Music for February 3, 2019 + The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• The Greatest Is Love – Allen Pote (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Vater Unser (Our Father in Heaven) – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Praise the Name of Jesus – arr. Fred Bock (1939-1958)
• Wir Christenleut (We Christians Folk) – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 379 - God is Love, let heavens adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Hymn R7 - Praise the name of Jesus (HICKS)
• Hymn R218 - Broken for me (BROKEN FOR ME)
• Hymn R223 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm71:1-6 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachen

Allen Pote

The choir sings an anthem based on today's Epistle lesson by the American composer Allen Pote. Pote is known nationally as a composer of sacred music as well as a clinician for festivals and workshops. Since 1975 his published choral works, which include twelve musicals for youth and children, have been widely performed.

For twenty two years he was Director of Music in churches in Texas and Florida, including a tenure at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church here in Houston. He is currently a full time composer living in Pensacola, Florida.

A contemporary of Potes was Fred Bock, a composer, church musician, and publisher who served as Minister of Music at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles for 14 years, then at Hollywood Presbyterian Church for 18 years. Bock was born in Great Neck, New York, playing the piano at age six and organ at age twelve. He attended Ithaca College, receiving his B.A. in Music Education. He earned his Masters and did Doctoral work in Church Music at the University of Southern California.

Back when he was just a college student, he self-published his first piece, an arrangement for band. From that simple beginning he formed several music publishing companies, including Gentry Publications, publishers of music for school and concert use and Fred Bock Music Company, publishers of church music. There are now over 600 compositions and arrangements of his in print. This includes his piano arrangement of today's presentation hymn, the contemporary chorus by Fred Hicks titled Praise the Name of Jesus, which I'm playing for the communion voluntary.

Serving as bookends for the service are two works from J. S. Bach's little organ book, Orgelbüchlein.  (I can be redundant in two languages!) The Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book") is a collection of 46 chorale preludes for organ written by Johann Sebastian Bach which serve a four-fold purpose: it is a collection of organ music for church services, a treatise on composition, a religious statement, and an organ-playing manual.

The prelude is a setting of the  Lutheran version of the Lord's Prayer, Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven). After the text and melody were written in 1539, many composers use the hymn in choral and organ compositions. including Dieterich Buxtehude and Georg Böhm. Bach himself used the chorale in four choral works and at least two other organ settings.

Albert Schweitzer won
the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1952. In addition to
being a Doctor, Missionary,
and Philosopher, he was
also an organist and noted
Bach scholar, giving
numerous organ concerts
in Europe to finance his
hospital in Africa.

In this setting the melody is in the soprano voice. The accompaniment in the inner parts and pedal is based on a four-note sixteenth note sighing motif preceded by a rest or "breath") and a longer eight-note version; both are derived from the first phrase of the melody. The two forms of the motif and their inversions pass from one lower voice to another, producing a continuous stream of sixteenth notes; semiquavers (sixteenths) in one voice are accompanied by eighth notes in the other two. The combined effect is of the harmonisation of a chorale by arpeggiated chords. Albert Schweitzer  described the accompanying motifs as representing "peace of mind"(quiétude).

The closing voluntary,  Wir Christenleut, is the last of the Christmas Chorales in the book. The text

We Christians may
Rejoice to-day,
When Christ was born to comfort and to save us;
Who thus believes
No longer grieves,
For none are lost who grasp the hope He gave us.

is not particularly picturesque (i.e., no shepherds, angels, or wise men were involved in this hymn), so I don't feel too out-of-sync by playing it in the season of Epiphany.

This prelude is written for single manual and pedal in four voices. Like today's opening voluntary, the unadorned melody is in the top voice. The accompaniment—striding eighth notes in the pedal (like an ostinato bass) and dance-like sixteenth notes in the inner parts—are formed from two short motifs. Both accompanying motifs serve to propel the chorale prelude forwards, the resolute striding bass having been seen by Albert Schweitzer as representing firmness in faith, a reference to the last two lines of the first verse "who thus believes no longer grieves, for none are lost who grasp the hope He gave us."