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 February 5, 2023 + The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• The Mind of Christ – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Dialogue en trio du Cornet et de la Tierce – François Couperin (1668-1733)
• Sonata 51: Cantabile – Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
• Dialogue sur les Grands jeux – François Couperin

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982 with the exception of "This Little Light" which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 7 Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 488 Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 380 From all that dwell below the skies (OLD HUNDREDTH)
• Hymn This little light of mine (African-American Spiritual)
• Hymn 381 Thy strong word did cleave the darkness (TONY-Y-BOTEL)
• Psalm 112 Beatus vir - (simplified Anglican chant by Jerome Meachan)

The Mind of Christ

Birmingham, Alabama composer Lee Scott has taken the hymn "May the mind of Christ, my Savior" and set it to the tune BATTY for a lovely anthem.  The text is called a "catalog" hymn, which list different things the believer asks: "May the mind of Christ," the "word of God," the "peace of God," and the "love of Jesus." The hymn was first published in the London children's hymnbook Golden Bells (1925) and has gained popularity in recent hymnals.

This text is attributed to Kate Barclay Wilkinson, an English woman from the turn of the 20th century. Little is known about Wilkinson's life: a member of the Church of England, she was involved in a ministry to girls in London and a participant in the Keswick Convention Movement. She was married to Frederick Barclay Wilkinson.

The tune is a Moravian melody by the German composer Johann Christoph Kühnau

Organ Voluntaries

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,  the organist plays when texts would otherwise have been sung. a term which indicates a type of liturgy where alternate sections of the Mass were performed by different forces. 

Today's movements all come from the second part of the mass, the Gloria. The titles have nothing to do with text, but with musical form; the Dialogue en trio du Cornet et de la Tierce is a three-part piece with the Cornet (Kor-nay) playing against the tierce, a mutation stop of 1-3/5' on the manuals, supporting the fifth harmonic, sounding approximately an E when played from a C key, seventeen scale steps higher. It is always played with a flute of the 8' pitch. The Dialogue sur les Grands jeux features each division of the organ (each different keyboard) in their full glory playing in dialogue with each other.

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 organiste du Roi in 1693. 

Music for March 13, 2022 + The Second Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• According to thy Gracious Word – W. A. Mozart (17), arr. Mark Schweizer (1956-2019)

Instrumental Music

• Three versets on the Kyrie (Messe à l’usage ordinaire des Paroisses) – François Couperin (1668 - 1733)
• Dialogue sur la trompette et le chromorne 
• Récit de chromorne 
• Fugue sur les jeux d'anche

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 147 - Now let us all with one accord (BOURBON)
• Hymn 143 - The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R243 - You shall cross the barren desert (BE NOT AFRAID)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (MIT FREUDEN ZART)

Today's anthem is ostensibly by Mozart, but I think there is more Schweizer than Mozart in this piece. This is the second week in a row that we have sung a choral work arranged by Mark Schweizer.  Schweizer was truly an interesting and talented man. A native of Florida, he received music degrees from Stetson University in Deland, Florida and the University of Arizona including a doctoral degree in vocal performance. He returned to teach at Stetson University from 1982 to 1985 followed by eight years on the music faculty of Louisiana College. 

Mark moved to North Carolina where he founded St. James Music Press, where he served as editor, publisher, and composer. It was a groundbreaking idea, publishing books of choral music which the purchaser could then legally photocopy  as many copies as needed. And just like Netflix, Kindle, and the iPod changed the way people viewed movies, read books, and listened to music, SJMP gave music directors like me a new way to acquire music for our choirs. This has been extremely helpful during the time of the pandemic, when choral forces changed rapidly and music (and church) budgets shrank.

He wrote fifteen “Liturgical Mystery” novels, stories centered around Hayden Koenig, the chief of police AND organist at the Episcopal Church in the little town of St. Germaine, North Carolina. They are as full of humor as they are of mystery. 

He died of a glioblastoma in 2019.

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,  the organist plays when texts would otherwise have been sung. a term which indicates a type of liturgy where alternate sections of the Mass were performed by different forces. 

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 organiste du Roi in 1693. 

Music for October 27. 2019

Vocal Music

• There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy – Maurice Bevan (1921-2006)
• Prayer – Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003)

Instrumental Music

• The Sixty-Fifth Psalm – Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
• Chromhorne sur la taille (Messe pour les Convents) - Francois Couperin (1668-1733)
• Offertoire sur les grands jeux (Messe pour les Convents) - Francois Couperin 

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 506 - Praise the Spirit in creation (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 552 - Fight the good fight with all thy might (PENTECOST)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn 314 - Humbly I adore thee (ADORO DEVOTE)
• Hymn 680 - O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Psalm 65 – Tone V 

I've sung the hymn, "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," for years - all my life, really - using the tune BEECHER which our hymnal uses. But several years ago, Maurice Bevan, a British bass-baritone who sang with The Deller Consort, St Paul's Cathedral in London, and the BBC, wrote a beautiful new tune which has since gained popularity. One of the things that won my heart in this arrangement was the inclusion of a couple of couplets that are left out of most hymnals:

But we make his love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify his strictness
With a zeal he would not own.

There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take him at his word;
And our lives would be all gladness
In the joy of Christ our Lord.

Maurice Bevan

The hymn was written  by the Catholic priest and poet, Frederick William Faber. Raised in the church of England, and ordained an Anglican priest, he was influenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman. In 1845 Faber followed Newman into the Roman Catholic Church and served in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Because he believed that Roman Catholics should sing hymns like those written by John Newton, Charles Wesley, and William Cowper, Faber wrote 150 hymns himself. One of his best known, "Faith of Our Fathers."

Dag Hammarskjold

Our communion anthem also has a beautiful text. It is by Dag Hammarskjold, who was  Secretary-General of the United Nations until his death in a plane crash in 1961. He  gave the impression of being an agnostic humanist while he was serving at the UN, but after his death, his private papers were discovered which contained some notes entitled “negotiations with myself – and with God”. His prayers have a naked honesty which is deeply moving. This text is one of those.

Hammarskjold's words were set to a haunting, chant-like melody by Lloyd Pfautsch, composer and one-time Director of Choral Activities at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He was one of my teachers, and from him I learned much, including these two things.

Lloyd Pfautsch

1. WORDS MATTER -- Lloyd considered it important for those who sing great words of faith to consider, and carefully articulate them while singing them. For him, the choir’s diction was essential

in prompting the hearers’ informed response.

2. MUSIC MATTERS -- Lloyd taught all of us that when choosing worship music --- congregational, choral, instrumental or keyboard --- the liturgy should inform the appropriateness of the music, and, the music, particularly the music of hymns, should compliment the words. I try to do that every Sunday.

That's why I chose this week's opening voluntary, a Tone Poem by English composer Alec Rowley on Psalm 65, which is the Psalm of the day. It's a longer work than usual (almost 8 minutes), so I want you to listen for these themes found in the music: (The text is from the Coverdale translation of the Bible, which had been used as the Psalter in all Books of Common Prayer, back to the first in 1549, until 1979.

Verse 1: Thou, O God, art Praised in Zion - Majestic 3/4 time
Verse 3: My misdeeds prevail against me - Softer, lyrical section, melody in the oboe (a plaintive sound).
Verse 7: Who stilleth the raging of the sea and the madness of the peoples. -  The organ becomes more agitated, growing in volume, tempo, and intensity, until it relaxes into a feeling of peace.
Verse 9: Thou Visiteth the earth, and blessest it. -  A broad, sweeping, descending melody modulating downward through three different keys as it "visits the earth" (descending)
Verse 14: The Valleys also shall stand so thick with corn, that they shall laugh and sing. - The music growing in volume and breadth, "thick" 

Music for September 15, 2019

Vocal Music

• I Sought the Lord – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Sonata II: Ruhig Bewegt – Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
• Messe pour les Convents: X. Chromhorne sur la Taille – François Couperin (1668-1733)
• Sonata II: Lebhaft – Paul Hindemith

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

• Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn 470 - There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (BEECHER)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn R 217 - You satisfy the hungry heart (GIFT OF FINEST WHEAT)
• Hymn R 277 - What wondrous love is this? (WONDROUS LOVE)
• Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
• Psalm 51:1-11 (1-4, 7-8, 11a)- Tone VIIIb

Thomas Jackson Oldrin
August 10, 1996 ~ August 6, 2017

22 years ago, when I first came to Good Shepherd, we had a young mother singing in our choir with a toddler. As the dad wasn't a church goer, she would bring the young boy with her to church on Sunday, and he would sit in the loft with us. People in the congregation down below began to look for his round, cherubic face pressed up against the glass which use to be in the choir loft rail. But life happened, and a divorce brought about a move from the suburb of Kingwood to the inner loop of Houston, and thus a move from Good Shepherd to Palmer Memorial. We missed young Thomas' growing up, and his subsequent battle with cancer, but we kept up through our friendship with his mother, Sarah and social media. Thomas won his battle with cancer, but lost his war with depression. He passed away in August of 2017.

Our mutual friend and church musician/composer, David Ashley White, wrote a beautiful anthem which he dedicated to Sarah Emes and her son, Thomas Oldrin. With a text by an anonymous poet, the anthem was premiered by the Palmer choir and published by Selah Publishing Co. in June 2018. Sarah gave copies of the anthem to Good Shepherd so that we, too, could sing in memory of Thomas.

The Opening and closing voluntaries are from the second organ sonata of Paul Hindemith, one of the principal German composers of the first half of the 20th century and a leading musical theorist. He sought to revitalize tonality—the traditional harmonic system that was being challenged by many other composers—and also pioneered in the writing of Gebrauchsmusik, or “utility music,” compositions for everyday occasions. He regarded the composer as a craftsman (turning out music to meet social needs) rather than as an artist (composing to satisfy his own soul). As a teacher of composition he probably exerted an influence on most of the composers of the generation that followed him. He was one of the first composers to offer classes in Film Music

In 1935 at the invitation of the Turkish government, Hindemith moved to Turkey to oversee the organization of musical life there. It was during this time that he helped Jewish musicians escape to Turkey. At the outbreak of World War II, he emigrated to the USA. After a series of lectures at Yale University, he became a part of the permanent faculty, where he founded the Yale Collegium Musicum for historically based performances. He became a US citizen in 1946.

Hindemith was not an organist, and found the instrument uninspiring because it could not "breathe." Nevertheless, his three Sonatas, with their mastery of counterpoint, clarity of form, bold harmonic language and deeply expressive treatment of melody, are recognised as among the great works of modern organ literature.

Music for February 10, 2019 + The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O, Praise God in His Holiness – Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960)

Instrumental Music

• Variations on “Nicea” – Piet Post (1919-1979)
• Benedictus: Chromhorne en Taille (Mass for the Parishes) – François Couperin (1668-1733)
• Carillon on “St. Edmund” – Malcolm Archer

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

• Hymn 362 - Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty (NICEA)
• Hymn - Tú has venido a la orilla (PESCADOR)
• Hymn 324 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn R208  - Santo, santo, santo (UNKNOWN)
• Hymn R149 - I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD)
• Hymn R308 - Thuma Mina (Send Me, Lord)  (THUMA MINA)
• Hymn 537 - Christ for the world we sing (MOSCOW)
• Psalm 138:1-6, 8-9 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome W.  Meachen

holy (adjective): exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." - Isaiah 6:1-3

This beautiful passage from the prophet Isaiah, used as the first scripture lesson this Sunday, was the inspiration for much of today's music. I look for any reason to sing the hymn "Holy, holy, holy," so it was a natural choice to begin the service, not only as the opening hymn, but also as the opening voluntary. 

I begin with four variations based on the tune NICAEA by contemporary Dutch composer Piet Post. He was the organist from 1949 to 1979 of the Jacobijnerkerk in Leeuwarden.  After hearing a pretty straight-forward setting of the hymn, you will hear (I.) a lilting setting of the tune in a flowing 6/8 rhythm, (II.) a light, fantasy style movement outlining the melody with rapid flourishes using the 8' and 2' flutes in the swell, (III.) a variation featuring a 16th-note ostinato pattern accompanying the melody, played in the left hand on an oboe stop, and finally (IV.) a slow movement in 3/4 time with a steady, insistent quarter-note pulse provided by the pedal. The piece then concludes with a Finale which I will use to introduce the hymn.

Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1922)
by Herbert Lambert

We continue to focus on the holiness of God with the anthem by English composer Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, O, Praise God in His Holiness, written for the 1953 Festival of the Federation of Essex Women's Institutes in honor of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It is a festive setting of Psalm 150.

Gibbs studied at Cambridge and with Vaughan Williams at the RCM, where he taught (1921-39). His best works are his songs, especially to poems by de la Mare, but he also wrote much for choirs and chamber orchestras and achieved immense success with his slow waltz Dusk, which Queen Elizabeth requested for her 18th birthday.