Vocal Music
- I Give to You a New Commandment – Peter Nardone (b. 1965)
- Onse Vader in hemelrijck – Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)
- Ayre in F – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1757)
- Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise – arr. Michael Burkhardt (b. 1957)
- Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible, God only wise (ST. DENIO)
- Hymn R122 - Surely it is God who saves me (FIRST SONG OF ISAIAH)
- Hymn 707 - Take my life and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
- Hymn R145 - Lord, I want to be a Christian (I WANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN)
- Hymn R172 - In our lives, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
- Hymn 556 - Rejoice, ye pure in heart (MARIAN)
- Psalm 15 - paraphrase by Christopher Webber, 1986 (ST. ANNE)
The choir sings a lyrical anthem by the Scottish composer Peter Nardone. He sets a text from John 13:34-35 (I give to you a new commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you) to a lovely melody, which is sung by the treble voices. He then combines that melody with the Latin chant Ubi caritas, sung by the gentlemen of the choir.
From the 14th century on, The Netherlands were known for their organs, and organ builders from the Lowlands influenced organs built all across Europe. I find it strange, then, that Dutch organ playing failed to keep up with the innovative organs being built in the 15th and 16th century. Most local organists played transcriptions of vocal literature. When a few prominent English organists moved to the Lowlands as religious exiles, the Dutch were exposed to what the keyboards were capable of. In Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Netherlandish organ music found its first significant organist of native birth. He was able to combine the polyphonic heritage of Netherlandish choral composers with foreign keyboard traditions.
The two variations of the German chorale Vater Unser in Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven), with which I open today's service, are examples of that. In the first, we hear a basic four-part setting, with the melody in longer, sustained notes on top. This is very much like a choral work of the period, though with more 16th note passages in the lower voices. (You can follow this melody by looking in our hymnal at hymn 575). The second variation changes key, and has the melody, or the cantus firmus, in the alto line. The organ of Sweelinck's time, as innovative as it was, still did not have much of a pedal division, and was used mainly to solo out the melody. Though this variation is not written specifically with that in mind, I will be playing the alto melody on the pedal reed, so you will hear it prominently featured in this arrangement.
There are several different variations on this chorale that are attributed to Sweelinck, and most of them are spurious compositions, with their authenticity in question. The volume in which these two variations are published feels as though these two, at least, are authentic. So I feel validated. (Smug grin.)
The communion voluntary is a transcription of an instrumental work by Georg Phillipe Telemann. Telemann was another Lutheran organist, living and working in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century. But for a composer to have written over 3000 works in his lifetime, he is relatively unknown today.
Telemann became a composer in spite of his mother’s firm disapproval. She wanted him to become a priest, and when she discovered that young Telemann had been secretly
learning the violin, she confiscated the instrument, lest it inspire her son to trade in his ecclesiastical aspirations for some kind of low-class, show-biz job like "a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot trainer."
A marmot trainer, no less.
But, she need not have worried. By his early 20s, Telemann's music had already established the composer as one of the most distinguished individuals in the city of Leipzig. Throughout the decades that followed, he was perhaps the greatest musical celebrity of his time. In his early 40s, he even turned down the most prestigious church music gig in Leipzig, which eventually went to the city council's third choice: Johann Sebastian Bach.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor. Exsultemus et in ipso jucundemur. Timeamus et amemus Deum vivum. Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.Peter Thomas Nardone is a Scottish countertenor, organist, choirmaster, and composer. He has sung with the Monteverdi Choir, the King's Consort, and the Tallis Scholars. He has been Director at Chelmsford Cathedral and is currently Organist and Director of Music at Worcester Cathedral, and Artistic Director of Three Choirs Festival.
[Where charity is true, God is there. The love of Christ has gathered us into one. Let us rejoice and be glad in him. Let us fear and love the living God. And from a sincere heart let us love one another.]
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| Peter Nardone, conducting the Three Choirs Festival |
The two variations of the German chorale Vater Unser in Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven), with which I open today's service, are examples of that. In the first, we hear a basic four-part setting, with the melody in longer, sustained notes on top. This is very much like a choral work of the period, though with more 16th note passages in the lower voices. (You can follow this melody by looking in our hymnal at hymn 575). The second variation changes key, and has the melody, or the cantus firmus, in the alto line. The organ of Sweelinck's time, as innovative as it was, still did not have much of a pedal division, and was used mainly to solo out the melody. Though this variation is not written specifically with that in mind, I will be playing the alto melody on the pedal reed, so you will hear it prominently featured in this arrangement.
There are several different variations on this chorale that are attributed to Sweelinck, and most of them are spurious compositions, with their authenticity in question. The volume in which these two variations are published feels as though these two, at least, are authentic. So I feel validated. (Smug grin.)
The communion voluntary is a transcription of an instrumental work by Georg Phillipe Telemann. Telemann was another Lutheran organist, living and working in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century. But for a composer to have written over 3000 works in his lifetime, he is relatively unknown today.
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| a marmot. (Not Telemann) |
learning the violin, she confiscated the instrument, lest it inspire her son to trade in his ecclesiastical aspirations for some kind of low-class, show-biz job like "a clown, a tightrope walker or a marmot trainer."
A marmot trainer, no less.
But, she need not have worried. By his early 20s, Telemann's music had already established the composer as one of the most distinguished individuals in the city of Leipzig. Throughout the decades that followed, he was perhaps the greatest musical celebrity of his time. In his early 40s, he even turned down the most prestigious church music gig in Leipzig, which eventually went to the city council's third choice: Johann Sebastian Bach.
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