Music for March 1, 2020 + The First Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin – John Hilton (ca. 1599 – 1657), arr. Peter Crisafulli

Instrumental Music

• Forty Days and Forty Nights – Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)
• Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt, BWV 637– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott – Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809)

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

• The Great Litany
• Hymn 147 - Now let us all with one accord (BOURBON)
• Hymn 150 - Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH)
• Hymn R 112 - You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord (ON EAGLES WINGS)
• Hymn R 109 - You are my hiding place (Michael Ledner)
• Hymn 688 -  A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Psalm 32 – Tone II.a

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. We will sing the Great Litany, in procession, at the opening of the service, for nothing says "Oh God, I am miserable" like wandering around the church singing "We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord." (BESEECH? Oh my goodness, we are a sorry lot, aren't we?)

John Donne

John Hilton

The anthem is a setting of hymn 140 in our hymnal. It's not known to our congregation, so it makes a perfect anthem. It's text is from the poem A Hymn to God the Father by the English Renaissance writer John Donne. John Hilton, an English composer living around the same time as Donne, set the poem to this tune which has since become known simply as DONNE. It is, in my opinion, a perfect match of text and tune.

If you don't have a hymnal nearby, you can read the entire poem here. You can see that Donne was convicted of his sin.

The communion voluntary is a short setting of the German Chorale, Durch Adams Fall (Through Adam's Fall All Mankind Fell). It is from Bach's collection Die Orgelbuchlein. (Little Organ Book). I felt it was particularly appropriate for the first Sunday in Lent, where we hear the Old Testament Lesson: Genesis 2:15 - 3:21. It's all about the fall of man.

Russell Stinson, in his book Bach, The Orgelbuchlein, says this chorale is "a work of great profundity and originality, especially in terms of textual-musical relationships". The text, which is all about the fall of man, has a particularly obvious musical motif depicting that fall.  There is a descending-seventh motif that occurs continuously throughout the pedal line. Philipp Spitta, a German music historian best known for his 1873 biography of  Bach, was the first to suggest that this pedal motif must represent Adam's fall from grace, not only in its descending motion, but also in its regular use of the diminished seventh, which was usually associated with grief.

The closing voluntary is by Johann Christian Kittel, a German organist, composer, and teacher who was one of the last students of Johann Sebastian Bach. This is the first year in 23 that I have included a closing voluntary during Lent. I decided to continue playing these voluntaries, but using shorter, simpler, and quieter organ works that I usually choose. I hope you like it.