Music for November 28, 2021 + The First Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Never Weather-beaten Sail – Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

Instrumental Music

• Sleepers, Wake! A Voice is Crying – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
• Sleepers, Wake! A Voice is Crying – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Sleepers, Wake! A Voice is Crying – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 73 - The King shall come when morning dawns (ST. STEPHEN)
• Hymn 57 - Lo! He comes, with clouds descending (HELMSLEY)
• Hymn 436 - Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (TRURO)
• Psalm25:1-9 – Tone VIIIa

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent, and the theme of the Day can be discovered by reading the collect for the day:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP p. 159)

Thomas Campion

With that in mind, I have chosen the anthem a song by the English Renaissance composer, poet, and physician Thomas Campion. While other poets and musicians talked about the union of poetry and music, only Campion produced complete songs wholly of his own composition, and only he wrote lyric poetry of enduring literary value whose very construction is deeply etched with the poet’s care for its ultimate fusion with music.

The song "Never Weather-beaten Sail," from his first Booke of Ayres, is a prayer that Jesus come and take the poet away to heaven, for no tired pilgrim nor worn out boat is as ready to leave this mortal coil as is the author. The second stanza describes the joys of heaven, the "life immortal."

    Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
    Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
    Than my wearied sprite* now longs to fly out of my troubled breast.
    O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!

    Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
    Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
    Glory there the sun outshines; whose beams the blessed only see.
    O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!
      
    *sprite = spirit

All the organ music is based on the Advent Chorale, Wachet Auf! Ruft uns die stimme! Two of the works are by J.G. Walther and J.S Bach. Not only were they almost exact cotemporaries, they were also cousins. In 1707, Walther was made organist at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Weimar. Bach became the Capellemeister at the court of the Duke of Weimar. The two became friends, and on September 27, 1712 Bach stood godfather to Walther’s son. A story is told of how J.G. Walther played a trick on Bach, to cure him of boasting that there was nothing he could not read at sight. 

Music for Sunday, November 21, 2021 + Christ the King

Vocal Music

• With a Voice of Singing – Martin Shaw (1875–1958)

Instrumental Music

• Praeludium in A – Johann Krieger (1651-1735)
• The Peace May Be Exchanged – Dan Locklair (b. 1949)
• Praeludium from Suite in D Minor – Johann Krieger

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

• Hymn 494 Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn 645 The King of love my shepherd is (ST. COLUMBA)
• Hymn 488 Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn R227 Jesus, remember me (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 544 Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (DUKE STREET)

Music for Sunday, November 14, 2021 + The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

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

Instrumental Music

• Mensch, Willst Du Leben Seliglich – Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637 – 1707)
• Prelude on Michael – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• “Little” Prelude and Fugue in G Minor – attr. J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

Hymn 51- We the Lord’s People (DECATUR PLACE)
Hymn 686 - Come, thou font of every blessing (NETTLETON)
Hymn 301 - Bread of the world in mercy broken (RENDEZ À DIEU)
Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA)
Psalm 16 Tone II, refrain by James E. Barrett

The choir sings one of the beautiful hymn anthems arranged from the British composer Charles H. H. Parry. We are singing it this afternoon as part of the Diocese of Texas' Choral Festival, which I am directing. You can learn more about this anthem by reading this post from January 2020 when we last sang it.

Buxtehude

The opening voluntary is one of the lesser known chorale preludes of  Dietrich Buxtehude, but a very fine one. The melody and text of this hymn, Mensch, willst du leben seliglich, are probably from Martin Luther. The text is referring to the ten commandments. Buxtehude puts the beautiful melody in the center and creates a fine, lyrical piece from it. The English translation is roughly, "Man, do you want to live happily?" That just doesn't sound very poetic, so I left it in German.

The communion voluntary is an organ arrangement of Herbert Howell's hymn tune, MICHAEL. It was originally called 'A Hymn Tune for Charterhouse' but when Howells' son Michael died of polio at the age of nine in 1935, Howells re-named it after him. 

The text, "All My Hope on God is Founded" is an English translation, by the poet Robert Bridges, of a German hymn,  "Meine Hoffnung stehet feste" written around 1680 by Joachim Neander. Here is the text. It is a beautiful marriage of text and tune, and one that deserves to be better known.

1 All my hope on God is founded;
he doth still my trust renew,
me through change and chance he guideth,
only good and only true.
God unknown, he alone
calls my heart to be his own.

2 Mortal pride and earthly glory,
sword and crown betray our trust;
though with care and toil we build them,
tower and temple fall to dust.
But God's power, hour by hour,
is my temple and my tower.

And I am continuing my (almost) montly series of playing the so-called "8 Little Preludes and Fugues" by (supposedly) J. S. Bach. Though they are included in the Bach catalogue (BW 553-560), it is presumed today that Johann Sebastian Bach did not compose the "eight." Composition of the eight have been attributed to one or more of Bach's students, including both JohannTobias Krebs or his son Ludwig [Krebs], or Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer. 

Today you will hear the sixth installment, the Prelude and Fugue in G Minor. The conventional formulaic cadences and simple one-bar sequences over a basso continuo seem like a composer "consciously creating a series of samples". The subject of the fugue is composed of three separate motifs, all of which can be found in canzonas and ricercars. The 19th-century Bach scholar Philipp Spitta praised the fugue, particularly its modulations. Contemporary Bach scholar Peter Williams has suggested that "perhaps the imaginative penultimate bar was inspired by J. S. Bach"

Music for Sunday, November 7, 2021 + The Commemoration of All Saints Day

Vocal Music

• Requiem – Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Instrumental Music

• Elegy – George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987)
• O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go – arr. Hal H. Hopson (b. 1933)
• Allegro Vivo e Maestoso - Paul Benoit (1893-1979)

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

• Hymn 287 -  For all the saints, who from their labors rest (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn R-276 -  Soon and very soon (SOON AND VERY SOON)
• Hymn 293 -  I sing a song of the saints of God (GRAND ISLE)
• Hymn 618 -  Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Psalm 24 - Simplified Anglican chant by Jerome Meachem

This Sunday is All Saints Sunday - All Saints is actually November 1, of course, but we can transfer the day anytime after within the week. We'll commemorate all the saints of God, and remember those of our church family who have joined the church eternal. 

The choir will sing a short work by Giacomo Puccini, called Requiem, which was written at the request of the Italian Music publisher G. Ricordi to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of Guiseppi Verdi, who had died in 1901. Both Verdi and Puccini were composers whose operas were published by Ricordi, (Verdi: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, and Aida; Puccini: La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi, and Turandot.) Verdi was also idolized by the Italian People, who loved his operas as much as they loved his politics. He was a national hero.

Puccini at his piano

Puccini himself was the last of a musical dynasty that had been prominent in the life of Lucca for several generations. The fifth of seven children, he lost his father at the age of six. His maternal uncle taught him the rudiments of music, and he then continued his studies with Carlo Angeloni, director of the Istituto Musicale “Pacini”, and played the organ in churches in Lucca and the surrounding area. He did not tackle composition until he was about sixteen, but in 1876 he showed the progress he had made with a Preludio sinfonico, followed the next year by a cantata for solo voices and orchestra. 

His church background showed up in his next compositions, but it was the theatre that particularly attracted him (a performance of Aida in 1876 was a revelation for the young composer); he moved to Milan in 1880 in pursuit of a more intense musical life where he enrolled at the Conservatory. He graduated in 1883 with the Capriccio sinfonico whose theme he was later to use in La bohème.

In the same year he wrote his first opera, Le Villi, for a competition, but he did not win.  However, his friends put together a performance at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan the next year where the publisher Ricordi  immediately acquired the rights of the score, commissioned a second opera from Puccini for La Scala, and provided him with a monthly stipend of 200 lire for a year. After that, his career took off.

George Thalben-Ball

The opening voluntary is a work by the the English organist George Thalben-Ball. He was born in Australia, but lived in the UK for most of his life, becoming well-known as something of a “showman” recitalist in the grand late Victorian/Edwardian style. He became Director of Music at the Temple Church in London. He dedicated his Elegy, apparently conceived as an improvisation to fill in time at the end of a BBC-recorded service during the war, to Walford Davis who preceded him as organist at the Temple Church. 

This piece is quintessential English. It has a beautiful melodic line, beginning softly, building to full organ and then diminishing again; ending with a fragment of the melody in a whisper. It’s an appropriate piece for Remembrance or All Soul's services, and was played during Princess Diana’s funeral.

The Communion voluntary is based on a hymn not found in either of our hymnals. The hymn, "O Love that wilt not let me go" has appeared in 58 hymnals since 1979, and was written in 1883 by George Matheson, a minister in the Church of Scotland. The tune, ST. MARGARET, was written for this hymn for its inclusion in the Scottish Hymnal of 1884. The tune was arranged for piano and viola by Dallas composer Hal. H. Hopson.

The closing voluntary includes, as the theme in the pedal, the chant used at Vespers on All Saints Day in the Roman church. It is by Paul Marie-Joseph Benoit, OSB, a Benedictine monk, organist, and composer. Born in Nancy, France, Benoit first began to feel called to the vocation of a Benedictine monk during World War I,. After the Armistice of 1918, he entered a retreat at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur, at Clervaux in Luxembourg, and he joined the abbey in 1919, taking his vows in 1921 and being ordained into priesthood in1926.