Music for Holy Week

April 5 +Tenebrae Service (7 PM)

Vocal Music

• Tenebrae: A Service of Darkness – Hal H. Hopson

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 168 - O Sacred Head Sore Wounded (HERZLICH TUT MICH VERLANGEN)
• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 474 – When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM)

April 6 + Maundy Thursday (7 PM)

Vocal Music

• Ave Verum – Camille Saint-Saens

Instrumental Music

• Adore te Devote - Charles Callahan
• Tantum Ergo - Charles Callahan

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

• Hymn 439 - What wondrous love is this, O my soul (WONDROUS LOVE)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 602 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas et amor (Taizé)
• Hymn 171 – Go to dark Gethsemane (PETRA)
• Song – Could you not watch? (Hal Hopson)
• Psalm 116 – Hal Hopson

April 7 + Good Friday (Noon)

Vocal Music

• Were You There? – Spiritual

Instrumental Music

• O Sacred Head - Johann Sebastian Bach
• O Traurigkeit, O Herzelied - Ethel Smyth

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 168 - O Sacred Head Sore Wounded (HERZLICH TUT MICH VERLANGEN)
• Hymn 474 – When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM)
• Hymn 441 – In the cross of Christ I glory (RATHBUN)

Music for Sunday, January 30, 2022 + The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• The Gift of Love – Hal H. Hopson (b. 1933)

Instrumental Music

• Pastorale on “Abbot’s Leigh” – Joel Martinson (b. 1961)
• Rhapsody – Daniel Elder (b. 1986)
• Fughetta on “Abbot’s Leigh” – Joel Martinson

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

• Hymn 379 - God is Love, let heavens adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Hymn - Through north and south and east and west (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn R218 - Broken for me (BROKEN FOR ME)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm 71:1-6 – Tone Va

The opening and closing voluntaries are from a set of short pieces by Dallas composer and friend, Joel Martinson. He has held the position of Director of Music and Organist at The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, Texas, since June 2004. He coordinates the musical life of this vibrant parish, including choral and instrumental ensembles for all ages, as well as the music series Transfigured Nights. He led Transfiguration’s new organ project, which culminated in a 3-manual, 47-stop organ by the firm of Richards, Fowkes & Co. dedicated in 2010. 

An active composer, Joel Martinson has been commissioned by a wide array of churches, musical organizations and individual performers across the United States. In 2007 he was commissioned to write his work Four Short Journeys to ABBOTT'S LEIGH, the tune of our opening hymn this Sunday. What I like about the work is that there are four very different pieces which are inspired by the tune, not just another straight-forward presentation of the melody. You will hear fragments which will remind you of the familiar hymn-tune, but is also an organ work in its own right.

The opening voluntary is his Pastorale. It takes its inspiration from the first three notes of the hymn-tune, and octave arpeggio found in in the last line of the hymn. It also exploits a juxtaposition of the minor and major tonalities found in the third phrase of the hymn.

The closing voluntary, Fughetta, is a lively fugal piece with a subject based on the first four bars of the tune. After a few excursions to various keys, it ends with a short refrain of the hymn followed by a final presentation of the subject.

The anthem is a well-known and loved setting of the English folk-tune, O WALY WALY, coupled with a paraphrase of 1st Corinthians 13 by another Dallas composer, Hal Hopson. Since published as an anthem in 1972, it has since become popular as a hymn, appearing in 24 hymnals, including RENEW which we have in the pews.

Hopson is a prolific composer, arranger, clinician, teacher and promoter of congregational song, with more than 1300 published works, especially of hymn and psalm arrangements, choir anthems, and creative ideas for choral and organ music in worship. Born in Texas, with degrees from Baylor University (BA, 1954), and Southern Baptist Seminary (MSM, 1956), he served churches in Nashville, TN, and most recently at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas. 

The communion voluntary is written by the young American composer Daniel Elder. A native of Georgia, he earned his BM degree from the University of Georgia in 2010, and his Masters of Music from Westminster Choir College 2012. He now divides his time between Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee. He has written in both choral and instrumental idioms, and has made quite a name for himself in his short life. 

Music for Sunday, November 7, 2021 + The Commemoration of All Saints Day

Vocal Music

• Requiem – Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Instrumental Music

• Elegy – George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987)
• O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go – arr. Hal H. Hopson (b. 1933)
• Allegro Vivo e Maestoso - Paul Benoit (1893-1979)

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 labors rest (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn R-276 -  Soon and very soon (SOON AND VERY SOON)
• Hymn 293 -  I sing a song of the saints of God (GRAND ISLE)
• Hymn 618 -  Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Psalm 24 - Simplified Anglican chant by Jerome Meachem

This Sunday is All Saints Sunday - All Saints is actually November 1, of course, but we can transfer the day anytime after within the week. We'll commemorate all the saints of God, and remember those of our church family who have joined the church eternal. 

The choir will sing a short work by Giacomo Puccini, called Requiem, which was written at the request of the Italian Music publisher G. Ricordi to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of Guiseppi Verdi, who had died in 1901. Both Verdi and Puccini were composers whose operas were published by Ricordi, (Verdi: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, and Aida; Puccini: La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi, and Turandot.) Verdi was also idolized by the Italian People, who loved his operas as much as they loved his politics. He was a national hero.

Puccini at his piano

Puccini himself was the last of a musical dynasty that had been prominent in the life of Lucca for several generations. The fifth of seven children, he lost his father at the age of six. His maternal uncle taught him the rudiments of music, and he then continued his studies with Carlo Angeloni, director of the Istituto Musicale “Pacini”, and played the organ in churches in Lucca and the surrounding area. He did not tackle composition until he was about sixteen, but in 1876 he showed the progress he had made with a Preludio sinfonico, followed the next year by a cantata for solo voices and orchestra. 

His church background showed up in his next compositions, but it was the theatre that particularly attracted him (a performance of Aida in 1876 was a revelation for the young composer); he moved to Milan in 1880 in pursuit of a more intense musical life where he enrolled at the Conservatory. He graduated in 1883 with the Capriccio sinfonico whose theme he was later to use in La bohème.

In the same year he wrote his first opera, Le Villi, for a competition, but he did not win.  However, his friends put together a performance at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan the next year where the publisher Ricordi  immediately acquired the rights of the score, commissioned a second opera from Puccini for La Scala, and provided him with a monthly stipend of 200 lire for a year. After that, his career took off.

George Thalben-Ball

The opening voluntary is a work by the the English organist George Thalben-Ball. He was born in Australia, but lived in the UK for most of his life, becoming well-known as something of a “showman” recitalist in the grand late Victorian/Edwardian style. He became Director of Music at the Temple Church in London. He dedicated his Elegy, apparently conceived as an improvisation to fill in time at the end of a BBC-recorded service during the war, to Walford Davis who preceded him as organist at the Temple Church. 

This piece is quintessential English. It has a beautiful melodic line, beginning softly, building to full organ and then diminishing again; ending with a fragment of the melody in a whisper. It’s an appropriate piece for Remembrance or All Soul's services, and was played during Princess Diana’s funeral.

The Communion voluntary is based on a hymn not found in either of our hymnals. The hymn, "O Love that wilt not let me go" has appeared in 58 hymnals since 1979, and was written in 1883 by George Matheson, a minister in the Church of Scotland. The tune, ST. MARGARET, was written for this hymn for its inclusion in the Scottish Hymnal of 1884. The tune was arranged for piano and viola by Dallas composer Hal. H. Hopson.

The closing voluntary includes, as the theme in the pedal, the chant used at Vespers on All Saints Day in the Roman church. It is by Paul Marie-Joseph Benoit, OSB, a Benedictine monk, organist, and composer. Born in Nancy, France, Benoit first began to feel called to the vocation of a Benedictine monk during World War I,. After the Armistice of 1918, he entered a retreat at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur, at Clervaux in Luxembourg, and he joined the abbey in 1919, taking his vows in 1921 and being ordained into priesthood in1926.