Music for March 20, 2022 + The Third Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Love the Lord – J. P. Reese, arr. Mark Schweizer (1956-2019)

Instrumental Music

• Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
• (O God, Be Merciful to Me) 
• Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley – David Gale (21st C.)
• Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 142 - Lord, who throughout these forty days (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s land (GO DOWN, MOSES)
• Hymn 143 - The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (GIVE THANKS)
• Hymn 149 - Eternal Lord of Love, behold your Church (OLD 124TH)
• Psalm63:1-8, Tone IIa

Our anthem today is an arrangement of a hymn out of the old shaped-note songbook, The Sacred Harp (1844), the best-known songbook of the shape-note tradition. Many people contributed tunes to this book, which feature rugged tunes and rough, often modal harmonies with imperfect harmonization techniques. One such composer is John P. Reese, an itinerant preacher, who wrote 21 tunes for the collection, including today's anthem. 

The texts were often eighteenth-century English hymns by such poets as Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, William Cowper, or John Newton. Some of these texts, as modified by nineteenth-century American singers, have acquired choruses in the camp-meeting spiritual style. That's what has happened here with the familiar text by Isaac Watts, "Alas, and did my Savior bleed?" with the "new" chorus: 

O who is like Jesus? Christ, our savior,

Praise ye the Lord!

There's none like Jesus, Christ, our savior,

Love and serve the Lord!

It has been arranged, once again, by Mark Schweizer, who also arranged the anthems from the last two weeks.

The opening and closing voluntaries are by J.G. Walther and J.S Bach. Not only were they almost exact cotemporaries, they were also cousins. In 1707, Walther was made organist at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Weimar. Bach became the Capellemeister at the court of the Duke of Weimar. The two became friends, and on September 27, 1712 Bach stood godfather to Walther’s son.

The chorale prelude that opens the service is a setting of the hymn “Erbarm’ dich mein, O Herre Gott,” which is a translation of Psalm 51, making it perfect for the season of Lent. This setting is in the form of a “Gapped” Chorale, in which one line of music, in this case the top line, presents the chorale phrases relatively slowly, while the other lines of music are moving in faster imitative polyphony.

This imitative polyphony is continuous throughout the piece.

For the closing voluntary I am playing the "little" Fugue in G Minor of J.S. Bach. It is one of Bach's best known fugues and has been arranged for other media, including an orchestral version by Leopold Stokowski. Early editors of Bach's work attached the title of "Little Fugue" to distinguish it from the later Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, which is longer in duration.

I am playing it in honor of Bach's 337th birthday on Monday, March 21st.

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 March 6, 2022 + The First Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), arr. Mark Schweitzer

Instrumental Music

• Chorale Prelude on a melody by Orlando Gibbons – Healey Willan (1880-1968)
• Suite No. 4 in E Minor: Sarabande – George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)
• Hilf Gott, Dass Mir's Gelinge, BWV 624 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn s-67 The Great Litany
• Hymn R112 - You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord (ON EAGLE’S WINGS)
• Hymn 150 - Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH)
• Hymn R9 - As the deer pants for the water (AS THE DEER)
• Hymn 559 - Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us (DULCE CARMEN)
• Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 – Tone IIa

The anthem today is what classical musicians call a quodlibet, which is an arrangement of two or more familiar tunes in polyphonic relationship, meaning that they can be heard at the same time. The arranger, Mark Schweizer, has done that by combining the beautiful melody of Gabriel Fauré's Pavane, Op. 50 with the hymn-tune MORNING SONG (hymn 9 in the Hymnal 1982), using the text, "Lord, who throughout these forty days." The combination is a match made in heaven. Here are links for you to hear the two melodies by themselves. (Just don't listen during the sermon if you are reading this on Sunday!) 

Mark Schweizer

Gabriel Fauré

Fauré: Pavane / Rattle · Berliner Philharmoniker

Morning Song

The opening voluntary is an organ setting of another tune from hymnal which is not an explicitly Lenten hymn, Lord, forever at thy side, found at hymn 670. This tune is used in an anthem, though, which is often sung during Lent, Jesus, Grant Me This I Pray. This setting of the tune from the great English musician of the Renaissance Orlando Gibbons, is by the English-turned-Canadian composer, Healey Willan.

The closing voluntary is a short work by Johann Sebastian Bach found in his collection called Orgelbüchlein. Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book) is one of the most extraordinary of all Bach’s organ collections and compositions. Even though it may seem to be just a collection of hymn-tune (chorale) arrangements for the church organist, it is considered by many scholars to be a masterpiece of organ literature. 

Bach planned a collection of 119 chorale preludes (only 45 were written) to be used during the liturgical year. Some are quite simple, while others are intricate works in miniature. Today I am playing one of the Lenten chorales on a text and tune well known to congregations during Bach's day.

The text itself is unusual. It was written in the 1500s by Heinrich Müller while he was in prison by the Duke of Saxony for his Lutheran sympathies. Müller included his name as an acrostic, using the first letter of each stanza to spell our his name. Also, the first stanza is weirdly self-referential: the poet asks God’s help “die Silben reimen zwingen” (to force these syllables to rhyme). Most hymns during the Reformation aimed to reach the entire worshipping community, not individual piety.

Much like Müller "forcing syllables to rhyme,"  Bach does the same thing, forcing the right hand to play two voices in canon. It’s an inside joke for the performer. For the listener, who might not perceive these counterpoint games, the idea is still clear from the meandering left-hand and pedal parts. The piece takes a lot of physical work to perform, and it sounds, at best, bizarre.  

Bach’s organ version was probably a deliberately rather awkward harmonic and canonic whole, with a left hand that searches around capriciously from high to low. Maybe Bach also thought it might not be so easy to keep constant faith if you were imprisoned for your religious beliefs for over ten years.

Music for August 22, 2021

Vocal Music

• Love the Lord – arr. Mark Schweizer (1956-2019)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude and Fugue in G – attr. J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Meditation on “Simple Gifts” – Michael Larkin (b. 1951)
• Rondeau – Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

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

Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
Hymn 561 - Stand up, stand up for Jesus (MORNING LIGHT)
Hymn R232 - There is a Redeemer (Keith/Melody Green)
Hymn R233 - Glory be to Jesus (CASWALL)
Hymn 460 - Alleluia, sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)
Psalm 34:15-22 - Tone VIIIa

I have programmed two pieces written by men born in the 1950s, and two men born in the last half of the 17th century. First the contemporary pieces.

Mark Schweizer

The choir sings a setting of a tune from the Sacred Harp, a ubiquitous and historically important tunebook, first published in 1844, which was the backbone of the Sacred Harp singing schools that originated in New England and later perpetuated and carried on in the American South. The tune is both rugged and vigorous, changing between slow and quick sections. The text is one that we usually associate with Lent, but with the upbeat refrain which compares Jesus to no other, it is perfect for any time of the year.

This arrangement is by Mark Schweizer, a native of Florida who 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 lived in North Carolina where he served as editor of St. James Music Press. He is also the author of fifteen “Liturgical Mystery” novels, as well as other books, and several opera and musical librettos.

The communion voluntary is a meditation on another American folk tune from the Shaker tradition, "Simple Gifts." It is by the Delaware composer and musician, Michael Larkin, who serves as organist and director of music ministry at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware.  

The opening voluntary is the fifth installment of my playing the complete (so-called) Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, which were attributed for years to J.S. Bach, but now thought to be by one of his pupils. 

This week it's the Prelude and Fugue in G. The prelude is a "miniature toccata" which, after a stately, big chordal introduction, evolves into freely-composed improvisatory passages which just ripple over the keyboard. It reflects the musical influence of Johann Kuhnau, Johann Sebastian Bach, and J. K. F.. Fischer. 

The English composer Henry Purcell wrote incidental music for a revival of the play Abdelazer, or The Moor's Revenge in the summer of 1695, including the movement entitled Rondeau. A Rondeau is an instrumental musical form in which a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") alternates with one or more contrasting themes, generally called "episodes." The form is outlined such as A - B - A - C - A.

Purcell's Rondeau was used by Benjamin Britten as the theme for his set of variations The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946).