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.)