A NEW SONG: Music for October 23, 2022 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Oh, Sing to the Lord a New Song – John Leavitt (b. 1956)

Instrumental Music

• Chorale Prelude on a Melody by Orlando Gibbons – Healey Willan (1880-1968)
• Sonata IV: Andante – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Finale in D Minor – Eric H. Thiman (1900-1975)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 680 O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)
• Hymn 686 Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn 424 For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn 693 Just as I am (WOODWORTH)
• Hymn 636 How firm a foundation (FOUNDATION)
• Psalm 84:1-6 – Tone VIIIa

Oh, Sing to the Lord a New Song

This anthem is a departure from our usually sedate, organ-based fare. It is a contemporary setting of a contemporary paraphrase of Psalm 96. The composer of the piece is John Leavitt, a Kansas native who devotes himself full-time to composing and conducting. He is the artistic director and conductor of a professionally trained vocal ensemble known as The Master Arts Chorale and an associated children's choir, The Master Arts Youth Chorale, both in Wichita.

Born and raised in Leavenworth, Kansas, Leavitt did his undergraduate work is in Music Education at Emporia State University. After graduation, Leavitt moved to Wichita, Kansas where he worked in television for five years. At Wichita State University he pursued a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance with significant study in composition. While in Wichita he directed the parish music program at Immanuel Lutheran Church and served on the faculty at Friends University where he won the faculty award for teaching excellence in 1989.

He completed doctoral work in Choral Conducting at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. 

Chorale Prelude on a Melody by Orland Gibbons

The melody by Orlando Gibbons, an English composer who lived in last half of the 16th century and the first quarter of the 17th century, can be found in our hymnal at hymn 670. In addition to his instrumental and choral works, Gibbons also wrote many hymn tunes, 17 of which were included in George Withers' 'Hymnes and Songs of the Church', published in 1623.

It is arranged by Healey Willan, the Canadian organist, who spent most of his professional career at St. Mary the Virgin in Toronto. Though born in England, Willan moved to Canada in in13, when he was 33, and spent the rest of his life there, becoming known as "the Dean of Canadian composers." 

He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano, but his best known works are his church music.

Sonata in E Minor: II. Andante

The communion voluntary is the second movement of a Trio Sonata by J. S. Bach. Bach compiled six “sonatas” for organ, reworking and expanding upon various earlier pieces. The fourth of these is designated as a “Trio sonata” in E minor, BWV 528, which simply describes three-part music written for two manuals and pedal.

The middle Andante movement in B minor features imitative interplay between the two voices in the manuals, while the pedal provides the bass line.

Finale in D Minor

The closing voluntary is by one of the leading organ composers from England of the 20th century. Eric Thiman was born in 1900 in Ashford, Kent, and spent his life in or around London.

Though largely self-taught, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at twenty-one, and a Doctor of Music of London University at twenty-seven – at the time the youngest person ever to achieve that qualification.

From 1931 he was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music and was appointed Dean of the Music Faculty at London University in 1956. He was warmly respected and a gifted and patient teacher.

Unlike many of the well known organists in Great Britain, Thiman was not an Anglican. He was organist and Choir Director at two big non-conformist churches, Park Chapel, Hornsey (England) and City Temple in London. 

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 September 10, 2017 + The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

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

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in Classic Style – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• Land of Rest – George Shearing (1919-2011)
• Thou Art the Rock – Henri Mulet (1878-1967)

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

• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee  (HYMN TO JOY)
• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 302 - Father, we thank thee who hast planted (RENDEZ A DIEU)
• Hymn R192 - God forgave my sin in Jesus’ name (FREELY, FREELY)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi Caritas (TAIZE)
• Hymn 674 - “Forgive our sins, as we forgive” (DETROIT)
• Psalm 149 - ToneVIIIa

This Sunday the choir finally returns to the 10:15 service after their summer break and Hurricane Harvey. We've only had two rehearsals, so we turn to an anthem by the Englishman Eric Thiman. A church and recital organist and superb improviser, Thiman was a practical composer who aimed his output at the average choir and organist, rather than the cathedral choirs. Philip L Scowcroft, in his internet biography of Thiman said "His music rarely, if ever, touched the heights, yet we can admire its craftsmanship and take pleasure in its gracious tunefulness, which is well in the English tradition (or, properly, British tradition, since he used or set so many Scots and Irish tunes as well as English)." (1) In today's anthem, it is a Welsh tune that he arranges for choir, the hymn "Immortal, Invisible." It's a great choice for that first Sunday back with most of the choir singing the melody in unison, except for the third stanza that is in four part harmony (and unaccompanied.)

The opening voluntary is by the American counterpart, Gordon Young. Young was also a church musician and concert recitalist who published over 800 pieces in his lifetime. Like Thiman, most of it was aimed at the average church choir and organist, who loved singing his rhythmic and tuneful pieces. This opening voluntary is one that I have been playing since I was a high school senior. Prelude in Classic Style is one of Young's most popular pieces, even being recorded by the guitar master Christopher Parkening in an arrangement for guitar and harpsichord re-titled Hymn of Christian Joy. It's that joy that I wanted to express this morning as we celebrate Rally Day.

"Classic Style" refers to characteristics of the Classical period of Classical music, the years roughly covering 1750-1825 (think Mozart and Haydn). Classical music of this period has a lighter, clearer texture than baroque music (Bach or Handel) and is less complex. It is mainly homophonic—melody above chordal accompaniment. It also emphasizes light elegance in place of the baroque’s dignified seriousness and impressive grandeur. You will hear all of that in this morning's voluntary.

My closing voluntary is a piece that I have played since I was a Junior in college, the Toccata: Tu es petra, by Henri Mulet, from Esquisses Byzantines, a ten-movement suite published in 1920. Considered Mulet's most famous composition for organ, it was written over a period of at least ten years, dedicated "in memory of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Montmartre, 1914-1919. The tenth movement, the toccata, is thought to refer to the smaller, medieval church of Saint Pierre-de-Montmartre, an institution which had been consecrated over 700 years before the creation of the basilica. 

The ominous tonalities of the piece, the frequent use of the minor third, the development of contrasting motifs, and the brilliant finale in the parallel major key all suggest a spiritual battle in which good does indeed triumph.

Henri Mulet, c. 1937

Enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire before he was twelve years old, Henri Mulet studied cello, harmony, and organ. His primary organ instructors included Charles-Marie Widor, Alexandre Guilmant, and their assistant, Louis Vieme, all of whom thought highly of the young composer and organist. Louis Vieme claimed that Mulet was "one of the most brilliant of musical personalities, a solid virtuoso, and a very fine improviser." Although Mulet held several church organ positions, his most significant position was at Saint Philippe-du-Roule, a parish of about 30,000 members. In 1937, afflicted by poor health and poverty and disillusioned with music and life, Mulet moved to Draguignan, a town between Marseilles and Nice. He was taken into the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor in 1958, where Mulet died several years later. 

1. Philip L Scowcroft, English Composers for Amateurs: No 2 - Eric Thiman