Music for August 20, 2017 + The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• This Is My Father’s World – arr. Richard Walters (21st C.)
• Jade Panares, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Berceuse – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• From God shall nought divide me  - Von Gott will ich nicht lassen,  BWV 658 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Carillon de Longpont – Louis Vierne

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

• Hymn 380 - From all that dwell below the skies (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn 470 - There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (BEECHER)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works (LYONS)
• Hymn R249 - Great is thy Faithfulness (FAITHFULNESS)
• Hymn R173 - O Lord, hear my prayer (Taizé)
• Hymn 371 - Thou, whose almighty word (MOSCOW)
• Psalm 67 - Tone VIIIa

Last weekend at the Old Fashioned Hymn Sing, one of the requests was the hymn "This Is My Father's World," sung to the tune TERRA BEATA that is used in most hymnals. (For some reason the editors of The Hymnal 1982 chose a new tune which only appears in one other hymnal, making it fairly unattractive to ecumenical singing.) TERRA BEATA was originally a traditional English folk tune, a variant of which, entitled RUSPER, appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906.  In 1915, Franklin L. Sheppard arranged the tune for Maltbie D. Babcock's poem and published it in the Presbyterian church school hymnal Alleluia, edited by Sheppard (Babcock and Sheppard were friends). Since that time the text and tune has been published in 89 hymnals (except ours.)

Jade Panares, our soprano section leader, will be singing a setting of this hymn this weekend. Jade will be beginning her third year at the University of Houston, majoring in voice. In this arrangement, the simple melody has been left pretty much intact, with a lilting, syncopated piano accompaniment that the arranger describes as 'light rock.' (VERY light, in my opinion.) We chose to sing this hymn this week in light of the events of the past week here in the States. We refer to the last stanza (which also is NOT in The Hymnal 1982.)

This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad! 

The opening and closing voluntaries are from a collection of organ music 24 Pièces en style libre, Opus 31, Volume II, by Louis Vierne. The opening voluntary is No 19, Berceuse. A berceuse is a lullaby or cradle song.  It's dedicated to "à ma fille Colette" (to my daughter, Colette). But when it was published, Vierne had divorced from his wife who had quickly, while still married, fallen in love with Charles Mutin.. After seeing this dedication, Vierne's former wife wrote him: "A ta fille ? Elle n'est même pas de toi !" (to your daughter? But it's not YOUR daughter!"). How cruel, but still more cruel when one reads the dedication of  Vierne's 2nd symphony "A mon ami Charles Mutin" (To my friend Charles Mutin), written just after the Viernes were first married!

The closing voluntary is No 21, Carillon. It is based on the carillon of the Chapel of the Castle of Longpont, in Northern France.  Vierne was the organist at Notre-Dame in Paris, and good friends with the Montesquiou family, who would often invite him to spend August at the Castle. On August 15, 1913, he first heard the four bell chime (not really a carillon) play the now-famous air, and he was inspired to write this piece. Later he published it, dedicating it to the memory of his brother, René, who had been killed on May 29, 1918, by Austrian shrapnel, on the Plateau Branscourt (Marne), not far from Longpont.

It opens with full organ, the Carillon theme entering in an energetic ostinato in the pedals, above which powerful, detached chords appear. In the middle the volume drops and the carillon theme continues on the manuals. Striking features are the modulations, the highly effective staccato articulations, and the dynamic effects created by the swell box. A gradual crescendo leads into the reprise of the opening, ending with a coda.

The Communion voluntary is Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, a chorale prelude from the Great Eighteen Choräle Preludes, which J. S. Bach published in the last 10 years of his life, using earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The works form an encyclopedic collection of large-scale chorale preludes, in a variety of styles harking back to the previous century, that Bach gradually perfected during his career. 

No. 7, From God shall nought divide me, is an example of the cantus firmus chorale: The melody of the chorale is sounded in long notes throughout the piece, in the pedal in this case. The ornate three-part keyboard accompaniment is derived from the opening notes of the hymn and a separate "joy motif" that permeates the piece, exquisitely "winding above and around [the chorale melody] like a luxurious garland of amaranth." [1]  Only four lines of the melody are heard in the pedal, the chorale prelude closing with a seemingly timeless bell-like coda over a pedal point, perhaps illustrating the final lines of the hymn, "after death we will be buried deep in the earth; when we have slept, we will be awoken by God." It is also interesting to note that in this "bell" coda, the note C sharp is heard 7 times consecutively, within a fourth voice, outside of the three accompaniment voices. This would seem to be indicative of the German funeral bell.

[1] Stinson, Russell (2001), J.S. Bach's Great Eighteen Organ Chorales, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-516556-X, p. 85