Music for December 6, 2020 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Prepare the Royal Highway – arr. Thomas Gieschen (1931-2006)
• An Advent Prayer – Allen Pote (b. 1945)
• Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Partita on  "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Meditation on “Winchester New" from An Advent Triptych – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Improvisation on “Bereden väg för Herran” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

This Sunday's scripture readings includes the beautiful passage from Isaiah

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” - Isaiah 40

There are two hymns which we always sing on the second Sunday of Advent. Those are hymn 67 – Comfort, comfort ye, my people, and hymn 65 – Prepare the Way, O Zion. This year, you are invited to read the words to hymn 67 while I play Johann Pachelbel's Partita on the tune, "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” (The Hymnal 1982 identifies it as PSALM 42, but it is the same tune.)

Christine Marku will sing a version of hymn 65 during the preparation of the communion elements using an arrangement by the Lutheran Composer Thomas E. Gieschen. A Native of Wisconsin, Gieschen was a professor of music for 40 years at Concordia University in River Forest, where he served as department chair and head of the Music Department. He earned a B.S. in Education from Concordia Teachers College, and a master's and doctorate in music from Northwestern University in Chicago.

He was also a published composer, arranger and organ recitalist, and a member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and the American Guild of Organists.

Another Lutheran, Paul Manz, improvised an organ setting of the same tune, the Swedish tune Bereden väg för Herran (Make way for the Lord). It was transcribed (written out) and published, and I will be playing it for the closing voluntary.

During Communion, Christine will sing an Advent anthem by the American Composer Allen Pote.  Pote is a nationally knowns composer of sacred music as well as a clinician for festivals and workshops. Since 1975 his published choral works, which include twelve musicals for youth and children, have been widely performed by choirs the world over, including the Chorister Choir here at Good Shepherd. Born in Halstead, Kansas, Pote earned a diploma in Church Music from Texas Christian University. He studied in Brussels on a Fulbright scholarship and took advanced work at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. For a while in the 80s he was director of music at Memorial Drive Presbyterian in Houston.

Music for February 3, 2019 + The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• The Greatest Is Love – Allen Pote (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Vater Unser (Our Father in Heaven) – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Praise the Name of Jesus – arr. Fred Bock (1939-1958)
• Wir Christenleut (We Christians Folk) – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 379 - God is Love, let heavens adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Hymn R7 - Praise the name of Jesus (HICKS)
• Hymn R218 - Broken for me (BROKEN FOR ME)
• Hymn R223 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm71:1-6 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachen

Allen Pote

The choir sings an anthem based on today's Epistle lesson by the American composer Allen Pote. Pote is known nationally as a composer of sacred music as well as a clinician for festivals and workshops. Since 1975 his published choral works, which include twelve musicals for youth and children, have been widely performed.

For twenty two years he was Director of Music in churches in Texas and Florida, including a tenure at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church here in Houston. He is currently a full time composer living in Pensacola, Florida.

A contemporary of Potes was Fred Bock, a composer, church musician, and publisher who served as Minister of Music at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles for 14 years, then at Hollywood Presbyterian Church for 18 years. Bock was born in Great Neck, New York, playing the piano at age six and organ at age twelve. He attended Ithaca College, receiving his B.A. in Music Education. He earned his Masters and did Doctoral work in Church Music at the University of Southern California.

Back when he was just a college student, he self-published his first piece, an arrangement for band. From that simple beginning he formed several music publishing companies, including Gentry Publications, publishers of music for school and concert use and Fred Bock Music Company, publishers of church music. There are now over 600 compositions and arrangements of his in print. This includes his piano arrangement of today's presentation hymn, the contemporary chorus by Fred Hicks titled Praise the Name of Jesus, which I'm playing for the communion voluntary.

Serving as bookends for the service are two works from J. S. Bach's little organ book, Orgelbüchlein.  (I can be redundant in two languages!) The Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book") is a collection of 46 chorale preludes for organ written by Johann Sebastian Bach which serve a four-fold purpose: it is a collection of organ music for church services, a treatise on composition, a religious statement, and an organ-playing manual.

The prelude is a setting of the  Lutheran version of the Lord's Prayer, Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven). After the text and melody were written in 1539, many composers use the hymn in choral and organ compositions. including Dieterich Buxtehude and Georg Böhm. Bach himself used the chorale in four choral works and at least two other organ settings.

Albert Schweitzer won
the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1952. In addition to
being a Doctor, Missionary,
and Philosopher, he was
also an organist and noted
Bach scholar, giving
numerous organ concerts
in Europe to finance his
hospital in Africa.

In this setting the melody is in the soprano voice. The accompaniment in the inner parts and pedal is based on a four-note sixteenth note sighing motif preceded by a rest or "breath") and a longer eight-note version; both are derived from the first phrase of the melody. The two forms of the motif and their inversions pass from one lower voice to another, producing a continuous stream of sixteenth notes; semiquavers (sixteenths) in one voice are accompanied by eighth notes in the other two. The combined effect is of the harmonisation of a chorale by arpeggiated chords. Albert Schweitzer  described the accompanying motifs as representing "peace of mind"(quiétude).

The closing voluntary,  Wir Christenleut, is the last of the Christmas Chorales in the book. The text

We Christians may
Rejoice to-day,
When Christ was born to comfort and to save us;
Who thus believes
No longer grieves,
For none are lost who grasp the hope He gave us.

is not particularly picturesque (i.e., no shepherds, angels, or wise men were involved in this hymn), so I don't feel too out-of-sync by playing it in the season of Epiphany.

This prelude is written for single manual and pedal in four voices. Like today's opening voluntary, the unadorned melody is in the top voice. The accompaniment—striding eighth notes in the pedal (like an ostinato bass) and dance-like sixteenth notes in the inner parts—are formed from two short motifs. Both accompanying motifs serve to propel the chorale prelude forwards, the resolute striding bass having been seen by Albert Schweitzer as representing firmness in faith, a reference to the last two lines of the first verse "who thus believes no longer grieves, for none are lost who grasp the hope He gave us."

Music for Sunday, April 22 + Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• The Lord is My Shepherd – Allen Pote (b. 1945)
• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)

Instrumental Music

• Variations on “St. Columba” – Don Freudenberg (1939-2007)
• Prelude in D Minor, Op. 16, No.3a – Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
• Prince of Denmark’s March – Jeremiah Clarke (1674-1707)

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

• Hymn 518 - Christ is made the sure foundation (WESTMINSTER ABBEY) 
• Hymn 417 - This is the feast of victory (FESTIVAL CANTICLE)
• Hymn 208 - The strife is o’er, the battle done (VICTORY)
• Hymn 380  - From all that dwell below the skies (OLD 100th)
• Hymn R106 - The King of love my shepherd is (ST. COLUMBA)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas (Taize)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Psalm 23 - Dominus regit me - setting by Hal H. Hopson

The fourth Sunday after Easter is traditionally referred to as "Good Shepherd Sunday,"  the name coming from the gospel reading for the day, which is always the tenth chapter of John's Gospel. In this reading Christ is described as the "Good Shepherd" who lays down his life for his sheep. Our two anthems reflect that description, one being a setting of the 23rd Psalm, and the other a setting of the hymn "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us." Both of these were composed by men who have Houston connections.

The Lord is My Shepherd was written by Allen Pote. A native of Halstead, Kansas, and educated at Texas Christian University, he has served Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston as director of music. He is currently a full-time composer living in Pensacola, Florida, where, with his wife Susan, he was founder of the Pensacola Children's Chorus, an organization of over 200 singers which has achieved national recognition. He has collaborated with Tom Long for several very successful children's musicals, including The Three Trees, which our children's choirs have performed several times.

The composer of the communion anthem, Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us, is William Bradley Roberts is an Episcopal priest who is Professor of Church Music at Virginia Theological Seminary (Episcopal) in Alexandria. Previously he was Director of Music at St. John's, Lafayette Square, in Washington, D.C. Prior to this, he was in similar positions in Tucson, Ariz., Newport Beach, Calif., Louisville, Ky., and Houston, where he got his undergraduate degree at Houston Baptist University. 

The opening voluntary is a set of variations on the communion hymn, The King of Love My Shepherd Is. This Gaelic hymn tune appears in over 125 hymnals under the tune name St. Columba after the Irish abbot and missionary credited with spreading Christianity in the 6th century in what is today Scotland. He founded the important abbey on Iona. These variations were written by Don Lee Freudenburg, a Lutheran pastor and musician who served churches in New York State and Missouri.

The communion voluntary is a piano piece by Clara Wieck Schumann, a German musician, who was one of the leading pianists of the Romantic era, as well wife of composer Robert Schumann.

Clara Schumann was trained from the age of 5 with her father, the well-known piano teacher Friedrich Wieck. She had a brilliant career as a pianist from the age of 13 up to her marriage to Schumann which was opposed by her father.

Clara Schumann

She continued to perform and compose after the marriage even as she raised seven children. An eighth child died in infancy.  In fact, she was the main bread winner, making money by performing - often Robert Schumann's music. She continued to play not only for the financial stability, but because she wished not to be forgotten as a pianist. She had grown up performing and desired to continue performing. Robert Schumann, while admiring her talent, wanted a traditional wife to bear children and make a happy home, which in his eyes and the eyes of society were in direct conflict with the life of a performer. Furthermore, while she loved touring, Robert Schumann hated it and preferred to sit at the piano and compose.

Clara Schumann considered herself a performing artist rather than a composer and no longer composed after age 36. It is suggested that this may have been the consequence of the then prevalent negative opinions of women's ability to compose, which she largely believed as her statements show: "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose - there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?" 

However, today her compositions are increasingly performed and recorded. Her works include songs, piano pieces, a piano concerto, a piano trio, choral pieces, and three Romances for violin and piano. Inspired by her husband's birthday, the three Romances were composed in 1853 and dedicated to Joseph Joachim who performed them for George V of Hanover. He declared them a "marvelous, heavenly pleasure."

If you don't know the closing voluntary, go back under your rock. You may, however, think of it as the Trumpet Voluntary by Henry Purcell, but it is really the The Prince of Denmark's March written c. 1700 by English baroque composer Jeremiah Clarke (who was the first organist of the then newly rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral). I'm not going to tell the story here, but there is a fun piece in the Houston Press about Clarke which you can read here: Why you shouldnt play trumpet voluntary at your wedding.. I disagree. It's better than "Here comes the Bride." (and I KNOW you finished that title in your head.)