Music for September 18, 2022 + The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Wash Me Throughly – G. F. Handel (1685-1759)

Instrumental Music

• Sarabande – David Ashley White (b. 1944)
• Be Thou My Vision – Larry Schackley (b. 1956)
• Tuba Tune in D Major, Op. 15 – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

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

• Hymn 475 - God himself is with us (TYSK)
• Hymn R258 - To God be the glory (TO GOD BE THE GLORY)
• Hymn 368 - Holy Father, great Creator (REGENT SQUARE)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Psalm 113 – Tone VIIIa

Wash Me Throughly

In 1717, George Frederick Handel became the composer in residence at Cannons, the court of James Brydges, who became the First Duke of Chandos in 1719. As part of his responsibilities, he wrote eleven "anthems" for use in the chapel there, but these are more than just a simple anthem. They are multi-movement works which foreshadow the greatness found in his oratorios. Handel was limited in the resources available to him, so it was written for only three voices (soprano, tenor, and bass) with intimate instrumental forces of oboe, two violins, and basso continuo (usually the organ with the bass line doubled by an instrument). It is true chamber music.

G. F. Handel (without his wig)

The choir will sing the third movement of the third Chandos anthem, which is based on verses from Psalm 51. Originally written for alto and tenor, today the entire choir will be singing together. Handel himself chose the texts for all the Chandos Anthems, using primarily as his source the Psalter of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Sarabande

This expressive short organ work from David Ashley White combines a soaring, lyric melody with a lush accompaniment. The music builds to a full organ climax in the middle and then fades away to tranquility at the end. It was written for and dedicated to Yuri McCoy, a graduate of the organ program at Rice University and now organist at South Main Baptist Church in Houston

Be Thou My Vision

The British Isles have provided us with some simple and often haunting folk melodies. Many of these tunes have been matched with hymn texts and become a treasured part of our hymnody. This is true with the tune SLANE, an old Irish folk tune associated with the ballad "With My Love on the Road" in Patrick W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). It became a hymn tune when it was arranged by David Evans and set to the Irish hymn "Be Thou My Vision" published in the Church Hymnary (1927). SLANE is named for a hill in County Meath, Ireland, where St. Patrick's lighting of an Easter fire–an act of defiance against the pagan king Loegaire (fifth century)–led to his unlimited freedom to preach the gospel in Ireland.

Larry Shackley, a free-lance composer from Columbia, South Carolina, has written a lovely piano meditation on SLANE that I'll be playing at communion.

A native of Chicago, Shackley attended Eastman School of Music (M.M) and the University of South Carolina (D.M.A). He has had a varied career, from teaching at Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina, to working at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, creating original music and producing radio programs for the Moody Broadcasting Network, to composing for over 30 films, videotapes, and radio dramas. He has also served churches such as Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois as well as several churches in South Carolina. Shackley is also an active studio musician, arranger, and orchestrator. Recently, he has devoted most of his composing to music for the church, writing over 450 keyboard arrangements and 250 choral pieces for a variety of publishers.

Tuba Tune

C. S. Lang (known to his friends as Robin) was born in New Zealand but moved with his family to London where he also studied at The Royal College of Music. His best-known work is the Tuba Tune for organ, Opus 15, a favorite of recitalists. This dashing little piece, which owes its title to the boisterous melody sounded forth on the organ's tuba stop, begins in the style of Handel but, in its central section, has some brief key changes that could belong to no century except the 20th.

Music for April 25, 2021 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)

Instrumental Music

• He Leadeth Me/Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – arr. Phillip Keveren (b. 1961)
• My Shepherd Will Supply My Need – arr. Brian Henkelmann (b. 1956)
• Communion – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• Tuba Tune – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “*” which are from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

• Canticle*- Christ our Passover (Pascha nostrum) (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The Strife is O’er (VICTORY)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Psalm 23 - simplified Anglican chant by Jerome W. Meachen

The fourth Sunday of Easter is also called Good Shepherd Sunday, for the Psalm is always Psalm 23, and the Gospel reading references sheep. Many churches named after saints will often claim that saint's day as their "patronal" festival, so it is fitting that the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Kingwood should look to this day as our own feast day.

Jackson Hearn and Grace Tice
(looking for all the world like a prom picture)

With that in mind, we celebrate with music appropriate to the day. Not only does this Sunday mark the official return of the choir, but also brings a guest musician, the oboist (and my dear friend) Grace Tice. Grace is a free-lance musician in the Houston area, with degrees from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) and Rice. She has performed with the Houston Ballet Orchestra as well as several regional orchestras. She is a favorite of church musicians in Houston, because not only is she extremely musical but also because she lives up to her name, Grace.

Grace will be heard on the choir's anthem, a setting of the text "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us" which first appeared in Hymns for the Young, 1840, which was edited by Dorothy Ann Thrupp. Although no author's name appears with the text, it is thought that Thrupp wrote it, since she often published hymns anonymously, under the pseudonym "Iota," or simply using her initials. 

The text is coupled with a new tune written by William Bradley Roberts, the Professor Emeritus of Church Music at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria. Previously he was a parish musician, serving at St. John’s, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., and at churches in Tucson, Newport Beach, Louisville, and Houston, where he was a student at Houston Baptist University.

In addition to playing with the choir on their anthem, Grace and I will play arrangements of some "Shepherd Hymns" for oboe and piano. We will start with a "mash-up" of two American hymn-tunes associated with the texts He Leadeth Me and Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us. If you came to the Episcopal church out of any other Protestant tradition, you will likely recognize these two tunes.

He Leadeth Me is a hymn paraphrase of Psalm 23, written in the late 1800s by Baptist minister Joseph Gilmore. With its tune by William Bradbury, it has appeared in well over 1150 hymnals - with 50 of those being published since 1979. It is not in The Hymnal 1982.

The other tune in this "mash-up" (I still can't use that term without thinking of the TV series GLEE which introduced it to me.) is the  tune used in most hymnals for Savior, like a Shepherd lead us. This tune is named BRADBURY, after its composer, William Bradbury (the same William Bradbury who wrote He Leadeth Me.) This tune is pair with this text in at least 254 modern hymnals, while the tune in our hymnal, SICILIAN MARINERS, is paired only three times.

This arrangement of these two hymns is the work of Phillip Keveren, a multi-talented keyboard artist and composer living in Brentwood (Nashville), Tennessee. He composes in a variety of genres, and is widely acclaimed for his piano publications. Mr. Keveren is a prolific arranger, orchestrator and producer. His work is featured in numerous instrumental recordings, church choral, educational piano and Christian artist releases. His arrangements and compositions appear on recent projects by Sandi Patty, Travis Cottrell, Sara Groves and Ronan Tynan. Keveren holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from California State University, Northridge, and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Southern California.

The other piece in the opening voluntary is a oboe and piano setting of the Southern hymn, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need. It is arranged by Brian Henkelmann, a pianist, organist, composer and educator currently living in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he is organist at the First United Methodist Church and on the faculty of Arkansas State University. Henkelmann holds a bachelor of arts in music from Moravian College, a master of arts in theological studies from Moravian Theological Seminary, and a master of church music from Concordia University Chicago. 

Music for September 8, 2019

Vocal Music

• Teach Me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)

Instrumental Music

• Prélude, Opus 15, no. 5 – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• From God Shall Naught Divide Me, BuxWV 220 – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Tuba Tune in D Major, Op. 15 – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

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 (LAAST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but suffer God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ISSAM)
• Hymn R 206 - Holy, holy (HOLY HOLY)
• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible (ST. DENIO)
• Psalm 1 – Tone VIb

Thomas Attwood (unknown painter)

Two weeks ago the Good Shepherd Choir sang an anthem by Mozart, and the week before we featured music by Mendelssohn. Today we sing an anthem by an English composer who bridged the two, Thomas Attwood. Attwood was organist at St. Paul's Cathedral in London from 1796 until his death. He began his musical career as a chorister in the Chapel Royal. The Prince of Wales, later George IV, sent him to Italy to study music when Attwood was 18, and then on to Vienna, where he became a student and friend to Mozart. Mozart told a friend, "I have the sincerest affection for Attwood, and i feel much pleasure in telling you that he has imbibed more of my style than any other scholar I have ever had." (1) Today's anthem, Teach Me, O Lord, dates from 1797, and exhibits much of Mozart's style. It has many of the same melodic and harmonic characteristics of Ave Verum, Mozart's miniature masterpiece.

Later in his life, Attwood became a close friend to the young composer Mendelssohn. During Mendelssohn's first trip to London, he suffered a knee injury in an accident, and spent the latter part of his recuperation in Attwood's home at Beulah Hill in Norwood. Following a second stay at  Norwood in 1832, Mendelssohn dedicated his Three Preludes and Fugues for the Organ (Op. 37) to Attwood.

(1) Wienand, Elwyn A. and Young, Robert H., The Anthem in England and America, The Free Press, 1970, p. 248 

Music for July 16, 2017 + The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Aria di Chiesa: Pietà, Signore! Attributed to Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682) - Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Tuba Tune in D Major – C.S. Lang (1891-1971)
• Andante in G – R. M. Stults (1861-1933)
• A Hymn of Glory - Edward Broughton (Lani Smith) (1934-2015)

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

• Opening Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy Word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Before Gospel Hymn R90 - Spirit of the Living God (IVERSON)
• Offertory Hymn 707 - Take my life and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Communion Hymn R 248 - O let the Son of God enfold you (SPIRIT SONG)
• Closing Hymn 535 -  Ye Servants of God, your Master proclaim (PADERBORN)
• Psalm 65 - Tone V

The offertory today is a solo work from the Italian repertoire; more specifically, it’s from the collection "Twenty-Four Italian Songs And Arias.” If you’ve ever studied voice, you probably began with this book. For well over a century, the G. Schirmer edition of 24 Italian Songs & Arias of the 17th and 18th Centuries has introduced millions of beginning singers to serious Italian vocal literature. In 2015, the pop-culture website Buzzfeed published a review of the 24 songs included in the collection. Here is what they had to say about this number:

This is a dark, churchy song for the guiltiest of souls. It's kind of a cosmic bummer. The next time you do something awful, like hooking up with your best friend's ex, blast this and beg for forgiveness. (1)

In this book, the music is attributed to Alessandro Stradella, an Italian composer of the middle Seventeenth century of some prominence. However, all indications point to another being the composer. In 1833, the Italian art song, "Se i miei sospiri", appeared in a Paris concert organized by François Joseph Fétis, a Belgian musicologist, composer, teacher, and one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century. Fétis published the piece for voice and strings in 1838 and then again in 1843 for voice and piano with alternate lyrics ("Pietà, Signore"). It is these alternate lyrics with which the piece is now typically associated. Fétis attributed the song to Stradella and claimed to possess an original manuscript of the work but never produced it for examination. As early as 1866, musicologists were questioning the authenticity of the song, and when Fétis' library was acquired by the Royal Library in Brussels after his death, no such manuscript could be found. Owing to this and the fact that the style of the piece is inconsistent with Stradella's own period, the authorship of the piece is now typically attributed to Fétis himself.

François Joseph Fétis,

It's not completely unheard of for composers to write compositions themselves and then claim that it's the work of another composer--a kind of reverse plagiarism--Parisotti and Kreisler are among the list of composers who have done this. Some seem to do it as a prank, others to get attention to a work that they feel would be ignored otherwise, and there are probably still more reasons. In any case, this is not the first of such works, and doubtless won't be the last.

The heavy mood of this powerful and moving work is set by a fairly lengthy instrumental introduction, and then the voice enters with short, subdued phrases, which eventually pick up momentum and intensity. The lines vary in length, but always contribute to the sense of a highly structured piece.

Jackson Hearn is away this week, attending the annual conference of the Association of Anglican Musicians. This year the conference is at Winchester, England, where he will worship at and tour Winchester, Salisbury, and Chichester Cathedrals, attend workshops, and gather with other Episcopal Musicians from around the world. He would like to thank Jill Kirkonis and Richard Murray for leading the music while he is away.

REMINDER! We're having an Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing on  Friday, August 11 at 7 PM. Help us decide what hymns to sing!  You can give Jackson Hearn a list of your favorite hymns at church or in an email. (jacksonhearn@goodshepherdkingwood.org). Or, you can vote on your favorite hymns by going to http://doodle.com/poll/4gh2kpy5vwyeyxa4 (or use scan this QR code on your smart phone or table)

(1)   A Definitive Ranking Of "Twenty-Four Italian Songs And Arias" (February 20, 2015) retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/ninamohan/a-definitive-ranking-of-twenty-four-italian-songs-and-arias?utm_term=.aqxM3e5lz#.hcnG2E7eW