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.