Music for August 15, 2021 + Rally Day

Vocal Music

• For the Beauty of the Earth – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Galliard on Gather Us In – James Biery (b. 1956)
• I Have Decided to Follow Jesus – Arr. David Gale (21st c.)
• Carillon de Longpont – Louis Vierne (1870 - 1937)

Congregational Music (all numbered hymns are from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew. Everything else is from other sources)

• Hymn  Jesus in the morning (African-American Spiritual)
• Hymn R37  Father, we love you (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn Let  There Be Peace on Earth (WORLD PEACE)
• Hymn 711  Seek Ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn R147  Here I am, Lord (HERE AM I LORD)

The choir returns to our services after a brief summer break, singing a simple setting of a familiar hymn hymn with new music by Houston composer David Ashley White. David is Professor of Composition and the C. W. Moores, Jr. Endowed Professor of Music in the Moores School of Music, University of Houston, and Composer-in-Residence at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church. He served as Director of the Moores School from 1999-2014.

He wrote this charming setting of For the Beauty of the Earth for his parent's 50th wedding anniversary. It includes a flute solo and handbells.

A galliard was a popular dance from the Renaissance period. It was an athletic dance, characterised by leaps, jumps, hops and other similar figures. Similarly, the music was just as athletic, providing an exuberant tune for dancing. The term is borrowed from the Anglo-French word gaillard, which means "vigorous, lively."

You can hear the lively vigor in today's opening voluntary, an arrangement of the contemporary hymn, Gather Us In, by Marty Haugen (b.1950) It is found in the Renew Hymnal at no. 14. Its energetic text is personified by a rolicking romp for organ and trumpet. Here are the words; they are perfect for Rally Day:

1. Here in this place new light is streaming,

Now is the darkness vanished away,

See in this space our fears and our dreamings,

Brought here to you in the light of this day.

Gather us in' the lost and forsaken,

Gather us in' the blind and the lame;

Call to us now, and we shall awaken,

We shall arise at the sound of our name.

2. We are the young' our lives are a myst'ry,

We are the old' who yearn for your face,

We have been sung throughout all of hist'ry,

Called to be light to the whole human race.

Gather us in' the rich and the haughty,

Gather us in' the proud and the strong;

Give us a heart so meek and so lowly,

Give us the courage to enter the song.

3. Here we will take the wine and the water,

Here we will take the bread of new birth,

Here you shall call your sons and your daughters,

Call us anew to be salt for the earth.

Give us to drink the wine of compassion,

Give us to eat the bread that is you;

Nourish us well, and teach us to fashion

Lives that are holy and hearts that are true.

4. Not in the dark of buildings confining,

Not in some heaven, light years away, 

But here in this place the new light is shining,

Now is the Kingdom, now is the day.

Gather us in and hold us for ever,

Gather us in and make us your own;

Gather us in' all peoples together,

Fire of love in our flesh and our bone.

Text: Marty Haugen, © 1982, GIA Publications, Inc.

For communion, I am playing a piano setting of the Indian folk tune, I have decided to follow Jesus. It is arranged by David Gale, a composer, arranger, pianist and choir director from Tucson, Arizona. His education includes a bachelor's and master's degrees from Texas Tech University, and a doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University. Retired from 26 years at Flowing Wells Junior High School, Dr. Gale is currently in his 24th year as music director for First Christian Church in Tucson, where he focuses on creating music for the church service including piano arrangements and choir pieces.

The closing voluntary is a carillon by Louis Vierne. At the beginning of the 20th century, Vierne was the organist of Notre Dame of Paris.  A great friend of the Montesquiou family, he was regularly invited to the Château in Longpont in the month of August.  The 15th August was an especially important religious festival.  There was a grand procession through the village, and through the grounds of the Château.  Louis Vierne naturally contributed to the festivities.  A harmonium (reed organ) was fixed to a cart pulled by two donkeys; safely installed on this mobile stage, he accompanied the singing, and added brilliant improvisations.

On hearing the church bells on the 15th August 1913, Louis Vierne was inspired to write the Carillon de Longpont.  It was later dedicated to his brother René Vierne, killed on the 29th May 1918, not far from Longpont. The pedal part is a repeated ostinato of eighth notes under big, crashing chords on the manuals.

Music for August 25, 2019

Rally Day

Vocal Music

• Laudate Dominum – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Marion Russell Dixon, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Galliard on “Gather Us In” – James Biery (b. 1956)
• Come Sunday – Duke Ellington (1899-1971), arr. Craig Curry
• Toccata on “Gather Us In” – Donald M. VerKuilen III (b. 1994)

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

• Hymn 8 - Morning has broken (BUNESSAN)
• Hymn 523 - Glorious things of thee are spoken (ABBOTT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Hymn 297 - Descend, O Spirit, purging flame (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of Ages (TOPLADY)
• Hymn R 149 - I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD)
• Psalm 71:1-6 - Tone VIIIa

A quick search on the internet of the word “Rally” led me to images of cars: specifically race cars. Other suggestions on Google refine the search to either “school” (as in “pep rally”), political (as in Trump),  or protest (again, as in Trump). No matter which direction you take your search, you are looking at a high-energy event, with lots of noise and excitement.

So, naturally, when planning the music for this Sunday, the day we call “Rally Day,” I would normally look at music of a more upbeat, celebratory nature. This is true of the organ voluntaries, and many of the hymns we will sing this Sunday.

Marion Russell Dickson

It is not true, however, of the choir’s anthem, a setting of Psalm 117. With just two verses and sixteen words in Hebrew, it is the shortest of all the Psalms. We are singing Mozart’s sublime setting of the text, taken from his Vesperae solennes de confessore (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor), written in 1780 as a Vesper service for the Salzburg Cathedral. It is for soprano solo, sung by Kingwood’s own Marion Russell Dickson; the choir quietly enters at the conclusion of the psalm with the Gloria Patri, and the Marion will rejoin them at the Amen. 

I thought the contemporary hymn ,"Gather Us In (hymn 14 in Renew),  would be a great hymn for Rally Day. We don't know it (yet) as a congregational hymn, so I have found two organ pieces based on this American hymn to "frame" our worship service. 

The opening voluntary is a galliard (a lively dance in triple time) by the Michigan organist James Biery. Biery is Minister of Music at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where he directs the choirs, plays the organ, and oversees the music program of the church. Prior to this appointment Biery was music director for Cathedrals in St. Paul, Minnesota and Hartford, Connecticut.

The closing voluntary is another setting of the hymn "Gather Us In, by the young composer Donald VerKuilen III. This is a toccata which was one of the winners of the 2016 American Guild of Organists New Music Competition, which was premiered here in Houston. A native of Appleton Wisconsin, VerKuilen is a graduate of The Oberlin Conservatory. He has studied performance and improvisation with Marie-Louise Langlais, former professor at The Conservatoire de Paris and widow of the famed organist Jean Langlais. VerKuilen currently serves as Director of Music at Saint Rocco Catholic Church in Cleveland, Ohio.

Duke Ellington

The communion voluntary is a piano arrangement of Duke Ellington's song, "Come Sunday." Originally part of his instrumental jazz suite Black, Brown and Beige (1943), a musical history of African Americans, Ellington added text to this instrumental theme in 1958 and the song became a standard at his sacred jazz concerts.

I thought of this piece while reading the Gospel for this Sunday. Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath, and is criticized.  Jesus answered his critics, "...ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 

African American scholar William McClain notes the importance of Sunday to African Americans, even in secular music: “To the Christian Sunday is, or should be, another Easter, in which God’s victory in Christ over sin and death are celebrated in work, word, song, prayer, and preaching. After all, even [slave] masters and owners tried to be more human on Sunday.” [1]

The song is ultimately about the providence of God in all our lives. The refrain addresses God directly, “Lord, dear Lord above, God Almighty, God of love,” and then makes a petition, “please look down and see my people through.” The stanzas point to hope and heaven, concluding that “With God’s blessing we can make it through eternity.”

Lord, dear Lord above, God almighty,
God of love, please look down and see my people through.
I believe that God put sun and moon up in the sky.
I don't mind the gray skies
'cause they're just clouds passing by.
Heaven is a goodness time.
A brighter light on high.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
And have a brighter by and by.
Lord, dear Lord above, God almighty,
God of love, please look down and see my people through.

[1] Hawn, C. Michael, History of Hymns: “Come Sunday” reflects Duke Ellington’s faith & sacred jazz tradition retrieved August 22, 2019 (https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-come-sunday-reflects)

Music for May 28, 2017 + The Sunday after Ascension Day

Vocal Music

• Let Us With a Gladsome Mind – Alan Ridout (1934-1996)
• I will not leave you comfortless – Everett Titcomb (1884-1968)

Instrumental Music

• Prière du Christ montant vers son Père ("Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father") - Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
• Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song – James Biery (
• Toccata in G - Théodore Dubois (1837 –1924)

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

• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn R37 - Glorify Your Name (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 214, omit st. 3 - Hail the day that sees him rise (LLANFAIR)
• Hymn 315 - Thou, who at thy first Eucharist didst pray (SONG 1)
• Hymn 460 - Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL) 
• Psalm 68:1-10, 33-26 Exsurgat Deus – Tone VII

Everett Titcomb was an American composer of sacred choral and organ music who contributed a vast amount of works for the Episcopal Church in the first half of the twentieth-century.  A native of Massachusetts, he was largely self-taught, though he was influenced by many of the well-known composers stationed in the Boston area during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Eugene Thayer, Dudley Buck, George Chadwick, and Horatio Parker; yet at the same time he was keenly interested in plainchant and the polyphonic style of the 15th and 16th century Italians. For fifty years, Titcomb served the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston as their organist and choirmaster.

His motet for Pentecost, I Will Not Leave You Comfortless (1934) reflects his interest in Renaissance polyphony. It begins with a broad, unfolding line and emphasizes the Veni, creator chant (Come, Holy Spirit) which forms a cantus firmus in the bass voice in the Alleluia section. This motet is among his best work, and one which has remained a part of sacred and university choral repertoire into the 21st Century. It is significant for its selection to be in the official program of the 1936 English Church Music Festival in London where it was performed by 4000 voices with Titcomb in attendance. It was the first time an American composer had been featured in the festival. Subsequently, it was made famous in the United States by its inclusion in several coast-to-coast radio broadcasts of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In many ways, it launched his career as an internationally recognized composer of sacred music. (1)

The opening voluntary is the last movement of a suite written for Ascension Day by the French composer Olivier Messiaen which he arranged from his orchestral suite L'ascension. This movement is titled "Prière du Christ montant vers son Père", ("Prayer of Christ ascending to his Father"), and is accompanied by this quotation from this week's Gospel, John 17:6, 11.

I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world... And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

This piece represents the actual ascent of Christ, wafting slowly up into the heavens, into the light of the Father, with movement beginning in the bottom register of the organ and rising to the top.
Christ's ascension is extremely slow, solemn, and full of emotion. It is written for the tender sound of the string stops on the organ. As the piece begins, it is a little sad,  but comforting. It is the sadness of those left behind who have hope that they will again see their loved one.

From the middle of the piece onward, a marvelous transformation of emotion takes place - from the sadness of the beginning to an inner confirmation of profound faith - and, as we reach the end, which continues to crescendo, the light that radiates from heaven floods the observers of this miraculous ascension with hope and love. The end is ecstatic. When we reach that point (that is, when we can no longer hear any music), we are left with the feeling that Christ's journey through the firmament continues that he is so far away that we, still here on earth, are no longer able to observe his ascent. (2)

(1)  Online diary of William Harris (March 14, 2013) retrieved from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/14/1194153/-Thursday-Classical-Music-Op-C109-Everett-Titcomb
(2) Gillock, Jon, Performing Messiaen's Organ Works: 66 Masterclasses. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp 47 

Music for January 18, 2015 + The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Hush! Somebody’s Callin’ My Name – arr. Brazeal W. Dennard (1929-2010)
• Lord, You Have Searched Me – David Hurd (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Galliard on “Gather Us In” – James Biery (b. 1956)
• Song of Peace – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Postlude – Lionel Lackey (1910-1987)

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

• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 707  - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn 132 - All glory, Jesus, be to thee (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R149 - I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your master proclaim (PADERBORN)

Hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ my name. Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, what shall I do?

Today we sing an anthem that I like to schedule whenever the Old Testament lesson is the story of the boy Samuel hearing the voice of God call his name. The boy thinks it is his mentor, Eli, but after the third time Eli suggests the boy respond by saying "Master, speak, thy servant heareth." It turns out God is calling Samuel's name.
I use this spiritual because I imagine, if I heard God calling my name out loud, I'd be saying "What am I going to do?!"

But here is a brief history of the spiritual. Dr. Rosephanye Powell says

 “Hush” is to tell those weeping for us during sickness or dying to stop weeping because there is joy in dying. The verse “soon one morning, death come creeping in my room” was something the slave longed for and welcomed because it meant freedom from slavery.
There is a verse that says “sounds like Jesus” and that refers to the fact that they are truly saved and Jesus is calling them home. Relative to slavery in a sociological context, “hush” was an indication to keep quiet and listen because a conductor in the Underground Railroad was in the area and whatever their signal was (whistling, barking, knocking, tapping on the window) was indicative to the slave’s name being called...  In this context, the verse “sounds like Jesus” is a way of letting those in the slave community know that a conductor or liberator was in the area.

Brazeal Dennard

This setting was arranged by Brazeal Dennard, an African-American singer, educator, choral director, and musical arranger who was a significant contributor in the preservation and revitalization of the spiritual musical form. His efforts helped moved the African-American spiritual beyond the confines of the church, exposing not only the beauty of this music, but also its historical importance to a wider audience.

Dennard was invited by the White House to become a member of a special committee to present White House Fellowships to highly motivated young Americans. He is perhaps best known for his work with the Brazeal Dennard Chorale (founded in 1972), a group of highly trained singers dedicated to developing the choral art to its highest professional level. Brazeal Dennard was supervisor of music for the Detroit Public Schools and served as adjunct faculty at Wayne State University. 

Last week, while driving to church, the Sunday morning choral music program on Sirius/XM's classical channel was playing sacred choral music by French composers in solidarity with the French Creative community which had been hit by terrorists. This Sunday I am including my own tribute by playing French organist Jean Langlais' composition, Chant du Paix (Song of Peace) at communion.

Who is Galliard, and why is he on "Gather Us In?"

Well, Galliard isn't a person, it's a dance form, a vigorous 16th-century European court dance with a six-beat pattern.

"Galliard dance pattern" by Hyacinth at the English language Wikipedia.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

James Biery used that pattern in writing our opening voluntary based on the contemporary hymn, Gather Us In, written by Marty Haugen, Haugen is a Catholic musician who has written a lot of music for the Roman church. (Many traditional musicians have issues with his compositions, even to the point of forming a Facebook page called Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas.) It is found in our Renew Hymnal at No. 14.
In Biery's composition, you'll first hear an introduction with the distinctive, rollicking rhythm of the galliard. This introduction actually becomes a ritournello, interspersed between each phrase of the melody. Then after the entire first verse is presented, there is a musical bridge with fragments of the tune in various keys, building in intensity and volume before coming back with another stanza of the hymn.
The galliard's four hopping steps and one high leap permitted athletic gentlemen to show off for their partners. When performing the galliard, couples danced the length of the ballroom either together, men leaping higher than women, or separately. Imagine that as the choir, acolytes, and servers process down the aisle this Sunday.

The closing voluntary is another work in rollicking 6/8 time, simply called Postlude. It is written by Lionel Lackey, who, in addition to his work on the English faculty of Baptist College of Charleston (now Charleston Southern University), was a composer and librettist primarily known for his short, one-act operas. In this rare organ work, he composed a theme in G minor which starts the piece. After that detached, angular theme is fully presented, a smoother, legato secondary theme is introduced against the primary theme in the left hand. After a short bridge, the first section is repeated again, but this time the secondary theme is in a major key.

• Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON) - Words by Charles Wesley, emphasizing the Epiphany theme of light out of darkness (like the first stanza of Gather Us In.)  The melody was adapted and harmonization written by William Henry Havergal, although we can only guess how closely it resembles the 1524 original.  This may be too short for a processional, so the choir better leap down the aisle quickly!
• Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE) -  This hymn is a beautiful prayer that God would both draw us closer to Himself, and use us to bring others to Him. God calls us to a life of discipleship, and our only response should be, “Here am I. Send me.” The rest of Christendom sings this hymn to another tune, but we Episcopalians sing it to this tune written by John Bacchus Dykes (of Holy, Holy, Holy fame.) Only three other hymnals use this tune, out of more than 80 modern hymnals.
• All glory, Jesus, be to thee (ERHALT UNS, HERR)  - This is the last stanza of the hymn we sang last Sunday. 
• I, the Lord of sea and sky (HERE I AM, LORD) - This hymn is a favorite among many in our congregation, and it comes from the same tradition as the hymn Gather Us In mentioned in the opening voluntary. It echoes the same sentiment as Take My Life and Let it Be.
• Ye servants of God, your master proclaim (PADERBORN) -  Charles Wesley is the author of this hymn text. He wrote it in 1744 for Hymns for Times of Trouble and Persecution in the section titled “Hymns to Be Sung in Tumult.” The occasion for writing was a time of persecution for Methodists in England. They were accused of disloyalty to the British Crown among other things, and were therefore subject to violent persecution.   The text originally had six stanzas, but two of them were quite specific to the Methodist persecution of the time, and are therefore omitted in modern hymnals. Otherwise, the text has been passed down in a very consistent form. The four stanzas elaborate on the theme of God's glory and victorious power. The last two stanzas allude to eschatological passages throughout Revelation.