Music for December 29, 2019 + Christmas 1

Vocal Music

• Jesu Bambino – Pietro Yon (1886-1943) Bruce Bailey, baritone

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

• Hymn 107 - Good Christians friends, rejoice (IN DULCI JUBILO)
• Hymn 93 - Angels from the realms of glory (REGENT SQUARE)
• Hymn 101 - Away in a manger (CRADLE SONG)
• Hymn 115 -  What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn -  Child of blessing, child of promise (STUTTGART)
• Hymn 105 - God rest you merry, gentlemen (GOD REST YOU MERRY)
• Psalm 147:13-21 - Tone VII

The music of Christmas continues this Sunday at Good Shepherd, as we sing some of the carols we did NOT sing on Christmas Eve, and Bruce Bailey sings a favorite Christmas solo by the Italian born composer Pietro Yon. 

Despite being born in the Italian town of Settimo Vittone (near Turin) , Yon is considered to be among the most important American composers of sacred music for the Catholic Church in the first half of the twentieth century. 

After his 1905 graduation from colleges in Milan, Turn, and Rome, Yon served as one of the regular Vatican organists until his move to New York in 1907. He was appointed organist at St. Francis Xavier Church, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1921.In 1927, Yon accepted the coveted post of organist at St. Patrick's Cathedral, a position he held up to his death.

Yon's output was substantial and included 21 masses, many motets, and various other sacred works, solo organ and piano pieces, songs, chamber, and orchestral compositions, including several concertos, but his best-known work by far is his 1917 Christmas hymn Gesu Bambino (Baby Jesus).

Music for the Christmas Services

Monday, December 24: Christmas Eve

(4:00 PM) The Coventry Choir

Vocal Music

• What Child Is This? – English Carol, arr. Jackson Hearn (b. 1958)
• Candlelight, Burning Bright – Helen Kemp (1918-2015)
• How Far Is It to Bethlehem – arr. Jackson Hearn

Instrumental Music

• The Alfred Burt Carols – Arr. Mark Hayes (b. 1953)
• Caroling, Caroling
• The Star Carol
• Some Children See Him
• Come, Dear Children
• Bells of Christmas – arr. Patricia Sanders Cota (b. 1954)
• Come, All Ye Faithful
• Angels We Have Heard on High
• Away in a Manger
• Joy to the World
• Carillon On A Ukrainian Carol - Gerald Near (b. 1942-)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal.)

• Hymn 83 -  O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELES)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 100 -  Joy to the world! (ANTIOCH)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night  (STILLE NACHT)                     
• Hymn 99 - Go, tell it on the mountain (GO, TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN)

(6:30 PM) The Good Shepherd Choir

Vocal Music

• My Dancing Day –Alice Parker (b 1925)
• A Great and Mighty Wonder – Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)
• Ding Dong, Merrily on High – Charles Wood (1866-1926)
• And There Were Shepherds (from Christmas Oratorio) – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Lully, Lulla, Lullay – Philip Stopford (b. 1977)
• Falan Tidings – Donald Pearson (b. 1959)
• The Little Road to Bethlehem – Michael Head (1900-1976), Allison Gosney, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Noel X – Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)
• Lo, How a Rose Is Springing  – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Carillon On A Ukrainian Carol - Gerald Near (b. 1942)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 -  O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELES)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world! (ANTIOCH)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night  (STILLE NACHT)                     
• Hymn 79  - O little town of Bethlehem (ST. LOUIS)
• Hymn 89 - It came upon a midnight clear (TUNE)
• Psalm 96  - (setting by Thomas Pavlechko)

British composer Philip Stopford composed this version of the Coventry Carol in 2008.

The original Coventry Carol dates from the 16th century and was traditionally performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The rocking lullaby tells the story of the Massacre of the Innocents — when King Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two to be killed.

It's sung though from a mother's perspective, as a beautiful lament for her doomed child.

(10:00 PM) Allison Gosney, soprano

• Jesu Bambino – Pietro Yon (1886-1943)
• The Little Road to Bethlehem – Michael Head (1900-1976)

Instrumental Music

• Noel X – Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)
• Lo, How a Rose Is Springing  – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Carillon On A Ukrainian Carol - Gerald Near (b. 1942)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal.)

• Hymn 83 -  O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELES)
• Praise 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 79 - O little town of Bethlehem (ST. LOUIS)
• Hymn 89 - It came upon a midnight clear (TUNE)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night  (STILLE NACHT)                     
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world! (ANTIOCH)

Tuesday, December 25: Christmas Day (10:00 AM)

Organ music and hymns

Instrumental Music

• Noel X – Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)
• Lo, How a Rose Is Springing  – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• The Alfred Burt Carols – Arr. Mark Hayes (b. 1953)
• I. Caroling, Caroling
• II. The Star Carol
• III. Some Children See Him
• IV. Come, Dear Children
• Carillon On A Ukrainian Carol - Gerald Near (b. 1942)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal.)

• Hymn 83 -  O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELES)
• Praise 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 89 - It came upon a midnight clear (TUNE)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world! (ANTIOCH)

Music for December 22, 2019 + Advent IV

Vocal Music

• Maria Walks Amid the Thorn – Hugo Distler (1908-1942)

Instrumental Music

• Ave Maria – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 & 661 – 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 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (STUTTGART)
• Hymn 54 - Savior of the nations, come! (NUN KOMM, DER HEIDEN HEILAND)
• Hymn 475  - God himself is with us (TYSK)
• Hymn R 26 - Jesus, name above all names (HEARN)
• Hymn 56 - O come, O come, Emmanuel (VENI EMMANUEL)
• Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 (setting by Thomas Pavlechko)

This Sunday the choir is really stretching themselves and singing a (hopefully) unaccompanied setting of a German folk song, "Maria durch ein Dornwald ging" (English: "Maria walks amid the thorns", arranged by the 20th century German composer, Hugo Distler.

Hugo Distler

The carol comes from sixteenth century Germany (although it is probably much older) and commemorates the barrenness of the the Old Testament, the longing and waiting, and the flowering of sanctity and joy with the coming of the Messiah. It describes the walk of Mary with the child "under her heart," referring to the story of the visit of Mary to Elizabeth as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Luke 1:39–56. It ends with the motif of the dead thornwood, a symbol of fertility and death, which begins to bloom during pass of Mary with the divine child.

Hugo Distler is at once one of the more promising and yet most tragic of the German composers of the first half of the twentieth century. John Lienhard, of Houston Public Radio's "Engines of Our Ingenuity," talked about Distler on one of those episodes. I will include his remarks below. (You can listen to it here, in case you'd rather do that - just NOT in church!)

As I listened to a piece by German composer Hugo Distler yesterday, it struck me how remarkable his music was. Distler wrote primarily for chorus and organ, and, if you know his work, you're aware of an utterly distinctive musical flavor.

Hugo Distler was born in Nuremberg in 1908. His high-school years were those of the Weimar Republic and the intense flowering of high German culture that followed WW-I. He studied music at Leipzig Conservatory. The sound of hobnail boots was being heard in the streets of Bavaria, but the sound still seemed far away.

 Just a few years later, Hitler came to power, and the great minds of that period began scattering out of Germany -- people like Albert Einstein, Theodore von Kármán, Paul Tillich, and Bruno Walter. Goebbels named composer Paul Hindemith a cultural Bolshevist and a spiritual non-Aryan in 1934. Hindemith wound up at Yale, Einstein at Princeton, and von Kármán at Cal Tech.

 But Distler was only 25 when Hitler took over -- the newest musical talent of his age. He'd just been made head of the chamber music department at Lübeck Conservatory, and he was still too young to be a target. Yet he was driven by spiritual imperatives that cast a whole new light on traditional church music.

 He brought the declamatory joy of baroque composers like Heinrich Schütz to the foursquare old melodies of the German Reformation. His music was quirky but beautiful, tonal yet chromatic. He made the old melodies dance with delight. It is a sound utterly unlike any other. Once you hear it, you don't forget it.

 But it was a sound heard in the wrong place at the wrong time. A trip I took in 1978 reminds me of what Distler faced. A Polish colleague, driving me down the valley from Silesia to Krakow, stopped to show me Auschwitz. What a chamber of horrors! A sign on one wall explained how the exterminations were scheduled. Jews were allowed to starve for months as they waited their turn in the gas chambers. But clergy were rushed to the head of the line. They were considered too dangerous to keep around.

 Suppressing the established German church was dicey business for the Nazis. But suppress it they would. Distler represented religious intensity the Nazis couldn't tolerate. They told him he was trouble and his music was degenerate. He would be taken from his church post and shipped off to the Wehrmacht! Conscientious objection was treason punishable by death, and Distler could never support the war. So, disillusioned and depressed, he put his head in his own gas oven and ended his life at the age of 34.

He lived not even as long as Mozart, and he worked in a far more hostile climate. His brilliance was a side road that never properly joined the mainstream of twentieth-century musical evolution. Music would not sound the same today if it had. I'll never forget my sense of pure surprise the first time I sang Distler.

Music for December 15, 2019 + Advent III

Vocal Music

• O Jesus, Grant Me Hope and Comfort – Johann Wolfgang Franck (1644-1710)

Instrumental Music

• Aria (The Goldberg Variations) – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Once He Came in Blessing – John Leavitt (b. 1956)
• Magnificat on the Ninth Tone – Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707)

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 S 242 - Canticle: The Song of Mary (Magnificat) – Tonus Peregrinus
• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (Azmon)
• Hymn 60 -  Creator of the stars of night (Conditor alme siderum)
• Hymn 615 - “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (St. Flavian)
• Hymn R 278 - Wait for the Lord (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s banks the Baptist’s cry (Winchester New)

You could call all the music this Sunday basically Baroque . All but one of the choral and organ music is written by composers of the Baroque period, that period of music from 1600-1750 characterized by the music of such composers as J. S. Bach, G. F. Handel, and Antonio Vivaldi. The one lone stand-out is by contemporary American composer John Leavitt, and even his organ setting of the Advent Chorale Gottes Sohn ist kommen ("Once He Came in Blessing" in our hymnal) is imitative of an organ chorale of Bach, with a long, solo melodic line which is highly ornamented, contrasted against an almost metronomic eighth-note accompaniment grouped into two-beat, sighing motives. So all the music sounds Baroque in spite of the century in which it was written. (Which leads me to say, If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it.)

A native of Kansas, John Leavitt received the Kansas Artist Fellowship Award from the Kansas Arts in 2003 and in 2010 he was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces to commission a new choral work in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the State of Kansas.  His music has been performed in 30 countries across the globe and his recordings have been featured nationally on many public radio stations. His compositions are represented by nearly every major music publisher in this country. In addition to his academic posts, he has served Lutheran churches in the Wichita area.

The choir's anthem is a beautiful little motet by the German composer Johann Wolfgang Franck, who was better known during his time as a composer for theatre. He began his career, however, in the service of the Margrave of Ansbach where he composed a considerable body of sacred music for the court chapel. In 1677 he was made court chaplain, but this came to an end in January 1679 when he was forced to flee after murdering one of the chapel musicians and wounding his own wife in a fit of jealousy.

No wonder he turned to opera.

I guess 17th century Bavaria did not possess "the long arm of the law," as he found asylum in Hamburg, becoming musical director of the The Oper am Gänsemarkt, the first public (not court supported) opera in Germany. Here he produced 14 operas between 1679 and 1686. From 1690 to 1695 he was in London, in whose concert life he was an active participant.

December 8, 2019 + Advent II

Vocal Music

• A Shoot Shall Come Forth – Richard Horn (1938-2004)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People – Georg Böhm (1661 – 1733)

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 kleines Walvögelein)
• Hymn 67  - Comfort, comfort ye, my people (Psalm 42)
• Hymn R 92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (Bryn Calfaria)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (Land of Rest)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (Bereden vag for Herran)
• Psalm 72:1-8 – Tone Ig

By now, church musicians, like many other American consumers, are experiencing the "Christmas Crush (or, as we'd rather call it, "Advent Angst.") As of this writing, I have yet to complete the first full week of December, but already I'm worn out. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these music notes this week.

Except to say - all the organ music (the opening, closing, and communion voluntaries) is from one large set of variations on the tune we use for Hymn 67 - our Gospel hymn this week. I'll be using four segments of the partita during the service.

Our hymnal calls the tune Psalm 42, because this form of the tune, with its highly rhythmic, dance-like meter, was first used with a French version of Psalm 42. It first appeared in 1551 toward the end of the Renaissance, in a Psalter edited by Louis Bourgeois. It was he who probably wrote this tune.

In the German Lutheran tradition, those sprightly rhythms were toned down to a staid quarter-note melody in 4/4 time. (One of my church-musician friends calls it "death by quarter-note.") It is the Lutheran version that Georg Böhm used as the theme for his partita.

Georg Böhm  was a German Baroque organist and composer who is best known today for his keyboard works, particularly the chorale partita. A partita is a large-scale composition consisting of several variations on a particular chorale melody. He effectively invented the genre, writing several partitas of varying lengths and on diverse tunes.  Böhm's chorale partitas feature sophisticated figuration in several voices over the harmonic structure of the chorale. His partitas generally have a rustic character and can be successfully performed on either the organ or the harpsichord. Later composers also took up the genre, most notably Johann Sebastian Bach, who was influenced by Böhm  as a young musician.

Bach's son,  Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, wrote that his father loved and studied Böhm's music, and a correction in his note shows that his first thought was to say that Böhm was Johann Sebastian's teacher. In 2006,  the earliest known Bach autographs were discovered, including one signed "Il Fine â Dom. Georg: Böhme descriptum ao. 1700 Lunaburgi". The "Dom." bit may suggest either "domus" (house) or "Dominus" (master), but in any case it proves that Bach knew Böhm personally. This connection must have become a close friendship that lasted for many years, for in 1727 Bach named none other than Böhm as his northern agent for the sale of keyboard partitas nos. 2 and 3

Music for December 1, 2019 + Advent I

Vocal Music

• Zion Hears the Watchman Singing – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)

Instrumental Music

• “Sleepers, wake!” A voice astounds us – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Ecce Dominus Veniet – Marcel Dupre (1886-1971)
• Fugue in A Major – Johann Sebastian Bach

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

• Hymn 57 - Lo! he comes with clouds descending (HELMSLEY)
• Hymn 73 - The King shall come when morning comes (ST. STEPHEN)
• Hymn 74 - Blest be the King whose coming (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)
• Hymn R 152 - I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn R 92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 68 - Rejoice! rejoice, believers (LLANGLOFFAN)
• Psalm 122 – Tone 1f

One of my Facebook colleagues posted this week that if it’s Thanksgiving, Advent can’t be far behind. And it’s true this year, for many of us won’t be sick of turkey yet when we light the first candle on the Advent wreath this Sunday. And since this is year A of the lectionary cycle, we’ll hear these words from Romans13:11

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers… 

It just makes it easy when choosing music. One of the great Advent hymns is the German chorale, WACHET AUF, which you’ll find in our hymnal at hymn 61. It’s not that well known in our congregation, but so many composers from Bach’s time to today have arranged this hymn for choir or organ that I can use it several times, which is what I’m doing this Sunday.

First, you’ll hear it at the opening voluntary when I play J. S. Bach’s own organ transcription of his tenor solo from Cantata 140. It’s one of Bach’s most inspired melodies, and that’s just in the accompaniment! This casual, lyrical melody just goes alone, minding its own business, when suddenly, the watchman enters with his solemn warning, in the form of the chorale melody played on the trumpet stop. The two tunes don’t have anything to do with each other, yet they form to join a beautiful duet.

 The same chorale tune is used in the offertory anthem by a contemporary of Bach’s, Johann Gottfried Walther. Like Bach, Walther was an organist and composer of the Baroque era. Not only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to that of J.S. Bach, he was the famous composer's cousin. He also studied organ with Bach’s second cousin, Johann Bernhard Bach.

In 1707 he was appointed organist at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Weimar.  Bach had been appointed to the Duke of Weimar’s ‘Capelle und Kammermusik’in 1708. In 1712 Bach was godfather to J.G. Walther’s son. In his biography of Bach, J. N. Forkel told a story of how J. G. Walther played a trick on Bach, to cure him of boasting that there was nothing he could not read at sight.

Johann Gottfried Walther wrote sacred vocal works and numerous organ pieces, consisting mostly of chorale preludes. In fact, today’s anthem is one of his organ preludes which Mark Schweitzer arranged for choir. (It must be noted that Schweitzer, a fine singer and composer in his own right, died this past November in North Carolina. His passing will be a great loss to church musicians.)

The communion voluntary is an organ work by the brilliant French organist Marcel Dupré. Dupré’s international fame developed soon after the First World War as the direct result of his skill as an improviser, specifically on plainsong themes. The Six Antiennes pour les temps de Noël, Op.48, written in 1952, take as their basis the plainsongs of the Christmas antiphons. The first is for Vespers of the first Sunday of Advent;

Ecce Dominus veniet, et omnes sancti ejus cum eo: et erit in die illa lux magna, alleluia.

"Behold the Lord will come, and all his saints with him, and there will be a great light in that day, Alleluia."

Music for November 24, 2019 + Christ the King Sunday

Vocal Music

• My Eternal King – Jane Marshall (1924-2019)

Instrumental Music

• Duo (Glorificamus Te) Livre d'orgue  – Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703)
• Thou Man of Grief, Remember Me – Gardner Read (1913-2005)
• Crown Imperial – William Walton (1902-1983)

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 421- All glory be to God on high (ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HÖH)
• Hymn R 128 - Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn R 268 - King of kings and Lord of lords (KING OF KINGS)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus! (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn R 229 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn R 227 - Jesus, remember me (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 477 - All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine (ENGLEBERG)

In 1952, Jane Marshall was a 28-year old housewife and mom in Dallas. (A real Dallas housewife!) She had a undergraduate degree in music, but her only musical outlet was singing in Highland Park Methodist Church choir. So she decided to write an piece of music for that choir, resulting in the anthem which we will sing this Sunday, My Eternal King. The piece proved to be a hit.

Published in 1954 by Carl Fischer Music, it became one of that venerable music publisher's all-time bestselling anthems and remains popular with choirs across denominations.

Jane Marshall, 2014

Using a text which began as a Spanish sonnet, translated into Latin by St. Francis Xavier, then translated in English by Anglican clergyman and later Roman Catholic convert-priest Edward Caswall in 1849, it is an anthem which has been referred to as the American equivalent of an English Cathedral anthem. Meditative at the start, soaring to triple fortissimo at the end, encompassing a range of tone colors and sumptuous harmonies, My Eternal King is a masterful match of text and music.

Jane went on to write another anthem, Awake, My Heart, which won the 1957 American Guild of Organist Anthem competition, and He Comes to Us, a setting of a text from Albert Schweitzer. Lloyd Pfautsch, director of choral activities and church music, encouraged her to return for her Master of Music degree in choral conducting and composition.

Jane Marshall was a much-published composer of choral music, a skilled choral conductor and clinician, and a gifted hymn writer of both texts and tunes. (Three of her hymn-tunes are in our Hymnal 1982.) Important as any of these accomplishments, she gave herself to pedagogy and mentorship both in the classroom setting with graduate students (she was one of my professors at SMU in 1981), in myriad workshop settings with novices in the field, and with individual consultations.

Music for November 17, 2019

Vocal Music

• The First Song of Isaiah – Jack Noble White (1938-2019)
• Praise the Lord who Reigns Above – Jody Lindh (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in A Major, BWV 536 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Auf Meinen Lieben Gott – Dietrich Buxtehude
• Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott – Johann Pachelbel

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

• Hymn 688 - A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Hymn 482 - Lord of all hopefulness (SLANE)
• Hymn R 172 - In my life, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn - Steal away to Jesus (SPIRITUAL)
• Hymn 620 - Jerusalem, my happy home (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (MIT FREUDEN ZART)

The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is well represented by the choral music this Sunday. The Canticle is a setting of the First Song of Isaiah by Jack Noble White, an Episcopal musician who passed away this month in Fort Worth at the age of 81. The offertory is an anthem by Jody Lindh, a retired Methodist musician living in Dallas. Both anthems will be sung by our children's choir.

Since it was first published in 1976, White's FIRST SONG OF ISAIAH has been sung by millions of people worldwide. White was organist/choirmaster at the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Mobile, Alabama in 1975 when a group of 90 youth from California, Nevada, Nassau in the Bahamas, and Alabama gathered for a music conference near Mobile. White composed this setting for that group, including keyboard, guitar, drums, bass guitar, and handbells to accompany the choir. Today we will sing with just the piano as the Coventry Choir leads the congregation of the singing of this Canticle found in the Book of Common Prayer (which was in experimental use at the time.)

Jack Noble White

Jack Noble White spent most of his career in Texas, of which he is a sixth generation native. He divided his time between music and education. White served as Secretary of the Episcopal Church’s National Music Commission from 1962-1977. He began writing and publishing during that time and now has many works in print. In 1977 he became the Executive Director of The Texas Boys Choir, leading them into a continuous international limelight with numerous tours. He and his wife, Johanna, founded the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, still housing the 70-year-old choir. Retiring from that position in 1995, he devoted his attention to writing and other projects, including the Dorothy Shaw Bell Choir, and their annual Fort Worth play-pageant of the Nativity, The Littlest Wiseman, now in its 59th year.

Jody Lindh

Jody Lindh had an unusually long tenure as director of Music at University Park United Methodist in Dallas, beginning as organist while still a student at Southern Methodist University. Upon graduation, he was named director of music, where he served for 45 years until his retirement in 2013. He is married to Jonell Lindh, a semi-retired United Methodist Minister on staff of First United Methodist in Dallas.

A little known fact about Lindh: He’s a Lutheran. He's an associate member of University Park, but remains a member of Elim Lutheran Church in Marquette, Kansas, the church he grew up in. "My great-grandfather was a founder of Elim in the 1880s, and my whole family is there," he said. "I couldn't possibly leave it!"

Music for November 10, 2019 + Kirkin o' the Tartans

Vocal Music

• Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs – Paul Ritchie
• I Know that My Redeemer Liveth – G. F. Handel, Amy Bogan, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral - James D. Wetherald, arr., Richard Kean, pip
  er 
• Traditional Piping Tunes – Richard Keen, piper

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

• Hymn R 5 - God is here, and we his people (ABBOTT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 295 - Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IS MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn - I know that my Redeemer lives (DUKE STREET)
• Hymn R 90 - Spirit of the Living God (LIVING GOD)
• Hymn R 36 - I love you, Lord (I LOVE YOU, LORD)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)
• Psalm 17:1-9 - Tone Vc, Refrain by Jane Marshall

This is a favorite Sunday for many parishioners at Good Shepherd when we “Kirk (or bless) the Tartans.” Though we have been doing this for over 20 years, it is still a relatively new thing, 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 a more detailed history here at the Scottish Tartans Museum website. (Side note: the Scottish Tartan Museum is in Franklin, North Carolina, NOT Scotland)

Samuel Seabury

The reason we "kirk the tartans" is to remember our Anglican history,  specifically Samuel Seabury, the first American Anglican bishop who was consecrated by the Scottish Bishops of the Anglican church during the Revolutionary War. (England was a bit upset with the Americans, so they would have no part of that!) Thus we commemorate his consecration on the Sunday nearest his feast daym which is the anniversary of his consecration as a bishop, November 14, 1784. We wear our tartans, hang them in the church, and hear the bagpipe play. For twelve years now we have begun the service with the piper playing Highland Cathedral and end with him playing traditional piping tunes.

Amy Bogan, our soprano section leader, is singing one of the favorite arias from Handel's Messiah, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.  It's the opening movement of the third part of the oratorio, which is considered to be the Easter section, but the text is not New Testament, but is mainly from the Old Testament book of Job. As our first lesson this Sunday is that passage from Job, it is only fitting that Amy sing it during communion.

November 3, 2019 + All Saints Sunday

Vocal Music

• Let Us Now Praise Famous Men – Ralph Vaughan Williams

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 (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 293 - I sing a song of the saints of God (GRAND ISLE)
• Hymn 286 - Who are these like stars appearing (ZEUCH MICH, ZEUCH MICH)
• Hymn R 243 - You shall cross the barren desert (BE NOT AFRAID)
• Hymn R 151 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 556 - Rejoice, ye pure in heart (MARION)
• Psalm 149 – Tone VIIb

The composer of this morning's anthem, Ralph Vaughan Williams, was a 20th Century English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also very interested in the music of the church, for, though he identified as an agnostic, he was editor of the Anglican English Hymnal in 1906, in which he included many of his own tunes and arrangements of folk songs.

Ralph Vaughan Williams and
an unknown cat.

One such hymn-tune is the tune SINE NOMINE, which Vaughan Williams composed for the text "for All the Saints" and published in the English Hymnal. The tune's title means "without name" and follows the Renaissance tradition of naming certain compositions "Sine Nomine" if they were not settings for preexisting tunes. Equipped with a "walking" bass, SINE NOMINE is a glorious marching tune for this great text. Many consider this tune to be among the finest of twentieth-century hymn tunes (it is, perhaps, the church's equivalent to “When the Saints Go Marching In”). It is the opening hymn this Sunday.

Our anthem is Vaughan Williams’ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Composed in 1923, it, along with SINE NOMINE,  captures the essence of English pomp and circumstance, with its inexorable forward marching movement.

The text is drawn the book Ecclesiasticus, commonly called The Wisdom of Sirach, a work from the early 2nd century B.C. written by the Jewish scribe Jesus ben Sirach. It contrasts the tribute paid to famous people of accomplishment with those whose lives may have been anonymous, but nonetheless contributed to the welfare of mankind and thus are as deserving of memorial. Inspiring as are his words, Ben Sira could not have known how, in our age today, leaders and heroes span not just generations, but also genders.

Music for October 27. 2019

Vocal Music

• There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy – Maurice Bevan (1921-2006)
• Prayer – Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003)

Instrumental Music

• The Sixty-Fifth Psalm – Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
• Chromhorne sur la taille (Messe pour les Convents) - Francois Couperin (1668-1733)
• Offertoire sur les grands jeux (Messe pour les Convents) - Francois Couperin 

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 506 - Praise the Spirit in creation (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 552 - Fight the good fight with all thy might (PENTECOST)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn 314 - Humbly I adore thee (ADORO DEVOTE)
• Hymn 680 - O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Psalm 65 – Tone V 

I've sung the hymn, "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," for years - all my life, really - using the tune BEECHER which our hymnal uses. But several years ago, Maurice Bevan, a British bass-baritone who sang with The Deller Consort, St Paul's Cathedral in London, and the BBC, wrote a beautiful new tune which has since gained popularity. One of the things that won my heart in this arrangement was the inclusion of a couple of couplets that are left out of most hymnals:

But we make his love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify his strictness
With a zeal he would not own.

There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take him at his word;
And our lives would be all gladness
In the joy of Christ our Lord.

Maurice Bevan

The hymn was written  by the Catholic priest and poet, Frederick William Faber. Raised in the church of England, and ordained an Anglican priest, he was influenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman. In 1845 Faber followed Newman into the Roman Catholic Church and served in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Because he believed that Roman Catholics should sing hymns like those written by John Newton, Charles Wesley, and William Cowper, Faber wrote 150 hymns himself. One of his best known, "Faith of Our Fathers."

Dag Hammarskjold

Our communion anthem also has a beautiful text. It is by Dag Hammarskjold, who was  Secretary-General of the United Nations until his death in a plane crash in 1961. He  gave the impression of being an agnostic humanist while he was serving at the UN, but after his death, his private papers were discovered which contained some notes entitled “negotiations with myself – and with God”. His prayers have a naked honesty which is deeply moving. This text is one of those.

Hammarskjold's words were set to a haunting, chant-like melody by Lloyd Pfautsch, composer and one-time Director of Choral Activities at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He was one of my teachers, and from him I learned much, including these two things.

Lloyd Pfautsch

1. WORDS MATTER -- Lloyd considered it important for those who sing great words of faith to consider, and carefully articulate them while singing them. For him, the choir’s diction was essential

in prompting the hearers’ informed response.

2. MUSIC MATTERS -- Lloyd taught all of us that when choosing worship music --- congregational, choral, instrumental or keyboard --- the liturgy should inform the appropriateness of the music, and, the music, particularly the music of hymns, should compliment the words. I try to do that every Sunday.

That's why I chose this week's opening voluntary, a Tone Poem by English composer Alec Rowley on Psalm 65, which is the Psalm of the day. It's a longer work than usual (almost 8 minutes), so I want you to listen for these themes found in the music: (The text is from the Coverdale translation of the Bible, which had been used as the Psalter in all Books of Common Prayer, back to the first in 1549, until 1979.

Verse 1: Thou, O God, art Praised in Zion - Majestic 3/4 time
Verse 3: My misdeeds prevail against me - Softer, lyrical section, melody in the oboe (a plaintive sound).
Verse 7: Who stilleth the raging of the sea and the madness of the peoples. -  The organ becomes more agitated, growing in volume, tempo, and intensity, until it relaxes into a feeling of peace.
Verse 9: Thou Visiteth the earth, and blessest it. -  A broad, sweeping, descending melody modulating downward through three different keys as it "visits the earth" (descending)
Verse 14: The Valleys also shall stand so thick with corn, that they shall laugh and sing. - The music growing in volume and breadth, "thick" 

Music for October 20, 2019

Vocal Music

• Let Us Go to the House of the Lord – Ellen McClune and Steve Taranto (The Coventry Choir)
• Without the Fire - David Ashley White
• Thou Knowest, Lord, the Secrets of our Heart - Henry Purcell 

Instrumental Music

• Reflections on a Tune – David Ashley White
• Book of Book, Our People’s Strength – Timothy Albrecht
• Fanfare for Saint Anthony – David Ashley White

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

• Hymn 372 - Praise to the living God! (LEONI)
• Hymn 631 - Book of books, our people’s strength (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn R168 - If you believe and I believe (Zimbabwe)
• Hymn R173 - O Lord, hear my prayer (Jacques  Berthier)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)

This Sunday we hear the story of the Widow and the Apathetic Judge.  The widow comes to the judge day after day, petitioning him to decide on her behalf, and despite his indifference to the justice of her cause, he relents simply to get her off his back. In contrast to the judge’s apathy, God is empathetic: God cares and God wants us to receive blessings.

The idea of God as an empathetic judge is what sparked the choice of the two anthems the Good Shepherd Choir is singing. The communion anthem, Henry Purcell's "Thou Knowest, Lord" from the Funeral music for Queen Mary II in 1695, could very well have been sung by the persistent widow:

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;
Shut not thy merciful ears unto our pray'rs;
But spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty.
O holy and most merciful Saviour,
Thou most worthy Judge eternal...

This anthem was sung at Purcell's very own funeral just eight months later in November, 1695.

 In the offertory anthem, we sing the phrase "Without the Judge, there is no Pleading," and we immediately thought of today's parable.

Rae Whitney, an English-born poet and hymn writer now living in Nebraska, has written a text, based on a few lines from Thomas á Kempis, that reflects on what we would be missing if there were no faith or resurrection. It has been set to music by Houston composer David Ashley White, whose music is familiar to us here at Good Shepherd just as it is to musicians and choirs throughout the world. He is the Professor of Composition and Music Theory at the University of Houston.

This anthem is one of several that will be sung at the Diocese of Texas's annual Choral Festival next weekend at Christ Church Cathedral. It is a fine example of choral writing, with a beautiful melody, lush harmonies and changing meters of 4/2 to 3/2 that fit the rhythm of the words to create a powerful message. 

David writes more than just choral music, however. Organists are fortunate that he has written several lovely and interesting organ works. Two of those will be played today as the opening and closing voluntaries. The first, Reflections on a Tune, are his musings on his own hymn tune PALMER CHURCH, which is found at Hymn 327 in The Hymnal 1982. The name is in reference to White's home parish, Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church here in Houston.

Music for October 13, 2019

Vocal Music

• Rejoice, O Land – Healey Willan (1880 - 1968)
• Here, O My Lord – Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Chorale Prelude on the Tune “Bevan” – Healey Willan
• Fanfare and Alleluia – Douglas E. Wagner
• Postlude in D – Healey Willan

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

• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (ST. THOMAS (WILLIAMS))
• Hymn - Wade in the water (Negro Spiritual)
• Hymn R 266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (GIVE THANKS)
• Hymn R 191 - O Christ, the healer (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R 232 - There is a redeemer (GREEN)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)
• Psalm 111 - Jerome W. Meachen

This Sunday the Gospel from Luke tells us of ten lepers who are healed by Jesus. The tenth leper was a Samaritan, a foreigner to Jesus. But he experienced the love and healing which tore down the barrier to a relationship with Jesus. He was filled with the desire to praise and to thank God for this gift—not out of obligation, but out of genuine gratitude.
That is why I chose the anthem for Sunday:

Rejoice, O land, in God, thy might;
His will obey, Him serve aright.
For thee the saints lift up their voice;
Fear not, O land, in God rejoice.

Glad shalt thou be, with blessing crowned;
With joy and peace thou shall abound;
Yea, love with thee shall make his home
Until thou see God’s kingdom come.

Sometimes we become overwhelmed and anxious about all the ways we are foreigners to God and we build barriers to his Grace. We should take heart from this Samaritan, whose life is transformed from fear to love, from anxiety to perpetual thanks.

Healey Willan, 1965

The arrangement of this hymn is by the Anglo-Canadian organist and composer Healey Willan. He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano. He is best known, however, for his church music.

He also composed the communion voluntary based on the hymn-tune BEVAN, which is used for the little known hymn Jesus, My Great High Priest. You'll hear the melody in the right hand, played again a measure later by the left hand on a different manual (keyboard.)

The Good Shepherd Handbell Guild will play for the first time this Sunday as they play Douglas Wagners Fanfare and Alleluia for the opening voluntary.

Music for October 6, 2019

Vocal Music

• O Lord, Increase My Faith – Henry Loosemore (c.1600-1670)

Instrumental Music

• By the Water of Babylon, BWV 653 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Amazing Grace – George Shearing (1919-2011)
• Chaconne – Louis Couperin (1626-1661)

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

• Hymn R 49 - Let the whole creation cry (LLANFAIR)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace, how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 380 - Praise God from whom all blessings flow (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn 660 - O Master, let me walk with thee (MARYTON)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (PADERBORN)

George Michael, who has nothing to do with this Sunday's music, but got your attention.

As George Michael said, "You Gotta Have Faith."

In Sunday's Gospel, the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. (Luke 17:5-6)

The Good Shepherd Choir asks the same thing in this Sunday’s anthem.

O Lord, increase my faith,
strengthen me and confirm me in Thy true faith;
endue me with wisdom, charity, and patience,
in all my adversity, Sweet Jesu, say Amen.

Attributed for many years to the English composer Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), modern scholarly research reveals the composer as Henry Loosemore, an English composer and organist. His father, John Loosemore, built the organ at Exeter Cathedral.  Henry Loosemore served as the organist at King's College, Cambridge.  In 1640, Loosemore was granted the degree of B.Mus by the University, on the supplication of King's College avowing that 'he had studied the art of musical composition for seven years, together with its practice, and has achieved approval of those skilled in the art.'

Psalm 137 is an alternate Psalm for the day. (We will be singing Psalm 37). The text,

1. By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.
2. On the willows there we hung up our harps.
3. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4. How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

describes the desperate situation of the Israelites in exile.

In 1525, Wolfgang Dachstein wrote a German Chorale based on the psalm, and many 17th century organists used the chorale in both organ and choral settings. J. S. Bach was one of those. In his collection known as the 18 Choräle or Leipziger Choräle, Bach included two different versions. One of them, BWV 653b, has five voices, and the melody sounds ethereally in the upper voice, against a sombre double pedal part. In the other version, BWV 653a, the ornamented melody in the middle voice is wedged between two upper voices and pedal. This is the version I will play as the opening voluntary.

This latter version was clearly Bach’s favourite, as he revised the material in his later years in Leipzig, by adding even more ornamentation to the melody and further accentuating the drawn-out rhythm as a slow sarabande (a slow, stately Spanish dance in triple time). In this way, he emphasised the point of this chorale, which is expressed in the later verses of the text, where the Israelites are forced to sing a song of praise. But how are they to sing in such hopeless circumstances? That is precisely what Bach conveys in this chorale prelude. Although the oppressors have got the exiles right where they want them, the timid middle voice keeps going courageously, and with all the ornamentation displays faith in a good outcome.(1)

The closing voluntary is also in an ancient dance form, this time the chaconne, a composition in a series of varying sections in slow triple time, typically over a short repeated bass theme. Originally a stately dance performed to a chaconne, popular in the 18th century, here we have an organ arrangement of a harpsichord piece by French composer Louis Couperin. Couperin moved to Paris in 1650–1651, where he worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court.

This arrangement is by the early 20th century French organist, Joseph Bonnet.

(1) A Somber Sarabande, Netherlands Bach Society, https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-653/

Music for September 29, 2019

Good Shepherd School Sunday

The Children of the Good Shepherd School

Vocal Music

• Noah’s Ark – Cristi Cary Miller (contemporary)

Instrumental Music

• Trumpet Prelude in D – Johan Helmich Roman (1694 – 1758)
• Sheep May Safely Graze – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Dona Nobis Pacem - Handchimes
• Processional of Joy – Hal H. Hopson (b. 1933)

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

• Hymn 380 - From all that dwells below the skies (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn R-37 - Glorify Your Name
• Hymn - Through North and South  (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn - The Lord is my shepherd (Good Shepherd School Song)
• Hymn 594 - God of grace and God of Glory (CWM RHONDDA)

St. Michael and All Angels

Choral High Mass, 5 p.m..

Vocal Music

• oks Fly Homeward – Arthur Baynon (1889-1954)
• Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs – Paul Ritchie (b. 1954)
• Here, O My Lord – Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Suite Gothique: Prière à Notre Dame– Léon Boëllmann (1862-1897)
• Our Father, Who in Heaven Art – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Suite Gothique: Toccata– Léon Boëllmann

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

• Hymn 618 - Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Psalm 103 - Bless the Lord, My Soul (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 282 - Christ, the fair glory of the holy angels (CAELITES PLAUDANT)
• Hymn R 75 - Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore him (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 324 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA)

Guido Reni, St. Michael, c. 1636

Music for Sunday, September 22, 2019

Vocal Music

• Psalm 113 – Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
• I Choose Love – Mark A. Miller (21st Century)

Instrumental Music

• Solemn Melody – H. Walford Davies (1869-1941)
• Prelude in B-flat – Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
• Toccata in D Minor – Max Reger (1873-1916)

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

• Hymn 475 - God himself is with us (TYSK)
• Hymn 605 - What does the Lord require (SHARPETHORNE)
• Hymn R 255 - Give to our God immortal praise (DUKE STREET)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 676 - There is a balm in gilead (BALM IN GILEAD)
• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)

This Sunday the choir is singing a very simple but powerful anthem written by Mark A. Miller, a Associate Professor of Church Music and Composer In Residence at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Written in response to the tragic massacre at the Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015, this anthem represents our solidarity to love in the midst of pain, of war, of brokenness. We choose love. We choose community. What better way to share this message than through powerful song?  I have been humming the tune all week, and allowing the words to wash over me and nurture my soul. I hope they will do the same for you:

In the midst of pain, I choose love.
In the midst of pain, sorrow falling down like rain,
I await the sun again, I choose love.

In the midst of war, I choose peace.
In the midst of war, hate and anger keeping score,
I will seek the good once more, I choose peace.

When my world falls down, I will rise.
When my world falls down, explanations can’t be found,
I will climb to holy ground, I will rise.

In addition to his post at Drew, Miller is a Lecturer in the Practice of Sacred Music at Yale University and Minister of Music of Christ Church in Summit, New Jersey and Composer in Residence of Harmonium Choral Society in NJ. From 2002-2007 he was Director of Contemporary Worship at Marble Collegiate Church and from 1999-2001 was Assistant Organist and Music Associate at the Riverside Church, both in New York City. Since 1999 he has travelled to every part of the country delighting congregations with the power and joy of music making. Mark received his Bachelor of Arts in Music from Yale University and his Master of Music in Organ Performance from Juilliard.

Music for September 15, 2019

Vocal Music

• I Sought the Lord – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Sonata II: Ruhig Bewegt – Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
• Messe pour les Convents: X. Chromhorne sur la Taille – François Couperin (1668-1733)
• Sonata II: Lebhaft – Paul Hindemith

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

• Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn 470 - There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (BEECHER)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn R 217 - You satisfy the hungry heart (GIFT OF FINEST WHEAT)
• Hymn R 277 - What wondrous love is this? (WONDROUS LOVE)
• Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
• Psalm 51:1-11 (1-4, 7-8, 11a)- Tone VIIIb

Thomas Jackson Oldrin
August 10, 1996 ~ August 6, 2017

22 years ago, when I first came to Good Shepherd, we had a young mother singing in our choir with a toddler. As the dad wasn't a church goer, she would bring the young boy with her to church on Sunday, and he would sit in the loft with us. People in the congregation down below began to look for his round, cherubic face pressed up against the glass which use to be in the choir loft rail. But life happened, and a divorce brought about a move from the suburb of Kingwood to the inner loop of Houston, and thus a move from Good Shepherd to Palmer Memorial. We missed young Thomas' growing up, and his subsequent battle with cancer, but we kept up through our friendship with his mother, Sarah and social media. Thomas won his battle with cancer, but lost his war with depression. He passed away in August of 2017.

Our mutual friend and church musician/composer, David Ashley White, wrote a beautiful anthem which he dedicated to Sarah Emes and her son, Thomas Oldrin. With a text by an anonymous poet, the anthem was premiered by the Palmer choir and published by Selah Publishing Co. in June 2018. Sarah gave copies of the anthem to Good Shepherd so that we, too, could sing in memory of Thomas.

The Opening and closing voluntaries are from the second organ sonata of Paul Hindemith, one of the principal German composers of the first half of the 20th century and a leading musical theorist. He sought to revitalize tonality—the traditional harmonic system that was being challenged by many other composers—and also pioneered in the writing of Gebrauchsmusik, or “utility music,” compositions for everyday occasions. He regarded the composer as a craftsman (turning out music to meet social needs) rather than as an artist (composing to satisfy his own soul). As a teacher of composition he probably exerted an influence on most of the composers of the generation that followed him. He was one of the first composers to offer classes in Film Music

In 1935 at the invitation of the Turkish government, Hindemith moved to Turkey to oversee the organization of musical life there. It was during this time that he helped Jewish musicians escape to Turkey. At the outbreak of World War II, he emigrated to the USA. After a series of lectures at Yale University, he became a part of the permanent faculty, where he founded the Yale Collegium Musicum for historically based performances. He became a US citizen in 1946.

Hindemith was not an organist, and found the instrument uninspiring because it could not "breathe." Nevertheless, his three Sonatas, with their mastery of counterpoint, clarity of form, bold harmonic language and deeply expressive treatment of melody, are recognised as among the great works of modern organ literature.

Music for September 8, 2019

Vocal Music

• Teach Me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)

Instrumental Music

• Prélude, Opus 15, no. 5 – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• From God Shall Naught Divide Me, BuxWV 220 – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Tuba Tune in D Major, Op. 15 – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

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

• Hymn 400 - All creatures of our God and king (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but suffer God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ISSAM)
• Hymn R 206 - Holy, holy (HOLY HOLY)
• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible (ST. DENIO)
• Psalm 1 – Tone VIb

Thomas Attwood (unknown painter)

Two weeks ago the Good Shepherd Choir sang an anthem by Mozart, and the week before we featured music by Mendelssohn. Today we sing an anthem by an English composer who bridged the two, Thomas Attwood. Attwood was organist at St. Paul's Cathedral in London from 1796 until his death. He began his musical career as a chorister in the Chapel Royal. The Prince of Wales, later George IV, sent him to Italy to study music when Attwood was 18, and then on to Vienna, where he became a student and friend to Mozart. Mozart told a friend, "I have the sincerest affection for Attwood, and i feel much pleasure in telling you that he has imbibed more of my style than any other scholar I have ever had." (1) Today's anthem, Teach Me, O Lord, dates from 1797, and exhibits much of Mozart's style. It has many of the same melodic and harmonic characteristics of Ave Verum, Mozart's miniature masterpiece.

Later in his life, Attwood became a close friend to the young composer Mendelssohn. During Mendelssohn's first trip to London, he suffered a knee injury in an accident, and spent the latter part of his recuperation in Attwood's home at Beulah Hill in Norwood. Following a second stay at  Norwood in 1832, Mendelssohn dedicated his Three Preludes and Fugues for the Organ (Op. 37) to Attwood.

(1) Wienand, Elwyn A. and Young, Robert H., The Anthem in England and America, The Free Press, 1970, p. 248 

Music for September 1, 2019

Vocal Music

• Bread of the World – Carlton Young (b. 1926)

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

• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn R 141 - Come, ye sinners, poor and needy (ARISE)
• Hymn - Through north and south  (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn R 148 - Brother, let me be your servant (SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn R 29 - He is Lord (HE IS LORD)
• Hymn 477 - All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine (ENGELBERG)
• Psalm 112 – Tone Va

Carlton Young

I am away this weekend, mourning the last gasp of summer. In my stead, Rob Carty will be playing the organ, and the choir will sing a setting of the hymn Bread of the World in Mercy Broken, set to the early American tune, CHARLESTOWN, by the Methodist composer Carlton R. Young. This tune was a folk tune included in a 1799 tunebook, The United States Sacred Harmony. (You guessed it; it was discovered in Charleston, South Carolina.) This tune is in our hymnal, but set with a completely different text, "All who love and serve your city."

Young wrote this arrangement for Christ Memorial Lutheran Church here in Houston. A native of Hamilton, Ohio, he was a teacher, editor, composer and conductor, with the unique distinction of serving as editor of two revisions of hymnals for Methodists: The Methodist Hymnal, 1966; and The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989.

The opening hymn is that great hymn, Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, with its tune from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Here are some notes on the hymn from the website Hymnary.com.

Henry Van Dyke’s brilliant hymn of praise has many layers that add to the beauty of his text. As hymnologist Albert Bailey writes, within Van Dyke’s text, “creation itself cannot conceal its joy, and that joy is appreciated by God the center of it all; likewise all nature fills us with joy, caused fundamentally by our recognition of God as the giver” (The Gospel in Hymns, 554). We experience joy on many levels: we witness the joy expressed by Creation, we bask in the joy of God as He delights in us, and we experience our own joy as we reflect on all God has done for us and through us. We have all heard this line over and over again, but it’s worth repeating: we rush through life too quickly to stop and be filled with joy. We allow the phone calls we have to make, the laundry we need to fold, the paper we need to write, and the porch we need to fix get in the way of simply stopping, looking around, and being filled with joy and gratitude at the world God has given us. It’s a world where we have people to call, children to clothe, knowledge to express, and parties to host. And more so than anything, even when it seems to be crumbling around us, it’s a world redeemed by Christ. What can we raise to our Savior but this outburst of joy?

ODE TO JOY or HYMN TO JOY is the adaptation of Beethoven’s famous final movement in his Ninth Symphony into a melody fit for congregational singing. Around 1908, Henry Jackson Van Dyke wrote his text to be “sung to the music of Beethoven’s ‘Hymn to Joy.’”  It is a tune of grandeur and, fittingly, joy. It almost begs to be sung in a fast, upbeat manner; Jerry Jenkins writes, “the tune is so reminiscent of sprightly harpsichords that the words begin to bounce, and suddenly I’m singing it the way it was meant to be sung – at least in style” (Hymns for Personal Devotions, 132).

The only point of contention about this tune revolves around one note. In Beethoven’s symphony, there is a pick-up note into the third line – many try to imitate this. Paul Westermeyer argues that using this syncopated rhythm allows the congregation to sing music “in its integrity” (Let the People Sing, 202). Austin Lovelace, however, argues that “syncopation is a stumbling block to congregational singing and does nothing to make the hymn easier to sing or understand” (Let the People Sing, 202). In this case, Lovelace is probably right. 

Hymnary.org, Featured Hymn: "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" Sat, 08/17/2019

Music for August 25, 2019

Rally Day

Vocal Music

• Laudate Dominum – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Marion Russell Dixon, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Galliard on “Gather Us In” – James Biery (b. 1956)
• Come Sunday – Duke Ellington (1899-1971), arr. Craig Curry
• Toccata on “Gather Us In” – Donald M. VerKuilen III (b. 1994)

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

• Hymn 8 - Morning has broken (BUNESSAN)
• Hymn 523 - Glorious things of thee are spoken (ABBOTT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Hymn 297 - Descend, O Spirit, purging flame (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of Ages (TOPLADY)
• Hymn R 149 - I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD)
• Psalm 71:1-6 - Tone VIIIa

A quick search on the internet of the word “Rally” led me to images of cars: specifically race cars. Other suggestions on Google refine the search to either “school” (as in “pep rally”), political (as in Trump),  or protest (again, as in Trump). No matter which direction you take your search, you are looking at a high-energy event, with lots of noise and excitement.

So, naturally, when planning the music for this Sunday, the day we call “Rally Day,” I would normally look at music of a more upbeat, celebratory nature. This is true of the organ voluntaries, and many of the hymns we will sing this Sunday.

Marion Russell Dickson

It is not true, however, of the choir’s anthem, a setting of Psalm 117. With just two verses and sixteen words in Hebrew, it is the shortest of all the Psalms. We are singing Mozart’s sublime setting of the text, taken from his Vesperae solennes de confessore (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor), written in 1780 as a Vesper service for the Salzburg Cathedral. It is for soprano solo, sung by Kingwood’s own Marion Russell Dickson; the choir quietly enters at the conclusion of the psalm with the Gloria Patri, and the Marion will rejoin them at the Amen. 

I thought the contemporary hymn ,"Gather Us In (hymn 14 in Renew),  would be a great hymn for Rally Day. We don't know it (yet) as a congregational hymn, so I have found two organ pieces based on this American hymn to "frame" our worship service. 

The opening voluntary is a galliard (a lively dance in triple time) by the Michigan organist James Biery. Biery is Minister of Music at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where he directs the choirs, plays the organ, and oversees the music program of the church. Prior to this appointment Biery was music director for Cathedrals in St. Paul, Minnesota and Hartford, Connecticut.

The closing voluntary is another setting of the hymn "Gather Us In, by the young composer Donald VerKuilen III. This is a toccata which was one of the winners of the 2016 American Guild of Organists New Music Competition, which was premiered here in Houston. A native of Appleton Wisconsin, VerKuilen is a graduate of The Oberlin Conservatory. He has studied performance and improvisation with Marie-Louise Langlais, former professor at The Conservatoire de Paris and widow of the famed organist Jean Langlais. VerKuilen currently serves as Director of Music at Saint Rocco Catholic Church in Cleveland, Ohio.

Duke Ellington

The communion voluntary is a piano arrangement of Duke Ellington's song, "Come Sunday." Originally part of his instrumental jazz suite Black, Brown and Beige (1943), a musical history of African Americans, Ellington added text to this instrumental theme in 1958 and the song became a standard at his sacred jazz concerts.

I thought of this piece while reading the Gospel for this Sunday. Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath, and is criticized.  Jesus answered his critics, "...ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 

African American scholar William McClain notes the importance of Sunday to African Americans, even in secular music: “To the Christian Sunday is, or should be, another Easter, in which God’s victory in Christ over sin and death are celebrated in work, word, song, prayer, and preaching. After all, even [slave] masters and owners tried to be more human on Sunday.” [1]

The song is ultimately about the providence of God in all our lives. The refrain addresses God directly, “Lord, dear Lord above, God Almighty, God of love,” and then makes a petition, “please look down and see my people through.” The stanzas point to hope and heaven, concluding that “With God’s blessing we can make it through eternity.”

Lord, dear Lord above, God almighty,
God of love, please look down and see my people through.
I believe that God put sun and moon up in the sky.
I don't mind the gray skies
'cause they're just clouds passing by.
Heaven is a goodness time.
A brighter light on high.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
And have a brighter by and by.
Lord, dear Lord above, God almighty,
God of love, please look down and see my people through.

[1] Hawn, C. Michael, History of Hymns: “Come Sunday” reflects Duke Ellington’s faith & sacred jazz tradition retrieved August 22, 2019 (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-come-sunday-reflects)