MAGNIFY THE LORD Music for December 11, 2022 + Advent III

Vocal Music

• How Lovely Are the Messengers – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Instrumental Music

• Magnificat in G Major – Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
• Of the Father’s love begotten – Rebecca Groom te Velde (b. 1956)
• Once He Came in Blessing - John Leavitt (b. 1956)
• Blest Be the King Whose Coming – Alexandre Guilmant

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

• Hymn 76 On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn S 242 Canticle 15: The Song of Mary - Tonus Peregrinus
• Hymn 615 “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 59 Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R278 Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 74 Blest be the King whose coming (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)

How Lovely Are the Messengers

How lovely are the messengers is a movement from St. Paul, the first oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn, composed in 1836. In 1831 Mendelssohn was commissioned by Johann Schelble, conductor of the Cecilia Choir and Orchestra of Frankfurt, to compose an oratorio. Mendelssohn knew his Bible extremely well and invariably turned to it for inspiration when considering a new choral piece. 

The text of the oratorio is based very largely on the Acts of the Apostles. After a lengthy overture, Part I opens with the martyrdom of Stephen and Saul’s persecution of the Christians. This is followed by the conversion of Paul, his baptism and ordination as a minister by Ananias. Part II finds Paul and Barnabas becoming the ambassadors of the Church. Their duet is followed by one of the oratorio’s best-loved choruses, ‘How lovely are the messengers.' The text comes from Romans 10:15,18 (paraphrased)

15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

During the austere post-war period there was a considerable reaction against Mendelssohn’s music. To what extent this was an after-effect of the rampant German anti-Semitism of the 1930s and 40s is difficult to determine, but the generally held view, particularly in some sections of the musical establishment, was that his life had been too easy and too comfortable, and that as a consequence his music, with its classical elegance and understated emotion, was superficial and distinctly inferior. Thankfully, in recent years there has been a more balanced attitude to Mendelssohn, avoiding both the excessive adulation which surrounded him during his lifetime and the equally absurd denigration that he suffered later.

Magnificat

The lectionary provides two options to be used for the psalm this Sunday. One is the usual Psalm, while the other is canticle The Magnificat, or The Song of Mary. The prelude this morning is three versets from an interpretation of Mary's Magnificat, composed by 19th-century French organist Alexandre Guilmant. These versets were probably composed to be played in alternatim with verses of the chant, as was typical in French churches. I am playing the first, third, and fifth variations, Allegro, Duo Pastorale, and Fugue. These organ miniatures are very baroque in their form and style, especially  the fugue

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was the organist of La Trinité  in Paris from 1871 until 1901. A noted pedagogue, performer, and improviser, Guilmant helped found the Schola Cantorum de Paris. He was appointed as Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire in 1896.

Valet will ich

The closing voluntary is also a work by Guilmant. You know the tune because of its association with the text :"All glory laud and honor," which we sing on Palm Sunday, but the tune, VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN, was composed by Melchior Teschner in 1615 for "Valet will ich dir geben," Valerius Herberger's hymn for the dying. Here is the original text:

Valet will ich dir geben

Du arge, falsche Welt;

Dein sündlich böses Leben

Durchaus mir nicht gefällt.

Im Himmel ist gut wohnen,

Hinauf zieht mein Begier;

Da wird Gott herrlich lohnen

Dem, der ihm dient allhier.

I want to bid you farewell,

You evil, false world

Your sinful, wicked life

It is not all pleasing to me.

In heaven it is good to dwell,

My longing is set on what is above

There God will reward forever

The person who serve him here.

Since the tune is also used in our hymnal for Advent hymn 74, Blest be the King whose coming, which we are singing as our closing hymn, I will also use it as the closing voluntary.

Communion music

The two short organ voluntaries during communion are by two contemporary composers (both born in 1956) which are based on two hymns - first is the hymn Of the Father's Love Begotten, a doctrinal hymn based on the Latin poem "Corde natus" by the Fourth Century Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius, from his Liber Cathemerinon. It is generally considered more of a Christmas hymn (it is No. 82 in the Christmas section of our hymnal), but I wanted to play it because the second voluntary, a setting of the Advent hymn (no. 53) Once He came in blessing, includes the melody DIVINUM MYSTERIUM, the melody to Of the Father's love begotten, in the accompaniment to the tune GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN. 

Music for May 29, 2022 + The Seventh Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• A Song to the Lamb – Donald Pearson (b. 1953)

Instrumental Music

• Sonata No. 8: Andante Sostenuto – Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
• Sarabande (Concerto for Oboe in G Minor) – G. F. Handel (1685-1759)
• Llanfair – Robert J. Powell (b. 1932)

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

• Hymn 214 - Hail the day that sees him rise (LLANFAIR)
• Hymn R168 - If you believe and I believe (ZIMBABWE)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together on our knees (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 460 - Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 97 – Tone IIa

Anthem: A Song to the Lamb

The American composer Donald Pearson wrote this setting of Canticle 18 while he was organist/choir master of St. John's Cathedral in Denver. Now a canticle (from the Latin canticulum, a diminutive of canticum, "song") is a hymn, psalm or other Christian song of praise with lyrics usually taken from biblical or holy texts. Canticles are used in Christian liturgy. You are probably most familiar with canticle 20 - we sing it most Sundays at the beginning of the service. (Glory to God in the Highest.) Other familiar canticles are the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, which are common at evening prayer services.

This setting starts of with a sparkling organ intro, which continues under the refrain which returns after each verse. The refrain was obviously meant for the congregation to sing, but today we will just leave it to the choir.

Opening Voluntary:  Sonata No. 8: Andante Sostenuto

Andante Sostenuto is the fourth movement of Alexandre Guilmant's Eight Sonata in A Major, Opus 9, completed at the composer's home in September 1906 and dedicated to Louis Herbette, a councilor of state. He later orchestrated the work as the Secondo Symphonie pour Orgue & Orchestra. It has some rich, thick chords which remind me of the opening of Camille Saint-Saens Organ Symphony which was written some 20 years earlier.

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was a French organist and composer who was well known both as a recitalist and as a composer. His organ repertoire includes his 18 collections of Pièces dans différents styles (pieces in differing styles), the more liturgical Soixante interludes dans la tonalité grégorienne (60 pieces in Gregorian tonality) and his 12 books of l'Organiste liturgique (the liturgical organist). He also wrote chamber music, vocal music, a sinfonia cantata (Ariane) as well a lyric scene (Bathsheba).

Communion Voluntary: Sarabande 

This is the third movement of Handel's Oboe Concerto No. 3 in G minor (HWV 287) composed  possibly in 1704-1705. It was arranged for organ by Edward Shippen Barnes, an American organist from the first half of the 20th century who was well known for his editions of organ transcriptions of orchestral works. 

Here is a recording of the Houston Early Music group, Ars Lyrica, performing this movement. (Don't listen to it in church!)

Closing Voluntary: Llanfair

The closing voluntary is a setting of our opening hymn by the living Episcopalian composer Robert J. Powell. He is known to our congregation if for no other reason than his setting of the Gloria (Canticle No. 20 - see above) that we have been singing each Sunday during Eastertide.

Music for Sunday, October 17, 2021 + Good Shepherd School Sunday

Vocal Music

• Seek To Serve – Lloyd Pfautsch
• Song of Peace – Donnelly and Strid
• Good Shepherd School Children

Instrumental Music

• Andante Tranquillo – Charles Villiers Stanford
• Cantabile – Alexandre Guilmant
• March in D Major – Alexandre Guilmant

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

• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn R158 - Meekness and majesty (TUNE)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)

The composer of this morning's anthem is 20th Century composer, choral director, and teacher Lloyd Pfautsch, who was one of my professor's at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Lloyd Pfautsch

Born in a little Missouri town where the primary industry was the manufacture of corncob pipes, Pfautsch was raised within the rich cultural, musical and hymnic tradition of German Evangelical churches which then extended from Pennsylvania across the mid and upper Midwest.  His worship-song roots were the Lutheran-style chorale, and he often reminded his students and colleagues that music is a living voice of the Gospel, a gift from God never to be trivialized.

When teaching aspiring vocal professionals, Pfautsch challenged the frequent assumption that one's solo voice could be damaged by singing in choirs, proving that solo and choral singing need never be incompatible.  And to his students studying choral conducting he often said: “Your choirs can sing anything you can teach them.”

The music says the text is from the scriptures, but I cannot find any direct references. Dr. Pfautsch was an ordained minister, so he may have used his knowledge of scripture to put together this text with the theme of service. For the melody, he chose a chant from a twelfth century Latin mass to carry the words.

Music for July 19, 2020 + The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Thou Fount – setting by Roland E. Martin (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in C Minor – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Magnificat in G Major, Opus 41, No. 2 - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 290 - Come, ye thankful people, come (ST. GEORGE'S, WINDSOR)

“Do not cry for me, for where I go music is born”

-Bach, to his wife, on his deathbed

Today, when almost every serious student of the cello learns the unaccompanied cello suites of J. S. Bach, it is hard to imagine that these works were almost lost. There is no manuscript of the music in Bach's own handwriting, just a copy of the music by Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena, and three other handwritten copies from the 18th century. They seemed destined for oblivion.

The suites were discovered and finally published in 1825. But in spite of their publication, they were not widely known by anyone besides a few cellists who viewed them as exercises. The development of the cello as a solo instrument continued without Bach's influence for another century, during which, again, virtually no music for solo cello was written.

In 1889, A 13-year-old Catalan wunderkind cellist by the name of Pablo Casals went for a stroll with his father, and they stepped into a second-hand music shop. There, Casals stumbled upon an old copy of Bach's Cello Suites. He took them home, began to play them, and fell in love. When he recorded them in 1936, the works were suddenly thrust into the consciousness of every cellist.

I tell you all this, because one of the Suites is hidden within the offertory duet sung by our KHS graduate Camyrn Creech and Ole Miss student Harrison Boyd. Much like Charles Gounod used the Prelude in C from Bach's Das wohltemperierte Klavier for his Ave Maria, Roland Martin used the Prelude from the G Major Suite as the basis for the accompaniment. (Except it's played on the piano, and in the key of D.)

Roland E. “Ron” Martin is a member of the music faculty of The Buffalo Seminary, Daemen College, and the University at Buffalo. He is organist and Director of Music at St. Joseph University Church, Buffalo and the founder and director of Speculum Musicae, an ensemble for early music, and Music Director of the Freudig Singers of Western New York. He also serves as conductor/music director for Opera Sacra for many of its productions.

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant, the composer of the closing voluntary, was a French organist and composer living in Paris. He was the organist of La Trinité from 1871 until 1901. A noted pedagogue, performer, and improviser, Guilmant helped found the Schola Cantorum de Paris. He was appointed as Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire in 1896

Music for September 17, 2017 + The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy – Maurice Bevan (1921-2006)

Instrumental Music

• Our Father, Who Art in Heaven – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Sonata No. 1 in F minor: Adagio – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• Grand Chœur alla Handel – Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)

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

• Hymn 400 - All creatures of our God and King (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s Land (GO DOWN, MOSES)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)
• Hymn R184 - “Forgive our sins, as we forgive” (DETROIT)
• Hymn R192 - God forgave my sin in Jesus’ name (FREELY, FREELY)
• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
• Psalm 114 – Tone VIIIa

Many hymnals have the hymn There's a Wideness in God's Mercy within their pages, often to the tune WELLESLEY, though our hymnal uses the tune BEECHER. When we sing this text this Sunday, however, we will be utilizing the relatively new hymn-tune, CORVEDALE, by the Englishman Maurice Bevan. What I absolutely love about this setting, other than its beautiful, expansive melody which seems to keep reaching newer heights, is that it contains some sobering words which, when I first heard them, helped me to "wake up" to the all-encompassing mercy and love of God. (The stanzas I have highlighted are not found in The Hymnal 1982.)

1 There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgement given.

2 For the love of God is broader
than the measure of our mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he would not own. 

3 There is plentiful redemption
through the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.
There is grace enough for thousands
of new worlds as great as this;
there is room for fresh creations
in that upper home of bliss.

4 If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word;
and our lives would be all gladness
in the joy of Christ our Lord.

The three+ verses of this version speak of God’s “plentiful redemption” and “grace for thousands / of new worlds as great as this”

The composer,  Maurice Bevan, was the son, grandson and great-grandson of Anglican clergymen. Well known as a singer, he was a member for forty years of both the Deller Consort, one of the first professional groups to revive interest in early music, and the Vicars Choral of St. Paul Cathedral in London. I am not sure if he arranged this hymn-tune into the anthem version we are singing today, or if the anthem came first, and the hymn-tune came out of it. At any rate, it is now included in 5 hymnals in the United Kingdom.

If you are interested, (and are not sitting in church during the service while reading this) you can hear a recording of Bevan singing a Handel aria with the Deller Consort here.

Speaking of Handel, the closing voluntary is an organ piece written by a late-nineteenth century Frenchman in the style of a minuet of G. F. Handel. The composer, Felix Alexandre Guilmant, was one of the greatest organists in the late nineteenth century. Born in Boulogne-sur-Mer (France) he studied with Lemmens in Brussels and from 1871 to his death lived and worked in Paris. Guilmant was world famous in his day and made three concert trips to the United States. Many organ concerts were played by him, including very special series in the Palais de Trocadéro in Paris.

Guilmant was a great improviser and a well-known teacher. Like Felix Mendelssohn, he performed and published old music that had long been forgotten. His own body of work is large: 94 opus numbers and many unpublished or unnumbered works.