Music for January 20, 2019 + The Second Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Instrumental Music

• Schönster Herr Jesu – Hermann Schroeder (1904-1984)
• Andante Sostenuto – Hermann Schroeder
• Poco Vivace – Hermann Schroeder

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

• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 135 - Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)
• Hymn R90 - Spirit of the living God (SPIRIT OF THE LIVING GOD)
• Hymn R136 - Alleluia (ALLELUIA)
• Hymn 371- Thou, whose almighty word (MOSCOW)
• Psalm 36:5-10 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome W. Meachen

These days when you go to a church wedding, you are apt to hear at least one (if not all) of these three pieces:

1. Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel
2. Trumpet Voluntary (or Prince of Denmark's March) by Jeremiah Clarke
3. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by J. S. Bach

A forensic deconstruction of J. S. Bach. Working with a cast
of the composer's skull on loan from the Bach Museum
in Eisenach, Scottish anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson
created a 3-D representation of the face of the man who died in
1750 at the age of 65.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus goes to a wedding, so I thought it only fitting that he should hear at least one of these!
Jesu, Joy... was the obvious choice for the choir. It is taken from Bach's cantata No. 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (which translates as ‘heart and mouth and deed and life’). It was written in 1723, the first year that Bach was the Cantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Bach took up the position of Thomaskantor, the directorship of church music in Leipzig, after a thoroughly depressing and insulting application process. The head of the search committee, the councilman Abraham Christoph Plaz wrote, “since we cannot get the best," (Telemann and Graupner had declined the offer) "we will have to settle for average.”

Today no one knows who Graupner was, and Telemann is a little more than a relic of early music, but everyone knows Bach, and this movement from one of roughly 100 such works written in his first two years in Leipzig is one of his greatest hits. "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", shortened to simply "Joy", became a pop hit record in 1972 when covered by English studio group Apollo 100. It reached number six on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 during the winter of that year.

Today's organ music all comes from the pen of Hermann Schroeder. Schroeder is one of the most important German composers of the  20th century for organ. His music combines elements of the Middle Ages (fauxbourdon, ostinato technique, Gregorian modes), 20th-century polyphony and the linear, atonal writing of Hindemith. His chamber music for organ and other instruments constituted a special field of his musical activity.

While renowned in Germany, Schroeder is relatively unknown in the United States. His most widely regarded pieces are Kleine Praeludien und Intermezzi Op. 9 (1932) (Six Short Preludes and Intermezzos) and the chorale prelude Schönster Herr Jesu (1933) (Fairest Lord Jesus), both rather early works in his oeuvre.

I am playing two selections from his Op. 9 for communion and the closing voluntary, and his prelude on Schoenster Herr Jesu for the opening voluntary. I've listed the page number for this hymn in the service leaflet, in case you want to compare the melody you hear played on the oboe in the pedal part with the hymn in the hymnal. (Note: The text "Fairest Lord Jesus" has two tunes. The first one, ST. ELIZABETH, is the one we typically sing when we sing this text. The other, SCHONSTER HERR JESU, is the German tune originally used for this text in 1662. It is still quite popular in Germany. The Episcopal Hymnal 1940 was the first to use this tune with this text in America in modern times.