Music for March 12, 2017 + The Second Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)

Instrumental Music

• From Deepest Woe I Cry to Thee – Max Drischner (1891-1971)
• Song Without Words: Andante espressivo – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

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

• Hymn 401 - The God of Abraham praise (LEONI)
• Hymn 147 - Now let us all with one accord (BOURBON)
• Hymn 636 - How firm a foundation (FOUNDATION)
• Hymn R229 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn R231 - How blessed are you (Taizé)
• Hymn 473 - Lift high the cross (CRUCIFER)
• Psalm 121 - Tone IIa

Church music must be like a good sermon that everyone can understand - Max Drischner

Max Drischner (composer of the opening voluntary) was a Polish/German composer, church musician, and organist whose life and career spanned two World Wars. He began studying theology in 1910 at 19, but in 1914 he decided to go against the will of his father and take up music. He was the first German student of the famed harpsichordist Wanda Landowska in Berlin.

In 1916 he volunteered for medical service in France, and during his service there lost the end of a finger on his right hand. After the war, he taught himself about early music, the music written before J. S. Bach, and became an authority on the subject. At a time when such music was hardly ever played, Drischner had music of approximately 120 early composers in his repertoire. His music cabinet would have been worth a fortune had the Russian army and later Polish looters not stolen everything. A clavichord, a gift from Albert Schweitzers, was also used as a target and was shot to pieces by Russian soldiers.

Max Drischner and his sister Margarete

Drischner's music is distinguished by its simple, quiet, particularly melodic splendor. Compared to music being written by the leading composers of the early part of the 20th century, his music was very conservative. He wrote music for his own use, or for the simple church musician. He hated to use the organ as a concert instrument out of the liturgical context. He called his concerts "organ celebrations".

Today's opening voluntary is a piece he wrote based on the Lutheran Chorale, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (From deepest woe I cry to you, No. 151, The Hymnal 1980), based on a paraphrase of Psalm 130.  It is in the form of a passacaglia, a musical form from the early seventeenth-century based on a bass-ostinato and often written in triple metre (though not in this case).

The opening eight notes of the chorale form the ostinato which the pedal plays repetitively:

You will first hear this refrain by itself before the manuals add their own variations on the implied harmonies. Each repetition gets louder as well as more complicated until the end where the full organ is playing.