Music for May 28, 2017 + The Sunday after Ascension Day

Vocal Music

• Let Us With a Gladsome Mind – Alan Ridout (1934-1996)
• I will not leave you comfortless – Everett Titcomb (1884-1968)

Instrumental Music

• Prière du Christ montant vers son Père ("Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father") - Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
• Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song – James Biery (
• Toccata in G - Théodore Dubois (1837 –1924)

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

• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn R37 - Glorify Your Name (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 214, omit st. 3 - Hail the day that sees him rise (LLANFAIR)
• Hymn 315 - Thou, who at thy first Eucharist didst pray (SONG 1)
• Hymn 460 - Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL) 
• Psalm 68:1-10, 33-26 Exsurgat Deus – Tone VII

Everett Titcomb was an American composer of sacred choral and organ music who contributed a vast amount of works for the Episcopal Church in the first half of the twentieth-century.  A native of Massachusetts, he was largely self-taught, though he was influenced by many of the well-known composers stationed in the Boston area during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Eugene Thayer, Dudley Buck, George Chadwick, and Horatio Parker; yet at the same time he was keenly interested in plainchant and the polyphonic style of the 15th and 16th century Italians. For fifty years, Titcomb served the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston as their organist and choirmaster.

His motet for Pentecost, I Will Not Leave You Comfortless (1934) reflects his interest in Renaissance polyphony. It begins with a broad, unfolding line and emphasizes the Veni, creator chant (Come, Holy Spirit) which forms a cantus firmus in the bass voice in the Alleluia section. This motet is among his best work, and one which has remained a part of sacred and university choral repertoire into the 21st Century. It is significant for its selection to be in the official program of the 1936 English Church Music Festival in London where it was performed by 4000 voices with Titcomb in attendance. It was the first time an American composer had been featured in the festival. Subsequently, it was made famous in the United States by its inclusion in several coast-to-coast radio broadcasts of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In many ways, it launched his career as an internationally recognized composer of sacred music. (1)

The opening voluntary is the last movement of a suite written for Ascension Day by the French composer Olivier Messiaen which he arranged from his orchestral suite L'ascension. This movement is titled "Prière du Christ montant vers son Père", ("Prayer of Christ ascending to his Father"), and is accompanied by this quotation from this week's Gospel, John 17:6, 11.

I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world... And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

This piece represents the actual ascent of Christ, wafting slowly up into the heavens, into the light of the Father, with movement beginning in the bottom register of the organ and rising to the top.
Christ's ascension is extremely slow, solemn, and full of emotion. It is written for the tender sound of the string stops on the organ. As the piece begins, it is a little sad,  but comforting. It is the sadness of those left behind who have hope that they will again see their loved one.

From the middle of the piece onward, a marvelous transformation of emotion takes place - from the sadness of the beginning to an inner confirmation of profound faith - and, as we reach the end, which continues to crescendo, the light that radiates from heaven floods the observers of this miraculous ascension with hope and love. The end is ecstatic. When we reach that point (that is, when we can no longer hear any music), we are left with the feeling that Christ's journey through the firmament continues that he is so far away that we, still here on earth, are no longer able to observe his ascent. (2)

(1)  Online diary of William Harris (March 14, 2013) retrieved from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/14/1194153/-Thursday-Classical-Music-Op-C109-Everett-Titcomb
(2) Gillock, Jon, Performing Messiaen's Organ Works: 66 Masterclasses. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp 47 

Music for October 18, 2015 + Choir Dedication Sunday + The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Jubilate Deo – Michael Bedford (b. 1949)
• Oh, Sing to the Lord a New Song – John Leavitt (b. 1956)
• Bless, O Lord, Us Thy Servants – John Harper (b. 1947)

Instrumental Music

• Andantino – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Fugue in C Major, BWV 846 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Scherzo – Alan Ridout (1934-1996)

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

• Hymn 420 - When in our music God is glorified (ENGLEBERG)
• Hymn R 112 - You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord (ON EAGLES WINGS)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn R 289 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)

Sunday, October 18 has been designated as Music Sunday by RSCM America. RSCM America is the branch of the Royal School of Church Music in the United States, whose goal is to uplift the spiritual life of religious communities through high quality choral music. On this day, we celebrate the music and musicianship that are a vital and beloved part of church life. On this day we will dedicate new choristers into our choir and reaffirm the ministries of those who have already been singing in the choir. Music Sunday is also a time when we offer a special prayer for our music and musicians--the young and old, professional and amateur, singer and instrumentalist, administrator and practitioner--most of whom work without expectation of recognition but who nonetheless deserve our awareness and thanks.

One of the anthems we will sing is a setting of The Chorister's Prayer.

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,
who minister in Thy temple.
Grant that what we sing with our lips,
we may believe in our hearts,
and what we believe in our hearts,
we may show forth in our lives.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

The Chorister's Prayer in its most common form was first published by the School of English Church Music (as the RSCM was then called) in 1934 in the Choristers' Pocket Book. It has origins which extend back at least to the 4th century, for the tenth canon of the fourth council of Carthage (c 398 AD) decrees that cantors should be blessed with the words Vide, ut quod ore cantas, corde credas, et quod corde credis, operibus comprobes (“See that what thou singest with thy lips thou dost believe in thine heart, and that what thou believest in thine heart thou dost show forth in thy works”)

John Harper

This prayer is used each week at the beginning of our Children's Choirs. We who pray these words weekly carry on a tradition of many centuries and hopefully we both ‘steadfastly fulfil’ and also ‘show forth’ the tenets of our faith in our lives and music.

John Harper composed this setting of The Chorister's Prayer for the 80th anniversary of the RSCM. It was sung at St Paul's Cathedral, London on Easter Monday 2007, to mark the beginning of the RSCM's 80th anniversary celebrations. Harper is RSCM Research Professor of Music and Liturgy, and Director of the new International Centre for Sacred Music Studies (ICSMuS) at Bangor University in Wales. He is Emeritus Director of The Royal School of Church Music.

John Leavitt

The other anthem the Good Shepherd sings this day is a contemporary setting of Psalm 96 with a rippling piano accompaniment with violin obbligato. It is by the American composer, choral director and teacher John Leavitt. A native of Kansas, Dr. Leavitt received the Kansas Artist Fellowship Award from the Kansas Arts in 2003 and in 2010 he was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces to commission a new choral work in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the State of Kansas.  His music has been performed in 30 countries across the globe and his recordings have been featured nationally on many public radio stations. His compositions are represented by nearly every major music publisher in this country. In addition to his academic posts, he has served Lutheran churches in the Wichita area.

The St. Gregory Choir will sing an anthem by the Oklahoma composer and church music Michael Bedford. Bedford retired last year from St. John's Episcopal Church in Tulsa after a twenty-five year tenure as director of music and organist. This anthem, Jubilate Deo, is a setting of Psalm 100 in both Latin and in contemporary English.