Music for May 3, 2015 + The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• O Thou Who Camest from Above – Philip Stopford (b. 1977)

Instrumental Music

• Communion – Richard Purvis (1913-1994)
• Sonatina in C Major, Op. 13, No. 1: Andantino – Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987)
• Come, O Come, Thou Spirit of Life – Max Reger (1873-1916)

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

• Hymn 47 - On this day, the first of days (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Hymn 379 - God is love: let heaven adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH) 
• Hymn R 145 - Lord, I want to be a Christian (I WANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN)
• Hymn 344 - Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing (SICILIAN MARINERS)

This week the choir is singing a new (to us) anthem by the young English composer Philip Stopford. It is a setting of the well-known text by Charles Wesley with an original new tune that brings a fresh approach to this great hymn. An effective motif is introduced in the beginning with the gentle, pulsating chords in the organ accompaniment and the repetitive "falling" motif in the opening of the melody.

Philip Stopford

Born in 1977, Stopford began his musical career as a Chorister at Westminster Abbey. After winning a major Music Scholarship to Bedford School, he became Organ Scholar at Truro Cathedral, playing the organ for services and taking probationer chorister rehearsals. Stopford went on to study music at Oxford University. He was on the music staff of Canterbury and Chester Cathedrals as Assistant Organist, before being appointed Director of Music at St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, in January 2003. He now lives in Chester and devotes his time to composition.

Three of Stopford's works appeared in the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2014, after he made his first appearance on the chart in 2013.

The opening voluntary is by Richard Purvis—organist/choirmaster at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral—who (along with Alexander Schreiner, E. Power Biggs, and Virgil Fox) made mid-20th century American organ music popular with the masses through records, recitals, and the press. But unlike his colleagues, Purvis was also a writer and performer of original music for the organ, who engaged church and concert audiences everywhere with daring harmony, colorful registration, and evocative emotion of compositions that won him instant acclaim. Hollywood noticed, but Purvis turned down offers to leave Grace to write for the movies. It was said that Purvis wrote "film music for the Episcopal church." This prelude is no exception. Communion is from a collection from 1941 called Five Pieces on Gregorian Themes. A quiet and contemplative composition, with a melody in the style of an old Gregorian chant, with big, sustained chords in the accompaniment.

• On this day, the first of days (GOTT SEI DANK) - This generic hymn of praise  is a 1861 translation by Anglican, Sir Henry W. Baker of the Latin hymn: 'Die parente temporum' which first appeared in the Carcassion Brievary in 1745. In this volumn, 'Dei parente temporum' is indicated for use on the Sunday at Nocturns from Pentecost to Advent. It is set to the tune GOTT SEI DANK, first published in Freylinghausen's Gesangbuch (1704). 
• God is love: let heaven adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH) -This tune just missed making it into The Hymnal 1940.  It appears three times in the current Hymnal and is an immensely popular tune. It was written by Cyril Vincent Taylor during the Battle of Britain as a replacement tune for Glorious things of thee are spoken, which used the tune AUSTRIA – which happened to be the German national anthem.  (Both tunes currently appear to the text in our hymnal.)  Soprano and bass lines both feature octave leaps.  
• Lord, I want to be a Christian (I WANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN) - Though originating in the 1750s, both text and tune were first published in Folk Songs of the American Negro (1907), compiled by brothers Frederick Work and John W. Work, Jr.  This music is an example of the repetitive text with a slow, sustained, long-phrased tune found in a number of African American spirituals. This music is intended to be reverent, with little, if any, accompaniment (perhaps piano)
• Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing (SICILIAN MARINERS) - As we opened the service, we close it, too, with a generic hymn of blessing. The tune SICILIAN MARINERS has been around for centuries and may have actually originated in Sicily.  If you double the note values, you get the tune for a Christmas carol, "O Sanctissima" which, with its original Latin text, was first published in London in 1792 and in 1794 in the United States. Today, the opening bars are familiarly known for their use in the song "We Shall Overcome."