Music for Sunday, March 29, 2020 + The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Pie Jesu – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Praeludium in C, BWV 846 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Erhalt Uns, Herr, Hymn 143, The Glory of These Forty Days – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

My life as a church musician has changed drastically in the past month. Normally at this time I would be concerned with what hymns I would choose to be used in worship during these Sundays in Lent. I would be preparing organ and piano pieces suitable for Lenten and Easter worship. I would be rehearsing the choirs which would sing “Kyrie,” “Hosannas,” and “Alleluias.”

But this year is different. Our focus is not on the cross, but on the crown (Corona) virus. And my thoughts are not just on what would strengthen the reading of God’s word in worship, but what will also bring comfort and peace to the hearts and minds of those worshipping with us, maybe not IN church, but still AS church.

My opening voluntary for this Sunday was to be J. S. Bach’s miniature masterpiece based on the chorale, “O Man, Bewail thy Grievous Fall.” On reflection, that title didn’t sound too pastoral, and, quite frankly, the organ setting was almost too melancholy for my own personal needs. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is one of the most beautiful of the yearning, aching melodies that Bach ever wrote, but right now I need hope.

The Praeludium in C in Bach's
own handwriting.

So, I chose the simple Praeludium in C from his collection, The Well-Tempered Clavier, instead.  (Clavier means Keyboard.) But before I tell you why, let me explain the reason for this work.

You see, in Bach’s time, keyboards were tuned in a purer sense, so that some keys (such as D, G, or A Major) would sound bright and clear, with a perfect tuning, but keys such as D-flat or A-flat would sound out of tune. It was during Bach’s lifetime that people began regularly using a method of tuning wherein the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard were tuned in such a way that it was possible to play music in all major or minor keys that were commonly in use, and it would not sound perceptibly out of tune. Bach then wrote Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, a book of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, composed "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study". The collection is generally regarded as being among the most important works in the history of classical music.

This Prelude in C was probably the first real piece by Bach that I ever learned. It is a seemingly simple progression of arpeggiated chords, wandering from the home key of C Major through various chords and tonalities, as if Bach was using it to test the tuning. I have always liked the way that the pattern of the broken chord stays the same, even when meandering through a ever-changing harmonic progression. It brings peace and joy to me, even when I listen to my piano students struggle through it at Lone Star College. (And I make every one of them learn it. They never complain.)

This Sunday you will also hear Christine Marku sing one of the movements from the Requiem by Gabriel Faure. Fauré’s Requiem is noted for its calm, serene and peaceful outlook. Anyone looking for morose themes of death is searching in the wrong place. Instead, here we find musical solace in a work that focuses not on the morbid, but on the supposedly restful and fear-free nature of death.

Pie Jesu (pronounced Pea-eh Yeh-soo) is the shortest and simplest section from the Requiem, but one that I hope will bring peace to all who hear it. Though written as part of a funeral mass, I think the words can bring comfort to the living, even as we navigate these uncertain and troublous times.

The original text, derived from the "Dies irae" sequence, is as follows:

Pie Jesu Domine, Pious Lord Jesus,
Dona eis requiem. (×2) Give them rest.
Pie Jesu Domine, Pious Lord Jesus,
Dona eis requiem sempiternam. Give them everlasting rest.