Music for Sunday, October 31, 2021 + + The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• I Give to You a New Commandment – Peter Nardone (b. 1965)

Instrumental Music

• A Mighty Fortress Is Our God – Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637 – 1707)
• Let Us Break Bread Together – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 688 - A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn 602 - Jesus, Jesus, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 551 - Rise up, ye saints of God! (FESTAL SONG)

There are three things we are focusing on musically today. First is the Gospel reading. In Mark 12:28-31we read, 

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 

This reminded me of the passage in John 13 where Jesus gives a new commandment, that we love one another as Jesus has loved us. I therefore looked to Peter Nardone's anthem setting of that scripture which pairs those words with an original tune with the Roman Catholic chant, Ubi Caritas.

Where charity and love are, there God is.

The love of Christ has gathered us into one.

Let us exult, and in Him be joyful.

Let us fear and let us love the living God.

And from a sincere heart let us love each other.

You'll hear the tenors and basses sing that chant in Latin while the trebles sing the scripture.

Peter Nardone is a free-lance conductor, singer and composer who has sung with the Monteverdi Choir, The King’s Consort and the Tallis Scholars. He has been Director of Music at Chelmsford Cathedral and was subsequently Organist and Director of Music at Worcester Cathedral.

The second thing we focus on today is the Reformation. Today is Reformation Day, a Protestant Christian religious holiday celebrated on October 31st in remembrance of the onset of the Reformation. According to Philip Melanchthon, All Hallows' Eve 1517 was the day German monk Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony. His famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is considered to be the great Reformation hymn. We will sing the hymn at the opening of the service, preceded by Dietrich Buxtehude's elegant chorale prelude based on the hymn. Just don't expect to recognize the melody in Buxtehude's setting

The third thing we focus on today (at the end of the service) is All Hallows' Eve, better known as Halloween. It is liturgical in as far as the day is the Eve of All Hallows' Day (or All Saints' Day). It's roots are Christian, but it's modern reflection is more secular, or at least Pagan. And of all the music for organ, the pièce de résistance is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Whenever I meet new people and tell them I am an organist, more often than not they will ask "Can you play the Phantom of the Opera?" - meaning, "can you play Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565?" Whatever. It's a fun piece to play, and if I'm ever going to play it in church, today is the day. 

me, practicing this Sunday's closing voluntary.

Music for Sunday, October 24, 2021 + The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee – Glenn L. Rudolph (b. 1951)

Instrumental Music

• Messe de 8th Tone: Gloria - Duo – Gaspard Corrette  (c. 1671 – before 1733)
• Prelude on “London New” – Robert Groves (1912-1994)
• Messe de 8th Tone: Sanctus - Duo – Gaspard Corrette

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 410 Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
• Hymn 679 Surely it is God who saves me (THOMAS MERTON)
• Hymn 773 Heal me, hands of Jesus (SHARPE)
• Hymn 460 Alleluia, sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 126 simplified Anglican chant by Jerome Webster Meachen

written in 1998 for Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 

Glenn L. Rudolph has been active in choral music in the Pittsburgh area since 1977. He began his church choir directing career at Freeport United Methodist Church in Freeport, PA, was a member of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh professional core from 1983 through 1991 and served as Conducting Assistant to Music Director, Robert Page for the 1990-1991 concert season. Mr. Rudolph joined The Pittsburgh Camerata in 1993 as a professional core member and served as Assistant Conductor to Artistic Director, Gayle Clark Kirkwood for the 1994-95 concert season. He was employed as tenor soloist at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral from 1985 through 1994 and at Temple Rodef Shalom from 1993 through 2003.

Mr. Rudolph received his B.M. in Music Composition from the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, where he graduated Magna cum Lauda in 1973. While at CCM, he studied voice throughout his undergraduate education, and was a member of the 32 voice Chamber Choir under the direction of Dr. Elmer Thomas. He was awarded a graduate scholarship in composition and a teaching assistantship in music theory at the College-Conservatory of Music. Mr. Rudolph studied composition with Paul Cooper and T. Scott Huston in Cincinnati, and with Lynn Purse and David Stock at Duquesne. He received his M.M. in Composition the Mary Pappert School of Music, Duquesne University, in 2011.

Gaspard Corrette (c. 1671 – before 1733) was a French composer and organist. About his youth there is not so much to find but he was organist in a few churches in Rouen until in 1720 he left as many others did before him to Paris to try to catch the glamour. From that time on we lose track of him. He died around 1733 in Paris.

Father of the better-known Michel Corrette, Gaspard's surviving musical output is this one work, Messe du 8e Ton, published at the beginning of 1703. It is the last of the great French organ masses, a tradition that began in the 1660s and which has an impeccable pedigree that includes the composers Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, Nicolas Lebègue and François Couperin. 

Corrette’s music is both erudite and colourful

Since he belongs to the classic French organ school we can expect the typical music although in contrast to the very known music (e.g. F. Couperin, N. Lebegue) his music is less severe... the typical modal parts makes it a bit nostalgic. His music suffers also from “nonchalance” but this style makes him different from other little French organ composers.

Music for Sunday, October 17, 2021 + Good Shepherd School Sunday

Vocal Music

• Seek To Serve – Lloyd Pfautsch
• Song of Peace – Donnelly and Strid
• Good Shepherd School Children

Instrumental Music

• Andante Tranquillo – Charles Villiers Stanford
• Cantabile – Alexandre Guilmant
• March in D Major – Alexandre Guilmant

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

• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn R158 - Meekness and majesty (TUNE)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)

The composer of this morning's anthem is 20th Century composer, choral director, and teacher Lloyd Pfautsch, who was one of my professor's at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Lloyd Pfautsch

Born in a little Missouri town where the primary industry was the manufacture of corncob pipes, Pfautsch was raised within the rich cultural, musical and hymnic tradition of German Evangelical churches which then extended from Pennsylvania across the mid and upper Midwest.  His worship-song roots were the Lutheran-style chorale, and he often reminded his students and colleagues that music is a living voice of the Gospel, a gift from God never to be trivialized.

When teaching aspiring vocal professionals, Pfautsch challenged the frequent assumption that one's solo voice could be damaged by singing in choirs, proving that solo and choral singing need never be incompatible.  And to his students studying choral conducting he often said: “Your choirs can sing anything you can teach them.”

The music says the text is from the scriptures, but I cannot find any direct references. Dr. Pfautsch was an ordained minister, so he may have used his knowledge of scripture to put together this text with the theme of service. For the melody, he chose a chant from a twelfth century Latin mass to carry the words.

Music for Sunday, October 10, 2021 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• O For a Closer Walk with God – Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on “St. Anne” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• I. Theme
• II. Adagio
• IV. Presto
• V. Pastorale
• VI. Fugue-Finale

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

• Hymn 475 - God himself is with us (TYSK)
• Hymn 615 - “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn R114 - Bless the Lord, my soul (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 680 - O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Psalm 90:12-17 simplified Anglican chant by Jerome Webster Meachen

The offertory anthem is a setting of a of a hymn by the poet William Cowper. From the handbook to the Psalter Hymnal we learn that he wrote this text on December 9, 1769, during the illness of his long-time friend and housekeeper, Mrs. Unwin. "In a letter written the next day Cowper voiced his anxieties about her condition and about what might happen to him if she died. Saying that he composed the text "to surrender up to the Lord" all his "dearest comforts," Cowper added,

Her illness has been a sharp trial to me. Oh, that it may have a sanctifying effect!. . . I began to compose the verses yesterday morning before daybreak, but fell asleep at the end of the first two lines; when I awoke again, the third and fourth were whispered to my heart in a way which I have often experienced.

C.V.Stanford

"Although Cowper frequently battled depression, doubt, and melancholy, this text speaks of a very intimate walk with the Lord. That walk is rooted in Scripture (st. 1), rejoices in conversion (st. 2-3), and denounces all idols that would usurp God's sovereignty (st. 4). The text concludes with a return to the prayer of the first stanza, but now that prayer is sung with increased confidence and serenity." -Psalter Hymnal Handbook

The tune, CAITHNESS, is Scottish, but the arranger, Charles Villiers Stanford, was not. Stanford was born in Ireland and received his early musical training at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He studied composition in both England and Germany. He taught at both the Royal College of Music and Cambridge University, and among his students are such notable musicians as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Ireland, Frank Bridge, Charles Wood, and Herbert Howells. His compositions include works for organ, piano, symphony orchestra, and chamber ensembles, as well as many works for Anglican church choirs. Stanford was knighted in 1902 and his ashes are buried beside Henry Purcell in Westminster Abbey. 

The Psalm for today is the last six verses of Psalm 90. The closing hymn is a paraphrase of the first five verses of Psalm 90. Thus we get to sing almost the entire Psalm. For this reason I have chosen to play  Paul Manz's partita (or variations) on ST. ANNE, which is the tune used for the hymn. Paul Manz was a Lutheran organist, who had a particular talent of improvising organ music based on hymns. These variations were probably improvised by Manz during a recital or one of his Hymn Festivals, and later published as Partita on St. Anne.

There are six movements which may or may not correspond to the six stanzas of Watt's hymn. I am playing five of those. The first movement is very straightforward, with an underlying rhythmic motive reminiscent of J. S. Bach's organ setting of the German Choral WER NUR DEN LIEBEN (BWV 642). The second movement also harkens back to music of Bach and German baroque composers with its ornamented solo line over an imitative accompaniment. You'll still be able to hear the melody if you listed closely.

The fourth movement is much lifelier, as you can tell by its title, Presto. The accompaniment will be in both hands, featuring a spinning counter-melody against a leaping part in the other hand. These melodic fragments bounce back and forth between the two hands while the feet play the melody.

One of the loveliest movements is the Pastorale (fifth movement), which I will play during communion. Pastorales are generally in 6/8 or 9/8 metre, at a moderate tempo, and this is no exception. The accompaniment has a lyrical melody which could stand alone by itself, without the addition of the hymn-tune that comes in, played by the left hand.

I'll play the last movement as the closing voluntary, for it's drive and excitement is perfect for music that should encourage us to leave this place with joy and commitment.