Music for March 15, 2015 + The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)
• O God, Have Mercy – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Instrumental Music

• Récit du chant Pange Linqua Gloriosum - Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703)

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

• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON) 
• Hymn R 132 - As Moses Raised the Serpent Up (THE GIFT OF LOVE)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)

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 the choir's communion motet 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.

Portrait of Mendelssohn
by the English miniaturist
James Warren Childe, 1839

Richard Murray is also singing a fitting solo for the season of Lent, from the oratorio St. Paul by Felix Mendelssohn. During his lifetime, St. Paul was a popular and frequently performed work. However, compared with such oratorios as Handel's Messiah, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and St Matthew Passion or even Mendelssohn's own Elijah, it has failed to maintain its place in the choral repertory and is now infrequently performed in its entirety. I think that is a shame, as it is full of beautiful, dramatic music, and tells the story of Paul, beginning with the stoning of Stephen, the conversion of  Saul (Paul), and ending with the apostle’s subsequent career. This aria comes after Saul is left blinded by the light on the road to Emmaus, and he breathes out this prayer ("O God, have Mercy upon me").

The opening voluntary is a 17th century French organ work by Nicolas de Grigny. He died young and left behind a single collection of organ music, which together with the work of François Couperin, represents the pinnacle of French Baroque organ tradition. J.S. Bach so admired it that he transcribed (by hand!) the entire volume for his own use. As with most of de Grigny's music, this prelude is based on a familiar chant (No. 166 in our hymnal, Sing, My Soul, the Glorious Battle). His treatment of the melody, however, is so ornate and complex, that it would be hard to recognize it, regardless of how well known it might be!

As this is the fourth Sunday of Lent, otherwise known as Refreshment Sunday in England. On this day, the Lenten fast is allowed to be relaxed, so I am taking a break from the more somber Lenten chants and have chosen some well known hymns which still fit the readings of today quite well.

• Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON) In 1752, a young Robert Robinson attended an evangelical meeting to heckle the believers and make fun of the proceedings. Instead, he listened in awe to the words of the great preacher George Whitefield, and in 1755, at the age of twenty, Robinson responded to the call he felt three years earlier and became a Christian. Another three years later, when preparing a sermon for his church in Norfolk, England, he penned the words that have become one of the church’s most-loved hymns: “Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace.”
• As Moses Raised the Serpent Up (THE GIFT OF LOVE) This is a poetic setting of John 3:14-17, part of Jesus' nighttime discourse with Nicodemus and includes that famous profession of faith "God so loved the world. . . ," one of the best-known and most frequently memorized verses in the entire Bible. Marie J. Post prepared the versification in 1985 for use with the tune O WALY WALY for the Christ­ian Re­formed Church’s Psal­ter Hymnal. She said this versification was one of her easiest assignments: “The lines simply fell into the music!” O WALY WALY is a traditional English melody which Hal H. Hopson adapted and arranged as an anthem in 1971 for his setting of 1 Corinthians 13, "Gift of Love"; his version became known as GIFT OF LOVE. 
• Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN) When John Newton was just eleven, he joined his father and began a tumultuous life at sea, eventually becoming captain of a slave ship. In a period of four years, however, his life was drastically turned around: he nearly drowned, he married a very pious Mary Catlett, and he read through Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and joined forces with the great abolitionist, William Wilberforce. A number of years later, he was ordained for ministry, and soon after wrote this great text, declaring that we are saved only the grace of God. Newton wrote, “I can see no reason why the Lord singled me out for mercy…unless it was to show, by one astonishing instance, that with him 'nothing is impossible'”
• Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA) The great circuit-riding preacher/poet William Williams wrote the original Welsh text "Arglwydd, arwain trwy'r anialwch"–"Lord, Lead Me Through the Wilderness." It was published in 1745 with the title, "A prayer for strength to go through the wilderness of the world." Translated into some seventy-five languages, Williams's text has become universally popular in Christendom. The English translation by Peter Williams ("Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,") was published in 1771.   

The popularity of Williams's text is undoubtedly aided by its association with CWM RHONDDA, composed in 1905 by John Hughes during a church service for a Welsh Baptist song festival.  Hughes had little formal education, but he composed two anthems, a number of Sunday school marches, and a few hymn tunes, of which CWM RHONDDA is universally known.