Music for November 8, 2020 + The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• How Great Thou Art – Stuart K. Hine (1899-1989), Amy Bogan, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – Rudy Davenport (b. 1948)
• Festive Trumpet Tune – David German (b. 1954)

Amy Bogan sings a favorite of many in the congregation, "How Great Thou Art," by Stuart K. Hine. Hine was a British Methodist missionary on a mission trip in Ukraine in 1931 when he heard the Russian translation of a German song inspired by Carl Boberg's poem "O Store Gud" (O Great God). Hine began to translation the song to English and added several verses. The third verse was inspired by the conversion of villagers in Russia who cried out to God loudly as the repented and realized God's love and mercy - "And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in." 

Stuart K. Hine

Stuart Hine and his family left Ukraine as famine and World War Two began, and settled in Somerset, Britain where he continued to serve as a missionary to Polish refugees. The fourth verse of "How Great Thou Art" was inspired by displaced Russians who experienced great loss and looked forward to seeing their loved ones again in heaven - "When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation to take me home, what joy shall fill my heart."

The final English version of "How Great Thou Art" was published in 1949 and quickly spread among Britain, Africa, India and America. 

The opening voluntaries are all from a suite by American composer Gerald Near. Now living in Arizona, he is director of music and organist at St. Francis in the Valley Episcopal church in Green Valley, Arizona. He's been connected to Episcopal churches most of his career, including St. Matthew's Cathedral in Dallas. I think it's because of his understanding of Anglican music that I find his compositions very appealing. He's written much music based on chant, and traditional hymn-tunes of the church, but this Suite, written in 1965 when he was 27 years, has only one movement based on a hymn tune. 

It opens with a Chaconne. Originally a fiery and suggestive dance that appeared in Spain about 1600 in moderate triple meter, the chaconne became a popular compositional form of composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was a series of variations built on a short phrase in the bass. This form often is confused with the form Passacaglia, and honestly, there is little difference. Near uses a short, 2-bar motive as the repeated bass line (called a "ground bass") in the pedal while he employs the tonal resources of the organ to vary the accompanying music found in the manuals (keyboards). You will hear the same eight notes in the pedal 18 times (except for variation 14 which finds the motive, not in the pedal, but in the top line of the music.

In the middle movement, the American folk tune Land of rest is set as a sarabande. A sarabande is also a dance in triple meter that originated in Central America back in the sixteenth century. It became popular in the Spanish colonies before making its way to Europe. At first, it was regarded as being rather scandalous, even being banned in Spain for its obscenity. Baroque composers, such as Handel, adopted the sarabande as one of the movements for the suites they were writing at the time.

The Suite ends with a Final (We musicians pronounce it fee-nahl) in A-B-A form. The A section is a dialogue between the Full organ on the great with a less-full organ sound on the accompanying choir manual. In the B section, you will hear a jaunty melody played on the organ's trumpet stop, accompanied by flutes. Then the A section returns just like the beginning to bring the whole thing to a close.

LAND OF REST is the tune used for hymn 620 in our hymnal, Jerusalem, my happy home, which is appropriate for today's readings. (It is also used for the communion hymn I come with joy and a favorite setting of the Sanctus that we often sing in the summer.)

Another hymn that was appropriate for today is the hymn Let all mortal flesh keep silence. During communion, I will be playing a piano setting of that tune, PICARDY, arranged by the composer Rudy Davenport. I played another piece by him last month.