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.