Hymnal in 1906. Interestingly, poet and composer are linked by their connection with King’s College, Cambridge, where Gibbons was a chorister and Fletcher a student. 

March 30, 2018 + Good Friday + Noon 

Vocal Music 

• The Crucifixion – Samuel Barber
• Christine Marku, soprano 
• Were You There? - Spiritual 
• Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music 

• O Sacred Head – Pamela Decker (b. 1955)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.) 

• Hymn 441 - In the cross of Christ I glory (RATHBUN) 
• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended (HERZLIEBSTER JESU) 
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM) 

Christine Marku will be singing the haunting solo, "The Crucifixion", by Samuel Barber as part of our Good Friday service. Barber wrote this solo as part of his song cycle, Hermit Songs, which he wrote for the American soprano Leontyne Price in 1953, when she was barely 27, a recent graduate of Julliard. Hermit Songs takes as its basis a collection of anonymous poems written by Irish monks and scholars from the 8th to the 13th centuries. "The Crucifixion" is from the 12th century collection The Speckled Book, translated by Howard Mumford Jones. Listen for the bird's cry in the piano accompaniment.

At the cry of the first bird
They began to crucify Thee, O Swan!
Never shall lament cease because of that.
It was like the parting of day from night.
Ah, sore was the suffering borne
By the body of Mary's Son,
But sorer still to Him was the grief
Which for His sake
Came upon His Mother.

Ms. Marku will present a vocal recital in our nave on April 22, 2018.

The beautiful Passion Hymn, O Sacred Head, Once Wounded, is arranged in a meditative setting for organ by Pamela Decker, Professor of Organ/Music Theory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, and organist at Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Tucson. She is also active as a composer and organ recitalist.

March 31, 2018 + Easter Vigil + 7 P.M.

Vocal Music 

• Come, Ye Faithful – R. S. Thatcher 

Instrumental Music 

• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – Johann Ludwig Krebs 
• Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing – Healey Willan 

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

• Hymn 580 - God, who stretched the spangled heavens (HOLY MANNA) 
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s Land (GO DOWN, MOSES) 
• Hymn R9 - As the deer pants for the water (Marty Nystrom) 
• Hymn 880 - Christ our Passover (SINE NOMINE) 
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (SALZBURG) 
• Hymn 187 - Through the Red Sea brought at last (STRAF MICH NICHT) 

The title of the communion organ voluntary sounds like its more appropriate for Good Friday, and the minor key of the chorale would lead you to think you were right, but the text reveals the true meaning of the hymn, written by Martin Luther.

Christ lay in death's bonds
handed over for our sins,
he is risen again
and has brought us life
For this we should be joyful,
praise God and be thankful to him
and sing allelluia,
Alleluia

Krebs was one of the prized pupils of J. S. Bach. Although it is impossible today to view Krebs outside of the shadow of his musical mentor, Krebs established an independent reputation as a virtuoso organist, organ expert, and organ teacher. When Bach died, Krebs was immediately considered as his possible successor at Leipzig. Like Bach, Krebs perpetuated his career through his children: his son succeeded him as organist at the church in Altenburg, Germany, as did his grandson.

This piece comes from The Clavier-Übung of Krebs, a collection of 39 pieces based upon 13 favorite chorales of the 18th century.  In this setting of the Easter chorale, we hear the melody clearly, played in the left hand on a pungent reed stop, while the right hand plays a lilting, almost dance-like obbligato in triplets. The pedal furnishes a walking bass line. 

Music for March 25, 2018 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna in the Highest – David W. Music (b. 1949)
• O Vos Omnes - Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Instrumental Music

• Largo, from Stabat Mater – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), arr. Mark Schweitzer

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

• Hymn 154 - All glory, laud, and honor (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)
• Hymn 156 - Ride on! Ride on in majesty (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn R235 - O sacred head, now wounded (PASSION CHORALE)
• Hymn R214 - Lamb of God (Twila Paris)
• Hymn R233 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn R227 - Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)

In music, a suspension is a means of creating tension by prolonging a note in a chord while the underlying harmony changes, normally on a strong beat. The resulting dissonance persists until the suspended note resolves by step wise motion into a new consonant chord, or harmony. It is often the use of suspensions in music that give music a feeling of longing or emotion.

You will hear several examples of that in the music during the second half of the Palm Sunday service. If you've been to a Palm Sunday service at an Episcopal church (or any other liturgical church such as Catholics or Lutherans), you know that the service begins with lots of "hosannas!" and cheer, before taking an ugly turn like the crowd in Jerusalem. After opening hymns and anthems with the choir of children and adults waving their palm branches,  the music becomes much more somber with the reading of the Passion. That's where the suspensions come in.

The choir will sing a setting of the words from Lamentations, O vos omnes (O all you who walk by on the road), which is used as a response to part of the Tenebrae Service in Holy Week. It's an appeal to us to take note of the sorrow of Christ during His Passion.

This setting is by 16th century Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Victoria ranks with Giovanni da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso among the greatest composers of the Counter-Reformation. He was sent by King Philip II of Spain in 1565 to prepare for holy orders at the German College in Rome. There he probably studied with Palestrina, whom he eventually succeeded as director of music at the Roman Seminary. From 1578 to 1585 he an assistant chaplain of San Girolamo della Carità, where he met the pious dowager empress Maria, widow of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II, and became her chaplain. In 1584 she entered the convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where Victoria became priest and organist. He settled in Madrid in 1594.

Tomás Luis de Victoria, looking like a character from an HBO series.

What makes this music so beautiful is that often, in addition to the use of the fore-mentioned suspensions, a line begins with a single note, allowing the harmony to grow around it, and accentuating the polyphony.  It also spends so much time avoiding thirds, the middle note of a chord that determines its tonality, that when it becomes decisively major or minor, it’s always a surprise. And in the middle of the piece, the basses drop out, leaving just the three upper parts to carry on.

The other suspensions come in the Handbell music played during communion. "Largo" is an arrangement of Quando corpus morietur from the "Stabat Mater" by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.  Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist whoses best-known works include his Stabat Mater and the opera La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress). His compositions include comic operas and sacred music (sounds about right to me.) Unfortunately, he died at a very young age of 26 of tuberculosis, so we don't know what great music he might have written.

Music for March 18, 2018 + The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Ave Verum - Robert Lucas de Pearsall (1795-1856) 

Instrumental Music

• All Men Must Die – Georg Telemann (1681-1757)
• Lord Jesus, Think on Me – J. Bert Carlson (1937-2017) 

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

• Hymn 149 - Eternal Lord of love, behold your church (OLD 124th) 
• Hymn 439 - What wondrous love is this (WONDROUS LOVE) 
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM) 
• Hymn R233 - Glory be to Jesus, who in bitter pain (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN) 
• Hymn R232 - There is a redemeer (Keith Green) 
• Hymn 473 - Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim (CRUCIFER 
• Psalm 51:1-13 - Tone IIa 

Of all the things I've written about in the five-plus years of publishing this blog, nothing cries for further commentary more than the opening voluntary. I feel I must talk about it lest you (and the FBI) think it's my manifesto on the present human condition.

I guess I could have just published the title as Alle Menschen müßen sterben, which is the first line of the 17th century German hymn by Johann Georg Albinus, a Lutheran pastor, whose life's aim was "the glory of God, the edification of the Church, and the everlasting salvation, well-being, and happiness of his hearers." During his ministry he suffered greatly, not only from bodily infirmities, but from ecclesiastical encroachments and bickerings. But as a poet he was, says one writer, "distinguished by ease of style, force of expression, and liveliness of fancy, and his manner of thought was scriptural and pervaded by a deep religious spirit" Of the many hymns he composed and published, only three have been translated into English. One of those is this hymn, which was used by many musicians of the time, including J. S. Bach and Johann Pachelbel. (Today's setting is by Georg Phillip Telemann, a contemporary of Bach and Pachelbel)

All men must die,
all flesh passes like grass;
Whatever lives must perish
if it is to become new elsewhere.
This body must rot
if it is elsewhere to recover
and gain the great glory
which is prepared for those who are righteous

This hymn, which has been called Albinus' best known hymn, was written for the funeral of Paul von Henssberg, a Leipzig merchant, on June 1, 1652. It became a great favorite of many influential ministers of the 17th century. (1)

I particularly find it interesting that the tune itself, and the treatment of it by Telemann, is rather upbeat and lively. It's in A Major (a key not often -if ever -  associated with sadness or a time of penitence), and the second variation includes a jaunty, rhythmic motif in the accompaniment.

Robert Lucas de Pearsall
in a portrait painted by his daughter,
Philippa Swinnerton Hughes 

The offertory anthem is a setting of the famous Eucharistic hymn by Pope Innocent VI, Ave Verum Corpus (Hail, true body.) The most famous setting of it is by Mozart, but this one comes from the English composer, Robert Pearsall. It is one of a number of hymns by Pearsall included in the Arundel Hymnal edited by the Fifth Duke of Norfolk and published in 1905.

Pearsall was the son of an army officer and amateur musician, and we can presume Pearsall got his musical talent from him. Though he was trained as a barrister, and worked in Bristol as such, in 1825 he took his family to live abroad: There he divorced his wife and devoted more time developing his interests as a composer. As an amateur like his father, many of his compositions were not published until after his death, and even now, many remain in manuscript.

(1) John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Music for March 11, 2018 + The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• A Simple Song – Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
• Thou Knowest, Lord – Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Instrumental Music

• Meditation on “Valley” – Gilbert M. Martin (b. 1941)

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 R132 - As Moses raised the serpent up (GIFT OF LOVE)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works (HANOVER)
• Hymn R189 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn R9 - As the deer pants for the water (Nystrom)
• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
• Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 Tone IIa

This Sunday former choir member Kim Bollinger returns to Kingwood for the weekend to sing at our 10:15 service. Kim has been enjoying the peripatetic life of an Army wife, living in places such as Germany, Washington, Rhode Island, and now Georgia as her husband serves our country. 

I'm even more delighted because she is going to sing "A Simple Song" from Leonard Bernstein's Mass. His Mass was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy in memory of her late husband President Kennedy and was premiered in 1971 at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Bernstein. a Jew, had already written his Symphony No. 3: Kaddish, dedicating it to the memory of Kennedy shortly after his assassination, so with this commissioned he turned to the form of the Catholic mass to honor the memory of Kennedy (a Roman Catholic).

The Mass has fascinated composers for centuries as a musical form, but Bernstein created something new, a "theatre piece for singers, players and dancers" combining not only different religious traditions (Latin liturgy, Hebrew prayer, and plenty of contemporary English lyrics) but also different musical styles, including classical and rock music.

As in any theater piece, there is a story and a conflict. Bernstein and his collaborator, Stephen Schwartz (who had already told the story of Jesus in his hit Broadway musical Godspell)

took the Tridentine Mass, a highly-ritualized Catholic rite meant to be recited verbatim, and applied to it a very Jewish practice of debating and arguing with God. The result was a piece that powerfully communicated the confusion and cultural malaise of the early 1970s, questioning authority and advocating for peace. (1)

Partly intended as an anti-war statement, it was originally a target of criticism from the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand and contemporary music critics who objected to its Broadway/populist elements on the other. (music critic Harold Schoenberg wrote of the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS: “So this MASS is with it — this week? But what about next year?”) In the present day, it is perhaps seen as less blasphemous and more a piece of its era: in 2000 it was even performed in the Vatican.

Jaqueline Kennedy (center) and Leonard Bernstein (r)
at the premier of MASS (1971)

MASS begins with a cacophonous prelude of a pre-recorded 12-tone "Kyrie Eleison" played over four speakers, overlapping like people talking over one another at a cocktail party (or during my prelude last Sunday.)  Suddenly, the Celebrant cuts through this with his electric guitar, strumming the open strings to play a G and a D.("G - D," the traditional Jewish way of spelling the name of God without actually saying it.) As the composer Daron Hagen says in his deeply personal analysis of "A Simple Song," it is "a chord that anyone who can pick up the guitar can strum without knowing how to play. So begins a supposedly “simple” song: A Simple Song.

Jackson Hearn (your devoted organist, left) and the
effervescent Kimberly Livingston Bollinger (right) at
lunch on Lake Houston (2014)

(1) https://leonardbernstein.com/works/view/12/mass-a-theatre-piece-for-singers-players-and-dancers

Music for March 4, 2018 + The Third Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Teach Me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood (1765-1838) 
• Lord God of Abraham – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Instrumental Music

• Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot'  BWV 679– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein BWV 641 – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 143 - The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR) 
• Hymn R75 - Praise the Lord! O heavens adore him (AUSTRIAN HYMN)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of ages, cleft for me (TOPLADY)
• Hymn 676 - There is a balm in Gilead (BALM IN GILEAD)
• Hymn 313 - Let thy blood in mercy poured (JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Psalm 19 - Tone IIa

This Sunday we have music by three different composers spanning almost two centuries, but all three are connected.
 The communion anthem is a staple in our repertoire, Teach Me, O Lord, (the way of thy statutes) by the English composer Thomas Attwood. We are singing it because of the Old Testament reading, which includes the Ten Commandments.

Thomas Attwood

Thomas Attwood was organist of St Paul's Cathedral in London and is buried there. His short anthem, Teach me, O Lord, has a successful simplicity which has stood the test of time. But this is not always the case with Attwood's works. In the earlier part of his life he was particularly interested in music for the stage; his output includes thirty-two operas.

At the end of the eighteenth century the deteriorating taste of English church music was reflected in the introduction of over-ornate solos in verse anthems, which, stylistically, were borrowed wholesale from opera. This is documented in A Short Account of Organs Built in Britain (1847) by Sir John Sutton who writes:

[The cathedral organist] considers himself as a first-rate performer, and persuades other people that he is so too, and on the strength of this he inflicts upon the congregation long voluntaries, interludes, which consist either of his own vulgar imagination, or selections from the last new opera.

Attwood was part of this tradition, although he had the sense to write simpler music too. The orchestral introduction to his coronation anthem I was glad contains the national anthem as a counter-melody, whilst that of O grant the king a long life contains more than a nodding acquaintance with Dr Arne's Rule, Britannia!
Attwood had many friends and was widely known as a gentleman. He was a pupil of Mozart and owned a large house on Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood in South London, where Mendelssohn, a good friend, was a visitor. (1)

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn made ten visits to Britain in his relatively short life. He had a strong following, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which enabled him to make a good impression on British musical life. In addition to conducting and playing his own works with orchestra, he also performed organ recitals at St. Paul's, often featuring the music of J. S. Bach. Bach's music had fallen into neglect after his death in 1750, and Mendelssohn was among those who revived interest in the music of the Baroque master. Mendelssohn also edited  the first critical editions of Bach's organ music for British publishers.

At the offertory, Richard Murray will sing Lord God of Israel, an aria from the great oratorio, Elijah, by Felix Mendelssohn. 

J. S. Bach wrote many great masterworks for organ, but his genius can also be seen in some miniatures. One such work is the communion voluntary, Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein.

When in the hour of utmost need
We know not where to look for aid,
When days and nights of anxious thought
Nor help nor counsel yet have brought,
Then this our comfort is alone;
That we may meet before Thy throne,
And cry, O faithful God, to Thee,
For rescue from our misery.

J. S. Bach

The intimate, devotional nature of this text is expressed through a florid, serene melody which is one of the most elaborate ornamentation of a chorale tune in the whole of Bach's organ music. The tune stays within a fairly small range until it  soars upwards in the second last phrase, mirroring the words ‘And cry, O faithful God, to Thee’. The accompaniment constantly refers to the first four notes of the hymn tune.

The opening voluntary,  Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot' is the smaller of two settings of this chorale-tune from Martin Luther. The lively gigue-like fughetta has several similarities to the larger chorale prelude: it is in the mixolydian mode of G; it starts with a pedal point of repeated Gs; the number ten occurs as the number of entries of the subject (four of them inverted); and the piece ends on a plagal cadence. The liveliness of the fughetta has been taken to reflect Luther's exhortation in the Small Catechism to do "cheerfully what He has commanded." Equally well, Psalm 119 speaks of "delighting ... in His statutes" and rejoicing in the Law.

(1) Hyperion CD The English Anthem Vol. 4, St Paul's Cathedral Choir, John Scott (conductor), Andrew Lucas (organ) from notes by William McVicker © 1994