Music for September 18, 2022 + The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Wash Me Throughly – G. F. Handel (1685-1759)

Instrumental Music

• Sarabande – David Ashley White (b. 1944)
• Be Thou My Vision – Larry Schackley (b. 1956)
• Tuba Tune in D Major, Op. 15 – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

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 R258 - To God be the glory (TO GOD BE THE GLORY)
• Hymn 368 - Holy Father, great Creator (REGENT SQUARE)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Psalm 113 – Tone VIIIa

Wash Me Throughly

In 1717, George Frederick Handel became the composer in residence at Cannons, the court of James Brydges, who became the First Duke of Chandos in 1719. As part of his responsibilities, he wrote eleven "anthems" for use in the chapel there, but these are more than just a simple anthem. They are multi-movement works which foreshadow the greatness found in his oratorios. Handel was limited in the resources available to him, so it was written for only three voices (soprano, tenor, and bass) with intimate instrumental forces of oboe, two violins, and basso continuo (usually the organ with the bass line doubled by an instrument). It is true chamber music.

G. F. Handel (without his wig)

The choir will sing the third movement of the third Chandos anthem, which is based on verses from Psalm 51. Originally written for alto and tenor, today the entire choir will be singing together. Handel himself chose the texts for all the Chandos Anthems, using primarily as his source the Psalter of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Sarabande

This expressive short organ work from David Ashley White combines a soaring, lyric melody with a lush accompaniment. The music builds to a full organ climax in the middle and then fades away to tranquility at the end. It was written for and dedicated to Yuri McCoy, a graduate of the organ program at Rice University and now organist at South Main Baptist Church in Houston

Be Thou My Vision

The British Isles have provided us with some simple and often haunting folk melodies. Many of these tunes have been matched with hymn texts and become a treasured part of our hymnody. This is true with the tune SLANE, an old Irish folk tune associated with the ballad "With My Love on the Road" in Patrick W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). It became a hymn tune when it was arranged by David Evans and set to the Irish hymn "Be Thou My Vision" published in the Church Hymnary (1927). SLANE is named for a hill in County Meath, Ireland, where St. Patrick's lighting of an Easter fire–an act of defiance against the pagan king Loegaire (fifth century)–led to his unlimited freedom to preach the gospel in Ireland.

Larry Shackley, a free-lance composer from Columbia, South Carolina, has written a lovely piano meditation on SLANE that I'll be playing at communion.

A native of Chicago, Shackley attended Eastman School of Music (M.M) and the University of South Carolina (D.M.A). He has had a varied career, from teaching at Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina, to working at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, creating original music and producing radio programs for the Moody Broadcasting Network, to composing for over 30 films, videotapes, and radio dramas. He has also served churches such as Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois as well as several churches in South Carolina. Shackley is also an active studio musician, arranger, and orchestrator. Recently, he has devoted most of his composing to music for the church, writing over 450 keyboard arrangements and 250 choral pieces for a variety of publishers.

Tuba Tune

C. S. Lang (known to his friends as Robin) was born in New Zealand but moved with his family to London where he also studied at The Royal College of Music. His best-known work is the Tuba Tune for organ, Opus 15, a favorite of recitalists. This dashing little piece, which owes its title to the boisterous melody sounded forth on the organ's tuba stop, begins in the style of Handel but, in its central section, has some brief key changes that could belong to no century except the 20th.