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."