Music for January 10, 2019 + The Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ

Vocal Music

• Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day – John Gardner

Instrumental Music

• Erhalt Uns, Herr – Gerald Near
• Schműcke dich – Gerald Near
• Salzburg – Gerald Near

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s bank, the baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn 636 - How firm a foundation (FOUNDATION)
• Hymn 295 - Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn 132 - When Christ’s appearing was made known (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 510 - Come, holy Spirit, heavenly dove (ST. AGNES)
• Hymn 339 - Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness (SCHMŰCKE DICH)
• Hymn 135 - Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)
• Psalm 29 -  simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome W. Meachen

This is the Baptism of Christ window here at Good Shepherd. It reminds us that this Sunday is the commemoration of Christ’s baptism. For that reason, I have chosen a setting of the old English carol, Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, for the last stanza:

Then afterwards baptized I was;
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father’s voice heard I from above,
To call my true love to my dance.

The text is not set to the original, lilting carol tune, but is in a contemporary 20th century setting by John Gardner, an English musician who once tried to teach Paul McCartney the rudiments of music. In 1966 Gardner was asked by a mutual friend to help the Beatle with his composition, but the experience was not a great success. He discovered that McCartney “didn’t, in a sense, know anything [about composition]”, though he had somehow worked out for himself, by sheer musical instinct, compositional techniques which tested even classically-trained musicians. Gardner told him that he felt it would be better if they stopped the lessons so that McCartney  did not lose his creative spark.

Gardner had written today’s anthem one year prior for his students at St Paul’s Girls’ School . While his arrangement is beautifully melodic, it also throws in some mischief for the singers with its ever-changing time signature. One former student recalled how she and her colleagues sang it “obsessively in the locker rooms”. Even as Gardner experimented with modern music for the Church, he was despairing at the way many of his contemporaries were “lowering the brow”, adding: “It is probable that many of the attempts to bring the atmosphere of the Espresso bar to the chancel are as hypocritical as they are misguided.”

The organ music for this Sunday comes from the pen of Gerald Near, and are all settings of tunes which we will sing during the 10:15 service.