Music for June 20, 2021 + The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• We Shall Be Delivered – Sea Chanty, arr. Sanford Dole

Instrumental Music

• Fantaisie en ut - César Franck (1822-1890)
• Humbly I Adore Thee – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• March Pontificale – Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881)

Congregational Music (hymns from the Hymnal 1982, or Renew (marked “R”) or Lift Every Voice and Sing II (marked *)

• Hymn R194 - Jesus, what a Friend for sinners (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn* - When the storms of life are raging (STAND BY ME)
• Hymn 608 - Eternal Father, strong to save (MELITA)
• Psalm 107– Tone VIIIa

We all know sea shanties. A sea shanty (chantey or chanty) is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels. They were found mostly on British and other European ships, and some had roots in lore and legend. These songs were simple, rhythmic melodies that were easy to learn and easy to sing. There is usually lots of repetition, either of lyrics or a refrain. The most commonly known is probably “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor.” The Gilligan’s Island theme song is written in the style of a sea shanty.

 
Sea shanties resurfaced in popular culture. In 2009 a BBC Radio presenter was in Cornwall on holiday and came across homemade CDs of some local fishermen. An agent travelled to Port Isaac and negotiated a recording contract worth £1 million for them with Universal Music Group, who, taking quite a gamble, signed them to a recording deal. To everyone’s surprise, Fisherman’s Friends and their album reached number 9 in the charts and achieved Gold Record status.

 
Then early this year, a Scotland-based postman named Nathan Evans posted a rendition of the New Zealand shanty "Soon May the Wellerman Come," on TikTok. Nathan’s incredible rendition of The Wellerman exploded on the platform and has even become something of a TikTok challenge.

Using the TikTok duet feature - which lets you record a video alongside another TikTok user - users are layering their harmonies over Nathan’s original video, including the renowned composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. To date, over 17.5 million people have watched the original video.

Taking that same song, “Soon May the Wellerman Come,” some Episcopal church musicians in California have rewritten the words to fit this Sunday’s Gospel lesson.

One day our Lord, his sermon over, said, “Let’s go off to the other shore.”
So each disciple took an oar and they began their voyage.
The boat set out for the other side and for an hour did gently ride,
but then the watchman loud did cry, “A storm is coming in!”
Then how the wind did blow, the waves did over the gunwales flow,
strong as the crew did row, the ship was close to found’rin’.

I have to admit, it’s a fun song to sing, and I hope it will help cement the lesson in our hearts as well as our minds.

All of the hymns reinforce the theme that Jesus calms our troubled seas. The opening hymn is Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners by the great Presbyterian evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman. The hymn includes these two stanzas:

Jesus! what a help in sorrow!

While the billows o'er me roll,

even when my heart is breaking,

he, my comfort, helps my soul.

    Refrain:

Hallelujah! what a Savior!

Hallelujah, what a Friend!

Saving, helping, keeping, loving,

he is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a guide and keeper!

While the tempest still is high,

storms about me, night o'ertakes me,

he, my pilot, hears my cry. [Refrain]

The opening and closing voluntaries are works by two Belgian organist who live at the same time, César Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck, who was based in Paris most of his adult life, and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, who studied in Paris and Germany before returning to Belgium. 

Music for March 14, 2021 + The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)
• Come, thou Fount of Every Blessing – Roland E. Martin (b. 1955)
• Hymn: Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound (NEW BRITAIN)

Instrumental Music

1. Prelude, Fugue, and Variation – César Franck (1822-1890).
   
2. “Little”Prelude in E Minor – attr. to J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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 Communion anthem is a repeat of an anthem that was sung as a duet back in July of 2020, but its theme of Grace works so well with this week's scripture readings (especially the Epistle) that I just had to schedule again. Read about it here.

César Franck

César Franck was one of the first well-known French organists of the 19th century. Born in Belgium, he moved to Paris when he was 13 to study organ, ultimately becoming a French citizen so that he could study at the Paris Conservatoire. Upon graduation, he made a brief return to Belgium before returning to Paris, where he embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a strong musical improviser, and travelled widely within France to demonstrate new organs built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. In fact, Franck’s improvisations after church services were so popular that he wrote some of them down, publishing them as Six Pieces in 1862. These exploited the power and colors of the Cavaillé-Coll organs to the fullest and did much to establish the distinctively French school of symphonic organ music.

The third of the Six Pieces is the Prelude, Fugue, and Variation, Op. 18, which was dedicated to Camille Saint-Saëns, himself an organist of considerable skill. The flowing B-minor Prelude has a gentle melancholy, opening with three repetitions of an asymmetrical five-bar phrase. The Fugue has its own little prelude and clean textures, the polyphony by no means hard to follow. Rounding the three-part work is the Variation, a repeat of the Prelude with a more active accompaniment, resolving to the hopeful key of B major.

For the closing voluntary, I am playing the third prelude of the so-called "Little" Prelude and Fugues which have been attributed to J. S. Bach. I've been playing one of these a month for three months now, so you can expect to hear the fourth one (which is in F Major) in April. The Major key, with its brightness and joy, will be appropriate for the Easter Season. But for now, it's Lent, and E Minor is perfect for our season of introspection and repentence.

Music for January 27, 2019 + The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Teach Me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)

Instrumental Music

• Chorale in E – César Franck (1822-1890)
• Andante from Sonata in A for Oboe – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
• Psalm 19: The Heavens Declare the Glory of God – Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)

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

• Hymn 475 - God himself is with us (TYSK)
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 632 - O Christ, the Word Incarnate (MUNICH)
• Hymn - One bread, one body (ONE BREAD ONE BODY)
• HymnR226 - Ubi Caritas (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 539 - O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling (TIDINGS)
• Psalm 19 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome J. Meachen

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus stands in his home synagogue and reads scripture: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me." He tells them that he is the fulfillment of that word. It is fitting that the psalm appointed for today is Psalm 19. Psalm 19 begins "The heavens declare the glory of God," but it moves to a declaration of the beauty of God's Law.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes...

It ends with these beautiful words

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Thomas Attwood (artist unknown)

It's because of this thought that I chose today’s anthem with text from Psalm 119, a simple, direct rendering of the words "Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes." It was written by English composer and musician Thomas Attwood, who was very active in the musical life of England, holding posts as chamber musician to the Prince of Wales, organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral, composer to the Chapel Royal and professor at the Royal Academy of Music.  His choral works, now mostly forgotten and seldom performed, reveal the influence of his teacher Mozart.

Benedetto Marcello

Psalm 19 was also the obvious inspiration for my choir of the closing voluntary, "Psalm 19: The Heavens Declare the Glory of God," by the Italian composer Benedetto Marcello.

Had Antonio Vivaldi not shot to fame when he was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century, we would undoubtedly be more familiar with the name of Benedetto Marcello. For Marcello’s reputation—unlike Vivaldi’s—did not wane during his own lifetime, and he enjoyed an international reputation which was to last for more than 250 years. Born a year after Johann Sebastian Bach into a prominent and respected Venetian family, he pursued a career not in music, but in law. This led him to occupy several major positions in the government of the Italian Republic. He did not, however, allow his public duties to keep him away from his pursuit of music, which he continued actively to cultivate as a nobile dilettante. Marcello’s works, and particularly his Psalm settings, were to exert a major influence on the musical culture of Italy and of other European countries throughout the whole of the 18th century and even into the 19th.

Marcello’s magnum opus is his Estro poetico-armonico. This work, which was published between 1724 and 1726, is a setting of the first fifty Psalms of David as paraphrased into Italian by the poet Girolamo Ascanio Giustiniani. In addition to the subtle deployment of vocal resources, and his imaginative use of musical techniques to illustrate the texts, Marcello brought to these Psalms a peculiar quality of freshness and originality which unquestionably contributed to their becoming a major international success. Many of them, including today's closing voluntary, were transcribed as instrumental works. The version I am playing today was arranged by the 19th century French organist Theodore DuBois, and I think there is more Paris than Venice in the final product!

C

Music for Sunday, June 17, 2018

Vocal Music

• Let There Be Peace on Earth – Mark Hayes (b. 1953), arr., Bruce Bailey, soloist

Instrumental Music

• Our Father in Heaven – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
• Adagio from Fantasie in C – César Franck (1822-1890)
• Jubilee March – R. M. Stults (1861-1933)

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

• Hymn 525 - The Church’s one foundation (AURELIA)
• Hymn 558 - Faith of our fathers (ST. CATHERINE)
• Hymn R250 - O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder (O STOR GUD)
• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 92 - Bonum est confiteri

This Sunday Bruce Bailey is singing the song Let There Be Peace On Earth, written in 1955 by the husband/wife team of Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller in 1955. It was initially written for the International Children's Choir of Long Beach, California, and is still their theme song.

This beautiful arrangement by the contemporary pianist Mark Hayes uses the updated lyrics which change the gender specific terms Father/He/Brother to gender neutral terms (where "father" is replaced with "creator", and "brother" is replaced with "family" or "each other"), The gender-neutral lyrics have been copyrighted by the original licensing agent of the song. 

You can read the lyrics and a brief history of the song by checking out the History of Hymns blog written by Michael Hawn, retired as professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology, SMU, in Dallas.

The communion voluntary is an excerpt from a large-scale organ work by the Belgian/French composer César Franck. The work, the Fantasy in C Major, is in three large parts separated by short transitional passages. I'm playing the last section, Adagio, for communion. 

Unlike many musicians whose parents had other aspirations for their children, César Franck was encouraged by his father to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. But at the Paris Conservatoire he failed to achieve the necessary distinction as a performer, so he turned his attention to composition and the organ. (Can’t play piano? Be an organist!) It was a smart move, for he became famouse in Paris as organist at the newly built church of Ste Clotilde, with its Cavaillé-Coll organ. He drew to himself a loyal and devoted circle of pupils and in 1871 became organ professor at the Conservatoire.

As a composer, his best known orchestral works are the Symphonic Variations for solo piano and orchestra and the Symphony in D minor. Though he was best known in his day as a very distinguished organist, Franck wrote remarkably little for the instrument on which his improvisations had won him fame and pupils. The Organ pieces he did write, however, form the backbone of French Romantic organ literature, and have never gone out of style. 

I've talked before about my humble beginnings as organist at my home church, First United Methodist Church, in Tiptonville, Tennessee. I grew up across the street from the church, and spent many an hour roaming through the unlocked building. (Can you imagine letting youth have free access today, unsupervised in a public building?) 

I was always fascinated by the 1924 Möller pipe organ and the stacks of old music stashed on the floor of the choir room closet. Much of it was music purchased when the organ was new. One piece that caught my interest was a single page out of "The Organist" Magazine from 1928. It was the Jubilee March by R. M. Stults, an American composer of popular music in the late 19th century and early 20th century whose most popular work, The Sweetest Story Ever Told, was still popular for weddings into the middle of the 20th century. 

At the time it was built, our church was one of the larger public buildings in Tiptonville, and host to the local high school assemblies. Mae Peacock was organist at First Methodist at the time, and wrote in pencil at the top of the page, "T.H.S. graduation 1933."  The second half of the piece is missing, so several years ago I wrote a "B" section to extend the march, returning to the original to end the piece. 

Music for Christmas Weekend 2016

December 24, 2016 – 4 PM

Pamela Saxon King, soloist
The Good Shepherd Bell Choir
The Good Shepherd Liturgical Dance Company

Vocal Music

• Mary, Did You Know? – Buddy Greene
• Do You Hear What I Hear? - Gloria Shayne Baker (1923 – 2008)

Instrumental Music

• Go, Tell It on the Mountain – Patricia A. Sanders
• Away in a Manger – Patricia A. Sanders
• Chorale partita on From heaven above to earth I come – Paul Manz
• I. Theme
• II. Allegro
• III. Andante Sostenuto
• IV. Allegro Moderato
• V. Adagio
• VI. Toccata

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

• Hymn 86 - O come, all ye faithful (Adeste Fidelis)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (Gloria)
• Hymn 115 - What child is this? (Greensleeves)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night (Stille Nacht)
• Hymn 99 - Go, tell it on the mountain (Go Tell It on the Mountain)

December 24, 2016 – 6:30 and 10 PM

The Good Shepherd Choir
Allison Gosney, soprano

Vocal Music

• Adam Lay Ybounden – Richard Shephard (b. 1949)
• What Is This Lovely Fragrance - Healey Willan (1880-1968)
• Hail, Blessed Virgin Mary – Italian Carol, arr. Charles Wood (1866-1926)
• Ding Dong, Merrily on High– French tune, arr. Charles Wood
• What Sweeter Musick - William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)
• Ave Maria – César Franck (1822 – 1890)
• Christmas Joy - Mark Schweitzer (b. 1956)

Instrumental Music

• Chorale partita on From heaven above to earth I come – Paul Manz
• I. Theme
• II. Allegro
• III. Andante Sostenuto
• IV. Allegro Moderato
• VI. Toccata

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

• Hymn 86 - 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? (Greensleeves)
• Hymn 79 - O little town of Bethlehem (St. Louis)
• Hymn 111- Silent night, holy night (Stille Nacht)
• Hymn 99- Go tell it on the mountain! (Go Tell It on the Mountain)

December 25, 2016 – 10:15 AM

Instrumental Music

• Good Christian Friends, Rejoice – Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
• In the Bleak Midwinter—John Purifoy 
• O Little Town of Bethlehem – Jim Brickman (b. 1961)
• Prologue – Traditional, arr. Joseph W. Clokey (1890-1960)

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

• Hymn 107 - Good Christian friends, rejoice (In dulci jubilo)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (stanzas 1, 2, 3) (Gloria)
• Hymn 102 - Once in royal David’s city (Irby)
• Hymn 115 - What child is this? (Greensleeves)
• Hymn 100 – Joy to the world (Antioch )

Music for September 4, 2016 + The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• When Jesus Wept – William Billings (1746-1800), arr. by A. F. Schultz (b. 1942)

Instrumental Music

• Fantasy in C Major: Poco Lento - César Franck (1822-1890)
• Fantasy in C Major: Adagio - César Franck
• God of Grace and God of Glory - Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the communion hymn which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 400 - All creatures of our God and King (Laast uns erfreuen)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (Bourbon)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life and let it be (Hollingside)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (Indian Folk melody)
• Hymn 594 - God of grace and God of glory (Cwm Rhondda)
• Psalm 1 - Beatus vir qui non abiit (Tone V)

The musical term of today is Canon (as in Pachelbel's Canon in D Major.) The Oxford Dictionary defines canon as

 A piece in which the same melody is begun in different parts successively, so that the imitations overlap.

A piece of music in canon is written with different parts successively beginning the same melody. 

Today we have two musical selections which use this form. One is a true canon, the other includes a section in canon. First the canon.

William Billings -
an incredibly flattering portrait
of the early American composer.

Those keen on Bible Trivia know that "Jesus Wept" is the shortest verse in the King James Version of the Bible. (Can you cite chapter and verse? Answer below.) Something so short and simple requires a short, simple and elegant musical setting. William Billings - the first American Master Musician from Revolutionary War days - presents us with this short canon based on this scripture. Now, even the music of Taizé would require more words than just the two syllables of Jesus Wept, so Billings added his own text to give us 16 bars of what John Lienhardt of the University of Houston called "one of the most exquisite short canons we've ever heard." (Read his highly entertaining and informative piece about Billings here.)

The setting we are singing today presents the original text along with two verses from the hymn which we sing this Sunday as the Gospel hymn, Take Up Your Cross. We sing the second verse as a two-part canon, trebles followed by the tenors and basses. This is an arrangement by Alan Schultz, American organist, composer and conductor who is also past conductor and music director of The Southern Arizona Symphony and the Tucson Masterworks Chorale

Both the opening voluntary and the communion voluntary are excerpts from a large-scale organ work by the Belgian/French composer César Franck. The work, the Fantasy in C Major, is in three large parts separated by short transitional passages. I'm playing the first section, Poco Lento, for the opening and the last section, Adagio, for communion. It is in the opening voluntary that we find the other canon in today's music.

This selection is itself in three parts. The opening theme (or melody) is presented on the swell manual alone using all the 8' stops (save the trumpet stop). Then the pedal introduces a secondary theme which is echoed two measures later by the left hand (the canon). After the full exposition of the secondary theme, this theme is again presented but with the addition of a counter-melody in the right hand over the canon between the pedal and the left hand. At the end of this section, the original theme reappears with a fuller sound including the trumpet and the pedals.

The service ends with a congregational favorite, Paul Manz's improvisation on the equally loved Welsh hymn-tune, Cwm Rhondda. I think people like it because the opening bars of the piece sound like the opening phrase of the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah. Whatever the reason, it's a great way to leave the service!

* John 11:35 - Jesus Wept.

Music for August 7, 2016 + The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Panis Angelicus – César Franck (1822-1890) Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Variations on Holy Manna – Raymond H. Haan (b. 1938)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness – Mark Knickelbein (21st C.)
• Festive Trumpet Tune – David German (b. 1954)

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

• Hymn 636 - How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (Foundation)
• Hymn R37 - Father we love you  (Glorify your name )
• Hymn 178 - Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks to the risen Lord (Alleluia No. 1)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn 335 - I am the bread of life (I Am the Bread of Life )
• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Psalm 33 - Exultate, justi (refrain by Jacques Berthier)

Richard Murray sings one of the classics of sacred music this Sunday when he sings César Franck's Panis Angelicus. The text is part of the hymn Sacris solemniis written by Saint Thomas Aquinas. "Panis Angelicus" is often treated as a separate hymn and set to music, just as Franck did in his Messe solennelle in A major, Op.12. There it was written for tenor solo with cello, harp, and organ accompaniment. We will be singing the entire Messe solennelle in the spring.

Franck

Unlike many musicians whose parents had other aspirations for their children, César Franck was encouraged by his father to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. But at the Paris Conservatoire he failed to achieve the necessary distinction as a performer, so he turned his attention to composition and the organ. (Can’t play piano? Be an organist!) It was a smart move, for he became famouse in Paris as organist at the newly built church of Ste Clotilde, with its Cavaillé-Coll organ. He drew to himself a loyal and devoted circle of pupils and in 1871 became organ professor at the Conservatoire.

 As a composer, his best known orchestral works are the Symphonic Variations for solo piano and orchestra and the Symphony in D minor. Though he was best known in his day as a very distinguished organist, Franck wrote remarkably little for the instrument on which his improvisations had won him fame and pupils. The Organ pieces he did write, however, form the backbone of French Romantic organ literature, and have never gone out of style.

Raymond Haan

The variations on the hymn Holy Manna (used twice in the Hymnal 1982 - #238 and #580) were written by a public school educator to whom music was just a sideline. Raymond H. Haan was born in Falmouth, Michigan in 1938. As a boy, his piano teacher told him he'd never be a musician.Though it was his dream, he realized there was no way he could support himself as a musician in his denomination, the Christian Reformed Church and, as he says "...at that time leaving my church was not an option." So despite his desire to write music, he never took a music course of any kind.

Instead he became a middle school, then a high school English teacher and wrote music in his spare time-while also playing the organ, directing several choirs and being a father to four children. He became the Director of Music for the Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids when he was 22, and had this position for over 50 years.

Even in his spare time, he was able to write more than 500 compositions published by 24 music companies. Retired from teaching, his children grown, Haan can now give his music more attention. He still lives in Cutlerville, Michigan and his hobbies include bicycling, tennis and golf.

Mark Knickelbein

From a new collection of piano pieces based on hymns of Baptism and Holy Communion we find the communion voluntary by the young Lutheran composer Mark Knickelbein. Each piece in this volume highlights specific stanzas and uses effective text painting to feature each theme. This piece based on the German chorale Schmücke dich begins in a very similar way to the famous Canon in D by Pachelbel before adding the chorale melody. This neo-Baroque style continues through the first verse, and then, when the second stanza (from the Lutheran Hymnal, "Hasten as a bride to meet Him") begins, he switches to a Renaissance Dance rhythm, 123, 123, 12, 12 for a lively, hastening feel.

Mark Knickelbein is the editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician. He has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN and Master of Arts in Music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously worked as an organist and choir director in Lutheran churches.