Music for March 26, 2023 + The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Wondrous Love – Steve Pilkington, arr.

Instrumental Music

• Kyrie. Dialogue on the trompette and chromhorne – François Couperin (1668-1733)
• Kyrie. Fugue on the jeux d'Aanches – François Couperin
• Kyrie. Recit de chromhorne – François Couperin

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

• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (ST. THOMAS (WILLIAMS))
• Hymn R90 - Spirit of the living God (IVERSON)
• Hymn 143- The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 314 - Humbly I Adore thee (ADORO DEVOTE)
• Hymn 715 - When Jesus wept (WHEN JESUS WEPT)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus! (IN BABILONE)
• Psalm 130 - Tone IIa

Wondrous Love

Sometimes nothing can beat a simple, plaintive melody for its beauty. Such is my opinion of the Southern folk hymn, What wondrous Love Is This? In the version the choir sings this week, you never hear the voices in more than two-part harmony, and that is when they are singing in canon (The men echoing the women four beats later.) Their singing is accompanied on the piano with a flowing, eighth-note piano part.

It is the perfect hymn to sing during the Lenten season. (The congregation gets a chance to sing it on Maundy Thursday.) "What Wondrous Love Is This" captures our attention right from the beginning with its simplicity and persistence – "What wondrous love is this" sung three times. This repetition is not the sign of a weak poet who has a narrow range of expression, but a fellow traveler who has experienced profoundly the sacrificial love of Christ and can only express again and again – "What wondrous love is this." 

The arranger, Steve Pilkington, serves on the faculty of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. as Associate Professor of Sacred Music. He also oversees all the music ministries at Christ Church United Methodist in  New York City, where he has been Director of Music and Organist since 1994. 

Couplets on the Kyrie

All the organ music for the morning comes from Messe pour les paroisses by the French Baroque composer François Couperin. This music was written to be performed during the Mass, alternating with the choir. In this so-called alternatim practice (a term which indicates a type of liturgy where alternate sections of the Mass were performed by different forces}, the organist plays when texts would otherwise have been sung. Those sections were call couplets

Today's movements all come from the first part of the mass, the Kyrie, which we normally only use during Lent. The titles have nothing to do with text, but with musical form; the Dialogue sur la trompette et le chromorne is a two-part piece with the trumpet stop playing against the krummhorn, an organ stop which imitates the double-reed wind instrument that flourished between the 15th century and about 1650. The Récit de chromorne features that same stop in an improvisatory solo for the krummhorn, while the Fugue sur les jeux d'anche is simply a fugue using nothing but the reed stops, which on an organ includes the trumpet stops.

François Couperin, the most important member of the renowned Couperin dynasty, is the foremost composer of the French Baroque. A prodigiously talented keyboard player, he inherited the post of organist at the church of St Gervais in Paris when he was just eleven years old, subsequently dividing his time between the capital and Versailles upon becoming organist to king Louis XIV in 1693. 

Music for March 19, 2023 + The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)

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

• Hymn 149 - Eternal Lord of love (OLD 124TH)
• Hymn R191 - O Christ, the healer, we have come (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 143- The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN )
• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Psalm 23 - Tone IIa

This Sunday I will be in Ireland with my family for Spring break, so I want to thank Karen Silva for playing the organ at the 10:15 service and Bernice Satterwhite for playing piano at the 8 AM service.

The things you learn writing (and researching) a blog about your music. For instance: this Sunday we are going to sing one of the anthems from Reverend Celeste's ordination service, a simple but beautiful piece by a friend of mine, Bill Roberts. I had met Bill several years ago at the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy and strengthened that friendship through the avenue of Facebook. It was not until looking up pertinent information about him  (read: his birth-year) that I learned he was a graduate of Houston Baptist University. The Rev. Dr. Roberts is the retired Professor of Church Music at Virginia Theological Seminary and Director of Chapel Music there, so you can imagine my surprise to find out that not only is he an alum of HBU, but had also been ordained as a Baptist minister! He is now, however, thoroughly Episcopalian, having served as music director of some of the country's largest and most active Episcopal congregations, and most recently ordained as an Episcopal priest!

We are singing his setting of the hymn text, Savior, like a shepherd lead us, which employs a lilting melody in compound triple meter.

Music for March 10, 2023 + The Third Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Like as the Hart – Herbert Howells (1892-1983)

Instrumental Music

• Choral Dorien – Jehan Alain (1911-1940)
• Intermezzo in A Major – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Erhalt Un, Herr – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 522 - Glorious things of thee are spoken (AUSTRIA)
• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn 143- The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 679 - Surely it is God who saves me (THOMAS MERTON)
• Hymn R9 - As the Deer pants for the water (Martin Nystrom)
• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
• Psalm 95 - Tone IIa

Like as a Hart

Today's anthem is based on Psalm 42, where the Psalmist asks God why his heart is so sad and why he feels so far from God. It is by Herbert Howells, an British composer who was one of a long line of 19th and 20th century English composers who wrote anthems and service music for the Church of England.

Herbert Howells

 In the opinion of many musicians today, Howells rises to the top of the whole list. His compositions have the impeccable craft of a master composer and, above all, an exceptional poetic beauty. For example, in today's anthem Howells sets the phrase “so longeth my soul after thee, O God” to a long, sustained melody that perfectly evokes an inner soul’s intense hunger and longing to reside in the beautiful presence of a loving God. Likewise, when the sopranos first sing “My tears have been my meat day and night,” we feel their sadness which obviously has been going on for quite some time. Even the simple, final three chords on the organ can conjure up a whole series of emotions to different listeners. 

Herbert Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucester and showed a keen interest in composition early in his life. At the age of eighteen, became a pupil of Herbert Brewer, Organist of Gloucester Cathedral. In 1912 he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music and studied under Charles Villiers Stanford, Walter Parratt, Charles Wood and Hubert Parry.

Choral Dorien

Jehan Alain

The opening voluntary is a quiet piece written by the French organist Jehan Alain. Alain was the son of Albert Alain, one of the most influential organ builders and designers between the two world wars, wars, as well as a composer and organist himself. He was also the brother of organist Marie-Claire Alain, and she has spoken of how he influenced her own playing. In the Twenties and Thirties he attended the Paris Conservatoire, studying composition with Paul Dukas and Jean Roger-Ducasse and organ with Marcel Dupré. He won premiers prix in harmony, fugue, and organ. His marriage in 1935, birth of his children, and military service interrupted his studies, and he quickly began to earn a living as an organist, including a stint as an organist in a synagogue. Then World War II broke out, and he join the French Army, becoming a dispatch rider in the Eighth Motorized Armor Division. On 20 June 1940, he was assigned to reconnoiter the German advance on the eastern side of Saumur, and encountered a group of German soldiers at Le Petit-Puy. Coming around a curve, and hearing the approaching tread of the Germans, he abandoned his motorcycle and engaged the enemy. After using his machine gun to shoot several infantry soldiers who had ordered him to surrender, he fell mortally wounded. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery, and was provisionally buried at the place where he had died.

He left behind his wife, Madeleine Payan, his three children, and a body of compositions viewed by many to have been amongst the most original of the 20th century. His early compositions are mainly songs and piano works. One also finds a few chamber pieces and one orchestral scores (an orchestration of an organ work), but most writers agree that his great achievement resides in his organ music which includes such classics as his three chorales (Choral Dorien, Choral Cistercien, Choral Phrygian), Variations sur un thème de Clément Jannequin, Litanies, Monodie, and Trois danses  .

The Choral Dorien is one of Alain’s first published works, published when he was 24. It was not written in a major or minor key, but in one of the other harmonic modes used in the chants of the church. The word "choral" is the term used in French to mean " plain chant," so any French organist, accustomed as Alain was to the music of the Roman church, would understand thoroughly the "church modes." 

GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD Music for March 5, 2023 + The Second Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, meine Zuversicht – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Suite for Organ: III. Aria – Philip E. Baker (b. 1934)
• Aus Tiefer Not – Gerald Near

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

• Hymn 401 The God of Abraham praise (LEONI)
• Hymn R 132 As Moses raised the serpent up (THE GIFT OF LOVE)
• Hymn 143 The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 691 My faith looks up to thee (OLIVET)
• Hymn R231 How blessed are you (Taizé)
• Hymn 473 Lift high the cross (CRUCIFER)
• Psalm 121 – tone IIa

God So Loved the World

The Gospel reading this week is one of the most familiar pieces of scripture in the world. It sums up the Gospel message - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoso believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." I felt called to once again use the familiar anthem by John Stainer, from his famous oratorio, The Crucifixion, as our offertory anthem today. Stainer had been the organist-choir master at St. Paul's, London in the late 1800s and wrote a large amount of organ and choral music, as well as a popular treatise on organ playing.

The Crucifixion: A Meditation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer. The work is dedicated "to my pupil and friend W. Hodge and the choir of Marylebone Church", who first performed it on 24 February 1887, the day after Ash Wednesday. There have been performances in Marylebone Church annually since then, and has been recorded several times.

Despite the popularity of God So Loved the World, critical opinion of the entire oratorio has not been kind. The composer Ernest Walker dismissed the work, writing in 1924 that "Musicians today have no use for The Crucifixion". Edmund Fellowes said: "It suffers primarily from the extreme poverty, not to say triviality, of the musical ideas dealing with a subject which should make the highest demand for dignity of treatment". Kenneth Long said that Stainer had a libretto "which for sheer banality and naïveté would be hard to beat". Stainer himself characterized his work as "rubbish."

Gerald Near

American composer Gerald Near is a composer with broad appeal to musicians in all liturgical denominations. With an extensive catalogue of compositions, he has added to the literature of organists, harpsichordists, and choirs. He is particularly adept at writing organ music based on hymn-tunes and chant-tunes. I play two such works today, using tunes appropriate for Lent, but not so well known to our congregation.

The first is the communion hymn, Let thy blood in mercy poured, found at hymn 313. The closing voluntary is a setting of the hymn 151, From deepest woe I cry to thee. Both tunes are German Chorale tunes. Both settings feature the melody played in the left hand using the trumpet stop, while the right hand and feet use fragments of the melody to provide the accompaniment. Of the two tunes, AUS TIEFER NOT is the most famous. Both the text and tune were written by Martin Luther in 1524 as a paraphrase of Psalm 130. Since then, the tune has been used by many musicians, most notably J. S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, and Max Reger. Georg Friedrich Handel quoted the characteristic intervals from the beginning of the chorale's tune several times at the end of the last aria of his oratorio Messiah, If God be for us, leading into the final chorus Worthy is the Lamb

Aria

The communion voluntary is by Philip Baker, organist and composer who was director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas for many years, including those I spent at Southern Methodist University working on my masters. His Suite for Organ was published just before I moved to Dallas, and it includes one of the loveliest melodies of all time, and one of my personal favorite organ pieces to play, Aria. 

Since retiring from active music making, he and his wife Tissa have moved to Houston.