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"!