Music for January 18, 2015 + The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Hush! Somebody’s Callin’ My Name – arr. Brazeal W. Dennard (1929-2010)
• Lord, You Have Searched Me – David Hurd (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Galliard on “Gather Us In” – James Biery (b. 1956)
• Song of Peace – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Postlude – Lionel Lackey (1910-1987)

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

• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 707  - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn 132 - All glory, Jesus, be to thee (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R149 - I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your master proclaim (PADERBORN)

Hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ my name. Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, what shall I do?

Today we sing an anthem that I like to schedule whenever the Old Testament lesson is the story of the boy Samuel hearing the voice of God call his name. The boy thinks it is his mentor, Eli, but after the third time Eli suggests the boy respond by saying "Master, speak, thy servant heareth." It turns out God is calling Samuel's name.
I use this spiritual because I imagine, if I heard God calling my name out loud, I'd be saying "What am I going to do?!"

But here is a brief history of the spiritual. Dr. Rosephanye Powell says

 “Hush” is to tell those weeping for us during sickness or dying to stop weeping because there is joy in dying. The verse “soon one morning, death come creeping in my room” was something the slave longed for and welcomed because it meant freedom from slavery.
There is a verse that says “sounds like Jesus” and that refers to the fact that they are truly saved and Jesus is calling them home. Relative to slavery in a sociological context, “hush” was an indication to keep quiet and listen because a conductor in the Underground Railroad was in the area and whatever their signal was (whistling, barking, knocking, tapping on the window) was indicative to the slave’s name being called...  In this context, the verse “sounds like Jesus” is a way of letting those in the slave community know that a conductor or liberator was in the area.

Brazeal Dennard

This setting was arranged by Brazeal Dennard, an African-American singer, educator, choral director, and musical arranger who was a significant contributor in the preservation and revitalization of the spiritual musical form. His efforts helped moved the African-American spiritual beyond the confines of the church, exposing not only the beauty of this music, but also its historical importance to a wider audience.

Dennard was invited by the White House to become a member of a special committee to present White House Fellowships to highly motivated young Americans. He is perhaps best known for his work with the Brazeal Dennard Chorale (founded in 1972), a group of highly trained singers dedicated to developing the choral art to its highest professional level. Brazeal Dennard was supervisor of music for the Detroit Public Schools and served as adjunct faculty at Wayne State University. 

Last week, while driving to church, the Sunday morning choral music program on Sirius/XM's classical channel was playing sacred choral music by French composers in solidarity with the French Creative community which had been hit by terrorists. This Sunday I am including my own tribute by playing French organist Jean Langlais' composition, Chant du Paix (Song of Peace) at communion.

Who is Galliard, and why is he on "Gather Us In?"

Well, Galliard isn't a person, it's a dance form, a vigorous 16th-century European court dance with a six-beat pattern.

"Galliard dance pattern" by Hyacinth at the English language Wikipedia.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

James Biery used that pattern in writing our opening voluntary based on the contemporary hymn, Gather Us In, written by Marty Haugen, Haugen is a Catholic musician who has written a lot of music for the Roman church. (Many traditional musicians have issues with his compositions, even to the point of forming a Facebook page called Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas.) It is found in our Renew Hymnal at No. 14.
In Biery's composition, you'll first hear an introduction with the distinctive, rollicking rhythm of the galliard. This introduction actually becomes a ritournello, interspersed between each phrase of the melody. Then after the entire first verse is presented, there is a musical bridge with fragments of the tune in various keys, building in intensity and volume before coming back with another stanza of the hymn.
The galliard's four hopping steps and one high leap permitted athletic gentlemen to show off for their partners. When performing the galliard, couples danced the length of the ballroom either together, men leaping higher than women, or separately. Imagine that as the choir, acolytes, and servers process down the aisle this Sunday.

The closing voluntary is another work in rollicking 6/8 time, simply called Postlude. It is written by Lionel Lackey, who, in addition to his work on the English faculty of Baptist College of Charleston (now Charleston Southern University), was a composer and librettist primarily known for his short, one-act operas. In this rare organ work, he composed a theme in G minor which starts the piece. After that detached, angular theme is fully presented, a smoother, legato secondary theme is introduced against the primary theme in the left hand. After a short bridge, the first section is repeated again, but this time the secondary theme is in a major key.

• Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON) - Words by Charles Wesley, emphasizing the Epiphany theme of light out of darkness (like the first stanza of Gather Us In.)  The melody was adapted and harmonization written by William Henry Havergal, although we can only guess how closely it resembles the 1524 original.  This may be too short for a processional, so the choir better leap down the aisle quickly!
• Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE) -  This hymn is a beautiful prayer that God would both draw us closer to Himself, and use us to bring others to Him. God calls us to a life of discipleship, and our only response should be, “Here am I. Send me.” The rest of Christendom sings this hymn to another tune, but we Episcopalians sing it to this tune written by John Bacchus Dykes (of Holy, Holy, Holy fame.) Only three other hymnals use this tune, out of more than 80 modern hymnals.
• All glory, Jesus, be to thee (ERHALT UNS, HERR)  - This is the last stanza of the hymn we sang last Sunday. 
• I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD) - This hymn is a favorite among many in our congregation, and it comes from the same tradition as the hymn Gather Us In mentioned in the opening voluntary. It echoes the same sentiment as Take My Life and Let it Be.
• Ye servants of God, your master proclaim (PADERBORN) -  Charles Wesley is the author of this hymn text. He wrote it in 1744 for Hymns for Times of Trouble and Persecution in the section titled “Hymns to Be Sung in Tumult.” The occasion for writing was a time of persecution for Methodists in England. They were accused of disloyalty to the British Crown among other things, and were therefore subject to violent persecution.   The text originally had six stanzas, but two of them were quite specific to the Methodist persecution of the time, and are therefore omitted in modern hymnals. Otherwise, the text has been passed down in a very consistent form. The four stanzas elaborate on the theme of God's glory and victorious power. The last two stanzas allude to eschatological passages throughout Revelation.