Music for April 30, 2023 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter + Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• The Lord Is My Shepherd – Howard Goodall (b. 1958)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on "Brother James's Air" - Searle Wright (1918-2004)
• Prelude on "St. Columba" – Sam Batt Owens (1928-1998)
• Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the middle hymn)

• Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn  - Good Shepherd, you know us (GOOD SHEPHERD, KINGWOOD)
• Hymn 207 - Jesus Christ is risen today (EASTER HYMN)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Psalm 23 – Tone V

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. That is not its official name, just a nickname given to the fourth Sunday of Easter taken from the opening collect of the day:

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

It's the closest thing our congregation has to a patronal feast day. In honor of that, we feature several pieces of music about the Shepherd.

Good Shepherd, You Know Us

First, I want to talk about the middle hymn.

You may remember that back in September 2022, the choir surprised me with a newly-composed hymn in honor of my 25th anniversary at Good Shepherd. David Ashley White, former head of the music school at University of Houston and an internationally known composer, was commissioned to write the hymn tune, and he suggested a text by one of his favorite writers, Christopher Idle, a priest in the Anglican Church. The text is perfect for our congregation:

Good Shepherd, you know us, you call us by name,

you lead us; we gladly acknowledge your claim.

Your voice has compelled us; we come at your call,

and none you have chosen will finally fall.

Good Shepherd, you warn us of robbers and thieves;

the hireling, the wolf, who destroys and deceives;

all praise for your promise on which we can stand,

that no-one can snatch us from out of your hand.

Good Shepherd, you lay down your life for the sheep;

your love is not fickle, your gift is not cheap.

You spend your life freely, you take it again;

you died, so we live - we are healed by your pain.

At one with the Father, you made yourself known:

'I am the Good Shepherd', at one with your own.

You loved us before we had heeded or heard;

by grace we respond to your life-giving word.

Christopher Idle b.1938, © Christopher Idle/ Jubilate Hymns

The choir sang it as an anthem back in October, and now we are going to sing it as a congregational hymn this Sunday. It's PERFECT for the day!

The Lord Is my Shepherd

I can't believe it's been over 10 years since we have sung this marvelous piece!

Devotees of the BBC comedy series, The Vicar of Dibley, will recognize this tune immediately. It is the theme song for the show, composed by one of Britain's leading contemporary composers, Howard Goodall.  Goodall is an EMMY, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores. (You might not realize it, but film and television are very lucrative markets for classical composers!) 

Howard Goodall

He is also a distinguished music historian, writer and broadcaster. In recent years he has been England’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, the Classical Brit Composer of the Year and was Classic FM’s Composer-in-Residence for 6 years. In the 2011 New Year Honours he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music education.

Goodall's setting of Psalm 23, The Lord Is my Shepherd, has proved to be an extremely popular piece of music. His intention in writing the theme had always been to write a piece of church music which could have a life of its own, beyond the series, and this has certainly been fulfilled in Psalm 23.

“Anyone who thinks about the BBC programme The Vicar of Dibley, is likely to focus on one of two things: the dry wit and humor of Dawn French or the now instantly recognizable theme tune The Lord is my Shepherd by Howard Goodall. Accompanied by organ, the piece opens with a most lyrical, legato melody for solo soprano, repeated by tutti sopranos with simple yet effective harmonies for A, T and B, continuing in the warm, flowing style. A homophonic middle section, moving towards a more minor tonality, reflects the mood of the words ‘Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil’, and provides an effective contrast. A return to the original theme draws the work to a beautiful conclusion which, in the right circumstances, could provide a very spiritual moment.” 

George Adamson, ‘Music Teacher’ magazine October 2000.

Prelude on "St. Columba"

The Irish tune "St. Columba, found in our hymnal for the paraphrase of Psalm 23, "The King of Love my shepherd is," is given a pastorale setting by a late friend of mine, Sam Batt Owens. Sam was the organist/choirmaster at Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal in Memphis for several years.

In this setting, he begins with what I like to think of as a flute solo, played by a lone shepherd on the hillside as he keeps watch over his flock by night. (Oh, wait, that's Christmas.) In any case, I hear the shepherd improvise on his flute as the melody comes in underneath the flute solo. After another, more straight-forward presentation of the tune, the piece ends with the flute solo once more. It is reminiscent of the opening and closing passages of the third movement of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, "Scène aux champs" (Scene in the country), where two shepherds dialogue back and forth on the English Horn and the (offstage) oboe.

Prelude on "Brother James' Air"

Searle Wright was an composer, organist, choir director, and teacher in organ playing, composition and improvisation. He influenced an entire generation of American church musicians through his teaching at Columbia University and as President of the American Guild of Organists.

"Brother James' Air" is a well-known hymn tune composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain (1840-1925), who was a healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James. It is used for a metrical setting of Psalm 23.

Music for May 12, 2019 + The Fourth Sunday after Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday
Vocal Music

• I am His Child – Moses Hogan (1957-2003)
• And Still the Bread Is Broken – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Brother James’s Air” – Searle Wright (1918-2004)
• In Green Pastures – Harold Darke (1888-1976)
• Trumpet Tune in D – David N. Johnson (1922-1987)

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

• Hymn 182  - Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO)
• Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The strife is o’er, the battle done (VICTORY)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn 297 - Descend, O Spirit, purging flame (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 645 - The King of love my shepherd is (ST. COLUMBA)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Hymn 366 - Holy God, we praise thy Name (GROSSER GOTT)
• Psalm 23 - Simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome W. Meachen

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is called the Good Shepherd Sunday, because of the scripture readings (John 10:11 - “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep") and the use of the 23rd Psalm, so it is the closest thing our congregation has to a Patronal Feast Day.

The Coventry Choir, our younger elementary children's choir, will sing this Sunday for the last time this choir year. They are singing a song by New Orleans native Moses Hogan. Until his untimely death in 2003, Hogan was one of the most celebrated contemporary directors and arrangers of classic spirituals. In addition to spirituals, he also wrote some original numbers, such as today's anthem, I Am His Child.

A graduate of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) and Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, Moses Hogan also studied at New York's Juilliard School of Music and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His many accomplishments as a concert pianist included winning first place in the prestigious 28th annual Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition in New York. Hogan was Artist In Residence at Loyola University in New Orleans.


Moses Hogan

In keeping with the Good Shepherd theme, I am opening the service with Searle Wright's setting of the tune BROTHER JAMES' AIR, which is most often used for the text, "The Lord's my shepherd." It was composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain, a Scottish healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James. This well-loved tune is in bar form (AAB) with an unusual final phrase that ends on a high tonic note instead of a low note.

Wright has arranged this folk-like melody in three stanzas. For the first stanza he uses manuals only, with the melody in the soprano. The string stops on the organ are used. For the next stanza, he keeps the strings for the accompaniment, but puts the melody in the pedal on the English Horn. After a developmental section that goes through several minor keys before coming back to A Major, he presents the tune very much like the beginning, adding the bass notes in the pedal for the first A section of the tune, then putting the cantus firmus (the melody)in the tenor ranger with the crommorne for last half of the stanza.

M. Searle Wright was a composer, teacher and master of both classic and theater pipe organ. He died in his hometown of Binghamton, N.Y. when he was 86.

The Organ voluntary at communion is a quiet little piece by the English composer Harold Darke. He is best known among church musicians for his 1911 setting of Christina Rosetti's poem "In the Bleak Mid-Winter", which has become one of the most widely performed and recorded Christmas carols ever written. In fact, this short work, with its haunting melody, has appeared on more than 100 recordings over the years, in performances given by some of the leading singers: Roberto Alagna, Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson, Jessye Norman, Kiri Te Kanawa, and many others.

Darke was perhaps better known in his lifetime as an organist than composer. He was regarded as one of the greatest organists of his time, and as such appeared regularly in concert, often performing his own works, works that were tonal, conservative but imaginative, and well-crafted. 

Music for May 7, 2017 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• Loving Shepherd of thy Sheep – Philip Ledger (1937-2012)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Brother James' Air" – Searle Wright (1918-2004)
• Sheep May Safely Graze – J.S. Bach (168501750)
• Preludium in G BWV 568 – J.S. Bach

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 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The strife is o’er, the battle done (VICTORY)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn R195 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Psalm 23 - Dominus regit me (Mode 6)

Brother James’ Air is a hymn tune written in 1914 by James Leith Macbeth Bain, a Scottish mystic, minister, and poet who became known to his peers simply as Brother James.  The tune is most commonly used as the tune for the hymn text, “The Lord’s My Shepherd,” although in our hymnal it is used for the text “How lovely is thy dwelling-place.” (Hymnal 1982 #517) Because the Fourth Sunday of Easter is the Sunday normally referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” I am thinking of the Psalm 23 paraphrase as the text as I play it this Sunday.

The arrangement is by Searle Wright, a native of Pennsylvania who grew up in Binghamton, New York. As a teenager he made money playing the organ at the Palace Theatre in Binghamton, but his future lay in Classical organ.  He studied in New York City with T. Tertius Noble and at Columbia University, where he later served the faculty as well as at the Union Theological Seminary. In 1977, he returned to Binghamton as the Link professor of music at the State University of New York in Binghamton. (SUNY)

In this setting you hear the tune three times: First, it is played on the strings in the Swell division, then the melody is heard in the pedal division, played (by the feet, of course) on a soft trumpet stop. After a brief interlude that begins on full organ and then gradually decreases in volume, the melody returns as it began, on the soft strings sounds of the Swell Division.

Philip Ledger

The offertory anthem this morning is a little gem by Sir Philip Ledger, an English organist and choral director best known for his years as director of the King's College Choir in Cambridge.

Ledger was born in Bexhill and educated at King's College, Cambridge. When appointed Master of Music at Chelmsford Cathedral, he became the youngest cathedral organist in the United Kingdom.
As Director of Music at the University of East Anglia, he worked closely with Benjamin Britten as an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival before returning to King's College, Cambridge as Director of Music. There he conducted the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols which is broadcast each year on Christmas Eve, made an extensive range of recordings with the famous choir and directed recitals and tours throughout the world. He then became Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

This anthem is a setting of a simple 12-bar melody, which itself is divide into two, almost identical, parts. On the first verse the trebles sing, followed by the men on verse two in a new key. The third stanza has the entire choir singing in four parts, unaccompanied, with a new theme in the melody. The final stanza returns to the original tune sung by all voices entering at different times.

Last week I played a piece by J. S. Bach that he had arranged for organ from one of his vocal works. This week, I'm playing another work arranged for organ from one of his solo vocal cantatas, but this time it is arranged by the 20th century organist E. Power Biggs.

Sheep May Safely Graze is from his secular cantata BWV 208, Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd (The lively hunt is all my heart's desire). Originally performed by a soprano, two recorders, and basso continuo, here the melody is played in the left hand on the organ stop called a Chromhorne (or Krummhorn), the right hand plays the two recorder parts on the flute stop, and the pedal fills in the basso continuo line.

This cantata, often called The Hunting Cantata, was composed in 1713 by Bach for the 31st birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels. Despite its BWV number (#208 out of 216 cantatas that we a sure Bach wrote), this is Bach's earliest surviving secular cantata, composed while he was employed as court organist in Weimar. The work may have been intended as a gift from Bach's employer, William Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, for his neighboring ruler, Duke Christian, who was a keen hunter.

Music for April 26, 2015 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947) 

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Brother James’s Air” – Searle Wright (1918-2004) 
• Cantabile - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) 
• Allegro in D Minor – C. V. Stanford (1852-1924) 

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 R-139 Halle, Halle, Hallelujah (Halle Halle)
• Hymn 304 I come with joy to meet my Lord (Land of Rest)
• Hymn 296 We know that Christ is raised and dies no more (Engleberg)

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is called the Good Shepherd Sunday, because of the scripture readings (John 10:11 - “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep") and the use of the 23rd Psalm, so it is the closest thing our congregation has to a Patronal Feast Day. For this Sunday the choir is repeating an anthem we sang last Fall by another friend of mine, William Bradley (Bill) Roberts. I encourage you to look at this earlier post to read about him and this piece. The only difference is that this time around, Matt Hawley is playing the flute part.

M. Searle Wright

In keeping with the Good Shepherd theme, I am opening the service with Searle Wright's setting of the tune BROTHER JAMES' AIR, which is most often used for the text, "The Lord's my shepherd." It was composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain, a Scottish healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James. This well-loved tune is in bar form (AAB) with an unusual final phrase that ends on a high tonic note instead of a low note.

Wright has arranged this folk-like melody in three stanzas. For the first stanza he uses manuals only, with the melody in the soprano. The string stops on the organ are used. For the next stanza, he keeps the strings for the accompaniment, but puts the melody in the pedal on the English Horn. After a developmental section that goes through several minor keys before coming back to A Major, he presents the tune very much like the beginning, adding the bass notes in the pedal for the first A section of the tune, then putting the cantus firmus (the melody)in the tenor ranger with the crommorne for last half of the stanza.

M. Searle Wright was a composer, teacher and master of both classic and theater pipe organ. He died in his hometown of  Binghamton, N.Y. when he was 86.

The closing voluntary is Charles Villiers Stanford's Allegro in D minor, an energetic piece in 6/4 time, but with a general feel of two strong pulses to the bar. It is in a three part, ABA1 form, with three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. The exposition itself is in three parts, an aba form, with the b section using a new theme. That theme forms the basis of the second main section, the development section, which is now in D MAJOR. The final section, which is a recapitulation of the first section, switches between minor and major, before ending in that bright key of D Major.

Hymns

• Christ is made the sure foundation (WESTMINSTER ABBEY) This crowd-pleaser (for a crowd of Episcopalians) is set to a hymn tune adapted from Henry Purcell's choir anthem ‘O God, Thou are my God’. It was adapted as a hymn tune in 1842 by Ernest Hawkins, a Canon of Westminster Abbey where Purcell had been organist. It did not become popular however until it was sung at Princess Margaret’s wedding in the Abbey in 1960.
• Halle, Halle, Halle (Caribbean) 'Alleluia' (Hallelujah)  is a Hebrew word which means 'Praise the Lord'. 'Alleluias' may be sung at many times of the year but are traditionally not sung during the penitential season of Lent. 'Alleluia' is often sung before the Gospel reading in a communion service to show its importance. This lively setting of the Alleluia is from the Caribbean.
• I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST) Brian A. Wren wrote this communion hymn to summarize a series of sermons on the meaning of the Lord's Supper, specifically as a post-sermon hymn to help illustrate the presence of Christ in the sacrament. He states that he wanted to express this "as simply as possible, in a way that would take the worshipper (probably without . . . recognizing it) from the usual individualistic approach to communion ('I come') to an understanding of its essential corporateness ('we'll go')."
• We know that Christ is raised and dies no more (ENGLEBERG) This hymn was written in 1967, when John B, Geyer was tutor at Cheshunt College, Cambridge.  At that time a good deal of work was going on in Cambridge producing living cells ("the baby in the test tube"). The hymn attempted to illustrate the Christian doctrine of baptism in relation to those experiments. You'll recognize the tune as the same tune for "When In Our Music God Is Glorified," though it was written for "For All the Saints"!