Music for November 1, 2020 + All Saints Sunday

I'm taking the Sunday off this week (I was supposed to be on a cruise 😞) So my friend and our consummate substitute organist Rob Carty will be playing the organ for us.  Staff singer Anna Zhang will be singing the classic anthem by English composer Sir John Goss, These Are They Which Follow the Lamb, based on the passage from Revelation 14:

These are they which follow the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth.
These were redeemed from among men,
being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb.
And in their mouth was found no guile,
for they are without fault before the throne of God.

Born to a musical family, Goss was a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal, London, and later a pupil of Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul's Cathedral. After a brief period as a chorus member in an opera company he was appointed organist of a chapel in south London, later moving to more prestigious organ posts at St Luke's Church, Chelsea and finally St Paul's Cathedral, where he struggled to improve musical standards.

As a composer, Goss wrote little for the orchestra, but was known for his vocal music. You'll know his hymn tune LAUDA ANIMA, which we use for "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven." He has been  referred to as the last of the line of English composers who confined themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music.

Goss and his student John Stainer were the two most prominent Victorian composers of church music. Goss was organist of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1838 until his death, and most of his church music dates from his time there. These are they which follow the Lamb, written in 1859, belies the belief that all Victorian church music is sentimental or vulgar: it is simple, chaste, and almost completely diatonic.

Music for October 25, 2020 + The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• My Jesus, I Love Thee – Dan Forrest, arr. (b. 1978) Bruce Bailey, Baritone

Instrumental Music

• Suite du Premier Ton – Louis Nicolas Clérambault (1676 1749)
• Duo
• Trio
• Basse et Dessus de Trompette
• Récits de Cromorne et de Cornet Séparé
• Choral Partita on Werde Munter – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Trumpet Tune in D – David N. Johnson (1922-1987)

Bruce Bailey is singing a hymn familiar to Protestant Christians, "My Jesus, I Love Thee." I think the story of this hymn is fascinating, as told on the website hymnary.org:

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, William Featherstone most likely wrote this hymn at the age of sixteen on the occasion of his conversion and/or baptism. He sent the text to his aunt in Los Angeles, who sent it to friends in London, where it was published anonymously in the London Hymn Book to a now forgotten tune. Adoniram Judson Gordon found it, wrote a new tune for it, and also published it anonymously in The Service of Song for Baptist Churches. It wasn’t until around 1930, fifty years after its publication, that enough research had been done to establish Featherstone as the author, who had died at the young age of 28. Today, it is a much loved hymn of assurance and confession of faith, with words of comfort and peace. And perhaps bolstering the power of the text is Featherstone’s story itself. A young man with no connections, who simply wrote a poem one night about his own faith, has, unbeknownst to him, come to bless millions. God certainly works in mysterious ways to use the gifts and talents of his people.

Today's arrangement of the hymn is by the North Carolina composer Dan Forrest. Originally published in 2011 as a choir anthem, this setting of the well-loved hymn, with a piano countermelody floating over top of the traditional hymn tune, was written as a memorial piece for one of Forrest's friends. The memorial setting was the reason for the tender musical style, as well as the choice of stanzas, including “I’ll love Thee in life, I’ll love Thee in death” and the triumphant final stanza about heaven. Forrest reset the choral piece as a solo work in the last 24 months.

In the last decade, Dan’s music has become well established in the repertoire of choirs in the U.S. and abroad, through both smaller works and his major works Requiem for the Living (2013), Jubilate Deo (2016), and LUX: The Dawn From On High (2018). Dan holds graduate degrees in composition and piano performance, and is active as a composer, educator, publisher, editor, and pianist. 

The opening voluntaries are from a Suite for Organ by the French composer and church organist, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault. Like so many musicians of the 18th century, Clérambault came from a musical family. His training began at an early age, and soon he was organist at various churches in France, including St. Sulpice (Paris). This suite was the first of what was to be a cycle of pieces in all keys but Clérambault never completed the cycle.

You'll hear four of the seven pieces. The titles describe the compositional form and registration (sounds) to be used. "Basse et Dessus de Trompette" is simply a piece employing both the bass and soprano (treble) registers of the trumpet stop. A "récit" is a piece in which a single voice emerges soloistically above all others by means of special registration. This is indicated in the title, here it's a Récit de Cromorne AND a Cornet - a solo stop made up of five different ranks of flute sounds at different pitches.)

The Choral partita during communion is a set of variations on the German Chorale Werde munter, mein Gemüte, which most people would recognize as the tune used for the choral part of Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Originally used for an evening text, it is paired with a Eucharistic text in our hymnal, hymn 336 (Come with us, O blessed Jesus.) Even though we aren't able to sing this, the words will be printed in the bulletin for you to follow along. This is the third Sunday in a row I have played works by Johann Pachelbel. His music is so well suited for church! (And easy to play - usually!) You see, there is SO MUCH more to Pachelbel than his famous Canon in D!

Music for October 18, 2020 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

Laudate Dominum – W. A. Mozart (1756-1791), Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Philip E. Baker (b. 1934)
• I. A Trumpet Tune for Beginnings
• III. Aria
• Meditation on "Old Hundredth" - Rudy Davenport (b. 1948)
• Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

As we return to in-person worship we'll be doing some things a little differently, at least for the time being. Choirs will not be a part of worship as group singing is thought to be a quick way of spreading the Covid-19 virus. We won't be singing hymns at this time, either. 

But hymns have such a prominent place in our worship that we don't want to just ignore their value. Therefore we will be including lyrics to familiar hymns in the worship leaflet for the congregation to read and meditate on while an instrumental setting of the tune most often associated with that text is played. 

This Sunday I will be playing two settings of the familiar hymn-tune, OLD HUNDREDTH. One is a piano setting played between scripture readings by the contemporary composer Rudy Davenport. Davenport is a freelance composer, pianist and church musician residing in Austin, Texas. 

Born in 1948 in Hayesville, North Carolina, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Young Harris Junior College, Cardinal Stritch College and Florida State University, where he studied composition with Harold Shiffman and Dr. John Boda. 

He has a wide and varied religious background. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Sacred Heart School of Theology in Milwaukee, where he studied composition with the late John Downey, Composer-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He studied the music and writings of the Vaishnava devotional sect of Hinduism in India, and of Zen in a Zendo. While living in a Trappist Monastery, he learned about the Catholic mystical saints. 

His musical tastes are as diverse as his religious studies. Davenport has written music for and played in a rock band, worked with developmentally delayed children by using music therapy, taught piano, and for many years was the Director of Music at several large Catholic churches.

The other setting of the tune which we most often think of as "The Doxology," Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, is an organ setting by the South German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel. It presents the well-known tune in the pedal, while the hands play a fugal-like accompaniment.

We are fortunate this Sunday to hear Mozart's beautiful setting of Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum, sung by Christine Marku. From his large work, Vesperae solennes de confessore (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor), Laudate Dominum originally was a solo with choir (the choir singing the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalm.) Since we have no choir, we will omit the Gloria.

Christine is the choral director at Riverwood Middle School.

The opening voluntary is by Philip Baker, organist and composer who was director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas for many years, including those I spent at Southern Methodist University working on my masters. His Suite for Organ was published just before I moved to Dallas, and it includes one of the loveliest melodies of all time, and one of my personal favorite organ pieces to play, Aria. 

Since retiring from active music making, he and his wife Tissa have moved to Houston, where (before Covid) I got to see him at various concerts around town.

Music for October 11, 2020 - The FIRST SUNDAY back in church (10:15)

This Sunday will be our first Sunday back in church with a live service, which will also be livestreamed over You Tube. We'll have less music initially, with only one solo and instrumental music. For this week, you can expect to hear:

Vocal Music

• Will You Come and Follow Me? – John L. Bell (b. 1949), Bidkar Cajina, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Ciaconna in F Minor – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Brother James’ Air – Larry Shackley (b. 1956)
• Little Prelude in C Minor – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

The solo is a hymn by the Scottish minister John L. Bell, set to the Scottish folk melody KELVINGROVE. It's a gorgeous text call "The Summons."

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown?

Will you let my name be known?

Will you let my life be grown in you,

and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?

Will you risk the hostile stare,

should your life attract or scare?

Will you let me answer prayer in you

and you in me?

Will you let the blinded man see if I but call your name?

Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?

Will you kiss the leper clean,

and do such as this unseen?

And admit to what I mean in you,

and you in me?

Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell that fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found

to reshape the world around

through my sight and touch and sound in you,

and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In your company I'll go,

where your love and footsteps show,

thus I'll move and live and grow in you,

and you in me.

This is the kind of hymn that is typical of Bell's writing. He began writing hymns in the 1970s to address concerns missing from the current Scottish hymnal:

"I discovered that seldom did our hymns represent the plight of poor people to God. There was nothing that dealt with unemployment, nothing that dealt with living in a multicultural society and feeling disenfranchised. There was nothing about child abuse…,that reflected concern for the developing world, nothing that helped see ourselves as brothers and sisters to those who are suffering from poverty or persecution." [from an interview in Reformed Worship (March 1993)]

He is now employed full-time in the areas of music and worship with the Wild Goose Resource Group, the publishing arm of the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian community of men and women from different walks of life and different traditions within Christianity which is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, with its main activities taking place on the island of Iona.

Another Scottish hymn-tune, BROTHER JAMES' AIR, will be played between scripture readings. Composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain (1840-1925), the Scottish healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James, the tune was first published in his volume The great peace: being a New Year's greeting ... (1915) and is often used as the tune for the metrical setting of Psalm 23, "The Lord's my Shepherd; I'll not want." Psalm 23 is the Psalm for Sunday. 

Music for October 4, 2020 + The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lord, for thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – Richard Farrant (c. 1525 –1580) or John Hilton (the elder) (1565 – 1609(?))

Instrumental Music

• All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name – Lani Smith (1934 - 2015)
• How Firm a Foundation – Lani Smith

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Song of Praise S-280 - Canticle 20: Glory to God – Robert Powell

Pardon Me, Your Roots are Showing

I have a confession to make.

Well, actually, two confessions.

(1) From where I sit in the choir gallery, I have a clear view of the tops of people's heads. And from that perch, it is easy to see who dyes their hair, and who needs to have their roots touched up. I'm just saying...

Your roots don't lie. They tell you just who (or what color) you (or your hairs) really are.

(2) Back where I come from (both geographically and generationally), the epitome of classy church music was a well played piano and organ duet. I grew up in rural West Tennessee, in what was considered a "high-church" Methodist. Our congregation had a really beautiful building built in 1924, with the only pipe organ in our town. We were justifiably proud of our 13-rank Möller pipe organ. I was enamored with it from a young age. 

Yours truly at the console of the 1924 Moller

Back in 1927 or '28, the organist, Mrs. Mae Peacock started subscribing to a bi-monthly organ magazine published by The Lorenz Publishing Company. Lorenz was to church music as Ford or Chevrolet was to the automobile. (The same could be said about Möller.) And, like Möller and Chevrolet, Lorenz was all I knew when it came to published music. So in 1975, when I was just a Junior in high school, I ordered a book of piano and organ duets which I played with my piano teacher in church. And it's that same volume of music that I have pulled out of mothballs for this Sunday's service! Only this time I am playing the organ with my friend (and Good Shepherd's usual substitute organist) Rob Carty on the piano.

Lani Smith

They were arranged by Lani Smith, a man whose musical pedigree belied his position in what most modern day church musicians would label a rather pedestrian publishing house.  Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was educated at the College‑Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati (BM and MM), and in 1958 he was a co‑winner of the Joseph H. Bearns Prize in Music from Columbia University, an award that honors America's most promising young composers. At age twenty‑five, Smith published his first piece with Lorenz, thus beginning a long career at the company. From 1967–82, Smith was a member of the editorial and composition staff at Lorenz, where he had responsibility for a number of publications and organ magazines, just like the one Mrs Mae subscribed to in the 20s and 30s.

So now you know my true colors. I'm just a rural church organist at heart, pretending to be one of the big boys!

The choir's anthem is a choral setting of a sixteenth century prayer by Henry Bull, set to music by either Richard Farrant or John Hilton, both English composers of sacred music. Farrant was organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the middle of the sixteenth century, while Hilton was known as a counter-tenor and organist, most notably at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the beginning, the music is in a simple, a capella, hymn-like style which befits the reflective and restful mood of the text, but at the words "that we may walk in a perfect heart" the choir has a chance to play around with the rhythms of the words and sing much more independently of each other, finally ending with a contrapuntal "amen." This was a challenge for the choir to sing as a virtual group, but they rose to the occasion!