Music for Sunday, October 3, 2021 + The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• JLM – Bradley Phillips (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Festival Piece – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)
• Prelude based on “Seelenbräutigam” – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• Now thank we all our God – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 495 - Hail thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 480 - When Jesus left his Father's throne (KINGSFOLD)
• Hymn R217 - You satisfy the hungry heart (GIFT OF FINEST WHEAT)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)
• Psalm 26 – simplified Anglican chant by Jerome Webster Meachen

Cranach, Lucas, 1515-1586. Christ Blessing the Children,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. [retrieved September 30, 2021].

What's one of the best-known, well loved children's hymns you can think of? Chances are it's Jesus loves me, that old Sunday School favorites by the gospel hymn writer William Bradbury.

Whenever I hear or read the passage from Mark where Jesus welcomes the little children, I always think of this hymn. Well, those words have taken on new life in an original tune by Atlanta composer Bradley Phillips, and we will sing it at the offertory this Sunday. (That's what the "JLM" in the title stands for - "Jesus Loves Me." List for a fragment of the familiar hymn-tune at the end when we sing, "the Bible tells me so."

A native Texan, Phillips studied oboe and organ at Baylor University (BM) and Florida State University (MM). He composes for both commercial and sacred spaces.

Another composer named Phillips wrote the opening voluntary this Sunday. Craig Phillips is the organist -director of music for All Saints Episcopal in Beverly Hills. A prolific composer, he was named the American Guild of Organists Distinguished Composer for 2012 — the seventeenth recipient of this special award, joining an illustrious list that includes past honorees Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Daniel Pinkham, Stephen Paulus, David Hurd and others. In 2015 Dr. Phillips was named an honorary canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Diocese of Los Angeles, at a gala event at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and in 2016 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Virginia Theological Seminary.

Dr. Phillips holds the degrees Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Music, and the Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, where he studied with the great pedagogue Russell Saunders. His Bachelor of Music Degree is from Oklahoma Baptist University, and his early musical studies were at the Blair School of Music in Nashville. 

SEELENBRÄUTIGAM is a German hymn tune written by Adam Dreese, a 17th Century German pietist. It is most often heard with the words

Jesus, still lead on till our rest be won.
And, although the way be cheerless,
we will follow, calm and fearless;
guide us by Your hand to our Fatherland.

The American compose Gordon Young has written an impressionistic prelude based on the tune which doesn't express the complete tune but gives us fleeting hints of it. Neither the tune nor the text are found in our hymnal