Music for January 26, 2020 + The Third Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Dear Lord and Father of Mankind – C.Hubert H.Parry (1848-1918)

Instrumental Music

• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, BWV 650 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)  
• Chorale Prelude on “Rockingham” – C. Hubert H. Parry
• Prelude in C Major, BWV 545 - Johann Sebastian Bach  

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

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERRN)
• Hymn 381 - Thy strong word did cleave the darkness (TONY-Y-BOTEL)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn 321 - My God, thy table now is spread (ROCKINGHAM)
• Hymn R102 - The Lord is my light (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm 27:1, 5-13 - Dominus illuminatio (simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachem)

Hubert Parry was on of the leading musicians in England during his day, credited with started a renaissance in English music. He is best remembered as the composer of "I Was Glad," the anthem composed for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. It has been used at every coronation since then.

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

But today we will hear a much quieter composition.

The hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind began life as the ballad of Meshullemeth (‘Long since in Egypt’s plenteous land’) in Act I of Judith, his Birmingham oratorio of 1888. It was only after Parry’s death in 1918 that permission was granted to allow George Gilbert Stocks, the head of music at Repton School, to adapt the music to the words of John Greenleaf Whittier for the school’s hymn book, at which time the melody became known as REPTON. The hymn was then taken up with enthusiasm by Songs of Praise (1931), the English Hymnal in 1933 and the revised version of Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1950. It was also published in 1941 as a hymn-anthem, with Whittier’s words, in an arrangement by H A Chambers (which we are singing this morning) in which much of the original music of the aria was restored.

In spite of his strong talent in music, he was encouraged by both his parents and his in-laws to work in insurance. He was as bad in business as he was good in music, so finally he was allowed to study music. Ultimately, he was knighted in 1898, and given the title "baronet" in 1900.

I will also be playing one of his smaller organ works, a prelude based on the tune Rockinham, which is used for the communion hymn  My God, thy table now is spread.

For the opening voluntary I'm playing an organ piece that Bach himself arranged from one of his vocal works. Bach wrote Cantata 137, Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König, in August 1725, basing the chorale cantata on the hymn Praise to the Lord, the almighty, which we will be singing as the opening hymn.

This cantata was based entirely on the words and the tune for Joachim Neander's German hymn. The second movement was for alto soloist, with a violin obbligato which  accompanies the embellished melody of the chorale. When Bach included this movement in his Schübler Chorales for organ, he used a text for Advent, "Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter auf Erden", to name the piece. Noted Bach scholar Hermann Keller suggested that, in programming this piece, organists might just as well used the better known title, which is what I'm doing today.