Music for May 14, 2023 + The Sixth Sunday of Easter (Rogation Sunday)

Vocal Music

• Jesus Christ the Apple Tree – Sondra Tucker (b. 1957)
• Heidi Aulbach, flute
• If Ye Love Me – Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)

Instrumental Music

• Grazioso – Arnold B. Sherman (b. 1948)
• We Plow the Fields and Scatter – arr. Thomas Keesecker (b. 1956)
• Toccata – John Weaver (1937-2021)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 398 - I sing the almighty power of God (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn 455 - O Love of God, how strong and true (DUNEDIN)
• Hymn 288 - Praise to God, Immortal praise (DIX)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 400 - All creatures of our God and King (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Psalm 66 - setting by Richard Proulx

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

Today is Rogation Sunday on our liturgical calendar. The word rogation comes from the Latin verb rogare, meaning “to ask”, which reflects the beseeching of God for protection from calamities. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it: “Rogation Days are the three days preceding Ascension Day, especially devoted to asking for God's blessing on agriculture and industry.” 

They originated in Vienne, France, in the fifth century when Bishop Mamertus introduced days of fasting and prayer to ward off a threatened disaster. In England they were associated with the blessing of the fields at planting. The vicar “beat the bounds” of the parish, processing around the fields reciting psalms and the litany. In the United States they have been associated with rural life and with agriculture and fishing. The propers in the BCP (pp. 207-208, 258-259, 930) have widened their scope to include commerce and industry and the stewardship of creation. (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/rogation-days/)

For this reason, I have chosen a couple of hymns which talk about the wonders of Creation, an instrumental piece based on a good hymn for Rogation Sunday, and this anthem by my good friend, Sondra Tucker.

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree (also known as Apple Tree and, in its early publications, as Christ Compared to an Apple-tree) is a poem written in the 18th century. The first known publication, beginning The Tree of Life My Soul Hath Seen, was in London's Spiritual Magazine in August, 1761. This credits "R.H." as the submitter and presumed author. R.H. has been shown most likely to refer to Rev. Richard Hutchins, a Calvinist Baptist clergyman in Northamptonshire.

It has been set to music by a number of composers, most famously Elizabeth Poston and John Rutter. Sondra has set the words to an Scottish folk tune, O Waly, Waly. A flowing piano accompaniment and a lyrical flute part join together with the choir to make this an instant favorite among our choir.

The friendship between Sondra and me goes back over 26 years ago when we were both in Memphis. After I moved to Houston, her husband, Roger, got transferred to Houston, where they lived for many years. She was organist/choirmaster at Ascension Episcopal on the West side of Houston when Roger was transferred back to Memphis. Just this past week she described the horror and sadness when, in 2017, she saw on TV their neighborhood and former church under water from the flooding from Hurricane Harvey. She wrote this anthem for her former choir and their director, and it was published in 2022.

If Ye Love Me

Thomas Tallis was one of the greatest composers of Early English Music.  Most of his music was written for the church, which, at that time, did not use instrumental music, so almost all of his music is for singing without instruments. He composed music for all the Tudor kings and queens, except Henry VII (so he composed for Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I). This can’t have been easy because different Tudor kings and queens had very different ideas about what church music should be like!

During the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553) it was mandated that the services be sung in English, and that the choral music be brief and succinct "to each syllable a plain and distinct note." If Ye Love Me is the classic example of these new English anthems: mainly homophonic, but with brief moments of imitation. Like many early Anglican anthems, it is cast in ABB form, the second section repeated twice.

Grazioso

The Handbell piece at communion is a beautiful work written in memory of Norma Taubert Brown, a handbell ringer, who died of cancer in 1988. The music tells the story of Norma's life, her struggle with illness, and her ultimate journey to heaven.  Each section of the music reflects this journey.

It was commissioned by Area 10 of the Handbell Musicians of America right after Norma had been in Seattle to share the podium with Arnold Sherman, the composer of Grazioso. She was ill at that time but wanted to keep her commitment to conduct at the Greater Puget Sound Festival. When she was not conducting, she would lay on a couch  that had been moved into the gym. When it  was her turn to conduct, she  seemed to have extra strength to ascend the podium,  conduct her rehearsal as if she were in perfect health and then return to the couch after she had finished.  She passed away two weeks later.

Arnold Sherman is director of Music and Fine Arts at Pollard United Methodist Church in Tyler, Texas as well as a free-lance composer and co-founder of Red River Music. His undergraduate work in music education was done at Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland, and Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Arnold was the founder and Director of the East Texas Handbell Ensemble. A clinician and guest conductor, he has led choral and handbell workshops, festivals, and reading sessions throughout the United States, Canada, England, Japan and the Bahamas. Arnold has over four hundred choral and handbell pieces in print and has been an active member of the AGEHR where he has served as Area IX Chairman.

We Plow the Fields and Scatter

This setting of the hymn found in our hymnal (hymn 291), whose text affirms that, while we need to plow the land and sow the seed, it is God who provides the increase; he sends the rain and the sunshine to produce a harvest. God also sustains his creation, for "all good gifts around us are sent from heaven above." Thus praise bursts from our "humble, thankful hearts." It is a perfect hymn for Rogation Sunday.

This arrangement, by the American composer Thomas Keesecker, combines the tune in our hymnal with a Scottish Air. I am unaware if this folk tune is used as an alternate tune for the text, but it's still beautiful. So, there you have it!

Toccata

The closing voluntary is a toccata by the New York organist John Weaver, another giant among the organ world. For 35 years he was organist and director of music at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, while simultaneously serving on as Head of the Organ Department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (1972-2003), and Chair of the Organ Department at The Juilliard School (1987-2004). His students perform and teach all over the world. Ken Cowan, organist at Rice University (and Palmer Memorial Episcopal) is a former student of his.

This Toccata was written by him in 1954, when he was 17. 

Music for February 17, 2019 + The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Blessed Is the Man - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
• O How Amiable – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Instrumental Music

• Grazioso – Arnold B. Sherman (b. 1948)
• Partita on  Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten - Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
• Präludium in A Minor - Georg Böhm

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

• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible, God only wise (ST. DENIO)
• Hymn R191 - O Christ, the healer, we have come (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but trust in God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn R127 - Blest are they, the poor in spirit (BLEST ARE THEY)
• Hymn R224 - Healer of my soul (John Michael Talbot)
• Hymn 493  - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)

Two anthems by the choir, plus a work for Handbells, are featured in this Sunday's music. 

First is a work by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Known primarily for his symphonies, concertos and ballets, Tchaikovsky was also deeply interested in the music and liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1878 he set the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom to music, followed by the All-Night Vigil and nine sacred songs. All of these were of seminal importance in the later interest in Orthodox music, which up until this time was highly controlled by the Imperial Chapel.

This anthem, Blessed Is the Man, is not the "Blazhen Muzh" (Blessed is the man - Psalm 1) from his All-Night Vigil, but is a creation by Gene Lowell, an American choral director active in the 1950s, who took a piano work of Tchaikovsky (In Church, the last number in his collection Album pour enfants, Op. 39) and added words based on two verses from Psalm 1.

 The offertory anthem is the grand work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the great English symphonist of the 20th century. Though he was described as "a cheerful agnostic," he was highly influential in the music of the Anglican church, not only writing some beautiful choral works, but serving as Musical Editor of the English Hymnal (1904) and writing two of our most beautiful and well-known hymntunes, SINE NOMINE (For all the Saints) and DOWN AMPNEY (Come Down, O Love Divine). His interest in folk songs and hymn tunes is evident in many of his works, including today's anthem. Terry Blaine, in his notes to the CD Anthem - Great British Hymns & Choral Works recorded by the Huddersfield Choral Society, wrote this about the anthem:

Simplicity is a keynote in Vaughan Williams’s O how amiable, and the reason is the circumstances in which it was composed. In 1934 the novelist E.M. Forster wrote “The Abinger Pageant”, a play about the history of England, performed to aid preservation work at a church near where he lived in Surrey. Vaughan Williams’s anthem was written to be sung by amateur performers as part of the festivities, and the mainly unison writing reflects this. It also emphasizes the communal nature of the pageant experience, as does the addition of a verse from the famous hymn “O God our help in ages past” at the conclusion. (c) 2016 by Terry Blaine

The Handbell piece at communion is a beautiful work written in memory of Norma Taubert Brown, a handbell ringer, who died of cancer in 1988. The music tells the story of Norma's life, her struggle with illness, and her ultimate journey to heaven.  Each section of the music reflects this journey.

It was commissioned by Area 10 of the Handbell Musicians of America right after Norma had been in Seattle to share the podium with Arnold Sherman, the composer of Grazioso. She was ill at that time but wanted to keep her commitment to conduct at the Greater Puget Sound Festival. When she was not conducting, she would lay on a couch  that had been moved into the gym. When it  was her turn to conduct, she  seemed to have extra strength to ascend the podium,  conduct her rehearsal as if she were in perfect health and then return to the couch after she had finished.  She passed away two weeks later.

Arnold Sherman is director of Music and Fine Arts at Pollard United Methodist Church in Tyler, Texas as well as a free-lance composer and co-founder of Red River Music. His undergraduate work in music education was done at Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland, and Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Arnold was the founder and Director of the East Texas Handbell Ensemble. A clinician and guest conductor, he has led choral and handbell workshops, festivals, and reading sessions throughout the United States, Canada, England, Japan and the Bahamas. Arnold has over four hundred choral and handbell pieces in print and has been an active member of the AGEHR where he has served as Area IX Chairman.