Music for September 4, 2022 + The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• I Love You, O My God Most High – David Hogan (1949-1986)

Instrumental Music

• Trio in D Minor – Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780)
• Ubi Caritas – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Praeludium in F Major – Johann Ludwig Krebs

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982 with the exception of "I can hear my Savior calling" which is from LEVAS II.)

• Hymn 594 - God of grace and God of glory (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn - I can hear my Savior calling (NORRIS)
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Psalm 1 – Tone VIIIa

I Love You, O My God Most High

I’m always moved by stories of talented people who are cut down in the prime of life. Such is the story of David Hogan, the composer of today’s anthem. Hogan was an American composer, teacher, and performer with ties to both the East and West Coasts. He had moved to France to teach at the American Conservatory at the Palace of Fontainebleau in Paris, and was flying back to Paris on July 17, 1996 on TWA Flight 800, when it suddenly crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York. Thus ended a life dedicated to music.

A native of Virginia, Hogan graduated from the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University with a bachelor's degree in 1971, and would go on to earn a master's degree in voice in 1975. He enjoyed enormous success both as a composer and teacher and still found time to perform internationally as a concert tenor and pianist. For three years in a row, his students won first place in the Student Composers Competition of the Music Teachers National Association.

Dedicated to God as well as his craft, he had the distinction of being one of the two composers chosen to write new works for the Consecration of the Washington National Cathedral in 1989. Our kids choir learned his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis a few years ago for the Diocesan Youth Choral Festival. But he also wrote simple sacred music too, such as today’s anthem, written for his small choir at St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco.  It’s a simple setting of a traditional Irish melody, Daniel, arranged for two-part mixed choir. Simple but elegant, it uses the text by St Ignatius of Loyola, as translated by Edward Caswall.

I love you, O my Lord most high,

for first your love has captured me;

I seek no other liberty:

bound by your love, I shall be free.

May memory no thought suggest

but shall to your pure glory tend,

may understanding find no rest,

except in you, its only end.

All mine is yours: say but the word,

say what you will, it shall be done;

I know your love, most gracious Lord,

I know you seek my good alone.

Apart from you, nothing can be,

so grant me this, my only wish,

to love you, Lord, eternally,

you give me all in giving this.

Johann Ludwig Krebs

Wait, Who?

Krebs was an organist and composer from a highly musical family.  His father, both brothers, and his three sons all received formal musical training; his son Johann Gottfried was also an extremely prolific composer.

Best remembered as a pupil of Bach, Krebs was educated at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, as were his brothers.  The oft-repeated story that Bach punningly referred to him as the finest 'crab' in his "brook" (Krebs im Bach) is apocryphal, but Bach did provide a written testimonial as to his skill in composition and in playing the keyboard, lute, and violin.

Over his career Krebs held three organ posts, all in the viscinity of Leipzig: first at the St Marien church in Zwicken, then at the castles of Zeitz and, finally, Altenburg.

His status as a student of Bach tended to shade many of his compositions.  Although many of his works do stay very close to the outdated Bach model, with a conservative love of counterpoint, other compositions exhibit a more up-to-date style galant, a light and elegant free homophonic style of musical composition in the 18th century as contrasted with the serious contrapuntal style of the baroque era. 

In today's two organ pieces, the opening voluntary is an example of his mastery of Baroque counterpoint. The Trio in D Minor is written in three parts: two top parts played separately by the hands, and a bass line played by the feet. There is a lot of imitation between the two keyboard parts.

The closing volutary is an example of the more 'modern' style galant. This meant simpler, more song-like melodies, a decreased use of polyphony, short, periodic phrases, and a reduced harmonic vocabulary emphasizing tonic and dominant

.