Music for February 26, 2017 + The Last Sunday After the Epiphany

The Transfiguration of Christ

Vocal Music

• The Lord is My Light and Salvation – Fred Gramman (contemporary)
• The Lord Bless You and Keep You – John Rutter (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude and Fugatoon “St. Elizabeth” – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• Christ Upon the Mountain Peak – Joyce Moon Stroble (contemporary)
• Shine, Jesus, Shine – David Blackwell, arr. (b. 1961)

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 328 - Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord (SONG 46)
• Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (SHINE JESUS SHINE)
• Psalm 99 - Dominus regnavit (Tone V)

This Sunday we focus on the story of Jesus' Transfiguration - that time when Jesus, Peter, James and John went to the Mount of Transfiguration to pray, and Jesus began to shine with bright rays of light. The prophets Moses and Elijah appeared next to him and he spoke with them. The actual feast day is August 6, but the Revised Common Lectionary chooses to end the season after Epiphany with the telling of the Transfiguration story.

If we look at the collect for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany in our prayer book, we can see reasons why the Transfiguration of Our Lord is celebrated when it is:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer according to the use of the Episcopal Church, 1979, page 217.)

We celebrate the revelation of Christ's glory "before the passion" so that we may "be strengthened to bear our cross and be changed into his likeness." The focus of the Lenten season is renewed discipline in walking in the way of the cross and rediscovery of the baptismal renunciation of evil and sin and our daily adherence to Christ. At Easter, which reveals the fullness of Christ’s glory (foreshadowed in the Transfiguration), Christians give themselves anew to the gospel at the Easter Vigil where they share the dying and rising of Christ.

In the biblical context, the synoptic gospels narrate the Transfiguration as a bridge between Jesus' public ministry and his passion. From the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem and the cross.

The key words in the story of the transfiguration and, indeed, the entire season of Epiphany are light and glory. Much of the music today references those themes.

One of the few hymns specifically for Transfiguration is Christ, upon the mountain peak, written by contemporary English poet Brian Wren in 1962. Peter Cutts wrote the tune SHILLINGFORD specifically for that text, and both text and tune are in our hymnal (hymn 130). But it is not really the kind of tune that easily catches on, as most hymnals which have included this text use another tune. (In fact, even our hymnal includes another tune as an alternate.) It looks innocent enough on paper, but upon hearing it you become aware of a tonal ambiguity that frankly freaks out the average congregation singer.

But the recent publication, Bayoubuchlein*, published for the 2016 American Guild of Organist convention here in Houston, includes a setting of this hymn which I think works well during communion. 

Joyce Moon Strobel's arrangement begins with an undulating eighth note accompaniment in the right hand, with the melody coming in quietly in the left hand. Taking a cue from the adventuresome tonality of the melody, Strobel also ventures into new keys for each of the three times she presents the tune. A graduate of the Conservatory at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio and Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Joyce Strobel has served as Organist/Choir Director at St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Scott Township, in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since 1986.

* Bayoubüchlein: New Choral Preludes for AGO Houston 2016

This distinctive new collection of organ music for the liturgical year was commissioned for the 2016 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Houston. The title refers to J. S. Bach’s volume of chorale-based organ works and Houston’s Gulf Coast waterways. Realizing that newer hymn tunes often lacked chorale preludes, the convention’s new music committee decided that each piece in this collection would be based on a hymn tune composed since 1960. The works chosen are a combination of pieces commissioned by the convention and pieces selected from an open “call for scores.” 

Music for November 6, 2016 + All Saints Sunday

Vocal Music

• O Thou, Whose All-Redeeming Might – arr. David Blackwell (b. 1961)

Instrumental Music

• Les Vepres du Commun des Saints – J. Guy Ropartz (1865-1955)
• We run to you for your sweet fragrance. – Song of Solomon 1:3a
• Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone – Song of Solomon 2:11
• Shall We Gather at the River – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• For All the Saints – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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

• Hymn 287 For all the saints, who from their labor rest (Sine Nomine)
• Hymn 625 Ye holy angels bright (Darwall’s 148th)
• Hymn 707  Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn R127 Blest are they, the poor in spirit (Blest Are They)
• Hymn 618 Ye watchers and ye holy ones (Lasst uns erfreuen)
• Psalm 149 – Tone VIIb

J. Guy Ropartz

The opening organ voluntaries are two selections from a collection of organ antiphons written for Vespers of the Common of Saints by a little known French composer, Joseph Guy Ropartz. These organ antiphons were to be played between the plainsong verses of the canticles for the vesper services. 

As a child, Ropartz played bugle, horn, and double bass in a local orchestra, but his father wanted him to prepare himself for life in a more secure profession. Therefore, he was given a Jesuit education, then studied law and literature, obtaining a degree from Rennes in 1885. Once he fulfilled his father's wishes, Ropartz then enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied music with Theodore Dubois, Jules Massenet, and Cesar Franck. Ropartz was a devout Catholic, and the influence of the modes of the plainsong chants he heard in church can be found in his music, both secular and sacred.

The anthem is a setting of a plainsong hymn arranged by British composer David Blackwell. The text was written in 1861 by the Rev. Richard M. Benson, a clergyman of the Church of England, for the Feast of St. Barnabas. He spent some time in 1870-71 in the United States, labouring with zeal and success in several dioceses

The communion and closing voluntaries are organ arrangements of two popular hymns by two popular composers for church music. The communion voluntary is based on the American Gospel hymn, Shall We Gather At the River.

 Yes, we'll gather at the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river
that flows by the throne of God.

It was arranged by Gordon Young, who was recognized as one of this country's leading composers of both organ and choral works in the last half of the 20th century, with many of his nearly 1000 works having entered the standard repertory. 

His undergraduate degree in music was earned at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas. Following that he was a scholarship pupil at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and then he received his Doctor of Sacred Music from Southwestern in 1964.

During the course of his career, he was a radio organist in Tulsa, a music critic and columnist for daily newspapers in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, and choirmaster in churches in Philadelphia and Kansas City. Mr. Young taught organ in conjunction with Wayne State University and for 15 years was organist and choir director at the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit.

The closing voluntary is that great All Saints hymn with which we open today's service. It is arranged by  Charles Callahan, a native of Cambridge, Mass., who is well known as an award-winning composer, organist, pianist, and teacher. Callahan’s compositions are performed frequently in church and concert. Like Gordon Young, Callahan is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as well as the Catholic University of America, with additional study in England, France, Germany, and Belgium. 

Music for August 28, 2016 + The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Rally Day

Vocal Music

• Bread of the World – Carlton Young, arr. (b. 1926)

Instrumental Music

• Gather Us In – arr. Donald M. Verkuilen III (21st C.)
• Let Us Break Bread Together - Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Shine, Jesus, Shine – David Blackwell, arr. (b. 1961)

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

Hymn 450 - All hail the power of Jesus’ name! (Coronation)

Hymn R37 - Father we love you  (Glorify your name )

Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (Mit Freuden zart)

Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (Hymn to Joy)

Hymn R149 - I, the Lord of Sea and Sky (Here I am, Lord)

Hymn R206 - Holy, holy (Holy holy)

Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (Shine, Jesus, Shine)

Psalm 112 - Beatus vir (Tone V)

For our first Sunday back after three months vacation we are singing a simple setting of a Southern melody. The tune CHARLESTON was first found in The United States Sacred Harmony in 1799; it's become very popular in the last 40 years as the tune for the text "All who love and serve your city," as found at hymn 571 in our hymnal. But it is the text for the communion hymn "Bread of the world in mercy broken," (Hymn 301 in our book) that Carlton Young pairs with this tune. He treats the first stanza with choir in unison, but on the second stanza, the tonality changes to a minor mode and the tenors and basses sing together in unison. The trebles join for the second half and at the conclusion of the second (and final) stanza, he has the choir return to the first stanza in the original major key in canon.

Carlton R. (Sam) Young

Carlton Young has had more influence on what the United Methodist have sung in the last half century than probably anyone since John and Charles Wesley started the movement in the 18th century. He has had the unique distinction of serving as editor of two revisions of the Methodist hymnal: THE METHODIST HYMNAL, 1966; and THE UNITED METHODIST HYMNAL, 1989. Dr. Young, known to his friends as "Sam", has served on the church music faculties at three major United Methodist Schools: Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University; Scarritt College; and Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Known more for his scholarly efforts than for his compositions, he has, however, arranged or written many hymns and choral pieces. His harmonization of "What Wondrous Love is This" is used in the accompaniment edition of our hymnal.

Donald Verkuilen III

The organ voluntaries today are proof that hymnody is not a dying tradition. I present two organ voluntaries on hymns written since 1980. Gather Us In is found in the Renew hymnal in our pews, and is a rollicking gathering song for worship. Marty Haugen, the writer of both tune and text, is an American who is a member of the United Church of Christ. His hymn is now in over 25 hymnals worldwide. This toccata is by Donald Verkuilen, the organist-choir master at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was chosen for inclusion in Bayoubuchlein, a collection of organ works based on contemporary hymns published by and for the 2016 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists which was held here in Houston this past May.

The closing voluntary is an organ arrangement of one of our church's favorites, Shine, Jesus, Shine. It is arranged by the English organist and composer David Blackwell. He studied music at Edinburgh University, Scotland, and then pursued a career in music publishing, finishing his career as Head of Music Publishing at Oxford University Press. He now works as a freelancer composer, editor, and journalist.