Music for August 13, 2017 + The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• It Is Enough from Elijah – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Kommst du nun, Jesu vom Himmel herunter auf Erden, BWV 650 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Sonatina from Cantata 106, God’s Time Is Best – Johann Sebastian Bach
• Maestoso, Opus 9, No. 1 – Hermann Schroeder (1904-1984)

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

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 529 - In Christ there is no East or West (MCKEE)
• Hymn R75 - Praise the Lord! Ye heavens adore him (AUSTRIAN HYMN)
• Hymn - When the storms of life are raging, stand by me (STAND BY ME)
• Hymn 680 - O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Psalm 85:8-13 – Tone VIIIa

An organ transcription is an arrangement for the organ of a musical work that was originally written for another medium. Often it's an orchestra piece that has been arranged, but it could be a vocal work or even a piano piece that someone has arranged for use on the organ. Such music is often helpful for wedding use (think Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Ave Maria, or even [shudder!] the Wedding March. More often than not, it's not a terribly satisfying treatment of the piece (think Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel), but it's written because somebody [the Bride's Mother] really likes the music.

But all transcribed works for organ are not banal. In fact, Bach arranged some of his own music for solo organ. That wonderful Advent piece, Wachet Auf/Sleepers, Wake, is a transcription of the tenor aria from Cantata 140. And this morning's prelude is another transcribed setting of another movement of another cantata, Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, BWV 137, movement 2 (alto solo). (You know LOBE DEN HERREN as the tune we use for our opening hymn this morning,) What is curious is that Bach renames the chorale to make it suitable for Advent: Are you coming , Jesus from heaven down to earth ? Why? I don't know. When I am playing it this morning, I am thinking of Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.

The melody is played in the pedal on a 4' trumpet stop, so it sounds higher than that of the left hand (which is thus the true bass of the piece).  The melody only appears in isolated pockets of the prelude, each time rising up out of the flowing right hand's obbligato melody, itself built of such beautiful music that it continues for a full twelve measures after the cantus firmus has had its final say, finally winding down only at the final, rich cadence.

 Here is what the melody looks like, compared with the hymn-tune on top. (And remember, I am playing this with my feet!)

Edwin Arthur Kraft

The communion voluntary is another transcription of the Sinfonia (the opening movement) of Cantata 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is best). However, Bach did not make this arrangement. It was arranged from the original orchestration (two flutes, two violins, and continuo) by Edwin Arthur Kraft, an American organist and choir-director who was best known for being organist choirmaster at the Episcopal cathedral in Cleveland, and head of the Organ Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He finally retired from his position at the cathedral in 1959, after service continually (except for one year) since 1907.

In this work, marked Molto adagio,  you hear the obbligato alto recorders in the right hand, mournfully echo each other over a sonorous background of viola da gambas and continuo, played by the left hand and pedals.

The offertory solo is the beautiful aria from the second part of Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah. This solo precedes the Old Testament passage this morning, (and sometimes includes it.)
It is enough! O Lord, now take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers! I desire to live no longer: now let me die, for my days are but vanity. I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, for the children of Israel have broken Thy covenant, and thrown down Thine altars, and slain all Thy prophets, slain them with the sword. And I, even I only am left: and they seek my life to take it away! It is enough! O Lord, now take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers! Now let me die, Lord, take away my life!