Music for May 16, 2021 + The Seventh Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether – Harold Friedell (1905-1958)
• The Tree of Life – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Concerto in E-flat Major – Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Kevin Mendoza, trumpet
• I. Allegro
• II. Andante
• I Thank Thee, Lord, through Thy dear Son – Johann Christoph Bach (1642 –1703)
• Arrival of the Queen of Sheba – G. F. Handel (1685-1759)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked with an asterisk which are from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 460 - Alleluia! sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ASSAM)
• Psalm 1 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachen

The music for this Sunday (which is Confirmation Sunday for us) begins with parts of a trumpet concerto by Franz Joseph Haydn, played by a student from Lone Star College in Kingwood, Kevin Mendoza. The concerto was one written by Haydn for his friend Anton Weidinger, a trumpet virtuoso and inventor of the first "keyed" trumpet which would allow a trumpet player to play in any key. 

the "natural" trumpet

A valve trumpet from the 1880s

You see, before this innovation, trumpets had no valves, and could only play a limited range of harmonic notes by altering the vibration of the lips; this is why it is called by the name of "natural trumpet". Most of these harmonic notes were clustered in the higher registers, so previous trumpet concertos could only play melodically with the high register. 

Weidinger developed a keyed trumpet which could play chromatically throughout its entire range, though his idea of drilling holes and covering them with flute-like keys was not a success as it had very poor sound quality. Weidinger did not perform the Concerto in public until 1800. Surviving in a single manuscript copy, this extraordinary work wasn't performed again until 1929.

 The valved trumpets used today were first constructed and used in the 1830s.

Harold Friedell

The offertory anthem is one of our choir's favorites, partly, I imagine, because of its lyrical melody and partly because of its imaginative and descriptive text. "Tether" is not a word used much today except in the term "Tether Ball," but I think that is an extremely accurate term for how the spirit connects us together, and to God. If you ever played tether ball as a child, you know that the ball is tied, or tethered, to the pole, and no matter how hard it is hit, it is connected to that pole, and will always return. Crafters in the group also love the term "knit thou our friendship up," though modern hymnals have tried to replace that with the pedestrian phrase "so now bind our friendship up."

This beautiful setting was written by Harold Friedell, an American organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer. Friedell was raised in New York state, and worked at several prominent churches, ending up at St. Bartholomew's in New York City. Draw Us In the Spirit's Tether was composed while he was at St. Bart's. He also taught at Julliard and Union Theological Seminary. You can read more about him here.

The communion anthem is another beautiful setting of a hymn text. Eric Routley, an English Congregational pastor, musician and hymn writer, was the preeminent 20th-century hymnologist of the English-speaking world. He translated a 12-stanza hymn by a 17th-century Hungarian pastor to produce this text. K. Lee Scott wrote the tune for Routley’s text as a commission for the Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Alabama for their Year of Evangelism in 1995. He remembers studying Routley’s texts (“because Routley had such an eye for texts”) and being drawn especially to this one because it was so panoramic. Scott remembers late at night sitting on the organ bench with just the organ light on in little Altadena Valley Presbyterian Church, walking back and forth from the organ bench down the aisles, as the tune gradually emerged out of his meditating on the text.

K. Lee Scott

K. (Keaton) Lee Scott is an internationally known composer and choral conductor of church music.  A life-long resident of Alabama, he received two degrees in choral music from The University of Alabama School of Music and has served as adjunct faculty for The University of Alabama School of Music, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Music, and Samford University School of Music.  He travels widely as a guest conductor and clinician in North America and beyond.  He is also director of music at Altadena Valley Presbyterian Church.  He has traveled extensively as guest conductor and clinician throughout the United States, as well as to Canada and Africa. 

Music for February 21, 2021 + The First Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days – Erik Meyer (b. 1980)

Instrumental Music

• Three Preludes on Erhalt uns, Herr (The Glory of These Forty Days)
• Johann Pachelbel (1653 –1706)
• Johann Gottfried Walther (1684 –1748)
• Johann Christoph Bach (1642 –1703)
• They Will Not Lend Me a Child – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
• “Little” Prelude in D Minor – attr. To J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

As we enter the season of Lent, we begin to visit those Psalms that are categorized as "Laments." A lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. In Lent, we Christians lament over our sins and grief.

In searching for music that is appropriate for our worship and also observes the contribution that Black people have made to our culture during Black History Month, I turned to a favorite piano piece by a Black composer which, while not being explicitly "sacred," it certainly upholds the feeling of lament.

The British composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born to a father from Sierra Leone and a mother from England, who raised him as a single parent after the father returned to Africa. Coleridge-Taylor entered the Royal College of Music as a violinist when he was 15. He composed prolifically, at first producing a stream of chamber music, much of it redolent of Brahms (a favorite composer of his teacher, Charles Villiers Stanford), and by the turn of the century he produced imposing works for orchestra, chorus, and the stage.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Coleridge-Taylor became an admired conductor, leading the Westmoreland Festival from 1901 to 1904 and London’s Handel Society from 1904 until his death at 37. He made three visits to the United States, in 1904, 1906, and 1910. He impressed musical connoisseurs during these trips; the orchestral musicians of New York reportedly complimented his ability on the podium by dubbing him “the Black Mahler.”

When he was seventeen he became impassioned by the music of Dvořák, which led to an interest in American and African-American music, which Dvořák promoted. When Coleridge-Taylor toured the U.S. in 1904, the Boston firm of Oliver Ditson invited him to compose concert-style piano arrangements of twenty-four African-American songs. It published them in 1905, and it is in that collection that we find today's Communion voluntary. “They Will Not Lend Me a Child” is a lament, not from the southeastern United States, but from southeastern Africa.

In Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Anglo-Black Composer, 1875-1912, William Tortolano discusses this southeastern African lament "A ba boleki nwana!" and Samuel Coleridge Taylor's explanation of the meaning. "In countries where a childless married woman is considered less than nothing, it is only natural that such a one should try to borrow a child for adoption - a plan not, I believe, by any means unknown among more civilized peoples. Her lament on finding she is unable to discover a child is therefore literal in every sense of the word."

So while the song may not be composed for church use, I believe there is a sacred feel of lament inherent in the music. It's in the form of a theme and variations. There is more Brahms that Botswana in this piece.

The opening voluntaries are three different chorale preludes on a tune connected to one of the hymns for Lent in our hymnal, The glory of these forty days. All three composers were from Germany during the Baroque Period. Johann Christoph Bach was a cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach.

The anthem is another Lenten Hymn from our hymnal, albeit with a different tune (the Hymnal 1980 uses the tune ST. FLAVIAN whereas this anthem uses the tune MORNING SONG, which is found in our hymnal twice - hymns 9 and 583).  MORNING SONG is a folk tune that has some resemblance to the traditional English tune for "Old King Cole." The tune appeared anonymously in Part II of John Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music (1813).

It was composed by Erik Meyer a native of Collingswood, NJ, where he began his church music career at thirteen. He earned a BM and MM in organ from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. He has performed numerous organ recitals throughout the world and duo recitals with his wife, Anna. Erik is the organist at Abingdon Presbyterian Church, Abingdon, Pennsylvania, after serving as Minister of Music at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Salem, NJ. In addition, he is adjunct faculty at Temple University, teaching Exploring Music and Music Theory and introductory music courses. Previously, he was Director of Music at Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia,