Music for February 20, 2022 + The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O Come, Ye Servants of the Lord – Christopher Tye (c. 1505 - c. 1572)

Instrumental Music

• Sing Praise to Our Creator – Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718 – 1795)
• Communion – Richard Purvis (1837-1911)
• March – Arthur William Marchant (1850-1921)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 295 - Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTE, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42 – Tone Va

The anthem today is by the English Renaissance composer Christopher Tye. He studied at Cambridge University and in 1545 became a Doctor of Music both there and at Oxford. Talk about an over-achiever! He was choirmaster and organist of Ely Cathedral from about 1543. He may have been music teacher to King Edward VI who reportedly quoted his father Henry VIII, as saying "England hath one God, one truth, one doctor hath for music's art, and that is Doctor Tye, admired for skill in music's harmony."

The anthem comes from Tye's Actes of the Apostles (1553), his setting of the first fourteen chapters of the Book of Acts in metrical verse, with a new musical setting for each chapter. These are short, strophic pieces, whose settings range in style from fairly homophonic to quite imitative; the final setting is a double canon at the fourth. It is from this collection that his most familiar piece is derived; the most common tune of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks", hymn 94 in our hymnal (though not attributed to him.)

Our anthem comes from the fourth chapter (or movement) of this work, but with new words. The original text, the translation of the Latin scripture, is very difficult to understand to our modern ears

When that the people taught they had

There came to them doutles:

Priests and rulers as men nye mad,

And eke the Saduces.

Whome it dyd greve that they should move

The people and them leade:

That Jesus Christ, by powre above

Should ryse up from the deade.

What we are singing is an English translation of a Latin contrafactum for the original text. What is a contrafactum, you ask? It’s what you get when an existing tune is used with a new set of words. A well-known example is The Star-Spangled Banner, which is sung to the music of “The Anacreontic Song” popularly known as a drinking song. 

What I think is ironic is that Christopher Tye translated Latin words into English, which were then replaced with Latin words which have now been translated in English.

The opening voluntary is two variations of hymn 295 by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, a German music critic, music theorist and composer. During his life he published two volumes of chorale preludes, which contain his only known composition for the organ.

This hymn tune, CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN, is given two treatments. In the first, the melody is in the pedal, played on a 4’ reed. In the second, the melody is in canon between the right hand and the pedal. 

Richard Purivs

Some years ago, in Berkeley, California, theater-organ buffs discovered a wonderfully talented high school boy named Don Irving, who play fabulously for a while and then disappeared. It turns out, his real name was Richard Purvis, and he became well known in church music circles. After making his concert debut at age 13, he won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From there he began concertizing and composing. His works certainly show a predilection for the lyrical style of the theater organ. 

While his music has fallen out of fashion, several of his works have entered classic status in American organ music of the 20th century. One of those is this work called “Communion,” which features a lush, slow chordal theme which serves as a backdrop to a simple melody reminiscent of Gregorian Chant. A distinct feature of this piece is the use of chimes. Since we do not have chimes, we’ll use a handbell for the tolling of the bell.