Music for October 18, 2020 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

Laudate Dominum – W. A. Mozart (1756-1791), Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Philip E. Baker (b. 1934)
• I. A Trumpet Tune for Beginnings
• III. Aria
• Meditation on "Old Hundredth" - Rudy Davenport (b. 1948)
• Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

As we return to in-person worship we'll be doing some things a little differently, at least for the time being. Choirs will not be a part of worship as group singing is thought to be a quick way of spreading the Covid-19 virus. We won't be singing hymns at this time, either. 

But hymns have such a prominent place in our worship that we don't want to just ignore their value. Therefore we will be including lyrics to familiar hymns in the worship leaflet for the congregation to read and meditate on while an instrumental setting of the tune most often associated with that text is played. 

This Sunday I will be playing two settings of the familiar hymn-tune, OLD HUNDREDTH. One is a piano setting played between scripture readings by the contemporary composer Rudy Davenport. Davenport is a freelance composer, pianist and church musician residing in Austin, Texas. 

Born in 1948 in Hayesville, North Carolina, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Young Harris Junior College, Cardinal Stritch College and Florida State University, where he studied composition with Harold Shiffman and Dr. John Boda. 

He has a wide and varied religious background. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Sacred Heart School of Theology in Milwaukee, where he studied composition with the late John Downey, Composer-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He studied the music and writings of the Vaishnava devotional sect of Hinduism in India, and of Zen in a Zendo. While living in a Trappist Monastery, he learned about the Catholic mystical saints. 

His musical tastes are as diverse as his religious studies. Davenport has written music for and played in a rock band, worked with developmentally delayed children by using music therapy, taught piano, and for many years was the Director of Music at several large Catholic churches.

The other setting of the tune which we most often think of as "The Doxology," Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, is an organ setting by the South German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel. It presents the well-known tune in the pedal, while the hands play a fugal-like accompaniment.

We are fortunate this Sunday to hear Mozart's beautiful setting of Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum, sung by Christine Marku. From his large work, Vesperae solennes de confessore (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor), Laudate Dominum originally was a solo with choir (the choir singing the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalm.) Since we have no choir, we will omit the Gloria.

Christine is the choral director at Riverwood Middle School.

The opening voluntary is by Philip Baker, organist and composer who was director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas for many years, including those I spent at Southern Methodist University working on my masters. His Suite for Organ was published just before I moved to Dallas, and it includes one of the loveliest melodies of all time, and one of my personal favorite organ pieces to play, Aria. 

Since retiring from active music making, he and his wife Tissa have moved to Houston, where (before Covid) I got to see him at various concerts around town.