Music for Christmas 2017

December 24 + The Eve of the Nativity + Family Service at 4 PM

Vocal Music – Kristen Herztenberg Satterwhite, soloist

• Ave Maria – Bach/Gounod
• O Holy Night – Adolphe Adam

Instrumental Music

• Noel X - Grand Jeu Et Duo* - Louis-Claude Daquin
• Glory to the Newborn King, Music for Bells and Organ – arr. Anna Laura Page
• Fughetta on “Antioch” – Richard Shephard

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 83 - O Come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 99 - Go, tell it on the mountain (GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN)
• Hymn 115 - What child is this (GREENSLEEVES)
• Hymn 101 - Away in a manger (TUNE)
• Hymn 111 - Silent Night (STILLE NACHT)

December 24 + The Eve of the Nativity + Choral Eucharist 6:30 and 10 PM

Vocal Music

• The Holly and the Ivy - Richard Shephard
• Mass for the Nativity - Richard Shephard
• The Great God of Heaven- Richard Shephard
• I Wonder As I Wander - Richard Shephard
• Ave Maria – Luigi Cherubini, Allison Gosney, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Noel X - Grand Jeu Et Duo* - Louis-Claude Daquin
• Fughetta on “Antioch” – Richard Shephard

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

Hymn 83 - O Come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
Hymn 115 - What child is this (GREENSLEEVES)
Hymn 89 - It came upon a midnight clear (CAROL)
Hymn 100 - Joy to the world, the Lord is come (ANTIOCH)
Psalm 96 :1-4, 6-9  Cantate Domino  

December 25th + Christmas Day + Eucharist 10:00 AM

Instrumental Music

• In the Bleak Midwinter – Allen Orton Gibbs
• The First Noel – Jim Brickman
• Star Carol/Some Children See Him – Alfred Burt, arr. Mark Hayes
• Fughetta on “Antioch” – Richard Shephard

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 102 - Once in royal David’s city (IRBY)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! the herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world  (ANTIOCH)

Kristen Hertzenberg Satterwhite
soloist for 4 PM service

Soloist for the 4 PM service will be Kristen Hertzenberg Satterwhite, Kingwood native and daughter-in-law of our beloved Satterwhites. Best known for her role as Christine in the Las Vegas production of The Phantom of the Opera, Kristen Hertzenberg has proven her ability to sing anything in her concerts, performing music ranging from opera to Broadway to blues. In 2014, Nevada Public Radio-affiliated Desert Companion magazine named her Best Torch Singer in Las Vegas, describing her voice as "a dynamic instrument that goes from gritty blues to angelic peal at the drop of a Julie London record sleeve."

Raised in the Houston area, Hertzenberg studied at UT Austin and earned a master's degree in opera at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She also studied at the Austrian American Mozart Academy in Salzburg, Austria and was a first place winner in the National Opera Association competition. After touring Europe in the musical Hair, she moved to Las Vegas for Phantom where she spent five years in her dream role. She has also played Sophie in Terrence McNally's Master Class, Heidi in [title of show], and most recently starred as Dyanne in the Las Vegas production of the Tony award winning musical Million Dollar Quartet. Read more about her at her website, www.kristenhertzenberg.com.

Richard Shephard

Composer for most of the Choral music at the late services is Englishman Richard Shephard. Shephard (b. 1949) was educated at The King’s School, Gloucester and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He is Chamberlain of Yorkminster, head of their development department, and Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Music Department of the University of York. His compositions include operas, oratorios and orchestral works but it is perhaps for his church music that he is best known. His anthems and service settings are sung widely in the cathedrals and churches of the UK and they have a considerable following in the USA. He holds the Lambeth Doctorate of Music from Oxford University and two Honorary Doctorates from the University of the South (Sewanee, TN) and the University of York (York, UK).

The service music (Gloria, Sanctus, and Fraction anthem) are taken from his Mass for the Nativity. Sung in Latin, it has been used at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in York Minster, St. Thomas Church in New York City, and broadcast on BBC 4. This is a liturgical choral mass based on traditional carols (Bohemian, French, Basque, Spanish, German, English and Italian) for Choir and Organ.

The closing voluntary is his Fughetta on "Antioch" (Joy to the World). What the heck is a fughetta, you might be asking? I looked it up. Fughetta: a short fugue that has the same characteristics as a fugue. Often the contrapuntal writing is not strict, and the setting less formal. So there you have it! This is a mini-fugue for organ on "Joy to the World," though the very beginning sounds more like the German carol, While By My Sheep (How Great Our Joy!). Once the pedal comes in, though, there is no mistaking the familiar hymn.

* Bon Joseph, écoutez-moi (Good Joseph, Listen to Me)

Music for December 17, 2017 + The Third Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Rejoice in the Lord Alway – Anon. 16th C.

Instrumental Music

• Meine Seele erhebt den Herren, BWV 648 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Magnificat V (no. 14 from "Vêpres du commun des fêtes de la Sainte Vierge", op. 18)- Marcel Dupré (1886-1971).
• Fuga super: Meine Seele erhebet den Herrn (Magnificat), BWV 733 - J. S. Bach (J. L. Krebs?)

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

• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 59 - Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R128 - Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn R152 - I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Psalm 126 - In convertendo – Tone VIIIg

Mary's song of praise, called the Magnificat, is one of the traditional songs of Advent. It derives its
name from the first work of the Latin text

Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
My soul doth magnify the Lord.

The text of the canticle is taken directly from the Gospel of Luke (1:46–55) where it is spoken by Mary upon the occasion of her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. Found only in Luke's Gospel, is one of four hymns, distilled from a collection of early Jewish-Christian canticles, which complement the promise-fulfillment theme of Luke's infancy narrative. The other songs are Zechariah's Benedictus (1:67–79); the angels' Gloria in Excelsis Deo (2:13–14); and Simeon's Nunc dimittis (2:28–32).
(The presentation hymn this morning is a metrical setting of the Benedictus.)

Though we are not singing a setting of the Magnificat this morning, I am playing organ music based on the Canticle of Mary.

In Germany, Martin Luther translated the Latin text to German and gave us what is now called "The German Magnificat." Originally sung to the chant Tonus peregrinus, (Latin: ‘wandering tone’), the chant was soon "straightened out" into what we recognized today as a metrical hymn tune, or chorale. Bach used this chorale melody in his cantata Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, and today's opening voluntary is his organ transcription of the fifth movement of that work.

German Magnificat set to the Tonus Peregrinus

The Chorale tune used by Bach and Krebs.

In the fifth movement, "Er denket der Barmherzigkeit" (He remembers his mercy), the piece begins with a bass line of "emphatic downward semitone intervals" which Klaus Hofmann interprets as "sighs of divine mercy". [1] The melody is played by oboes and trumpet while accompanied by alto and tenor singing in imitation. The voices often sing in parallel thirds and sixths, which expressed mildness and compassion according to the Baroque idea that certain rhythmic and melodic motifs could express particular "affects."

The opening phrase of that hymn was also used as the subject (theme) of the Fugue I am playing for the closing voluntary. Once thought to be by Bach, prevailing scholarship suggests that the fugue is not actually by Bach, but by one of his students, Johann Ludwig Krebs. Discoveries of manuscripts from the time established the composer of the piece as Krebs.

While not up to the artistry usually displayed in the fugues of Bach, it is still an fine work.  Krebs presents the stately chorale theme in a somewhat dry fashion in the opening, but afterwards his subtle contrapuntal voicing enlivens the music, drawing in the listener. When he finally makes use of the pedal just past the midpoint of the work, the music suddenly takes on an epic air, a greater sense of religious grandeur. Throughout the piece, Krebs subtly employs a motif, as well as its inversion, which it derives from the work's countermelody, in the end demonstrating his mastery in development and contrapuntal writing.

This communion voluntary comes from a set of Assumption Day vesper improvisations that Marcel Dupré later committed to paper. He would play an improvisation on the Canticle between the singing of the verses. This slow, mysterious movement is based on the following verse:

- He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel; as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed foreve

[1] J.S. Bach - Cantatas, Vol.23 (BWV 10, 93, 178, 107) (CD). Åkersberga, Sweden: BIS. 2003. BIS-1331. Retrieved 31 May 2017. With English liner notes by Klaus Hofmann (p7)

Music for December 10, 2016 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• O Come, Emmanuel – Peter Paul Olejar (b. 1937)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Freu' dich sehr, O meine Seele - Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
• Impressions on “Veni Emmanuel" – Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)

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

• Hymn 67 - Comfort, comfort ye my people (PSALM 42)
• Hymn 53 - Once he came in blessing (GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN)
• Hymn 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (STUTTGART)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (BEREDEN VAG FOR HERRAN)
• Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 - Benedixisti, Domine

We're featuring two and a half settings of the best known Advent Hymn, O Come, O come, Emmanuel this Sunday. One is sung by the choir with Handbells, and another is played by the Handbells alone. The remaining half of an arrangement? You'll have to pay attention in church on Sunday to catch it.

The tune, VENI EMMANUEL, was originally music for a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional. A Church of England priest, Thomas Helmore, adapted this chant tune and published it in 1854. Helmore was ordained a priest but his main contribution to the church was in music. He was master of the choristers in the Chapel Royal for many years. The text for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" comes from a 7 verse poem that dates back to the 8th century, the “Great ‘O’ Antiphons,” which was part of the medieval Roman Catholic Advent liturgy. A metrical version of five of the verses appeared in the 13th century, which was translated into English by J.M. Neale in 1851.

Peter Paul Olejar

The offertory is an arrangement by Peter Paul Olejar, the Director of Music at St. Paul’s Christian Church, Raleigh NC. With degrees from Duke University (AB) and Yale University (Master of Music) and further graduate studies at the University of Toronto Electronic Music Laboratory, he has had a fascinating career combining teaching, composition, and church music with forays into musicals and dance bands. In addition to his musical activities, he was a Consulting Systems Engineer for the IBM Corporation.

He has written music for chamber orchestra, brass ensemble, string quartet, theater orchestra, symphony orchestra, large dance bands, chorus, children’s plays, children’s chorus, solo vocal music, carillon and organ. He has directed pit orchestras for musical shows and has written orchestrations for the same.

Cathy Moklebust

The communion voluntary is an ethereal setting of the VENI EMMANUEL chant by the American composer, Cathy Moklebust. She begins the work with random handbells ringing at their own pace  while the chant melody is played on handchimes. Then comes a stanza with the bells in 12/8 time. The piece ends with bells going into 4/4 time with the refrain, "Rejoice, rejoice, Emanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

Cathy Moklebust has developed and directed handbell music programs since 1983. Her handbell experience began in 1970 with the Towers Handbell Choir of First Lutheran Church in Brookings,  South Dakota, where she still lives with her husband.

Moklebust earned both her B.A. and M.Ed. in music at South Dakota State University and began her musical career as a public school instrumental music instructor in South Dakota. She is an active percussionist, and has performed as principal or section percussionist with several professional and community bands and orchestras throughout the upper Midwest. Cathy has played in, conducted, and coached church and community handbell ensembles in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Since 1989, she has worked in the music retail and publishing industry; currently she and her husband David operate Moklebust Music Services, a music preparation service.

She has been commissioned to write music for festivals and other events, as well as for many individual handbell ensembles. Her music has been broadcast on "Today," "Good Morning, America," public television, public radio, and SiriusXM satellite radio.

The opening and closing voluntaries, while titled something completely different, are from a set of variations on the opening hymn, which our hymnal calls Psalm 42. The only difference is the meter. Our hymnal has it in the original rhythmic setting of the Renaissance, while the organ setting uses the isometric version made popular during the Baroque period. Look at the rhythms of the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God in our hymnal to compare the difference. (688 is isometric, 687 is rhythmic.)