Music for February 16, 2020 + The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Consideration – Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993)
• Amy Bogan, soloist
• Ave Verum Corpus – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Instrumental Music

• Fanfare and Alleluia – Douglas E. Wagner
• The Good Shepherd Handbell Choir
• Processional – William Mathias (1934–1992)

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

• Hymn 594 - God of Grace and God of Glory (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn 511 - Holy Spirit, ever living (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Spiritual- I will trust in the Lord (Negro Spiritual)
• Hymn R 291 - Go forth for God; go to the world in peace (GENEVA 124)
• Psalm 119:1-8 – Mode VI

Every year February and its emphasis on Black History encourages me to actively look for music from African-American composers. We've done several works by David Hurd, who is arguably one of the leading musicians in the Episcopal Church today. We've also sung many spirituals which always garner thanks and praise from the congregation. I was delighted last fall when our soprano section leader, Amy Bogan, brought to my attention a little known piece by the man many acknowledge to be the father of gospel music, Thomas A. Dorsey

The Father of Gospel Music

Dorsey is arguably the most influential figure ever to impact Gospel Music. A versatile composer whose material shifted easily from energetic hard gospel to gossamer hymns, he penned many of the best-known songs in the gospel canon, among them "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley". The founder of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, he was also a pioneering force in the renowned Chicago gospel community, where he helped launch the careers of legends including Mahalia Jackson and Sallie Martin.

Early Years

Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, GA on July 1, 1899 and raised in the Atlanta area; there, in addition to the traditional hymns, he also absorbed early blues and jazz. A child prodigy, he taught himself a wide range of instruments, and was playing blues and ragtime while still in his teens; under the stage name Georgia Tom, he was a prolific composer, authoring witty, slightly racy blues songs like the underground hit "It's Tight Like That."

From Blues to Jesus

Thomas A. Dorsey
As a young man, and later in life

Dorsey settled in Chicago in 1918, where he briefly enrolled at the city's College of Composition and Arranging; within months of his arrival, he began playing with area jazz bands including Les Hite's Whispering Serenaders. Dorsey also formed his own group, the Wildcats Jazz Band, which traveled in support of Ma Rainey. He later collaborated in a duo with Tampa Red, but in 1928, after suffering his second nervous breakdown before the age of 30, he opted to retire from the music business. A two-year recovery period followed, during which time a minister convinced Dorsey to return to music, albeit to move from the blues to the church. His first attempt at writing a gospel song, 1921's "If I Don't Get There," had met with some success, and he now returned with a renewed sense of purpose, renouncing secular music to devote all of his talents to the church circuit. Initially, Dorsey met with little success -- forced to reject blues jobs and with no gospel offers forthcoming, he soon resorted to peddling song sheets to make a living.

Rising from Despair

Dorsey's luck appeared to be on the upswing by 1932, the year he organized one of the first gospel choirs at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church; his pianist, Roberta Martin, would in a few years emerge among the top talents on the church circuit. That same year, he also founded the first publishing house devoted exclusively to selling music by Black gospel composers. However, a few months later -- while traveling with Theodore R. Frye to organize a choir in St. Louis -- tragedy struck when Dorsey discovered that his wife had died while giving birth to their son, who died two days later. Devastated, Dorsey locked himself inside his music room for three straight days, emerging with a completed draft of "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," a song whose popularity in the gospel community is rivaled perhaps only by "Amazing Grace."

Mozart pays a debt, we reap the reward

In his short adult life, Mozart always seemed to have money trouble, often writing music as a way to get out of a debt. Today's anthem,  Ave verum corpus,  is a work that Mozart composed in the final year of his life as a payment to a friend. Anton Stoll was a chorus master at a small church in Baden and had often helped Mozart by making travel arrangements for his wife, Constanze. Despite having his money worries, Mozart still liked to make sure his wife had her restorative periods at Baden.

Simple yet Sublime

Writing very simply, Mozart was perhaps conscious of the limitations of a small-town choir, although, as the Austrian pianist Artur Schnabel once said of the work, it is ‘too simple for children, and too difficult for adults’. It was written to be performed on the Feast of Corpus Christi and contains the words sotto voce (meaning ‘subdued’) in Mozart’s hand on the score.

Music for October 13, 2019

Vocal Music

• Rejoice, O Land – Healey Willan (1880 - 1968)
• Here, O My Lord – Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)

Instrumental Music

• Chorale Prelude on the Tune “Bevan” – Healey Willan
• Fanfare and Alleluia – Douglas E. Wagner
• Postlude in D – Healey Willan

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

• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (ST. THOMAS (WILLIAMS))
• Hymn - Wade in the water (Negro Spiritual)
• Hymn R 266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (GIVE THANKS)
• Hymn R 191 - O Christ, the healer (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R 232 - There is a redeemer (GREEN)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)
• Psalm 111 - Jerome W. Meachen

This Sunday the Gospel from Luke tells us of ten lepers who are healed by Jesus. The tenth leper was a Samaritan, a foreigner to Jesus. But he experienced the love and healing which tore down the barrier to a relationship with Jesus. He was filled with the desire to praise and to thank God for this gift—not out of obligation, but out of genuine gratitude.
That is why I chose the anthem for Sunday:

Rejoice, O land, in God, thy might;
His will obey, Him serve aright.
For thee the saints lift up their voice;
Fear not, O land, in God rejoice.

Glad shalt thou be, with blessing crowned;
With joy and peace thou shall abound;
Yea, love with thee shall make his home
Until thou see God’s kingdom come.

Sometimes we become overwhelmed and anxious about all the ways we are foreigners to God and we build barriers to his Grace. We should take heart from this Samaritan, whose life is transformed from fear to love, from anxiety to perpetual thanks.

Healey Willan, 1965

The arrangement of this hymn is by the Anglo-Canadian organist and composer Healey Willan. He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano. He is best known, however, for his church music.

He also composed the communion voluntary based on the hymn-tune BEVAN, which is used for the little known hymn Jesus, My Great High Priest. You'll hear the melody in the right hand, played again a measure later by the left hand on a different manual (keyboard.)

The Good Shepherd Handbell Guild will play for the first time this Sunday as they play Douglas Wagners Fanfare and Alleluia for the opening voluntary.

Music for May 15, 2016 + Pentecost

Pentecost and Confirmation

Vocal Music

• Creator Spirit, by whose Aid - Carolyn Jennings (b. 1936)
• Come Thou, Holy Spirit, Opus 25, No. 10 – Pavel Tschesnokoff (1877-1944)

Instrumental Music

• Celebration and Grace – Michael Mazzatenta
• Deep River – Douglas E. Wagner
• Improvisation on Veni Creator Spiritus - Alfred V. Fedak

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

• Hymn 225 - Hail thee, festival day (Salva festa dies)
• Hymn 513 - Like the murmur of the dove’s song (Bridegroom)
• Hymn 511 - Holy Spirit, ever living (Abbot’s Leigh)
• Hymn R90 - Spirit of the Living God (Iverson)
• Hymn R168 - If you believe and I believe (Traditional, Zimbabwe)
• Hymn R248 - Oh, let the Son of God enfold you (Spirit Song)
• Hymn 506 - Praise the Spirit in creation (Finnian)

I've always loved Pentecost, AKA: “Birthday of the Church” It's the Sunday fifty days after Easter ( Pentecost literally means “50”) that celebrates the day the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, causing them to speak in tongues. (Here is a great article from PBS which is kind of a primer for Pentecost. Useful for explaining it to kids. Or Episcopalians.) The emphasis is on the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost. Another name for the Holy Spirit is Paraclete, which the choir has had a good time singing "parakeet" for "Paraclete." (And I don't mean the kids choirs, either.) Paraclete appears in the Gospel of John (14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7) where it may be translated into English as "counselor", "helper", encourager, advocate, or "comforter". The early church identified the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5,1:8,2:4,2:38).

Carolyn Jennings

You'll hear that word in the choral acclamation that the choir will sing both before and after the Gospel reading. It is sort of like a choral fanfare. The acclamation/fanfare was written by Carolyn Jennings, a retired professor of music from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she taught for many years and also served in administrative roles, including being Chair of the Music Department and Associate Dean for the Fine Arts. She also recently retired from St. John's Lutheran Church in Northfield where she served as a church musician for over thirty years. Her husband, Kenneth Jennings, was also on the faculty of St. Olaf, directing the famed St. Olaf Choir.

The work starts off with trumpet fanfares which punctuate the choral setting of the hymn-text, "Creator Spirit, by whose aid," which is based on a ninth-century Latin hymn "Veni, Creator Spiritus."

The other choral offering is the communion anthem, Come Thou, Holy Spirit, by the Russian composer, Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov (Anglicized, Tschesnokoff). If you've ever sung in a college or university choir, you've sung his great anthem, Salvation Is Created. This anthem, originally titled Duh Tvoj blagi (or Let Thy Good Spirit) is along the same line. It is set for seven-part chorus a capella, beginning with a four part men's choir singing in alternation with three-part treble choir. After a brief section sung by the sopranos and altos alone, the opening is repeated, ending with quiet "Alleluias."

Pavel Chesnokov

Primarily a composer, Chesnokov composed over five hundred choral works. By the age of 30, he had completed nearly four hundred sacred choral works, but his proliferation of church music came to a standstill at the time of the Russian revolution. Under Stalin, no one was permitted to produce any form of sacred art. So in response, he composed an additional hundred secular works, and conducted secular choirs like the Moscow Academy Choir and the Bolshoi Theater Choir. In 1933, the Soviets destroyed the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where Chesnokov had been the last choirmaster. This disturbed him so deeply that he stopped writing music altogether. Instead, he turned to writing, and in 1940 published, "Khor i upravlenie im" (The choir and how to direct it), which remains an encyclopedic handbook for Russian choral directors. 

You will also hear the last appearance of the Good Shepherd handbell Choir this Sunday, as they play the opening voluntary and the communion voluntary. The opening piece is in a Rondo form where the "Celebration" section -  a bright, lively, syncopated section -  forms the 'theme' of the piece which alternates with varying 'episodes' that contrast with the theme. That would be the "Grace" sections of this work. Listen for a quieter rhythm (not quite as perky) and the use of handchimes as well as the martellatto technique (rung on the table, producing a short, muffled sound). Celebration and Grace was composed by Michael Mazzatenta, an award-winning handbell composer who also performs as a concert organist, accompanist, and jazz pianist. He is an Adjunct Faculty member at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, AZ and Phoenix College, AZ. He resides with his wife Joan, also a musician, in Mesa, Arizona.

During Deep River, you'll hear our newest addition to the handbell ministry, our new octave of hand chimes which will give us three full octaves of chimes in addition to the five octaves of bells which we have. 

The closing voluntary is a little wild (much like the Holy Spirit herself!)  This improvisatory piece is from an oratorio by Alfred Fedak and Carl Daw. It begins with quick rolling, whole-tone scale patterns (depicting, I presume, the winds of the Spirit or perhaps the tongues of fire). This is followed by virtuosic, cadenza-like manual passages, interrupted by long held manual chords while each phrase of the ancient chant "Veni Creator Spiritus" (see the third paragraph above!) is played in the pedal. Each phrase takes an unexpected turn at the end, sending it to an unexpected resolution. It is NOT your usual organ postlude.