HAPPY NEW YEAR (Among other things) January 1, 2023 + The Holy Name

Vocal Music

• New Year Carol - Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Instrumental Music

• The Old Year Now Hath Passed Away - J.S.Bach (1685-1750)
• In Thee Is Gladness - Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)

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

• Hymn 450 - All hail the power of Jesus’ name (CORONATION)
• Hymn R37 - Father, we love you (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn 250 - Now greet the swiftly changing year (SIXTH NIGHT)
• Hymn R26 - Jesus, name above all names (HEARN)
• Hymn 644 - How sweet the name of Jesus sounds (ST. PETER)

The Sundays between Christmas (December 25) and Epiphany (January 6) are usually called The First and Second Sundays after Christmas. Eight days after Christmas, on January 1st, is the Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,  which commemorates the naming of the child Jesus; as recounted in the Gospel read on that day, 

at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. - Luke 2:21

When the Feast of the Holy Name falls ON a Sunday, as it does this year, it supersedes all other lectionary readings. So we will focus on the Holy Name of Jesus with a nod to the passing year. 

The hymns all focus on the Holy Name, even hymn 250 - 

When Jesus came to wage sin's war,
The Name of names for us he bore.
Slovak, 17th cent.; Cithara Sanctorum, Levoca, 1636, Translator: Jaroslav J. Vajda

but our choral and instrumental music looks more toward the new year.

New Year Carol

Benjamin Britten was one of Britain's leading composers of the 20th Century. He composed in all the major genre - opera, orchestral, choral and vocal, and chamber music. "A New Year Carol" is from Friday Afternoons, a collection of twelve song settings by Benjamin Britten, composed 1933–35 for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn, Wales where his brother, Robert, was headmaster. (Two of the songs, "Cuckoo" and "Old Abram Brown", were featured in the film Moonrise Kingdom.) "A New Year Carol", also known as "Levy-Dew", is a British folk song of Welsh origin traditionally sung in New Year celebrations. It is associated with a New Year's Day custom involving sprinkling people with water newly drawn from a well. 

Here we bring new water from the well so clear,

For to worship God with, this happy New Year.

Chorus (after each verse):

Sing levy-dew, sing levy-dew, the water and the wine,

The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe;

Open you the West Door and turn the Old Year go.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin;

Open you the East Door and let the New Year in.

The meaning of the words "levy-dew" in the original lyrics of the song is not certainly known. One line of speculation holds that the words represent the Welsh phrase llef ar Dduw or llef y Dduw, "a cry to God". Others connect it to Middle English levedy ("lady"). I like to think it refers to the French phrase levez à Dieu, "raise to God", which may in turn refer to the elevation of the Host in Christian liturgy, since it mentions the water and the wine. “The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine” refer to the golden strings of the harp and the trumpets of heaven, seven being 

Verses 2 and 3 describe letting go of the old year and bringing in the new. “Sing reign of Fair

Maid” refers to folk mythology and golden maidens who represent the rising and setting of the

sun, and therefore the turning of seasons and years. As for the West and East doors, it's a custom in the British Isles, particularly Ireland, to enter the house through the front door and leave through the back at the stroke of midnight. The old year goes out the back as the new year comes in the front.

The Old Year Now Hath Passed Away

In Thee is Gladness

Bach wrote an organ collection called Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), a set of 46 chorale preludes for organ based on hymns for each part of the church year. There were three written for New Years Day, Helft mir Gotts Güte preisen [Help me to praise God's goodness], Das alte Jahr vergangen ist [The old year now hath passed], and In dir ist Freude [In Thee Is Gladness]. I'm playing the second one as the prelude. The passing of the old year is mourned in twisting chromaticism throughout ‘Das alte Jahr vergangen ist’, despite that not being in keeping with the hymn text, a hymn of thanks for the past year and prayers for the coming year to Christ. Although primarily a supplication looking forwards to the future, the hymn also looks back at the past, reflecting on the perils facing man, his sins and his transitory existence.

Centuries later, in 1931, French organist Marcel Dupré wrote his own collection, 79 Chorals faciles pour orgue sur les mélodies des 79 vieux chorals dont Bach s’est servi dans ses Chorals-Préludes, based on the chorales used by Bach. Dupre prepared these short works, not as "another version" of the famous chorales and chorale preludes of Bach, but rather as a means of making the beginning organist aware of the beautiful chorale melodies and to prepare him or her for the study of Bach's works. This was an important pedagogical book while being at the same time a presentation of beautiful organ chorales. 

I am playing Dupré's setting of the third New Year chorale in Bach's Orgelbuchlein, In dir ist Freude. It is written in the style of a trio, with the melody heard in the right hand (treble) while the left hand inserts a quasi-ostinato based on the first four notes of the melody, played over another ostinato of the same four notes, this time in quarter notes.

NOEL! Music for Christmas 2022

December 24 4 PM – Family Service with the Coventry Choir

Vocal Music

• Christmas Bells Are Ringing – IsaBeall Hudson
• Alleluia! Emmanuel - Joanne LeDoux and Milton LeDoux
• O Holy Night - Adolphe Adam
• Harrison Boyd, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Two settings of Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – J. S. Bach
• All Is Quiet – Jean Hilbert

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 99 - Go Tell it on the mountain (GO TELL IT)
• Hymn 115 – What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 111- Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)

6:30 PM – Choral Eucharist with the Good Shepherd Choir

Vocal Music

• Run, Ye Shepherds – Michael Haydn
• There Is No Rose – Graham Ellis
• The Seven Joys of Mary – arr. Richard Shephard
• O Holy Night - Adolphe Adam
• Harrison Boyd, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Two settings of Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – J. S. Bach

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! The herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 115 – What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 79- O little town of Bethlehem (St. LOUIS)
• Hymn 111- Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)
• Hymn 100 – Joy to the world! The Lord is come (ANTIOCH)

Christmas Day - 10 AM

Vocal Music

• I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – Johnny Marks
• Bruce Bailey, Baritone

Instrumental Music

• Two settings of Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – J. S. Bach
• All Is Quiet – Jean Hilbert

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 105 - God rest ye merry, gentlemen (GOD REST YE MERRY)
• Hymn 101- Away in a Manger (CRADLE SONG)
• Hymn 115 – What child is this, who, laid to rest (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 100 – Joy to the world! The Lord is come (ANTIOCH)

MARY KNEW - Music for December 18, 2022 + The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• There Is No Rose – Graham J. Ellis (b. 1952)

Instrumental Music

• Three settings of Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland! BWV 659, 660, and 661– Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 56 O come, O come, Emmanuel (VENI, VENI, EMMANUEL)
• Hymn 54 Savior of the nations, Come! (NUN KOMM, DER HEIDEN HEILAND)
• Hymn 59 Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R26 Jesus, name above all names (HEARN)
• Hymn 66 Come, thou long expected Jesus (STUTTGART)
• Psalm 80 – Tone VIIIa, refrain by Jackson Hearn

There Is No Rose

From the 15th Century comes this charming text extoling the Virgin Mary and her part in the incarnation. It is a macaronic text, meaning it uses a mixture of languages, in this case English and Latin. This is a setting by Graham Ellis, an organist and conductor who is presently conductor of the Liverpool Sinfonia. He has also worked for BBC radio and television and was Director of Music at Birkenhead School for 33 years, during which time its Chapel Choir gained an increasing reputation, performing in cathedrals throughout this country and in concert in France, Venice, Verona, Florence, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna and Northern Spain.

Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland

In the last ten years of his life, Bach gathered together and completed a series of chorale arrangements, presumably planning to have them published, just like the third part of the Clavier-Übung in 1739. It concerns a selection of his compositions from much earlier years, when he was working as an organist in Weimar, Arnstadt and Mühlhausen. The collection became known as the 18 Choräle or Leipziger Choräle.

The  Leipziger Choräle include two ‘trilogies’: one based on Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr, and one on the Advent hymn Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, which we are singing as our middle hymn this Sunday, hymn 54. Whereas Allein Gott concerns the Trinity, here it is all about Jesus, who has three roles in the catechism: sanctifier, redeemer and protector. 

BWV 660 (Opening Voluntary) REDEEMER

Many a preacher remarks at Christmas time how the Passion – the Christian promise of redemption – could never have come about without the birth of Jesus. The two poles are closely connected, and Luther refers to this in Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland with the contrast between light and dark. In his turn, Bach also leaves us in no doubt about it in BWV 660. The whole sombre work is pervaded with symbols of the cross.

In any case, this compact work leaves room for interpretation. The two well-matched bass parts are probably arrangements of viola da gamba and cello parts (the big chords at the end of each phrase are typical of gamba music), but at the same time they could symbolise God as the foundation, or even a duet between God and Jesus – equal yet different. In the curious ending, some people hear how God leaves his son, while others interpret the difficult harmonies as representing Jesus’ descent into hell, foretold in the Advent chorale, and the fulfilling of God’s commandment.

But it is the cross motifs that are easiest to hear. They begin in the bass lines, which in this performance are almost identical and therefore continually in one another’s register. Reading along in the score, you also discover the refined way in which Bach begins the melody – not in one part, but divided over both. And by slightly raising the third note of the melody (on the word ‘der’), the interval to ‘Heiden’ becomes smaller and dissonant. It is no coincidence that this is the same interval as in Lass’ Ihn kreuzigen and Komm süsses Kreuz in the St Matthew Passion.

BWV 659 (Communion) SANCTIFIER

Whatever the case, this chorale arrangement is full of mystical expectation. Although Bach borrowed the form from Buxtehude, in style BWV 659 would not be amiss as the middle movement of a concerto in Italian style. All the elements are present: a walking bass, a duet of middle voices (sometimes in canon and sometimes referring to the chorale melody) and a leading upper voice. In the arrangement of the melody in the upper voice, Bach goes much further than his predecessors. Each phrase grows out of the chorale into the most wonderful, spun-out coloratura. At the end of the third line of the verse, the world’s amazement is reinforced by a harmonic pause and an abrupt deceleration of the bass – everyone holding their breath – a trick often used by Bach when writing about the birth of Jesus.

BWV 661 (Closing Voluntary) PROTECTOR

Bach had no choice but to radiate when closing his trilogy on the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, especially as the organ had to remain silent for a while following the first Sunday in Advent. After a subdued arrangement (BWV 659) and rather tormented one (BWV 660), the hopeful story was finished off, as it were, with this jubilant version. As so often in Bach’s trilogies, the chorale is given in the bass here, as the foundation of a loud plenum. For all its variety, the trilogy forms such a wonderful unity that Bach’s pupil Johann Christian Kittel used it in his own lessons as an example, and he was certainly not the only one to do so.

Before the bass introduces the melody in its full glory, Bach constructs a varied fugue. You can just make out the outlines of the choral melody in the theme, which keeps recurring in two ways: rectus (‘normal’) and inversus (in reverse – all the steps of the original melody that ascended now descend, and vice versa). This occurs for the first time just after the second chorale phrase, followed by a repeat of earlier material, which is also ‘upside down’. Above the last sentence of the chorale, we even hear the ‘upright’ and the reversed versions of the theme together, maybe in order to express the light in the phrase ‘Der Glaub’ bleibt immer im Schein’.

I am indebted to the website of the Netherland Bach Society (https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en) for their copious notes on Bach's chorale preludes today.

MAGNIFY THE LORD Music for December 11, 2022 + Advent III

Vocal Music

• How Lovely Are the Messengers – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Instrumental Music

• Magnificat in G Major – Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
• Of the Father’s love begotten – Rebecca Groom te Velde (b. 1956)
• Once He Came in Blessing - John Leavitt (b. 1956)
• Blest Be the King Whose Coming – Alexandre Guilmant

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

• Hymn 76 On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn S 242 Canticle 15: The Song of Mary - Tonus Peregrinus
• Hymn 615 “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 59 Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R278 Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 74 Blest be the King whose coming (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)

How Lovely Are the Messengers

How lovely are the messengers is a movement from St. Paul, the first oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn, composed in 1836. In 1831 Mendelssohn was commissioned by Johann Schelble, conductor of the Cecilia Choir and Orchestra of Frankfurt, to compose an oratorio. Mendelssohn knew his Bible extremely well and invariably turned to it for inspiration when considering a new choral piece. 

The text of the oratorio is based very largely on the Acts of the Apostles. After a lengthy overture, Part I opens with the martyrdom of Stephen and Saul’s persecution of the Christians. This is followed by the conversion of Paul, his baptism and ordination as a minister by Ananias. Part II finds Paul and Barnabas becoming the ambassadors of the Church. Their duet is followed by one of the oratorio’s best-loved choruses, ‘How lovely are the messengers.' The text comes from Romans 10:15,18 (paraphrased)

15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

During the austere post-war period there was a considerable reaction against Mendelssohn’s music. To what extent this was an after-effect of the rampant German anti-Semitism of the 1930s and 40s is difficult to determine, but the generally held view, particularly in some sections of the musical establishment, was that his life had been too easy and too comfortable, and that as a consequence his music, with its classical elegance and understated emotion, was superficial and distinctly inferior. Thankfully, in recent years there has been a more balanced attitude to Mendelssohn, avoiding both the excessive adulation which surrounded him during his lifetime and the equally absurd denigration that he suffered later.

Magnificat

The lectionary provides two options to be used for the psalm this Sunday. One is the usual Psalm, while the other is canticle The Magnificat, or The Song of Mary. The prelude this morning is three versets from an interpretation of Mary's Magnificat, composed by 19th-century French organist Alexandre Guilmant. These versets were probably composed to be played in alternatim with verses of the chant, as was typical in French churches. I am playing the first, third, and fifth variations, Allegro, Duo Pastorale, and Fugue. These organ miniatures are very baroque in their form and style, especially  the fugue

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was the organist of La Trinité  in Paris from 1871 until 1901. A noted pedagogue, performer, and improviser, Guilmant helped found the Schola Cantorum de Paris. He was appointed as Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire in 1896.

Valet will ich

The closing voluntary is also a work by Guilmant. You know the tune because of its association with the text :"All glory laud and honor," which we sing on Palm Sunday, but the tune, VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN, was composed by Melchior Teschner in 1615 for "Valet will ich dir geben," Valerius Herberger's hymn for the dying. Here is the original text:

Valet will ich dir geben

Du arge, falsche Welt;

Dein sündlich böses Leben

Durchaus mir nicht gefällt.

Im Himmel ist gut wohnen,

Hinauf zieht mein Begier;

Da wird Gott herrlich lohnen

Dem, der ihm dient allhier.

I want to bid you farewell,

You evil, false world

Your sinful, wicked life

It is not all pleasing to me.

In heaven it is good to dwell,

My longing is set on what is above

There God will reward forever

The person who serve him here.

Since the tune is also used in our hymnal for Advent hymn 74, Blest be the King whose coming, which we are singing as our closing hymn, I will also use it as the closing voluntary.

Communion music

The two short organ voluntaries during communion are by two contemporary composers (both born in 1956) which are based on two hymns - first is the hymn Of the Father's Love Begotten, a doctrinal hymn based on the Latin poem "Corde natus" by the Fourth Century Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius, from his Liber Cathemerinon. It is generally considered more of a Christmas hymn (it is No. 82 in the Christmas section of our hymnal), but I wanted to play it because the second voluntary, a setting of the Advent hymn (no. 53) Once He came in blessing, includes the melody DIVINUM MYSTERIUM, the melody to Of the Father's love begotten, in the accompaniment to the tune GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN. 

PREPARE THE WAY! Music for December 4, 2022 + Advent II

Vocal Music

• By All Your Saints – arr. Joel Martinson (b. 1960)

Instrumental Music

• The Lion and the Lamb – David Nevue (b. 1965)
• Comfort, Comfort Ye My People – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684 –1748)
• Comfort, Comfort Ye My People – Johann Christoph Oley (1738–1789)

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

• Hymn 616 Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVŐGELEIN)
• Hymn 67 Comfort, comfort ye my people (PSALM 42)
• Hymn 59 Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R 92 Prepare the way of the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 Prepare the way, O Zion (BEREDEN VAG FOR HERRAN)
• Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 – Tone Ib

By All Your Saints

Did you know there is one hymn in our hymn with 25 different stanzas? Yeah, and you people thought last Sunday's opening hymn was too long! (It wasn't.)  The hymn, By all your saints still striving, is found in the section Holy Days and Various Occasions, and is meant to cover 22 individual saints in addition to All Saints Day. The disclaimer here is that 23 of those stanzas are meant as options for verse two out of three. We are using the stanza for St. John the Baptist, since the Gospel lesson introduces John to us as  "the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, 'The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" 

The Lion and the Lamb

The Old Testament reading is the familiar passage from Isaiah, prophesying a time of peace when "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." I was looking for a piano piece to play this Sunday, and came upon this piece by the New Age composer David Nevue. Nevue is an internationally known pianist and composer from Oregon who majored in Communication Arts, but discovered along the way that he had a love for music and the piano. 

After college, Nevue got a job in the desktop publishing business and composed music on the side. Though largely self-taught, he worked diligently and recorded his first "album" - a cassette, actually, in 1992. He has recorded 17 albums since then, and has become one of the top artists in both the Amazon.com and iTunes music sales charts for his New Age. 

Comfort, Comfort Ye My People

Comfort, Comfort Ye My People is the perfect hymn for Advent II. It is a paraphrase of Isaiah 40:1-5, in which the prophet looks forward to the coming of Christ. More specifically, the coming of the forerunner of Christ – John the Baptist – is foretold. Though Isaiah's voice crying in the desert is anonymous, the third stanza ties this prophecy and one from Malachi (Malachi 4:5) to a New Testament fulfillment. “For Elijah's voice is crying In the desert far and near” brings to mind Jesus' statement, “'But I tell you that Elijah has already come, ….' Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.” (Matthew 17:12, 13 ESV)

In addition to singing the hymn, I am also playing two settings of the chorale tune. Organists find preludes to this tune under GENEVAN 42 in Dutch works or under FREU DICH SEHR in German works. Our hymnal calls it PSALM 42. Louis Bourgeois composed or adapted this tune for Psalm 42 for the Genevan psalter in 1551. 

In the communion setting, the tune is soloed out in the right hand on the oboe, but J. G. Walther,  the composer, ornaments the chorale tune so highly that it is difficult to recognize it at first. 

The closing voluntary presents the tune much more clearly, though in a different meter than we use in our hymnal. (It is 4/4 time rather than 3/2 time.) It is also in a triple Canon, meaning you hear the melody first in the soprano (top) line, then in the pedal (bottom line) one measure later, then again in the tenor (middle) line 4 beats later. This keeps up through the entire song. This was written by another German composer, Johann Christoph Oley.

Oley
lived and worked just after the death of J. S. Bach, whose music Oley revered and often emulated. Oley had hand-copied many of the works of Bach, and he owned one of the four extant copies of the Schübler chorales with J.S. Bach’s corrections. His own works include a set of 14 keyboard variations and the four-volume Variirte Choräle which contains 77 settings for organ solo, two for solo oboe and organ, and six for organ and instrumental ensemble of flute, oboe, bassoon, horn, two violins, viola and cello.