Music for September 8, 2019

Vocal Music

• Teach Me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)

Instrumental Music

• Prélude, Opus 15, no. 5 – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• From God Shall Naught Divide Me, BuxWV 220 – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Tuba Tune in D Major, Op. 15 – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

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

• Hymn 400 - All creatures of our God and king (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but suffer God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ISSAM)
• Hymn R 206 - Holy, holy (HOLY HOLY)
• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible (ST. DENIO)
• Psalm 1 – Tone VIb

Thomas Attwood (unknown painter)

Two weeks ago the Good Shepherd Choir sang an anthem by Mozart, and the week before we featured music by Mendelssohn. Today we sing an anthem by an English composer who bridged the two, Thomas Attwood. Attwood was organist at St. Paul's Cathedral in London from 1796 until his death. He began his musical career as a chorister in the Chapel Royal. The Prince of Wales, later George IV, sent him to Italy to study music when Attwood was 18, and then on to Vienna, where he became a student and friend to Mozart. Mozart told a friend, "I have the sincerest affection for Attwood, and i feel much pleasure in telling you that he has imbibed more of my style than any other scholar I have ever had." (1) Today's anthem, Teach Me, O Lord, dates from 1797, and exhibits much of Mozart's style. It has many of the same melodic and harmonic characteristics of Ave Verum, Mozart's miniature masterpiece.

Later in his life, Attwood became a close friend to the young composer Mendelssohn. During Mendelssohn's first trip to London, he suffered a knee injury in an accident, and spent the latter part of his recuperation in Attwood's home at Beulah Hill in Norwood. Following a second stay at  Norwood in 1832, Mendelssohn dedicated his Three Preludes and Fugues for the Organ (Op. 37) to Attwood.

(1) Wienand, Elwyn A. and Young, Robert H., The Anthem in England and America, The Free Press, 1970, p. 248