December 8, 2019 + Advent II

Vocal Music

• A Shoot Shall Come Forth – Richard Horn (1938-2004)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People – Georg Böhm (1661 – 1733)

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

• Hymn 616 - Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (Es flog ein kleines Walvögelein)
• Hymn 67  - Comfort, comfort ye, my people (Psalm 42)
• Hymn R 92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (Bryn Calfaria)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (Land of Rest)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (Bereden vag for Herran)
• Psalm 72:1-8 – Tone Ig

By now, church musicians, like many other American consumers, are experiencing the "Christmas Crush (or, as we'd rather call it, "Advent Angst.") As of this writing, I have yet to complete the first full week of December, but already I'm worn out. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these music notes this week.

Except to say - all the organ music (the opening, closing, and communion voluntaries) is from one large set of variations on the tune we use for Hymn 67 - our Gospel hymn this week. I'll be using four segments of the partita during the service.

Our hymnal calls the tune Psalm 42, because this form of the tune, with its highly rhythmic, dance-like meter, was first used with a French version of Psalm 42. It first appeared in 1551 toward the end of the Renaissance, in a Psalter edited by Louis Bourgeois. It was he who probably wrote this tune.

In the German Lutheran tradition, those sprightly rhythms were toned down to a staid quarter-note melody in 4/4 time. (One of my church-musician friends calls it "death by quarter-note.") It is the Lutheran version that Georg Böhm used as the theme for his partita.

Georg Böhm  was a German Baroque organist and composer who is best known today for his keyboard works, particularly the chorale partita. A partita is a large-scale composition consisting of several variations on a particular chorale melody. He effectively invented the genre, writing several partitas of varying lengths and on diverse tunes.  Böhm's chorale partitas feature sophisticated figuration in several voices over the harmonic structure of the chorale. His partitas generally have a rustic character and can be successfully performed on either the organ or the harpsichord. Later composers also took up the genre, most notably Johann Sebastian Bach, who was influenced by Böhm  as a young musician.

Bach's son,  Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, wrote that his father loved and studied Böhm's music, and a correction in his note shows that his first thought was to say that Böhm was Johann Sebastian's teacher. In 2006,  the earliest known Bach autographs were discovered, including one signed "Il Fine â Dom. Georg: Böhme descriptum ao. 1700 Lunaburgi". The "Dom." bit may suggest either "domus" (house) or "Dominus" (master), but in any case it proves that Bach knew Böhm personally. This connection must have become a close friendship that lasted for many years, for in 1727 Bach named none other than Böhm as his northern agent for the sale of keyboard partitas nos. 2 and 3