Music for June 24, 2018

Instrumental Music

• Voluntary IX in G Major - John Stanley (1712-1786)
• Sent forth by God’s Blessing – Mark Knickelbein (21st C.)
• O God and Lord, BWV 714 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• If Thou but suffer God to Guide Thee, BWV 642 – Johann Sebastian Bach

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 R194 - Jesus, what a friend for sinners (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 608 - Eternal Father, strong to save (MELITA)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together  (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 561- Stand up, stand up for Jesus (MORNING LIGHT)
• Psalm 107:1-3, 23-26, 27-31 - Confitemini Domino

Mark Knickelbein

The offertory this week is a piano piece based on the English tune THE ASH GROVE, which has been used for the hymn Sent Forth By God's Blessing  (Renew 307). It was arranged by Mark Knickelbein, editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician, focusing on choral, piano, and organ church music. He has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN and Master of Arts in Music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously served Trinity Lutheran in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

John Stanley

John Stanley was a well known and popular organist in England during the 18th century. Organist at Temple Church for 52 years, where George Handel would often go just to hear Stanley play. Blind since age two, Stanley had a remarkable memory which helped him direct and accompany many of Handel's oratorios. If he had to play a new oratorio he would ask his sister-in-law to play it through just once – enough to commit it to memory. He also published much music for choir and keyboard.

It is from  Stanley's 1754 publication 10 Voluntaries, Op.7, we get our opening voluntary, Voluntary IX in G Major. Written for either organ or harpsichord, it starts with a slow, stately movement marked Largo Staccato, followed by a second movement marked Vivace (Lively). As one would expect from the Germans and their "prelude and fugue" form, this second movement is imitative, like a fugue, beginning with just the single musical line we can call the "subject."

Two chorale preludes by J. S. Bach are included in this Sunday's music. The communion voluntary is what one would call a relatively new work by Bach - meaning it was rediscovered at Yale University in the 1980s among 31 previously unknown early chorale settings by Bach. The second half of this chorale prelude is part of the Miscellaneous Choral Preludes collected by Ferdinand Roitzsch in the late 19th century; when it showed up in the Neumeister Collection in 1985, it served as an argument for the authenticity of both. The Neumeister version is preceded by a gorgeous French-style -stile-antico- prelude à 4.

This interesting prelude sets the hymn-tune in canon at the octave (between the soprano and tenor parts) with two motivic free parts; the central motive is scalar motion in four steps, the first four notes of the cantus firmus. The melody, whose first two lines are scales in opposite directions almost begs for canon, especially at the unison/octave, as Bach has set it.

The other Bach piece this week is from his popular collection, Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book"), a collection of 46 chorale preludes originally planned as a set of 164 chorale preludes spanning the whole liturgical year. The chorale preludes form the first of Bach's masterpieces for organ with a mature compositional style in marked contrast to chorales found in the Neumeister Collection mentioned above.

In Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten, the unadorned cantus firmus in 4/4 time is in the soprano voice. The two inner voices, often in thirds, are built on a motif made up of two short beats followed by a long beat—an anapaest—often used by Bach to signify joy. The pedal has a walking bass which also partly incorporates the joy motif in its responses to the inner voices. For Albert Schweitzer, the accompaniment symbolised "the joyful feeling of confidence in God's goodness."