Music for August 19, 2018

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on Bryn Calfaria – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
• Ornament of Grace – Bernard Wayne Sanders (b. 1957)
• Cantilena (Sonata in D Minor) – Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)
• Trumpet Tune in D – Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)

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

• Hymn 427 - When morning gilds the skies (LAUDES DOMINI)
• Hymn 488  - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BYRN CALFARIA)
• Hymn R288 - Eat this Bread (Taizé)
• Hymn 420 - When in our music God is glorified (ENGLEBERG)
• Psalm 34:9-14 – tone VIIIa

Grace Tice and I, after playing an Advent Recital
at Northwoods Presbyterian Church in Houston.
It looks like our prom photo.

This week I am delighted to welcome one of my best friends, oboist Grace Tice, to Good Shepherd. Grace has a Masters Degree in oboe from Rice University, and plays with the Houston Ballet Orchestra in addition to being a free-lance musician around Houston. She will play two pieces for us this Sunday.

Last week I played a piece by Bernard Sanders, and in the comments about his career, I mentioned that he had written a prize-winning composition. This week we will get to hear that work. Ornament of Grace was the first prize winner of an international competition sponsored by the American Guild of Organist in 2008 to promote An International Organ Celebration, a year-long global effort to promote the use of the organ within the church and concert hall. The contest was for a piece of music for organ and one other instrument. Part of the honor was that organists world-wide were encouraged to perform Ornament of Grace on the world's largest organ recital on October 19, 2008. I had the pleasure of performing the Houston premiere of this piece along with Grace at the Organ Spectacular held in Houston at Christ Church Cathedral.

The title comes from verses from scripture which refer to an “ornament of grace.” Proverbs 1:9 asserts: "For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck." The whole chapter refers to receiving instruction and having understanding. Verse eight speaks specifically of receiving the instruction of a father and the law of a mother. Again in Proverbs 4:9 we read: "She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee." Then in Proverbs 25:12 it states: "As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover [sic]upon an obedient ear." It becomes evident that obedience to instruction gives added beauty to the life of a Christian – an ornament; an embellishment.

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger
anon., prior to 1901

The other work, heard at communion, is an arrangement for oboe and organ of the second movement of the organ Sonata No. 11 in D minor, Op. 148 ("Cantilène") by Josef Rheinberger. It reminds me so much of the second movement from J. S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3, the "Air." The bass line is a typical Baroque walking bass line, which is in constant motion. And like the Bach, Rheinberger's bass line is really just octave leaps or step-wise motion, as if moving through a scale. The melody, too, is much like the melody of the "Air," (had Bach written the melody to be played by one instrument, instead of first and second violins.) It's a long, intricate melody with graceful leaps and turns.

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was an Catholic organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein but spending most of his life in Germany. He was a very talented boy, and by age nine was sent to Munich to study at the Munich Conservatorium. Here, his talents as organist were much admired, and he began to earn his living as an organist and private teacher. At the age of twenty, he began to teach theory and piano at the conservatory, and his first opus, four piano pieces, appeared.

We continue learning the hymn-tune BRYN CALFARIA. In addition to singing the hymn, I will play Ralph Vaughan William's organ setting of the tune for the opening voluntary. Unlike the pieces I played the last two weeks, which set out the tune quite plainly and simply, this one is a fantasia, a composition with a free form and in an improvisatory style. You'll hear bits and pieces of the melody, most notably the first four notes of the melody, and the "alleluia" portion of the hymn at the end.

Music for August 12, 2018

Vocal Music

• Steal Away – Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) Bidkar Cajina, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Lord, enthroned in Heavenly Splendor – Bernard Wayne Sanders (b. 1957)
• Prelude on Adoro te devote - Charles Callahann (b. 1951)
• March in G – Henry Smart (1813-1879)

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

• Hymn 48  - O day of radiant gladness (ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN)
• Hymn R37 - Father, we love you (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn R220 - Let the hungry come to me (ADORE TE DEVOTE)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world, in mercy broken (RENDEZ À DIEU)
• Hymn R246 - I am the bread of life (I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE)
• Hymn R226  - Ubi Caritas et amor (Taizé)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BYRN CALFARIA)
• Psalm 34 - Taste and See (James E. Moore, Jr.)

Bernard Wayne Sanders

Henry Smart

We continue our journey toward familiarity with the Welsh tune BRYN CALFARIA this week with an organ prelude by Bernard Wayne Sanders. A native of DePere, Wisconsin, Sanders was educated at St. Norbert College, Wichita State University, and the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, Germany. Germany apparently agreed with him, as he currently serves as a full-time director of music at the parishes of St. Gallus and Mary Queen of Heaven in Tuttlingen, Germany, in addition to serving as a diocesan liaison and an official organ consultant for the Tuttlingen area. As a composer, he has published many works and composed the award‑winning piece Ornament of Grace, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists as part of a world-wide "Organ Spectacular" in 2008 to advance the use of the organ in church and concert settings. I was the organist for the Houston premier of this work at Christ Church Cathedral in October of 2008. (I think Sanders looks a lot like the composer of today's closing voluntary, Henry Smart, albeit without all the hair!)

Admittedly, the prelude is nothing terribly inspired. The melody is heard on the trumpet, played by the left hand, while the right hand accompanies on the principle stops of the Great. The melody, written by William Owen, is used as a setting for several hymns, most notably the English "Lord, Enthroned in Heavenly Splendor" (the text for which our hymnal uses this tune.) The tune is reputed to have been originally written by Owen on a piece of slate whilst on his way to work at the Dorothea Quarry in Gwynedd, North Wales. "Bryn Calfaria" is Welsh for "Hill of Calvary," reflecting the first words set to this tune, the famous Welsh hymn "Gwaed y Groes" (The blood of the Cross"). [1]

Harry T. Burleigh
by Maud Cuney-Hare,1936 [5]

The offertory solo is an arrangement of one of the "code songs" of the American Negro Slaves. Spirituals such as "Steal Away to Jesus", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", and "Wade in the Water" are songs with hidden codes, not only about having faith in God, but containing hidden messages for slaves to run away on their own, or with the Underground Railroad.[2]

The arrangement is by Harry T. Burleigh, one of the first African-Americans to elevate the spiritual to an art form. He was highly influenced by Antonin Dvořák, who had been brought to America to head the the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. The Conservatory had been founded by Jeannette Thurber, a wealthy and philanthropic woman, who made it open to women and black students as well as white men, which was unusual for the times. Burleigh was accepted, with a scholarship, to the Conservatory at the age of 26.

Burleigh, who later became known worldwide for his excellent baritone voice, sang spirituals while cleaning the Conservatory's halls, which drew the attention of Dvořák, who asked Burleigh to sing for him. Burleigh said: "I sang our Negro songs for him very often, and before he wrote his own themes, he filled himself with the spirit of the old Spirituals."[3] Dvořák said: "In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music."[4]

[1] Glover, Raymond F. The Hymnal 1982 Companion. Vol. 3, Church Hymnal Corp., 1994.
[2] "New Jersey's Underground Railroad Heritage website also claims "Steal Away" as a song related to escape from slavery" (PDF). Slic.njstatelib.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-08-23. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
[3] Jean E. Snyder, "A great and noble school of music: Dvořák, Harry T. Burleigh, and the African American Spiritual". In Tibbetts, John C. (ed.), Dvořák in America: 1892-1895, Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1993, p. 131.
[4] Interviewed by James Creelman, New York Herald, May 21, 1893.
[5] Maud Cuney-Hare, 1874-1936 - Negro musicians and their music by Maud Cuney-Hare. Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1936, p. 328. Copyright not renewed, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41871028