Music for March 25, 2018 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna in the Highest – David W. Music (b. 1949)
• O Vos Omnes - Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Instrumental Music

• Largo, from Stabat Mater – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), arr. Mark Schweitzer

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

• Hymn 154 - All glory, laud, and honor (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)
• Hymn 156 - Ride on! Ride on in majesty (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn R235 - O sacred head, now wounded (PASSION CHORALE)
• Hymn R214 - Lamb of God (Twila Paris)
• Hymn R233 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn R227 - Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)

In music, a suspension is a means of creating tension by prolonging a note in a chord while the underlying harmony changes, normally on a strong beat. The resulting dissonance persists until the suspended note resolves by step wise motion into a new consonant chord, or harmony. It is often the use of suspensions in music that give music a feeling of longing or emotion.

You will hear several examples of that in the music during the second half of the Palm Sunday service. If you've been to a Palm Sunday service at an Episcopal church (or any other liturgical church such as Catholics or Lutherans), you know that the service begins with lots of "hosannas!" and cheer, before taking an ugly turn like the crowd in Jerusalem. After opening hymns and anthems with the choir of children and adults waving their palm branches,  the music becomes much more somber with the reading of the Passion. That's where the suspensions come in.

The choir will sing a setting of the words from Lamentations, O vos omnes (O all you who walk by on the road), which is used as a response to part of the Tenebrae Service in Holy Week. It's an appeal to us to take note of the sorrow of Christ during His Passion.

This setting is by 16th century Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Victoria ranks with Giovanni da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso among the greatest composers of the Counter-Reformation. He was sent by King Philip II of Spain in 1565 to prepare for holy orders at the German College in Rome. There he probably studied with Palestrina, whom he eventually succeeded as director of music at the Roman Seminary. From 1578 to 1585 he an assistant chaplain of San Girolamo della Carità, where he met the pious dowager empress Maria, widow of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II, and became her chaplain. In 1584 she entered the convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, where Victoria became priest and organist. He settled in Madrid in 1594.

Tomás Luis de Victoria, looking like a character from an HBO series.

What makes this music so beautiful is that often, in addition to the use of the fore-mentioned suspensions, a line begins with a single note, allowing the harmony to grow around it, and accentuating the polyphony.  It also spends so much time avoiding thirds, the middle note of a chord that determines its tonality, that when it becomes decisively major or minor, it’s always a surprise. And in the middle of the piece, the basses drop out, leaving just the three upper parts to carry on.

The other suspensions come in the Handbell music played during communion. "Largo" is an arrangement of Quando corpus morietur from the "Stabat Mater" by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.  Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist whoses best-known works include his Stabat Mater and the opera La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress). His compositions include comic operas and sacred music (sounds about right to me.) Unfortunately, he died at a very young age of 26 of tuberculosis, so we don't know what great music he might have written.

Music for March 29, 2015 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna – David W. Music
• Go to Dark Gethsemane - T. Tertius Noble (1867-1953)
• Were You There? – spiritual (Richard Murray, baritone, Bernice Satterwhite, piano)
• Gethsemane – Sally DeFord (b. 1959) (Bidkar Cajina, baritone)

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

• Hymn 154 – All glory, laud, and honor (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN)
• Hymn 458 – My song is love unknown (LOVE UNKNOWN)
• Hymn R 227 – Jesus, remember me (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 168 – O sacred head, sore wounded (HERZLICH TUT MICH VERLANGEN [PASSION CHORALE])

The anthem this Sunday is a beautiful acapella setting of the Holy Week hymn, Go to Dark Gethsemane by the composer T. Tertius Noble. It was written in 1918 for the

T. Tertius Noble
prior to coming to America

choir of the Church of St. Luke and the Epiphany in Philadelphia for a service of Lenten music. Included on the program was an anthem written especially for this service by Dr. Noble, who was then the organist/choirmaster of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, New York City. Noble was an English-born organist and composer who had studied at the Royal College of Music. He served as Organist and Choirmaster at Ely Cathedral and York Minster prior to his last appointment at St Thomas, where he was responsible for establishing a choral tradition along Anglican cathedral lines. Noble also founded the Saint Thomas Choir School for boys in 1919.

Noble composed orchestral and chamber music, but is now remembered for his music for the Anglican church, particularly his Evening services in a A major, B minor and A minor, and his anthems Go to dark Gethsemane, Souls of the Righteous, and Grieve not the Holy Spirit.

The children's choirs will join the adults for the Blessing of the Palms out in the front yard at the beginning of the 10:15 service to sing a musical setting of Hosanna in the Highest by David W. Music, Professor of Church Music and Graduate Program Director in the School of Music at Baylor University, where he has taught since 2002.

Hymns for Sunday

• All glory, laud, and honor (VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN) - This well known hymn was written by St. Theodulph of Orleans in 820 while he was imprisoned in Angers, France, for conspiring against the King, with whom he had fallen out of favor. The text acts as a retelling of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The tune was composed by Melchior Teschner in 1613 for "Valet will ich dir geben," Valerius Herberger's hymn for the dying. Though the tune is often named ST. THEODULPH because of its association with his text, is known in our hymnal, and especially in organ literature, as VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN.  
• My song is love unknown (LOVE UNKNOWN) - Though not as well known as today's opening hymn, it is a perfect hymn for Palm Sunday, for it tells the entire story of Holy Week, from Triumphal entry to the crucifixion. Samuel Crossman wrote the hymn in 1664, when only Psalms were allowed to be sung in public worship. It is a very personal expression of Christ's Love and our response. John Ireland composed LOVE UNKNOWN in 1918 for this text,  the tune was first published in The Public School Hymn Book of 1919. Ireland wrote LOVE UNKNOWN within fifteen minutes on a scrap of paper upon receiving the request to compose it from Geoffrey Shawfor the 1919 hymnal, The Public School Hymn Book. 
• Jesus, remember me (Jacques Berthier) Another of the short, repetitive chants from the the Taizé community, an ecumenical community in France, the text references Luke 23:42, where one of the robbers crucified with the Savior cried out, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus responded, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" (v. 43). This humble plea of a sinner for divine mercy is all the more poignant today as our Savior in heaven continues to pray for his people.
• O sacred head, sore wounded (HERZLICH TUT MICH VERLANGEN [PASSION CHORALE]) The original Latin poem addressed seven Aspects of the Crucifixion: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and face. Known as "crucifix hymns" they were designed for long, intense devotions while kneeling at the altar. Part seven, salve caput, was put into German by the famous hymn writed Paul Gerhardt, then translated into English by Robert Bridges for "O sacred head, sore wounded." The tune HERZLICH TUT MICH VERLANGEN has been associated with Gerhardt's text since they were first published together in 1656. The tune's first association with a sacred text was its attachment in 1613 to the funeral text "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" (hence the tune name). It was originally a court song by the great Renaissance composer Hans Leo Hassler in 1601.