Music for Sunday, February 14, 2021 + The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O Splendor of God’s Glory Bright – Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
• Hymn 135: Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on ST. ELIZABETH – Carson P. Cooman (b. 1982)
• I. Theme
• II. Duo
• III. Gigue
• IV. Meditation
• V. Chorale
• Walk With Us – Alexis Ffrench (b. 1970)
• Fanfare and Chorale – Calvin Fuller (21st C.)

The music for this Sunday includes the music of two living Black composers, one living White composer, and one very dead White man. Since we are observing Black History month, let’s start with the two Black Composers.

I’m really happy and excited to be playing the piano piece during the eucharist by the British classical soul pioneer, composer, producer and pianist Alexis Ffrench (that’s not a typo – he spells his name with two ffs). Not only is Ffrench the UK's biggest selling pianist of 2020, he has headlined London's Royal Albert Hall, collaborated with fashion houses Miyake and Hugo Boss, played Latitude Festival, worked with Paloma Faith, composed several film scores and shares the same management team as Little Mix and Niall Horan.

Ffrench's music has amassed over 200 million streams and both albums Evolution and Dreamland reached No. 1 in the classical music charts. "Even calling yourself 'a classical artist' is a barrier of entry to many people. My music has a classical signature in its DNA, but it's borderless, a synthesis of many styles.”

Alexis Ffrench

Ffrench has been improvising on the piano since the age of four. Before his formal music education, at the age of seven Ffrench was appointed head organist at his local church in Surrey, becoming the UK's youngest church organist. Growing up in a household full of the music of Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley and Ella Fitzgerald, Ffrench first honed his craft by playing the kitchen table aged four and writing his first pieces at five, his prodigious gifts convincing his parents to buy a second-hand piano. He received scholarships to study at The Purcell School for Young Musicians, the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

His 2020 single "Walk With Us" pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. Like everyone else, he's watched the news of George Floyd unfold with a sense of horror, grief-stricken at events in the United States.

"From traumas, past and present, as we collectively breathe new life into urgent conversations and actions, I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: 'The problem can only be solved when there is a kind of coalition of conscience'. Only together can we meet the moment purposefully and move forward in positivity and love."

"I hope that by lending my musical voice to the Black Lives Matter movement through this video I can elevate the cause in some small way and entreat listeners to #walkwithus..."

The closing voluntary comes from much closer to home, as I repeat my friend Calvin Fuller’s bombastic Fanfare and Chorale which I first played during the virtual services this past summer. You can read about it here.

Carson P. Cooman

The opening voluntary is a set of short variations on the familiar hymn, “Fairest Lord Jesus,” by the young American organist, Carson Cooman. A native of Rochester, New York, he is a composer, concert organist, editor, and consultant. As an American composer with a catalog of hundreds of works in many forms, from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes, his works have been performed on six continents and have been recorded on over 40 CDs. As a performer, over 300 new compositions by more than 100 international composers have been written for him, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of CD releases and more than 3,000 recordings available online.

Since 2006, Cooman has held the position of Composer in Residence at The Memorial Church, Harvard University. From 2008-11, he also served as Composer in Residence to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts. Since 2015, he has been Organ and Choral Editor for Lorenz Publishing Company and Sacred Music Press.

The anthem for this Sunday is an excerpt from a larger motet by the very dead Claudio Monteverdi, an Italian composer, singer, and priest from Cremona, Italy. Monteverdi is one of the most important composers in the history of Western music, whose music marked the transition from the late Renaissance to the new "Baroque" style, combining the brand-new basso continuo technique with formal counterpoint. He did much to develop the then-new genre, the opera, writing one of the very first operas, L'Orfeo (1607),  which is still performed regularly today. 

He was also a pioneer in music for the Church: his Vespero della Beata Vergine of 1610 is a landmark work for choir and orchestra that introduces, alongside archaic polyphony, such forward-looking techniques as concertato writing and ritornello forms to sacred music.