Music for Sunday, July 25, 2021 + The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• I waited for the Lord – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• Christine Marku and Matthew Donley, soloists

Instrumental Music

• Prelude and Fugue in F – Attr. to J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Sonata Pathetique: II. Adagio cantabile – Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
• Sortie in E-flat – Louis Lefébure-Wély (1817-1869)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the middle hymn which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing.)

• Hymn 414 God, my King, thy might confessing (STUTTGART)
• Hymn Break thou the bread of life (TUNE)
• Hymn 304 I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Psalm 145 – Tone VIIIa

Felix Mendelssohn

In 1840 Germany was in the midst of preparations to celebrate the quadricentennial of Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. Felix Mendelssohn was no exception, and he wrote his Lobgesang (Song of Praise), A Symphony-Cantata after words of the Holy Scripture.  It consists of three purely orchestral movements followed by 10 movements for chorus and/or soloists and orchestra.

The sixth movement, a duet for two sopranos with chorus, gained immense popularity as a standalone anthem in Victorian times in its English version, which we'll hear today as a soprano and tenor duet. The text is from Psalm 40.

J.S. Bach
(or is it?)

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember that I have played several organ works during the first three months of the year that had been "attributed" to J. S. Bach. I had begun a monthly series of playing the "Eight Little Prelude and Fugues" which bear Bach's name but were probably written by his friend Krebs. I got interrupted in April, but I'm back on track with the fourth prelude and fugue in that collection in the key of F Major. It's bright and cheerful.

Lefébure-Wély

If you had been in attendance at mass at L'église de la Madeleine in Paris in the 1850s, you would no doubt heard the fabulous Cavaillé-Coll organ played by their organist, Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély. Lefébure-Wély was one of the leading organists of his day, with a reputation as a virtuoso. He was followed at la Madeleine by such renowned organists as Camille Saint-Saëns, Théodore Dubois, and Gabriel Fauré. He also was in charge of the music for the funeral of Frédéric Chopin, when he transcribed some of Chopin's piano works for the organ, attracting critical praise.

I'm playing his Sortie in E-flat for the closing voluntary. With this, you'll get an idea of the type of music the wealthy Parisian congregation would hear as they left the Sunday Service. It's definitely not somber!