Music for March 20, 2016 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna – Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1953)
• The Holy City – Stephen Adams (Michael Maybrick) (1841 – 1913)
• He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word – William M. Schoenfeld (b. 1949)
• O Savior of the World – John Goss (1800-1880)

Instrumental Music

• O Sacred Head, Now Wounded – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)

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

• Hymn 154 All glory, laud, and honor (Valet will ich dir geben)
• Hymn 458 My song is love unknown (Love Unknown)
• Hymn R235 O sacred head, now wounded (Herzlich tut mich verlangen)
• Hymn R227 Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 474 When I survey the wondrous cross (Rockingham)

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, (The Vatican)
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

This Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, and it encapsulates all the events from Christ's triumphal entry in Jerusalem to his death on the cross. It's an arduous journey which is made more real for us with the use of the art forms which we have available to us. In the past, that meant music, but this year we are fortunate to have the lovely paints of the stations of the cross that Jessica Dupree created last year, and liturgical dance provided by our dance troupe. 

One of the pieces we are singing is a beautiful arrangement for choir, piano, and cello on the Spiritual, "He Never Said a Mumbalin' Word." Alex Philips, a junior at Kingwood High is playing the cello, and Melissa Vann will be playing the piano. It is stunning in its simplicity.

The other piece is what we refer to as a chestnut, a musical piece that has been repeated to the point of staleness. The Holy City was sung every Palm Sunday for years at my home church in Tiptonville, Tennesse, by Mr. Hugh Whitford. It's a song that, much like the service on Palm Sunday, includes not only the triumphal entry but the crucifixion. The third stanza, however, goes on to detail the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. This will literally be heaven on earth. It is referred to in the Bible in several places (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:10; 12:22–24; and 13:14), but it is most fully described in Revelation 21. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate fulfillment of all God’s promises.

Michael Maybrick
(Stephen Adams)

The song was written by Michael Maybrick, an English musician, best known today under his pseudonym Stephen Adams as the composer of The Holy City. He studied keyboard and harmony in Germany, but later decided to train as a baritone  in Milan. After gaining experience in Italian theaters, he appeared with great success at all the leading concert venues in London and the provinces, as well as in English opera. He even toured America to great success. The Holy City was his biggest hit. He sang it in concert much like Michael Crawford sang On Eagle's Wings when he concertized.

Now, here comes the fun part of today's story. Maybrick was a keen amateur sportsman, being a cricketer, a yachtsman and a cyclist, and a Captain in the Artists Rifles. His friends spoke of his charming personality, but others thought him arrogant and vain. In 1893 he married his forty-year-old housekeeper, Laura Withers, and retired with her on the Isle of Wight. They were joined there by the two children of his brother, James Maybrick, later a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case, and whose wife Florence was convicted of his murder in 1889. (A re-examination of her case resulted in her release in 1904.) He died in 1913.

In October of 2015, screen writer Bruce Robinson published a huge tome called They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper. It was a culmination of 15 years of research in the study of the Jack the Ripper case. Based on his research (which some experts dispute), he points the accusing finger at Michael Maybrick (not his brother James) as detailed in this report.