Music for June 5, 2023 + Trinity Sunday

Vocal Music

• Father of Heaven, Whose Love Profound – Healey Willan (1880-1968)
• God Be in My Head – H. Walford Davies (1869-1941)

Instrumental Music

• Allein Gott in der Hőh – Andreas Armsdorff (1670 –1699)
• Christus, der ist mein Leben – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Allein Gott in der Hőh – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 362 - Holy, holy, holy (NICEA)
• Hymn 321 - All glory be to God on high (ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HŐH)
• Hymn 371 - Thou, whose almighty word (MOSCOW)
• Hymn 295 - Sing Praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn R37 - Father, we love you (GLORIFY YOUR NAME)
• Hymn 368 - Holy Father, great Creator (REGENT SQUARE)
• Canticle 13 - Glory to You (John Rutter)

Trinity Sunday

I understand that priests hate to preach on Trinity Sunday, for trying to preach on the mystery of the Holy Trinity is akin to tightrope walking, without a net, in a high wind. I mean, it's a mystery, right? As a musician, however, I love Trinity Sunday because there is a lot of great music for the day, including one of my favorite hymns, "Holy, holy, holy." I remember singing that in the Methodist Church when I was a boy on every first Sunday of the month when we had communion.

Father of Heaven, Whose Love Profound

This setting of the hymn "Father of heaven, whose love profound," using the hymn tune ANGELUS, comes from the pen of the British-Canadian composer Healey Willan. The text is a hymn to the Trinity by the 19th century British priest Edward Cooper. The tune, which is found in our hymnal for an evening hymn (hymn 23), is a 17th century tune by the Silesian composer Georg Joseph who served at the court of prince-bishop of Breslau, Poland.

Though Healey Willan composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano, he is best known for his church music. In 1913 he left his home in London and came to Toronto as head of the music theory department at the University of Toronto and organist and choirmaster at St. Paul's Church. From 1921 until his death he was precentor at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. He wrote adaptations of ancient service music, hymn tunes, faux-bourdons, newly composed service music, motets, symphonies, operas, cantatas, organ works, chamber music, songs, and incidental music for plays. The Hymnal 1982 includes the Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Gloria in excelsis (S 91, S 114, S 158, and S 202) from his Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena.

God Be In My Head

Every week, at the end of the choir's rehearsal, we close with the singing of a short blessing in the form of an anthem, and the saying of compline, the service of night prayer. This year the choir has been singing this blessing from The Book of Hours, an early form of a prayer book prescribed for the monastic house at Salisbury, which was printed in London in 1514; one copy survives, at Clare College, Cambridge.

The music is by H. Walford Davies, an English composer, organist, and educator who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941. Davies served with the Royal Air Force during the First World War, during which he composed the Royal Air Force March Past, and was music adviser to the British Broadcasting Corporation, for whom he gave commended talks on music between 1924 and 1941. He was knighted in 1922.

As this is the last time the choir will sing before summer break, we close our season as we close our rehearsal, by singing this blessing.

Organ Voluntaries

The voluntaries this morning are all based on two of the hymns from our morning service, and they are all settings by Baroque German Composers. (The Baroque period was that period spanning from 1600-1750, ending in the death of J. S. Bach.)

The opening and closing voluntaries are settings of the Hymn of Praise we will be singing during the month of June. Hymn 421, "All glory be to God on high," is fitting for Trinity Sunday as it praises each person in the Godhead. It is also fitting to be sung in place of the Gloria, as it is a metrical setting of the canticle.

The closing voluntary is a trio by Bach, using the tune in the pedal. You'll also hear fragments of the melody in the music played on the manuals (keyboards). 

The opening voluntary is also a trio, but with the melody played in canon. First you hear the melody in the right hand, then several measures later the same melody is taken up in the pedal. This is by Andreas Armsdorff, a German composer and organist. He was born in Mühlberg, a town in Southern Germany, and studied music and law. At some point in his early life he moved to nearby Erfurt where he may have studied with Johann Pachelbel.

Johann Pachelbel was the preeminent organist in South Germany at the time. In addition to his famous Canon, he wrote church music, including several volumes of organ music. The music during the Eucharist is a partita on our presentation hymn ("Sing praise to our Creator," hymn 295), one of a set of four partitas (variations) on German chorales which he wrote.

Music for April 30, 2023 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter + Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• The Lord Is My Shepherd – Howard Goodall (b. 1958)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on "Brother James's Air" - Searle Wright (1918-2004)
• Prelude on "St. Columba" – Sam Batt Owens (1928-1998)
• Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

Congregational Music (all hymns from The Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the middle hymn)

• Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn  - Good Shepherd, you know us (GOOD SHEPHERD, KINGWOOD)
• Hymn 207 - Jesus Christ is risen today (EASTER HYMN)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Psalm 23 – Tone V

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. That is not its official name, just a nickname given to the fourth Sunday of Easter taken from the opening collect of the day:

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

It's the closest thing our congregation has to a patronal feast day. In honor of that, we feature several pieces of music about the Shepherd.

Good Shepherd, You Know Us

First, I want to talk about the middle hymn.

You may remember that back in September 2022, the choir surprised me with a newly-composed hymn in honor of my 25th anniversary at Good Shepherd. David Ashley White, former head of the music school at University of Houston and an internationally known composer, was commissioned to write the hymn tune, and he suggested a text by one of his favorite writers, Christopher Idle, a priest in the Anglican Church. The text is perfect for our congregation:

Good Shepherd, you know us, you call us by name,

you lead us; we gladly acknowledge your claim.

Your voice has compelled us; we come at your call,

and none you have chosen will finally fall.

Good Shepherd, you warn us of robbers and thieves;

the hireling, the wolf, who destroys and deceives;

all praise for your promise on which we can stand,

that no-one can snatch us from out of your hand.

Good Shepherd, you lay down your life for the sheep;

your love is not fickle, your gift is not cheap.

You spend your life freely, you take it again;

you died, so we live - we are healed by your pain.

At one with the Father, you made yourself known:

'I am the Good Shepherd', at one with your own.

You loved us before we had heeded or heard;

by grace we respond to your life-giving word.

Christopher Idle b.1938, © Christopher Idle/ Jubilate Hymns

The choir sang it as an anthem back in October, and now we are going to sing it as a congregational hymn this Sunday. It's PERFECT for the day!

The Lord Is my Shepherd

I can't believe it's been over 10 years since we have sung this marvelous piece!

Devotees of the BBC comedy series, The Vicar of Dibley, will recognize this tune immediately. It is the theme song for the show, composed by one of Britain's leading contemporary composers, Howard Goodall.  Goodall is an EMMY, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores. (You might not realize it, but film and television are very lucrative markets for classical composers!) 

Howard Goodall

He is also a distinguished music historian, writer and broadcaster. In recent years he has been England’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, the Classical Brit Composer of the Year and was Classic FM’s Composer-in-Residence for 6 years. In the 2011 New Year Honours he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music education.

Goodall's setting of Psalm 23, The Lord Is my Shepherd, has proved to be an extremely popular piece of music. His intention in writing the theme had always been to write a piece of church music which could have a life of its own, beyond the series, and this has certainly been fulfilled in Psalm 23.

“Anyone who thinks about the BBC programme The Vicar of Dibley, is likely to focus on one of two things: the dry wit and humor of Dawn French or the now instantly recognizable theme tune The Lord is my Shepherd by Howard Goodall. Accompanied by organ, the piece opens with a most lyrical, legato melody for solo soprano, repeated by tutti sopranos with simple yet effective harmonies for A, T and B, continuing in the warm, flowing style. A homophonic middle section, moving towards a more minor tonality, reflects the mood of the words ‘Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil’, and provides an effective contrast. A return to the original theme draws the work to a beautiful conclusion which, in the right circumstances, could provide a very spiritual moment.” 

George Adamson, ‘Music Teacher’ magazine October 2000.

Prelude on "St. Columba"

The Irish tune "St. Columba, found in our hymnal for the paraphrase of Psalm 23, "The King of Love my shepherd is," is given a pastorale setting by a late friend of mine, Sam Batt Owens. Sam was the organist/choirmaster at Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal in Memphis for several years.

In this setting, he begins with what I like to think of as a flute solo, played by a lone shepherd on the hillside as he keeps watch over his flock by night. (Oh, wait, that's Christmas.) In any case, I hear the shepherd improvise on his flute as the melody comes in underneath the flute solo. After another, more straight-forward presentation of the tune, the piece ends with the flute solo once more. It is reminiscent of the opening and closing passages of the third movement of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, "Scène aux champs" (Scene in the country), where two shepherds dialogue back and forth on the English Horn and the (offstage) oboe.

Prelude on "Brother James' Air"

Searle Wright was an composer, organist, choir director, and teacher in organ playing, composition and improvisation. He influenced an entire generation of American church musicians through his teaching at Columbia University and as President of the American Guild of Organists.

"Brother James' Air" is a well-known hymn tune composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain (1840-1925), who was a healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James. It is used for a metrical setting of Psalm 23.

LORD, HAVE MERCY Music for February 26, 2023 + The First Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin – John Hilton (1599-1657), Peter Crisafulli, arr.

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4, – Frédéric François Chopin (1810 –1849)
• Sarabande in d minor – George Frederic Handel (1685-1759)
• Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

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

• Hymn 142 Lord, who throughout these forty days (ST. FLAVIAN)
• Hymn 143 The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R 172 In our lives, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn R107 You are my hiding place (HIDING PLACE)
• Hymn 688 A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Psalm 99 – Tone IIa

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when our liturgical actions change to reflect the meaning and purpose of Lent. And the music changes, too. A time of penitence and quiet reflection cannot embrace music that jumps for joy and is all “happy-clappy!” The organ becomes quieter (or drops out all-together), the service music changes to include a Kyrie (Lord, Have Mercy) and Agnus Dei (Jesus, Lamb of God.)

John Donne

Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin

The choir sings an anthem that certainly supports the penitential mood. Hymn 140 in our hymnal is not known to our congregation, so it makes a perfect anthem. It's text is from the poem A Hymn to God the Father by the English Renaissance writer John Donne. If you don't have a hymnal nearby, you can read the entire poem here. You can see that Donne was convicted of his sin.

The music is by John Hilton, an English composer, who was organist and lay clerk at St Margaret's Westminster from 1628 to 1644 and was buried in the church in 1657. He was the son of John (died 1608) who was organist and composer at Trinity College in that city. John junior graduated from that college in 1626 and leased a house from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster in the Almonry, near the Abbey. He was also a lutenist to Charles I. He ceased to be organist as Parliamentary forces ordered organs to be removed from churches and psalms to be said, not chanted.

John Hilton

This hymn has been arranged for quartet in Elizabethan style by the American Composer Peter Crisafulli. Born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, in 1946, Crisafulli earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Northwestern University. His musical formation in the service of the church began at age seven as a chorister in the Men and Boys Choir of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston. He has been serving as Minister of Music at All Saints Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, Maryland, since 1988. Many of his compositions were written for All Saints Church. 

Prelude in E Minor

Frédéric Chopin wrote a number of preludes for piano solo. His cycle of 24 Preludes, Op. 28, covers all major and minor keys. The Prélude Op. 28, No. 4, by Frédéric Chopin, is considered by many to be one of the most famous of the Chopin preludes. By Chopin's request, the piece was played at his own funeral by Franz Liszt on a pipe organ. (I'll be using the piano, as originally planned.)

The famous German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow called the prélude "suffocation", due to its sense of despair. In fact, Chopin's last dynamic marking in the piece is smorzando, which means "dying away". But the prelude may have once been given a title. According to George Sand's daughter Solange, who stayed with the composer at the monastery in Majorca when the preludes were written, "My mother gave a title to each of Chopin’s wonderful Preludes; these titles have been preserved on a score he gave to us." That titled score is lost. But Solange did record the names of the preludes, apparently without assigning the names to the prelude numbers. It is believed that the title "Quelles larmes au fond du cloître humide?" ("What tears (are shed) from the depths of the damp monastery?") corresponds to Prelude No. 4.

Music for July 31, 2022 + The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• At the River – Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
• Amy Bogan, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Trumpet Intrada – John S. Dixon (b. 1957)
• Andantino – César Franck (1822-1890)
• Toccata in G Dorian– Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706)

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

• Hymn 408 Sing praise to God who reigns above (MIT FREUDEN ZART)
• Hymn 421 All glory be to God on high (ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HÖHE)
• Hymn 533 How wondrous and great thy works, God of praise! (LYONS)
• Hymn 302 Father, we thank thee who hast planted (RENDEZ A DIEU)
• Hymn R136 Alleluia (ALLELUIA)
• Hymn 594 God of grace and God of glory (CWM RHONDDA)
• Psalm 49:1-2, 4-10 – Tone IIa

At the River

Aaron Copland was often referred to as the Dean of American Composers. Incorporating elements of jazz and folk songs into his compositions, Copland was known for liberating the art world from European influences, and popularizing indigenous American music. Along with his fellow American composers Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, John Duke, Amy Beach and Edward MacDowell, Copland was interested in preserving hymns, Native American melodies and African-American spirituals. This includes his two sets of Old American Songs from 1950 and 1952, the second set was premiered by baritone William Warfield and the composer. Copland gave each song his personal musical style while retaining its original flavor (and, in some cases, echoes of instrumental accompaniment from banjo or harp). 

The hymn tune “At the River” (or “Shall We Gather at the River”) was written in 1865 by Robert Lowry, a Baptist pastor, composer, poet, chancellor at the University of Lewisburg, and editor and compiler of Sunday school songs. “At the River” was sung at memorial concerts for Copland and for Leonard Bernstein. (Next week we will hear some of Bernstein's music.)

Trumpet Intrada

Here is a new work by John S. Dixon. He was born in England and grew up about fifty miles east of London, near the Thames River estuary. Starting piano studies at age 6, he progressed to pipe organ at age 11. His first composition for public performance was the score to an original book for a youth theatre production when he was 16.

In spite of that early interest in music, he did not choose to make music his major field of study or his career. However. he remained active in music and theater while studying for the bachelor of arts degree at Oxford University and later at Harvard, where he earned an MBA.

He moved to America permanently in 1988, where he became a member of Providence Presbyterian Church, where he now serves as Organist and Composer-in-Residence. He reside in Norfolk.

Andantino

While I was at the American Guild of Organists convention in Seattle this summer, I was reminded that 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of César Franck, the  Belgian-French composer of the last half of the 19th century. Though he is well known for his Symphony in D Minor, he is perhaps best known as a composer of organ music which had an emotional engagement, technical solidity, and seriousness comparable to that of German composers.

Much of his organ music is of an extended length, making it difficult to program in the musical life of the average parish Sunday service. But late in life he wrote of volume of organ music called L'Organiste, a collection of 59 short works written in 1889 and 1890 for the harmonium and is most often played on organ. The communion voluntary is one of those pieces.

Toccata in G Dorian

The closing voluntary is a toccata by the South German Baroque organist Johann Pachelbel. It's written in the mode of G Dorian, which is almost the same as G minor. What separates them, however, is that the "major" sixth in Dorian gives it a far more tasteful and distinguished tone rather than a sad, woeful one in the Aeolian mode. This "major" sixth creates an uplifting and bright spot in the mode so the Dorian mode takes on a more fulfilling, encouraging, and intense feel.

Music for the Fifth Sunday of Easter + May 15, 2022

Vocal Music

• Thy Perfect Love – John Rutter (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on ‘Salzburg’ - Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706)
• Land of Rest – George Shearing (1919-2011)
• Fugue in D – Johann Pachelbel

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

• Hymn R75 - Praise the Lord! O heavens adore him (AUSTRIA)
• Hymn 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 529 - In Christ there is no East or West (MCKEE)
• Psalm 148 – setting by Hal H. Hopson

John Rutter has written a beautiful little anthem based on an anonymous 15th century poem, Thy Perfect Love. Written in 1975, you'll hear the text and tune twice; first, in a solo soprano setting, then again with the full choir singing the text with a lot of suspensions and harmonies that just seem to "float." 

John Rutter

London-born John Rutter has written a large body of sacred music: anthems, carols, a Requiem and other choral works, as well as orchestral and other secular music. He has also made significant contributions as an arranger and editor.

Rutter studied at Cambridge and stayed on to found The Cambridge Singers in 1981. He still conducts this ensemble, which records on its own label, Collegium. For his services to music, Rutter was awarded a Lambeth Doctorate of Music by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1996, and a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s New Year Honours List in 2007.

The opening and closing voluntaries are by the South German composer Johann Pachelbel. You know him by his celebrated Canon in D, which has been used at weddings and for diamond commercials ever since it was rediscovered in 1968, when the Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra made a recording of the piece that would change its fortunes significantly.

But during his lifetime, Pachelbel was best known as an organ composer. He wrote more than two hundred pieces for the instrument, both liturgical and secular, and explored most of the genres that existed at the time. Much of Pachelbel's liturgical organ music, particularly the chorale preludes, is relatively simple and written for manuals only, no pedal is required. This is partly due to Lutheran religious practice where congregants sang the chorales. Household instruments like virginals or clavichords accompanied the singing, so Pachelbel and many of his contemporaries made music playable using these instruments. The quality of the organs Pachelbel used also played a role: south German instruments were not, as a rule, as complex and as versatile as the north German ones which J. S. Bach was accustomed to.

Johann Pachelbel

Chorales and chorale preludes constitute almost half of Pachelbel's surviving organ output, in part because of his organist post in Erfurt which required him to compose chorale preludes on a regular basis. Usually they were composed with one or two verses of the hymn, but today we have an example of a partita, or set of variations on the chorale. You'll hear the chorale first, followed by four different settings of the hymn tune. This is the familiar chorale, SALZBURG, which is used several times in our hymnal. Today we recall the Easter text that goes with it, At the Lamb's high feast we sing.

The communion voluntary is a setting of another hymn-tune, LAND OF REST, which we will sing with the text, I come with joy to meet my Lord. It is by the pianist George Shearing, a British jazz musician who rose to become something of a household name in the US. Blind from birth, Shearing had a natural flair for playing the piano (he started lessons at age five) and was able to memorize tunes he learned from listening to the radio. He studied music at Linden College, a residential school for blind children, where he stayed until he was 16, at which point he began working as pub pianist.

George Shearing

Shearing was much honored during his long career. He played for three different US presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan) and was awarded an OBE in 1996 before receiving a knighthood from the Queen in 2007. “In the quiet moments when I reflect on all this,” wrote Shearing in his autobiography, “I can’t help thinking, not bad for a kid from Battersea!”

Though Shearing became an American citizen in 1956, in later years he spent a lot of time at his home in the Cotswolds, England. A bad fall in 2004 put an end to his performing career and he died seven years later, on Valentine’s Day 2011, aged 91.

Christmas Eve, 6:30

Vocal Music

• Ding Dong Merrily on High – Charles Wood (1866-1926)
• On Christmas Night – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
• Infant Holy, Infant Lowly – arr. David Willcocks (1919-2015)
• Christmas Mass for St. William’s – Richard Shephard (1949-2021)
• Psalm 96 (based on "Vom Himmel Hoch") – Thomas Pavlechko (b. 1962)

Instrumental Music

• Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her– Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• In the Bleak Midwinter – Allen Orton Gibbs (1910-1996)
• Festive Flourish On 'Joy To The World' – Michael Dell (b. 1959)

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

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! The herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 101 - Away in a Manger (CRADLE SONG)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world (ANTIOCH)

This has been a tough year for the choir, rebuilding from the year of no rehearsals. We've lost people to sickness, retirement, or refusal to vaccinate. So the choir anthems are familiar carols from years past. New to us this year is a setting of the ordinary of the mass (Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) which is based on traditional but lesser known carols. (Besançon; Sussex Carol; Joseph Dearest; This Endris Night). 

Christmas Mass for St. William's was written by English composer Richard Shephard, who died this year. He is acclaimed as one of the most significant composers of church music today. Dr. Shephard was educated at The King’s School, Gloucester and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His anthems and service settings are sung widely in the cathedrals and churches of the UK and they have a considerable following in the USA. He held the Lambeth Doctorate of Music from Oxford University and two Honorary Doctorates from the University of the South (Sewanee, TN) and the University of York (York, UK).

Like the choral music, the organ works are all based on Christmas hymns. The first is based on a traditional German Chorale (text by Martin Luther) arranged by Johann Pachelbel of the Canon fame. It has two settings, actually. The first is a trio, with the pedal carrying the melody. The second begins as a fughetta, using the opening phrase of the hymn as its subject. It then turns into a brilliant toccata, again with the melody in the pedal.

The second organ prelude is on the tune Cranham by Gustav Holst. It is by Alabama composer Allen Orton Gibbs. She was a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatory of Music (now the Music Department of Birmingham-Southern College), where she later became a member of the faculty. An organist and pianist, for many years she was organist at McCoy United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Her compositions include works in a variety of genres: choral anthems, organ works, vocal solos, hymn tunes, and music for handbells. Most of her compositions were written for her own use, or for friends and colleagues, or to fulfill commissions. Since her death in 1996, many of these have been published.

The closing voluntary is one of my favorite Christmas works for organ. Micahel Dell used Henri Mulet's toccata Tu Es Petra (Thou art the Rock) as an outline for his flourish on "Joy to the World." The melody can be heard as a canon, alternating between the hands and the feet

Music for December 5, 2021 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Come, Though Long Expected Jesus – Marty Wheeler Burnett (b. 1961)

Instrumental Music

• Benedictus – Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
• Partita on Comfort, comfort, ye my people (PSALM 42) – Johann Pachelbel (1661–1733)
• Prepare the Way, O Zion – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn R-128  - Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn 67 - Comfort, comfort, ye my people (PSALM 42)
• Hymn R-92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (BEREDEN VAG FOR HERRAN)

Marty Wheeler Burnett

This Sunday the choir sings a new anthem by Houston native (and friend of mine), Marty Wheeler Burnett. It is a lush setting of the famous Charles Wesley text, "Come, thou long expected Jesus," with a melody more suited to the feeling of longing and hope found in Wesley's words that the plodding tune found in our hymnal.

Marty got her degrees in organ performance from Rice University in 1988, and in 2010 she received her doctoral degree, with a liturgical music focus, from Sewanee: The University of the South. In 2020 Marty joined the faculty of  Virginia Theological Seminary as the Associate Professor of Church Music and Director of Chapel Music.

Prior to her appointment at VTS, Marty led and coordinated the music ministry at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska. An award-winning educator, Burnett previously served as Director of Fine Arts and Associate Professor of Music at College of Saint Mary in Omaha. She is the immediate past-president of the Association of Anglican Musicians, an organization of musicians and clergy serving the Episcopal Church.

+ + +

As you know, each Sunday we sing a Psalm that is part of the lectionary readings for the day, but this year, three of the four Sundays in Advent designate a Canticle be sung instead of a Psalm. (A Canticle is a hymn or chant, typically with a biblical text, forming a regular part of a church service. The most common Canticle is Glory to God in the highest (Gloria in excelsis), which is Canticle 6 (Rite I) or 20 (Rite II). The canticle for Advent II is Canticle 4 or 16, The Song of Zechariah (Benedictus Dominus Deus). That's why I am playing a piece called Benedictus for the opening voluntary. However, it is not based on the canticle, but on two lines from a poem by Christina Rossetti, a litany of praise entitled: "All Thy Works Praise Thee, O Lord: A Processional Of Creation".  Those two lines are

Christina Rossetti

I bring refreshment —  I bring ease and calm.

Because so much of Rossetti's poetry is Christian, one can assume that Rossetti is talking about Christ. But in this poem (very much like a canticle, actually), Rossetti has each individual piece of creation sing a three line hymn of praise, starting with seraphs, cherubs, angels, heavens, sun, moon, comets, winds, fire, heat, winter, spring, frost, night, light, thunder, clouds, until we finally get down to Medicinal Herbs, who sing:

I bring refreshment,—

                      I bring ease and calm,—

I lavish strength and healing,—

                                I am balm,—

We work His pitiful* Will and chant our psalm.

Alec Rowley was an English composer, organist, and pianist who taught composition at Trinity College in London. His name was known to many through his writing and through the many educational pieces that he wrote, staple fare for many a beginner or amateur player. His more demanding work as a composer has been unfairly neglected, save for the music he wrote for choirs and organ.

* at Rossetti's time, 'pitiful' still had the alternate meaning of 'compassionate.'

Music for July 11, 2021 + The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Instrumental Music

• Christus, der ist mein Leben– Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• We pray now to the Holy Spirit—Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Strengthen for Service, Lord – arr. Anne Krentz Organ (b. 1960)
• Toccata in E Minor – Johann Pachelbel

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 686 Come, thou fount of every blessing (EBENEZER)
• Hymn 295 Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn 671 Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Psalm85:8-13– Tone VIIIa

Years ago, before I began my work as a musician in the Episcopal Church, I had a short stint working at a Kinkos. I was tired of church music, and, since I loved paper and office supplies, I thought working at Kinkos might be fun. "Fun" might not be the best word to describe my two years there, but "interesting" sure fits.

Working those huge copiers gave me the opportunity to see a lot of documents. Some were so technical that I showed no interest. (Flight manuals for FedEx transport planes.) What really pique my interest were wedding service leaflets. My favorite to this day is the one which had a hand-drawn cover with the Bible verse on the front in calligraphy: "What God hath joined together let no man put us under." (sic) Another favorite was the one which listed the music, including the famous Canon in D by the composer Paco Bell. 

I thought about that this week as I was choosing music for the service, and Hymn 295, Sing praise to our Creator, wound up as one of my choices for hymns. I remembered Johann Pachelbel had written a partita (a set of variations) on the German chorale, Christus, der ist mein Leben, which is the tune used for hymn 295 in our hymnal. Since the partita doesn't include much pedal, I decided that it would be a great choice for this Sunday since I would be out of the office this week, with little time to practice the organ.

(Regular organ practice is essential to anyone who wants to play interesting and challenging literature on any musical instrument. You may not realize it, but two hours with an instrument a day is not unusual for an active musician. In fact, two hours is almost the minimum.)

Since I was playing a chorale-based selection of Pachelbel, I decided to choose one of his "free" organ works for the closing voluntary. The Toccata in E Minor is a serious if flashy organ work with little pedal work. It's got a great sense of forward motion which is perfect for the closing of the service as we are sent out to "do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord."

Pachelbel was an organist during the Baroque period who is credited with bringing the south German organ school to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era. 

During that same time, you have Dietrich Buxtehude, a Danish-born organist who spent the last 40 years of his life at Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church) in Lubeck in Northern Germany. He was very well known and influential. Both G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach wanted to follow Buxtehude at St. Mary's, but neither one wanted to marry his daughter as that was a condition for the position. I'm playing another chorale-based work by him for the offertory.

Anne Krentz Organ

To balance all that Baroque organ music, I looked to the piano music of the contemporary American composer with the ironic name of Anne Krentz Organ. She is the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL. She  holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Valparaiso University, a Master of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Illinois, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Church Music from Concordia University in River Forest, IL. She is a leader in contemporary Lutheran Church music, having served on the staff of the Lutheran Summer Music Program as organist and handbell choir director, additionally teaching classes on church music and hymnody. Organ currently serves as the President of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.

In today's Communion voluntary, Organ takes an original hymn tune of another Lutheran Composer, Robert Hobby, and crafts a beautifully meditative piano piece. The tune, BUCKHURST RUN, is paired with the text "Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands" (see The Hymnal 1982, #312) in the 2006 hymnal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Worship. BUCKHURST RUN is named after the street in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the Hobby family lives.

Music for June 6, 2021 + The Second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lead Me, Lord – S. S. Wesley (1810-1876)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan (What God Ordains Is Always Good) – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) 
• Nocturne in A Minor – David Karp
• Toccata in C – Johann Pachelbel 

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the last hymn which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 594 Go of grace, and God of glory (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn 533 How wondrous and great thy works (LYONS)
• Hymn When peace like a river (VILLE DU HAVRE)
• Psalm 130– tone VIIIa

As I am away this week at the Diocese of Texas Music Camp for Youth, I am unable to go into a detailed account of the music. So here are some quick notes

The anthem is an excerpt from a much longer anthem, Praise the Lord, O my soul, by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, an English organist and composer. The grandson of Charles Wesley, he was born in London, and sang in the choir of the Chapel Royal as a boy. He learned composition and organ from his father, Samuel, completed a doctorate in music at Oxford, and composed for piano, organ, and choir. He was organist at Hereford Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, Leeds Parish Church, Winchester Cathedral, and Gloucester Cathedral. Wesley strove to improve the standards of church music and the status of church musicians; 

The original anthem was written in 1861, with this excerpt first published in 1905 in The Anthem Book, no. 8. But it was not until it was published in The Church Anthem Book in 1933 that it became quite popular. Now you can find this simple song in almost 30 hymnals, including the Episcopal book Lift Every Voice and Sing II, and the Renew hymnal which is in our pews.

Music by Johann Pachelbel opens and closes our service. First is a partita (an instrumental piece composed of a series of variations, as a suite) on the Lutheran Chorale What God Ordains Is Always Good (Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan). There are nine variations of varying difficulty and styles, even including a gigue, which is perhaps a little out of character for church music, but is fun to play, nevertheless.

During communion you will hear a Nocturne in A Minor by David Karp. As you mighty imagine, a nocturne is a slow, dreamy, sleepy kind of piece. This one is no exception. David Karp was on the piano faculty while I was at SMU, and, in fact, still is. He wrote this piece in memory of another professor at SMU, Louise Bianchi, who was Professor Emerita of Piano Pedagogy.

Dr. Karp is a nationally known pianist, composer, educator, lecturer and author, who holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Colorado with additional doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. At Southern Methodist, he teaches classes in performance, chamber music, improvisation, advanced class piano for piano majors, required piano classes for music majors and sight-reading classes for piano majors. In addition to his academic work,  he is prolific composer, with compositions numbering over several hundred and published by several major music publishers in America. These compositions are performed in competitions, recitals and a variety of music venues all over the world, often listed as required repertoire for students.

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,

Music for December 6, 2020 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Prepare the Royal Highway – arr. Thomas Gieschen (1931-2006)
• An Advent Prayer – Allen Pote (b. 1945)
• Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Partita on  "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Meditation on “Winchester New" from An Advent Triptych – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Improvisation on “Bereden väg för Herran” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

This Sunday's scripture readings includes the beautiful passage from Isaiah

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” - Isaiah 40

There are two hymns which we always sing on the second Sunday of Advent. Those are hymn 67 – Comfort, comfort ye, my people, and hymn 65 – Prepare the Way, O Zion. This year, you are invited to read the words to hymn 67 while I play Johann Pachelbel's Partita on the tune, "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” (The Hymnal 1982 identifies it as PSALM 42, but it is the same tune.)

Christine Marku will sing a version of hymn 65 during the preparation of the communion elements using an arrangement by the Lutheran Composer Thomas E. Gieschen. A Native of Wisconsin, Gieschen was a professor of music for 40 years at Concordia University in River Forest, where he served as department chair and head of the Music Department. He earned a B.S. in Education from Concordia Teachers College, and a master's and doctorate in music from Northwestern University in Chicago.

He was also a published composer, arranger and organ recitalist, and a member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and the American Guild of Organists.

Another Lutheran, Paul Manz, improvised an organ setting of the same tune, the Swedish tune Bereden väg för Herran (Make way for the Lord). It was transcribed (written out) and published, and I will be playing it for the closing voluntary.

During Communion, Christine will sing an Advent anthem by the American Composer Allen Pote.  Pote is a nationally knowns composer of sacred music as well as a clinician for festivals and workshops. Since 1975 his published choral works, which include twelve musicals for youth and children, have been widely performed by choirs the world over, including the Chorister Choir here at Good Shepherd. Born in Halstead, Kansas, Pote earned a diploma in Church Music from Texas Christian University. He studied in Brussels on a Fulbright scholarship and took advanced work at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. For a while in the 80s he was director of music at Memorial Drive Presbyterian in Houston.

Music for October 25, 2020 + The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• My Jesus, I Love Thee – Dan Forrest, arr. (b. 1978) Bruce Bailey, Baritone

Instrumental Music

• Suite du Premier Ton – Louis Nicolas Clérambault (1676 1749)
• Duo
• Trio
• Basse et Dessus de Trompette
• Récits de Cromorne et de Cornet Séparé
• Choral Partita on Werde Munter – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Trumpet Tune in D – David N. Johnson (1922-1987)

Bruce Bailey is singing a hymn familiar to Protestant Christians, "My Jesus, I Love Thee." I think the story of this hymn is fascinating, as told on the website hymnary.org:

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, William Featherstone most likely wrote this hymn at the age of sixteen on the occasion of his conversion and/or baptism. He sent the text to his aunt in Los Angeles, who sent it to friends in London, where it was published anonymously in the London Hymn Book to a now forgotten tune. Adoniram Judson Gordon found it, wrote a new tune for it, and also published it anonymously in The Service of Song for Baptist Churches. It wasn’t until around 1930, fifty years after its publication, that enough research had been done to establish Featherstone as the author, who had died at the young age of 28. Today, it is a much loved hymn of assurance and confession of faith, with words of comfort and peace. And perhaps bolstering the power of the text is Featherstone’s story itself. A young man with no connections, who simply wrote a poem one night about his own faith, has, unbeknownst to him, come to bless millions. God certainly works in mysterious ways to use the gifts and talents of his people.

Today's arrangement of the hymn is by the North Carolina composer Dan Forrest. Originally published in 2011 as a choir anthem, this setting of the well-loved hymn, with a piano countermelody floating over top of the traditional hymn tune, was written as a memorial piece for one of Forrest's friends. The memorial setting was the reason for the tender musical style, as well as the choice of stanzas, including “I’ll love Thee in life, I’ll love Thee in death” and the triumphant final stanza about heaven. Forrest reset the choral piece as a solo work in the last 24 months.

In the last decade, Dan’s music has become well established in the repertoire of choirs in the U.S. and abroad, through both smaller works and his major works Requiem for the Living (2013), Jubilate Deo (2016), and LUX: The Dawn From On High (2018). Dan holds graduate degrees in composition and piano performance, and is active as a composer, educator, publisher, editor, and pianist. 

The opening voluntaries are from a Suite for Organ by the French composer and church organist, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault. Like so many musicians of the 18th century, Clérambault came from a musical family. His training began at an early age, and soon he was organist at various churches in France, including St. Sulpice (Paris). This suite was the first of what was to be a cycle of pieces in all keys but Clérambault never completed the cycle.

You'll hear four of the seven pieces. The titles describe the compositional form and registration (sounds) to be used. "Basse et Dessus de Trompette" is simply a piece employing both the bass and soprano (treble) registers of the trumpet stop. A "récit" is a piece in which a single voice emerges soloistically above all others by means of special registration. This is indicated in the title, here it's a Récit de Cromorne AND a Cornet - a solo stop made up of five different ranks of flute sounds at different pitches.)

The Choral partita during communion is a set of variations on the German Chorale Werde munter, mein Gemüte, which most people would recognize as the tune used for the choral part of Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Originally used for an evening text, it is paired with a Eucharistic text in our hymnal, hymn 336 (Come with us, O blessed Jesus.) Even though we aren't able to sing this, the words will be printed in the bulletin for you to follow along. This is the third Sunday in a row I have played works by Johann Pachelbel. His music is so well suited for church! (And easy to play - usually!) You see, there is SO MUCH more to Pachelbel than his famous Canon in D!

Music for October 18, 2020 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

Laudate Dominum – W. A. Mozart (1756-1791), Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Philip E. Baker (b. 1934)
• I. A Trumpet Tune for Beginnings
• III. Aria
• Meditation on "Old Hundredth" - Rudy Davenport (b. 1948)
• Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

As we return to in-person worship we'll be doing some things a little differently, at least for the time being. Choirs will not be a part of worship as group singing is thought to be a quick way of spreading the Covid-19 virus. We won't be singing hymns at this time, either. 

But hymns have such a prominent place in our worship that we don't want to just ignore their value. Therefore we will be including lyrics to familiar hymns in the worship leaflet for the congregation to read and meditate on while an instrumental setting of the tune most often associated with that text is played. 

This Sunday I will be playing two settings of the familiar hymn-tune, OLD HUNDREDTH. One is a piano setting played between scripture readings by the contemporary composer Rudy Davenport. Davenport is a freelance composer, pianist and church musician residing in Austin, Texas. 

Born in 1948 in Hayesville, North Carolina, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Young Harris Junior College, Cardinal Stritch College and Florida State University, where he studied composition with Harold Shiffman and Dr. John Boda. 

He has a wide and varied religious background. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Sacred Heart School of Theology in Milwaukee, where he studied composition with the late John Downey, Composer-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He studied the music and writings of the Vaishnava devotional sect of Hinduism in India, and of Zen in a Zendo. While living in a Trappist Monastery, he learned about the Catholic mystical saints. 

His musical tastes are as diverse as his religious studies. Davenport has written music for and played in a rock band, worked with developmentally delayed children by using music therapy, taught piano, and for many years was the Director of Music at several large Catholic churches.

The other setting of the tune which we most often think of as "The Doxology," Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, is an organ setting by the South German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel. It presents the well-known tune in the pedal, while the hands play a fugal-like accompaniment.

We are fortunate this Sunday to hear Mozart's beautiful setting of Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum, sung by Christine Marku. From his large work, Vesperae solennes de confessore (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor), Laudate Dominum originally was a solo with choir (the choir singing the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalm.) Since we have no choir, we will omit the Gloria.

Christine is the choral director at Riverwood Middle School.

The opening voluntary is by Philip Baker, organist and composer who was director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas for many years, including those I spent at Southern Methodist University working on my masters. His Suite for Organ was published just before I moved to Dallas, and it includes one of the loveliest melodies of all time, and one of my personal favorite organ pieces to play, Aria. 

Since retiring from active music making, he and his wife Tissa have moved to Houston, where (before Covid) I got to see him at various concerts around town.

Music for October 11, 2020 - The FIRST SUNDAY back in church (10:15)

This Sunday will be our first Sunday back in church with a live service, which will also be livestreamed over You Tube. We'll have less music initially, with only one solo and instrumental music. For this week, you can expect to hear:

Vocal Music

• Will You Come and Follow Me? – John L. Bell (b. 1949), Bidkar Cajina, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Ciaconna in F Minor – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Brother James’ Air – Larry Shackley (b. 1956)
• Little Prelude in C Minor – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

The solo is a hymn by the Scottish minister John L. Bell, set to the Scottish folk melody KELVINGROVE. It's a gorgeous text call "The Summons."

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown?

Will you let my name be known?

Will you let my life be grown in you,

and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?

Will you risk the hostile stare,

should your life attract or scare?

Will you let me answer prayer in you

and you in me?

Will you let the blinded man see if I but call your name?

Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?

Will you kiss the leper clean,

and do such as this unseen?

And admit to what I mean in you,

and you in me?

Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell that fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found

to reshape the world around

through my sight and touch and sound in you,

and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In your company I'll go,

where your love and footsteps show,

thus I'll move and live and grow in you,

and you in me.

This is the kind of hymn that is typical of Bell's writing. He began writing hymns in the 1970s to address concerns missing from the current Scottish hymnal:

"I discovered that seldom did our hymns represent the plight of poor people to God. There was nothing that dealt with unemployment, nothing that dealt with living in a multicultural society and feeling disenfranchised. There was nothing about child abuse…,that reflected concern for the developing world, nothing that helped see ourselves as brothers and sisters to those who are suffering from poverty or persecution." [from an interview in Reformed Worship (March 1993)]

He is now employed full-time in the areas of music and worship with the Wild Goose Resource Group, the publishing arm of the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian community of men and women from different walks of life and different traditions within Christianity which is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, with its main activities taking place on the island of Iona.

Another Scottish hymn-tune, BROTHER JAMES' AIR, will be played between scripture readings. Composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain (1840-1925), the Scottish healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James, the tune was first published in his volume The great peace: being a New Year's greeting ... (1915) and is often used as the tune for the metrical setting of Psalm 23, "The Lord's my Shepherd; I'll not want." Psalm 23 is the Psalm for Sunday. 

Music for Sunday, September 13, 2020 + The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

 Vocal Music

• Go Down, Moses – Negro Spiritual, Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Vater Unser in Himmelreich, BWV 737 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Toccata in E Minor – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 674 – “Forgive our sins as we forgive” (DETROIT)
• Hymn 421 – All glory be to God on high (ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HÖH)

The Old Testament lesson this Sunday is the account of the children of Israel being led out of Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. The first song I thought of was the old Negro Spiritual, Go Down, Moses. 

Many of the Negro Spirituals, which were sung in the field as well as in church meetings, were "code songs," songs that sounded like Bible stories, but with double meanings which were most often covert. Therefore, only Christian slaves understood them, and even when ordinary words were used, they reflected personal relationship between the slave singer and God.

The codes of the first negro spirituals are often related with an escape to a free country. For example, a "home" is a safe place where everyone can live free. So, a "home" can mean Heaven, but it covertly means a sweet and free country, a haven for slaves. 

"Go Down, Moses" does not employ the hidden symbolism of the code songs. 

Only a very obtuse listener can miss its point. It says flatly that Moses freed these Egyptian slaves boldly and justly because slavery is wrong. It clearly projects the principles of this experience to all the world: wherever men are held in bondage, they must and shall be freed. The "Let my people go!" refrain is thunderous. It does not argue economic, sociological, historical, and racial points. . . . It wastes no words and moves relentlessly toward its goal of filling every listener with a pervasive contempt for oppression and a resounding enthusiasm for freedom. -from Black Song, 1972, pp. 326-327

Vater unser im Himmelreich is Martin Luther’s interpretation of  the Our Father: the only prayer that came directly from Jesus himself and which has thus always had a special place in Christianity.

Of the various organ arrangements Bach made of this chorale, this is the most subdued and timeless. The piece is written in stile antico – the ‘ancient’, vocal, polyphonic composition style of the sixteenth century. Bach may have used the ‘ancient style’ here to emphasise the fact that Vater unser im Himmelreich is a prayer, implying words and thoughts, either spoken or sung. In fact, this arrangement is a four-part motet in the ancient style and you could easily perform the whole piece in song. Occasionally, there is a slightly more daring harmony, which is all that betrays the fact that this piece is not really a motet from the 1500s.

This tune is found in our hymnal at hymn 575, though to a different text. (Before thy throne, O God.)

Music for Sunday, March 29, 2020 + The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Pie Jesu – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Praeludium in C, BWV 846 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Erhalt Uns, Herr, Hymn 143, The Glory of These Forty Days – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

My life as a church musician has changed drastically in the past month. Normally at this time I would be concerned with what hymns I would choose to be used in worship during these Sundays in Lent. I would be preparing organ and piano pieces suitable for Lenten and Easter worship. I would be rehearsing the choirs which would sing “Kyrie,” “Hosannas,” and “Alleluias.”

But this year is different. Our focus is not on the cross, but on the crown (Corona) virus. And my thoughts are not just on what would strengthen the reading of God’s word in worship, but what will also bring comfort and peace to the hearts and minds of those worshipping with us, maybe not IN church, but still AS church.

My opening voluntary for this Sunday was to be J. S. Bach’s miniature masterpiece based on the chorale, “O Man, Bewail thy Grievous Fall.” On reflection, that title didn’t sound too pastoral, and, quite frankly, the organ setting was almost too melancholy for my own personal needs. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is one of the most beautiful of the yearning, aching melodies that Bach ever wrote, but right now I need hope.

The Praeludium in C in Bach's
own handwriting.

So, I chose the simple Praeludium in C from his collection, The Well-Tempered Clavier, instead.  (Clavier means Keyboard.) But before I tell you why, let me explain the reason for this work.

You see, in Bach’s time, keyboards were tuned in a purer sense, so that some keys (such as D, G, or A Major) would sound bright and clear, with a perfect tuning, but keys such as D-flat or A-flat would sound out of tune. It was during Bach’s lifetime that people began regularly using a method of tuning wherein the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard were tuned in such a way that it was possible to play music in all major or minor keys that were commonly in use, and it would not sound perceptibly out of tune. Bach then wrote Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, a book of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, composed "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study". The collection is generally regarded as being among the most important works in the history of classical music.

This Prelude in C was probably the first real piece by Bach that I ever learned. It is a seemingly simple progression of arpeggiated chords, wandering from the home key of C Major through various chords and tonalities, as if Bach was using it to test the tuning. I have always liked the way that the pattern of the broken chord stays the same, even when meandering through a ever-changing harmonic progression. It brings peace and joy to me, even when I listen to my piano students struggle through it at Lone Star College. (And I make every one of them learn it. They never complain.)

This Sunday you will also hear Christine Marku sing one of the movements from the Requiem by Gabriel Faure. Fauré’s Requiem is noted for its calm, serene and peaceful outlook. Anyone looking for morose themes of death is searching in the wrong place. Instead, here we find musical solace in a work that focuses not on the morbid, but on the supposedly restful and fear-free nature of death.

Pie Jesu (pronounced Pea-eh Yeh-soo) is the shortest and simplest section from the Requiem, but one that I hope will bring peace to all who hear it. Though written as part of a funeral mass, I think the words can bring comfort to the living, even as we navigate these uncertain and troublous times.

The original text, derived from the "Dies irae" sequence, is as follows:

Pie Jesu Domine, Pious Lord Jesus,
Dona eis requiem. (×2) Give them rest.
Pie Jesu Domine, Pious Lord Jesus,
Dona eis requiem sempiternam. Give them everlasting rest.

Music for January 5, 2020 + The Second Sunday after Christmas Day

Vocal Music

• Falan Tidings – Donald Pearson (b. 1953)

Instrumental Music

• How Bright Appears the Morning Star – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• Impression on “We Three Kings” – Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1951)
• Gigue on “Stuttgart” – David Schelat (b. 1955)

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

• Hymn 109 - The first Nowell the angel did say (THE FIRST NOWELL)
• Hymn 421 - All glory be to God on high (ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HÖH)
• Hymn 127 - Earth has many a noble city (STUTTGART)
• Hymn 480 - When Jesus left his Father’s throne (KINGSFOLD)
• Hymn 324 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn 119 - As with gladness men of old (DIX)

Twelve days after Christmas is the day marked as the Epiphany, generally thought of as the day that the God-Son was revealed as a human being in Christ Jesus. As the Epiphany is on a Monday this year, we will take the opportunity to focus this Sunday morning on the visit of the Magi as told in the Gospel of Matthew.

That being the case, much of the music for this Sunday features the Wise Men who followed that star. That includes the opening hymn, The First Nowell, which details the entire Christmas Story, focusing on the star which led both shepherds and magi to the infant King.

The offertory anthem is the same anthem sung at the 6:30 PM Service on Christmas Eve. Since the majority of our congregation was either at 4 or 10 PM,  we decided we'd do a follow-up singing of it on this Epiphany Sunday. Donald Pearson takes the text of a 17th century carol and sets it in a deceptively simple sounding anthem  It is, in fact, a work of subtlety and great depth. The three voice parts are as sweet and pleasant, but the harmonies are more challenging and the phrase shapes carry us right along with the surging melody.

According to the Oxford Book of Carols, the text dates from about 1610. Interestingly, the original carol starts with Matthew’s wise men and ends with Luke’s shepherds, which is truer to the narrative, since the Magi would have had to have left their homes weeks if not months before the birth, given the distance between their countries and Jerusalem. The title, Falan Tidings, comes from the original carol, which includes "the shepherds there about", who only had to leave their tents and flocks on Bethlehem Down and run down the hillside, ‘singing all even in a rout, “Falan-tiding-dido!”

I found it interesting that all of the composers today were born in the 50s, (except Pachelbel was born in 1653, while the others were 1950s babies!)

Music for November 17, 2019

Vocal Music

• The First Song of Isaiah – Jack Noble White (1938-2019)
• Praise the Lord who Reigns Above – Jody Lindh (b. 1944)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in A Major, BWV 536 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Auf Meinen Lieben Gott – Dietrich Buxtehude
• Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott – Johann Pachelbel

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

• Hymn 688 - A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Hymn 482 - Lord of all hopefulness (SLANE)
• Hymn R 172 - In my life, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn - Steal away to Jesus (SPIRITUAL)
• Hymn 620 - Jerusalem, my happy home (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (MIT FREUDEN ZART)

The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is well represented by the choral music this Sunday. The Canticle is a setting of the First Song of Isaiah by Jack Noble White, an Episcopal musician who passed away this month in Fort Worth at the age of 81. The offertory is an anthem by Jody Lindh, a retired Methodist musician living in Dallas. Both anthems will be sung by our children's choir.

Since it was first published in 1976, White's FIRST SONG OF ISAIAH has been sung by millions of people worldwide. White was organist/choirmaster at the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Mobile, Alabama in 1975 when a group of 90 youth from California, Nevada, Nassau in the Bahamas, and Alabama gathered for a music conference near Mobile. White composed this setting for that group, including keyboard, guitar, drums, bass guitar, and handbells to accompany the choir. Today we will sing with just the piano as the Coventry Choir leads the congregation of the singing of this Canticle found in the Book of Common Prayer (which was in experimental use at the time.)

Jack Noble White

Jack Noble White spent most of his career in Texas, of which he is a sixth generation native. He divided his time between music and education. White served as Secretary of the Episcopal Church’s National Music Commission from 1962-1977. He began writing and publishing during that time and now has many works in print. In 1977 he became the Executive Director of The Texas Boys Choir, leading them into a continuous international limelight with numerous tours. He and his wife, Johanna, founded the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, still housing the 70-year-old choir. Retiring from that position in 1995, he devoted his attention to writing and other projects, including the Dorothy Shaw Bell Choir, and their annual Fort Worth play-pageant of the Nativity, The Littlest Wiseman, now in its 59th year.

Jody Lindh

Jody Lindh had an unusually long tenure as director of Music at University Park United Methodist in Dallas, beginning as organist while still a student at Southern Methodist University. Upon graduation, he was named director of music, where he served for 45 years until his retirement in 2013. He is married to Jonell Lindh, a semi-retired United Methodist Minister on staff of First United Methodist in Dallas.

A little known fact about Lindh: He’s a Lutheran. He's an associate member of University Park, but remains a member of Elim Lutheran Church in Marquette, Kansas, the church he grew up in. "My great-grandfather was a founder of Elim in the 1880s, and my whole family is there," he said. "I couldn't possibly leave it!"