Music for June 16, 2019 + Trinity Sunday

Vocal Music

• Father of Heaven, Whose Love Profound – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

Instrumental Music

• All Glory Be To God on High - Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
• Adoration Antiphon (Holy, Holy) - Fred Bock (1939-1998)
• We All Believe in One True God - J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 362 - Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! (NICEA)
• Hymn S-236 - Canticle 13: Benedictus es, Domine – setting by John Rutter
• Hymn 686 – Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn 295 - Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn R37 - Father, we love you (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn R206 - Holy, holy (Jimmy Owens)
• Hymn 368 - Holy Father, great Creator (REGENT SQUARE)

I understand that clergy-types don't particularly care for preaching on Trinity Sunday. There's nothing innately inspiring about the doctrine of the Three-in-One. But as a musician, I love Trinity Sunday, because we have such good music from which to choose to honor this day. Holy, holy, holy has to be one of my favorite hymns to play, partially because people will sing it, and partially because, as a little boy growing up Methodist in a small town, we sang it every first Sunday of the month, when we would have Communion.  (It was the closest thing we had to a Sanctus!) I could sing it from memory.

The anthem is by Healey Willan, an English musician who immigrated to Canada early in the 20th century to teach at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. He was on faculty and staff there from 1913-1936, when he and the school parted ways. He had become organist at St. Mary Magdalene in 1921, and he remained there until his death in 1968.

Musically, he wrote in many different genres, including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano. He is best known today for his church music. Even in that he utilized disparate styles. For his choirs at St. Mary Magdalene he wrote music for the decidedly Anglo-Catholic congregation, with its more mystical approach. Willan's deep interest in plainsong and polyphonic, unaccompanied choral music is evident. But beginning in the 1950s he also began to write organ and choral music with a broader scope, using familiar hymn texts and tunes in his church music. The anthem today is an example of that. The text and tune are perhaps more familiar to Lutherans than Anglicans. The text is a prayer to the Trinity. Listen for this recurring phrase: Before thy throne we sinners bend....

There is also some good organ music based on the Trinity. One of my favorites is this sturdy chorale-prelude by Bach on the German chorale, Wir glauben all an einen Gott (We all believe in one God) The text is a paraphrase of the creed by Martin Luther, using a 15th century tune that Luther adapted for the text.  Bach use a fragment of the melody for the subject in his fughetta which I am playing as the closing voluntary.

I call it a fughetta because, unlike an actual fugue, the subject (melody) does not appear in the pedal. Instead, we find an ostinato passage which makes me feel like Sisyphus, for the pedal melody begins climbing up the pedalboard until it reaches an octave, then tumbles back down again, only to be repeated:

A contemporary of Bach's, Georg Philipp Telemann, wrote the opening voluntary, a two-part setting of the hymn we're singing as our hymn of praise, All Glory Be to God on High. It's a metrical setting of the Gloria which we sing every Sunday. In this organ piece, the melody is heard clearly in the upper voice, played by the right hand. The first verse is imitative, very much like a fugue, but with the melody played in half-notes above all accompaniment. The second setting returns to the usual rhythm of the hymn-tune while the left hand employs a playful dance-like motif.