Music for March 5, 2017 + The First Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Turn Thy Face From My Sin – Thomas Attwood (1765–1838)

Instrumental Music

• A Mighty Fortress Is Our God – Dietrich Buxtehude

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

• The Great Litany
• Hymn 142 - Lord, who throughout these forty days (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 380 - From all that dwells below the skies (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn R172 - In our lives, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn R107 - You are my hiding place (Michael Ledner)
• Hymn 688 - A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Psalm 32 - Tone IIa

The First Sunday in Lent is like riding in a car that has been going 65 miles an hour then the driver hits the brakes because he realizes he needs to be going in the other direction. All the music from the previous weeks with its "Alleluias" and upbeat tempos are gone, and we are unaccustomed to the quietness we find in Lent.

We start the service not with a prelude and opening hymn followed by the Gloria, but with silence and then the Great Litany, sung in procession. The Great Litany is an intercessory prayer including various petitions that are said or sung by the leader, with fixed responses by the congregation. The Litany was the first English language rite prepared by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, published in 1544. Cranmer modified an earlier litany form by consolidating certain groups of petitions into single prayers with response.

The Great Litany may be said or sung, with the officiant and people kneeling or standing, or it may be done in procession, as is our custom.  Because of its penitential tone, it is especially appropriate during Lent.

The anthem is Turn thy face from my sins, with words from Psalm 51. It is by Thomas Attwood, an English organist and composer who was fortunate enough to come under the patronage of the Prince of Wales (later George IV) at the age of 16. This enabled him to travel abroad to study in Naples and later Vienna, where he was a pupil of Mozart.  In 1796, when he was 31, he was chosen as the organist of St Paul's Cathedral, and in the same year he was made composer of the Chapel Royal. 

In spite of his modest achievements in the field of composition—which include some thirty-two operas—Attwood will be remembered for a few short anthems, including "Turn Thy face from my sins" and "Teach me, O Lord" (which we sang just two weeks ago at the Bishop's visit.) 

The only other piece of music outside the usual hymns is a chorale prelude by the Baroque composer Dietrich Buxtehude. Like many of the composers of the 1600s, Buxtehude loved to take a familiar hymn (in this case, Ein feste Burg - A Mighty Fortress) and add embellishments, or musical flourishes, that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note, like a trill or a turn. Sometimes the melody becomes so drawn out that you might not even recognize it. See if you can pick "A Mighty Fortress is our God" out of the notes you'll hear from the organ during the communion.

examples of Baroque ornamentation in art