Music for February 27, 2022 + The Last Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Immortal, Invisible – Eric Thiman (1900-1975)

Instrumental Music

• Make Me an Instrument – Kevin McChesney (b. 1963)
• Meditation on “Beautiful Savior” – Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)
• A Tune for the Tuba – Eric Thiman

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 383 - Fairest Lord Jesus (ST. ELIZABETH)
• Hymn 135 - Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)
• Hymn R201 - Be still, for the Spirit of the Lord (BE STILL)
• Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (SHINE, JESUS, SHINE)
• Psalm 99 – Tone Va

The Handbell Guild plays for the first time this year, offering two classic handbell pieces. 

The first is a song called "Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace, composed by Kevin McChesney, one of the most prolific composers for handbell, in response to the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999. Fifteen people lost their lives when two students began shooting students and teachers, and eventually themselves. The piece begins and ends with 15 chords for the 15 people who lost their lives, and is composed around the Prayer of St. Francis.

Obviously, we began rehearsing long before the threat of war in the Ukraine. We scheduled it as rumors of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia at the behest of Vladimir Putin were just being voiced. It is with the people of Ukraine (and the entire world) that we play this today.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Kevin McChesney graduated with highest honors from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a BMus in Composition and Theory. A composer and arranger of handbell music, Kevin currently has over 900 titles in print and is one of the very few musicians who makes handbells a full‑time vocation. 

Kevin was a church music director in Methodist and Presbyterian churches for twelve years. Kevin is currently the handbell editor for Jeffers Handbell Supply and the RingingWord catalog. He directs an auditioned community handbell choir, the Pikes Peak Ringers. 

Kevin lives in Colorado Springs, CO, with his wife Tracy and their cats, Belle and Grace Note.

The other work is by Cathy Mokelbust, another prolific composer for bells working today. Since its publication in 1996, her "Meditation on Beautiful Savior" has become one of the all-time most popular pieces in the handbell repertoire, with approximately 50,000 copies sold as of 2012. 

Cathy Moklebust began her handbell journey at age 12 at her home church, First Lutheran Church in Brookings, South Dakota. She went on to get her B.A. and M.Ed. at South Dakota State University, in  Brookings, then began her career as a public school instrumental music instructor in South Dakota. She  has performed as principal or section percussionist with several professional and community bands and orchestras throughout the upper Midwest. Cathy has played in, conducted, and coached church and community handbell ensembles in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Since 1989, she has worked in the music retail and publishing industry; currently she and her husband David operate a successful music preparation service in their hometown of Brookings.

Music for November 18, 2018

Vocal Music

• Here, O My Lord – Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Old Hundredth” – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light – arr. Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)
• Toccata in C – Johann Pachelbel

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 48 - O day of radiant gladness (ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN)
• Hymn 51 - We the Lord’s people, heart and voice uniting (DECATUR PLACE)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world in mercy broken (RENDEZ À DIEU)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of ages, cleft for me (TOPLADY)
• Hymn 571 - All who love and serve your city (CHARLESTOWN)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA)
• Psalm 16 – Tone VIIIa

Traditionally, women have never been leaders in the classical music scene. (Or any scene, for that matter.) I've come to realize (and often joke about) that the majority of the music we hear in church was written by dead white men. That's why I purposely looked for new music this summer that was written by women (dead or alive). Our budget for new music is woefully small, so I only bought a handful of new titles this summer, but the majority, I am proud to say, are by women. This Sunday features two works by women.

Eleanor Daley

The anthem this Sunday is a setting of the communion text, "Here, O My Lord," by the Canadian composer Eleanor Daley. Born and raised in Parry Sound, Ontario, Daley received her Bachelor of Music Degree in Organ Performance from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and holds diplomas in piano and organ from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto and Trinity College, England. She has been the Director of Music at Fairlawn Avenue United Church (formerly Fairlawn Heights) in Toronto, Ontario since 1982. During this time, she has established a thriving choral program for which much of her music has been composed. You can read about this music program at their website, http://www.fairlawnchurch.ca/spirituality/music/

Cathy Moklebust

The Good Shepherd Handbell Guild is playing an arrangement of that favorite hymn "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light," by the American Cathy Moklebust. Trained as a percussionist, she was first introduced to handbells when she was 12 years old at First Lutheran Church in Brookings, South Dakota. She has developed and directed handbell music programs since 1983. As one of today's most popular handbell music composers, she has approximately 250 published compositions and arrangements to her credit, many of them reaching bestseller status. Moklebust's music has been broadcast on "Today," "Good Morning, America," public television, public radio, and SiriusXM satellite radio.

I'm also playing a couple of organ works by the South German baroque composer, Johann Pachelbel. Yes, he's most famous today for his "Canon in D," but in his lifetime Pachelbel was known for his works for organ, and was considered one of the great organ masters of the generation before J.S. Bach. Pachelbel also taught organ, and one of his pupils was Johann Christoph Bach, who in turn gave his younger brother Johann Sebastian Bach his first formal keyboard lessons.

The opening voluntary is a chorale-prelude on the ubiquitous tune OLD HUNDREDTH, which we know as "the Doxology." The pedal carries the melody while the manuals (hands) provide the accompaniment.

The closing voluntary is a toccata which displays a lot of manual dexterity, but the pedal literally just sits on a low C. It's perfect for the lazy church organist. 

Music for December 10, 2016 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• O Come, Emmanuel – Peter Paul Olejar (b. 1937)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Freu' dich sehr, O meine Seele - Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
• Impressions on “Veni Emmanuel" – Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)

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

• Hymn 67 - Comfort, comfort ye my people (PSALM 42)
• Hymn 53 - Once he came in blessing (GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN)
• Hymn 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (STUTTGART)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (BEREDEN VAG FOR HERRAN)
• Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 - Benedixisti, Domine

We're featuring two and a half settings of the best known Advent Hymn, O Come, O come, Emmanuel this Sunday. One is sung by the choir with Handbells, and another is played by the Handbells alone. The remaining half of an arrangement? You'll have to pay attention in church on Sunday to catch it.

The tune, VENI EMMANUEL, was originally music for a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional. A Church of England priest, Thomas Helmore, adapted this chant tune and published it in 1854. Helmore was ordained a priest but his main contribution to the church was in music. He was master of the choristers in the Chapel Royal for many years. The text for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" comes from a 7 verse poem that dates back to the 8th century, the “Great ‘O’ Antiphons,” which was part of the medieval Roman Catholic Advent liturgy. A metrical version of five of the verses appeared in the 13th century, which was translated into English by J.M. Neale in 1851.

Peter Paul Olejar

The offertory is an arrangement by Peter Paul Olejar, the Director of Music at St. Paul’s Christian Church, Raleigh NC. With degrees from Duke University (AB) and Yale University (Master of Music) and further graduate studies at the University of Toronto Electronic Music Laboratory, he has had a fascinating career combining teaching, composition, and church music with forays into musicals and dance bands. In addition to his musical activities, he was a Consulting Systems Engineer for the IBM Corporation.

He has written music for chamber orchestra, brass ensemble, string quartet, theater orchestra, symphony orchestra, large dance bands, chorus, children’s plays, children’s chorus, solo vocal music, carillon and organ. He has directed pit orchestras for musical shows and has written orchestrations for the same.

Cathy Moklebust

The communion voluntary is an ethereal setting of the VENI EMMANUEL chant by the American composer, Cathy Moklebust. She begins the work with random handbells ringing at their own pace  while the chant melody is played on handchimes. Then comes a stanza with the bells in 12/8 time. The piece ends with bells going into 4/4 time with the refrain, "Rejoice, rejoice, Emanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

Cathy Moklebust has developed and directed handbell music programs since 1983. Her handbell experience began in 1970 with the Towers Handbell Choir of First Lutheran Church in Brookings,  South Dakota, where she still lives with her husband.

Moklebust earned both her B.A. and M.Ed. in music at South Dakota State University and began her musical career as a public school instrumental music instructor in South Dakota. She is an active percussionist, and has performed as principal or section percussionist with several professional and community bands and orchestras throughout the upper Midwest. Cathy has played in, conducted, and coached church and community handbell ensembles in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Since 1989, she has worked in the music retail and publishing industry; currently she and her husband David operate Moklebust Music Services, a music preparation service.

She has been commissioned to write music for festivals and other events, as well as for many individual handbell ensembles. Her music has been broadcast on "Today," "Good Morning, America," public television, public radio, and SiriusXM satellite radio.

The opening and closing voluntaries, while titled something completely different, are from a set of variations on the opening hymn, which our hymnal calls Psalm 42. The only difference is the meter. Our hymnal has it in the original rhythmic setting of the Renaissance, while the organ setting uses the isometric version made popular during the Baroque period. Look at the rhythms of the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God in our hymnal to compare the difference. (688 is isometric, 687 is rhythmic.)

Music for December 11, 2016 + The Third Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

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

Instrumental Music

• Fantasy on “Veni Emmanuel” – Robert C. Lau (b. 1943)
• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – Cathy Moklebust (b. 1958)
• O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – Robert Powell (b. 1932)

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

• Hymn R128 - Bless’d be the God of Israel (Forest Green)
• Hymn 56, st. 5-6 - O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni, veni, Emmanuel)
• Hymn 615 - “Thy Kingdom come!” (St. Flavian)
• Hymn 59, st. 3-5 - Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (Merton)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (Winchester New)
• Psalm 146 - Lauda, anima mea

The anthem this Sunday is the beautiful chorus from Mendelssohn's oratorio St. Paul. (I wrote about it in January when we sang this anthem in church. You can read about it here.) We are singing it again this Sunday because the Gospel reminds us that Jesus said that John the Baptist was the one about whom it was written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’

The opening and closing voluntaries are based on the well-loved Advent hymn, Veni, veni, Emmanuel. (You remember your Latin I, right? Veni, vidi, vici? "I came, I saw, I conquered.") This is the hymn that we have been singing in place of the Gloria each Sunday in Advent. Both of these settings, by contemporary composers, are more paraphrases of the melody than a single exposition of the tune. You hear bits and pieces, or snippets of the melody, instead of a complete presentation of each phrase.

Robert C. Lau

The opening voluntary is by Robert Lau, recently retired as director of music and organist at Mt. Calvary Episcopal Church in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where he held the post for over 25 years. He has degrees from Lebanon Valley College, the Eastman School of Music and The Catholic University of America.  A former member of the faculty at Lebanon Valley College where he taught music theory and chaired the Music Department, Dr. Lau also served as Adjunct Professor of Music at Penn State Harrisburg, teaching in the School of Humanities.

He has written more than 250 choral and keyboard works which have been published by the leading music publishing companies in the United States, and he has been commissioned to write choral, keyboard and vocal works for a variety of institutions, churches and individuals.  For his work in published choral and keyboard works he has won 15 Special Awards from ASCAP.  In 2010 Paraclete Press published his book A Practical Approach to Improvisation for the Church Organist.

In his setting of Veni Emmanuel, he employs an improvisatory style. I think he had verse one in mind while writing this work.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Refrain:Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.

The work begins with rather desolate harmonies, sparse chords spread out over the keyboard using a thin, stringy sound. The melody comes in the pedal, employing a plaintive oboe-like sound. At the "rejoice!" section, instead of the typical "rejoice" refrain, we hear a new chant like melody on the full Swell, rolling around, like a pot approaching full boil, until huge, screaming chords call us to rejoice, take heart, take courage, for the promise of the Messiah. I think that is why the piece doesn't resolve without a fight (listen for the struggles in the harmonies as the organ builds.) Finally, the dust settles, and the familiar "rejoice" melody comes in, but not loudly, but with a quiet hope, trusting in the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us.

The Good Shepherd Handbells are playing a gorgeous arrangement of the communion hymn, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. It is a setting by Cathy Moklebust, a composer from South Dakota, whose compositions for handbell are influenced by her over forty-six years as a handbell musician and her background as a percussionist.