Music for September 19, 2021 + The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Grant Us Thy Peace – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Instrumental Music

• Was Gott tut, das is wohlgetan – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
• Song Without Words: Consolation, Op. 30, #3 –Felix Mendelssohn
• Allegro in B flat Major – Felix Mendelssohn

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 636 - How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (FOUNDATION)
• Hymn 660 - O Master, let me walk with thee (MARYTON)
• Hymn 482 - Lord of all hopefulness (SLANE)
• Psalm 54 - Psalm Tone VIIIa

Felix Mendelssohn was exposed to Lutheran hymns during his musical studies, which included the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was then inspired to try his hand at writing chorale cantatas as part of his musical Studies in 1831.  He composed today's anthem, Verleih uns Frieden (Grant Us Thy Peace) in 1831 as one of eight chorale cantatas based on Lutheran hymns. He later chose only Verleih uns Frieden for publication.

The text is Martin Luther's "Verleih uns Frieden", a paraphrase of Da pacem Domine, a Latin prayer for peace from the 6th or 7th century based on biblical verses 2 Kings 20:19, 2 Chronicles 20:12,15 and Psalms 72:6–7. It was a regular close of church services in Luther's time. Surprisingly, Mendelssohn did not use the melody which was associated with Luther's text, but composed a  new melody following the style of recent hymns in clear major-key tonality.

Felix Mendelssohn

The melody appears three times, rendering the complete text each time. It is introduced by the men alone, then repeated by the trebles, with the men singing counterpoint, and finally appears in the sopranos in a mostly homophonic four-part setting.

Robert Schumann said about the composition: "The small piece deserves to be world famous and will become so in the future; the Madonnas of Raphael and Murillo cannot remain hidden for long."

The communion voluntary is another piece by Mendelssohn, this time on the piano. Songs Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte) is a series of short lyrical piano songs by Mendelssohn written between 1829 and 1845. The works were part of the Romantic tradition of writing short lyrical pieces for the piano, although the specific concept of "Songs Without Words" was new. 

Mendelssohn resisted attempts to interpret the songs too literally, and objected when his friend Marc-André Souchay sought to put words to them to make them literal songs:

What the music I love expresses to me, is not thought too indefinite to put into words, but on the contrary, too definite. (Mendelssohn's own italics)

However, that has not kept people from doing that very thing. The melody from Opus 30, No. 3 has been turned into a hymn-tune called CONSOLATION, which is used for several texts, the most prevalent being "Still, still with thee, the purple morning breaketh," by Harriet Beecher Stowe. (Extra points if you can tell me what famous novel she wrote.) It has published in several older hymnal, but is now out of fashion.