WAKE UP! Music for Sunday, November 27, 2022 + Advent I

Vocal Music

• People, Look East – arr. Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)

Instrumental Music

• “Sleepers, wake!” A voice astounds us – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – Larry Dalton (1946-2009)
• “Sleepers, wake!” A voice astounds us – Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780)

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

• Hymn 57 - Lo! he comes with clouds descending (HELMSLEY)
• Hymn 73 - The King shall come when morning comes (ST. STEPHEN)
• Hymn 59 – Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (MERTON)
• Hymn R 152 - I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn 68 - Rejoice! rejoice, believers (LLANGLOFFAN)
• Psalm 122 – Tone 1f

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, starting a new year in the church. We sing hymns and songs focusing on the coming of Christ.

People, Look East

"People, Look East" first appeared in The Oxford Book of Carols (1928). The text was written by the same poet who wrote the popular hymn "Morning has broken," Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965). In England, she is beloved as the author of more than eighty children's books and poem collections, most notably Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep, Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, and The Little Bookroom.

Key images of the season are abundant. "People, Look East" is the direction of the rising sun and, in the history of Christianity, the direction of the coming Messiah. In stanza two, the bare earth is waiting for the seed that will flourish in the reign of the Promised One. In stanza three, the stars that guided the Magi shape the "bowl" of the heavens, giving signs of hope beyond "the frosty weather." The angels' song, in stanza four, sets "every peak and valley humming," an oblique reference to Isaiah 40:4, "Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low. . ."

Except for one word that changes in the last two lines of each stanza, the poem and its musical setting give the sense of a refrain. "Love," in turn, is defined as "Guest," "Rose," "Star," and "Lord." 

The lively tune, a traditional French carol BESANÇON, which earlier appeared with the anonymous text, "Shepherds, shake off your drowsy sleep," provides a festive setting for this wonderful Advent text. In the last forty years, this hymn has gained increasing popularity, as evidenced by its appearance in a number of hymnals in the United States.

Sleepers, Wake!

The Gospel lesson from Matthew 24 warns us

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.(verse 42

I therefore had to choose the old Advent standby, “Sleepers, wake!” A voice astounds us, for the organ voluntaries this Sunday. The opening voluntary is an arrangement of a movement from a Bach cantata (No. 140) arranged by J. S. Bach himself. The keystone of the work, in the middle of the cantata, it is a chorale for tenor. This, along with Sheep may Safely Graze and Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring must surely rank among the best known and most popular of Bach’s individual cantata movements.

The chorale melody is played with a minimum of embellishment on a trumpet sound while the principal, or basic organ sound, declaims the obbligato melody. One of the wonders of this movement is the manner in which the chorale and obbligato melodies appear to have virtually no connection with each other, and yet fit together perfectly. Julian Mincham, in his writings on Bach’s Cantatas (JSBachCantatas.com), says

It is possible that Bach saw this as a symbol of the earthly and the spiritual, seemingly apart, dissimilar and diverse and yet, by reason of the Ordained Natural Order, ultimately fitting together and perfectly complementing each other. Thus we might consider the chorale as representing matters spiritual and the foursquare, almost stolid string melody as earthly life and environment. Each may be depicted perfectly well independently but the fundamental message is that they have been conceived, by the Almighty, as the two parts of the same reality.

The closing voluntary is by a cousin and pupil of Bach, Johann Ludwig Krebs.  His organ music is composed in the forms used by Bach and leans heavily on Bach’s style. It is technically very accomplished. Krebs also wrote trio sonatas, sonatas for flute and harpsichord, and some sacred vocal music.

Music for December 13, 2015 + Advent III

Vocal Music

• O Thou, the Central Orb – Charles Wood
• When Jesus Came to Jordan - Attr. to William Walker (1809-1875)

Instrumental Music

• O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – Larry Dalton (1946-2009)
• Savior, of the Nations, Come – Gerald Near
• Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding – Gerald Near 

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

• Hymn 616 - Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (Es flog ein kleins Waldvögelein)
• Hymn 679 - Surely it is God who saves me (Thomas Merton)
• Hymn R26 - Jesus, name above all names (Hearn)
• Hymn 59 - Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (Merton)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s ban the Baptist’s cry (Winchester New)

The Good Shepherd Choir is joined this Sunday in singing two anthems, one from the body of standard Anglican repertoire, and the other from the American Folk Hymn tradition. This Sunday we will hear the Gospel reading of John the Baptist's foretelling the coming of Jesus. Perhaps we are rushing things, but the choirs will sing the hymn When Jesus Came to Jordan to be Baptized by John, by Fred Pratt Green, the prolific British Methodist pastor and hymn writer. The Rev. Mr. Green wrote this text to help explain the "why" of Jesus' baptism. It has been paired with a tune from the American songbook Southern Harmony of 1854. We will be singing a simple, austere version of this hymn-tune with bells and an ostinato (a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm) sung by the men of the choir.

We sang the other anthem, O Thou, the Central Orb, back in October, so you can read about it here. The St. Gregory Choir will be singing the anthem as part of their choral festival in January, so we though we would sing it again with them, as it is perfect for Advent, too, with the line "Come, quickly come, and let thy glory shine."

The opening voluntary is a piano arrangement of the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. What is interesting to me is that it is arranged by Larry Dalton, a Pentecostal pianist. We typically don't think of Pentecostal musicians being interested in the same hymns that we sing. I feel this goes to prove the universality of this old - and I mean old - hymn. The text comes from a 7 verse poem that dates back to the 8th century. The melody was originally music for a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional which was adapted by Englishman Thomas Helmore and published it in Part II of his The Hymnal Noted in 1854. The website Hymnary.org, a comprehensive index of hymns and hymnals, says that this hymn is found in 423 hymnals. (A Mighty Fortress is found in 586 hymnals, Amazing Grace in 1161!)

Larry Dalton was a world renowned pianist, conductor, composer and concert artist from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Big Stone Gap, VA, but he adopted Tulsa as his hometown when attending Oral Roberts University. During his college years, he traveled with the Oral Roberts ministry and later returned to serve as the Music Director for their TV ministry.

Larry was a Steinway Piano Artist, concertizing in over 40 countries, as well as arranging for many popular secular artists and Christian artists. His repertoire included music of every kind, including Southern Gospel, classical, and big band. 

He founded Living Sound, a contemporary Christian music group that ministered to the persecuted church in Poland, the USSR, Romania, East Germany and Yugoslavia. They also performed in great European cathedrals and at St. Peters in Rome hosted by Pope John Paul II.

Also, the keen eye will notice, in perusing the list of hymns and their tune names, that the tune name for the hymn Jesus, Name Above All Names is HEARN. It has nothing to do with me, but is named after the composer of the chorus, New Zealander Naida Hearn. I won't tell the whole story of how a 43 year old housewife came to write one of the most universal praise choruses today, but you can read the story here.