Music for January 21, 2018 + The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• They Cast Their Nets in Galilee – Michael McCabe (b. 1941)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Mit Freuden Zart” – T. Frederick H. Candlyn (1892-1964)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Grand Chœur – François-Clément Théodore Dubois (1837 - 1924)

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

• Hymn 408 - Sing praise to God who reigns above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Hymn 470 - There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (BEECHER)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works (LYONS)
• Hymn R147 - Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling (THOMPSON)
• Hymn 660 - O Master, let me walk with thee (MARYTON)
• Hymn 550 - Jesus calls us: o’er the tumult (GALILEE)
• Psalm 62:6-14 - setting by Thom Pavlechko

Vocation de Saint Jacques et de Saint Jean
Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836 – 1902)
Brooklyn Museum Collection

This Sunday we hear the Gospel story of the calling of the disciples. There are two hymns in our hymnal that speak directly this story, and we will sing (or hear) both of them. The best known is the hymn Jesus calls us: o'er the tumult. In the 1982 Hymnal, the editors decided to do away with the familiar tune GALILEE in favor of two other tunes which honestly have no history of being associated with the text. The first year I was here at Good Shepherd I dutifully chose the tune which I thought the congregation would have the best chance of singing. After the service I was castigated by congregation members who said

(cas·ti·gate [ˈkastəˌɡāt] verb formal: reprimand (someone) severely) 

 the real tune was the one in the 1940 Hymnal (and every other hymnal in the United States.) Henceforth I have always paired this text with the tune GALILEE. (So don't try to read the music out of the hymnal - I'll be playing another tune.)


The other hymn is one that is somewhat peculiar to the Episcopalians. “They cast their nets in Galilee” comes from the last four stanzas of a poem written in 1924 by attorney and poet William Alexander Percy (1885-1942), a native of Greenville, Mississippi, and a graduate of Sewanee. 

The words are simple in themselves, calling to mind “happy, simple fisherfolk” who leave their peaceful lifestyle for the Peace of God. As they soon learned, there is a cost of discipleship.

These verses entered the Hymnal 1940 with the tune composed by David McK. Williams, general music editor of that hymnal. He named the tune GEORGETOWN out of friendship for F. Bland Tucker, who was then rector of St. John's Church, Georgetown Parish, in Washington, D.C.

Michael McCabe

This hymn has been arranged by Michael McCabe, an organist and composer who had a 20 year military career. His various assignments provided McCabe with unique learning opportunities, such as study with such notable musicians as Leo Sowerby, Thomas Matthews, Dale Wood, and the composer of this hymn, David McK. Williams. He has served numerous church, including Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. As a published composer, McCabe was elected to ASCAP in 1972, and ASCAP credits include NBC Television, foreign and domestic recording, the Stockholm and Stuttgart Music Festivals.

This is a pretty straight-forward arrangement of the tune, with the choir singing in unison (or in canon) most of the time. On stanza three, McCabe comes up with a new melody which on the surface looks like the original, but is in an entirely new mode and tonality. Please pray that the tenors and basses (who sing this stanza) remembers the difference. We did not have choir rehearsal this week due to ice and general indifference.

T. Frederick H. Candlyn

The opening voluntary is a setting of our opening hymn. This is a piece I have had in my library since I was in high school. When I began playing the organ at age 15, I also began exploring the hymnal, learning many hymn-tunes that were new to me. One of those was Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above (MIT FREUDEN ZART). I have never heard a hymn that I thought was so grand, and it pained me that my small congregation in Tennessee did not know it. So I scoured a music catalogue (this was before the internet) and ordered this arrangement sight-unseen. I did not know the name of Thomas Frederick Handel Candlyn, nor the church from which he retired, St. Thomas Episcopal in Manhattan, but I loved the improvisatory style in which he wrote, and have loved playing it this 40+ years.  I hope the congregation gets something out of it, too.