Music for November 12, 2017 + Kirking of the Tartans

Vocal Music

• Keep Your Lamps – André Thomas (b. 1952)

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral - James D. Wetherald, arr., Richard Kean, piper
• Meditation on Jesus, meine Zuversicht – Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)

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

• Hymn 524 - I love thy kingdom, Lord  (ST. THOMAS (WILLIAMS))
• Hymn S-204 - Glory be to God on High - Old Scottish Chant
• Hymn 68 - Rejoice! Rejoice, believers (LLANGLOFFAN)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn R229 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn R167 - Surely the presence of the Lord (SURELY THE PRESENCE)
• Hymn 189 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 436 - Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (TRURO)
• Psalm 78:1-7 – Tone VIIIa

It is a favorite Sunday for many parishioners at Good Shepherd when we “Kirk (or bless) the Tartans.” It's not on the official prayerbook liturgical calendar, but we have been observing the Sunday closest to the feast day of Samuel Seabury as "Kirking Sunday" for 20 years now!  It's a custom which seems to have begun in the early 1940s, when Peter Marshall (the Presbyterian minister who was chaplain of the Senate - not the game show host) held prayer services at New York Avenue Presbyterian in D.C to raise funds for War Relief. At one of the services, he preached a sermon called “Kirking of the Tartans,” and thus a legend was born. You can read the entire fascinating history here on the Scottish Tartans Website.

We do it every year around the feast day of Samuel Seabury, the first American Anglican bishop who was consecrated by the Scottish Bishops of the Anglican church during the Revolutionary War. (England was a bit perturbed with Americans, so they would have none of that!) 

Thus we commemorate his consecration by wearing our tartans, hanging them in the church, and hearing the bagpipes play. We begin the service with the piper playing “Highland Cathedral” and end with him playing “Amazing Grace.”

Our piper this Sunday is Richard Kean, a professional piper who now calls Houston home. He is a native of Scotland who made his way through Canada before moving to Texas. We are honored to have him with us today.

André Thomas

Today's anthem was chosen because of its appropriateness in light of the scripture. In Matthew 25 we read of the ten bridesmaids who go out to meet the bridegroom. Five took enough oil in their lamps so that they would continue to burn. Five "foolish" bridesmaids did not, and were left in the dark when the bridegroom came.  Keep Your Lamps (Trimmed and Burning) is a traditional gospel blues song that alludes to the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids. It was first recorded in 1928 by Blind Willie Johnson, an American gospel blues singer, guitarist, and evangelist.

This arrangement is by André Jerome Thomas, an American composer and conductor who is currently Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Choral Music Education at Florida State University and the artistic director for the Tallahassee Community Chorus.

The organ voluntary at communion is based on the chorale JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT. You can find it at hymn 313 in the hymnal, with the communion text, "Let thy Blood in mercy poured."

Music for October 16, 2016 + The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes – Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)

Instrumental Music

• Trumpet Prelude – Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758)
• Aria – Philip Baker (b. 1934)
• Prelude in G, BWV 568 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 372 - Praise to the living God! (Leoni)
• Hymn 631 - Book of books, our people’s strength (Liebster Jesu)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (East Acklam)
• Hymn 669 - Commit thou all that grieves thee (Passion Chorale)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Seek Ye First)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (Paderborn)
• Psalm 119:97-104 (Tone VIIc)

Leo Sowerby was the leading composer of American church music and many virtuoso organ works during the first half of the twentieth century and, at the same time, the most distinguished Anglican musician to be produced by the Protestant Episcopal Church in North America. During his career he would compose music in all genres, with the exception of opera, but it is in the field of church music that his life's major work was accomplished.

He was a largely self-taught musician, beginning his study of harmony and music theory from a textbook at age eleven and composing his first works shortly thereafter. His interest in choral music and the pipe organ date from as early as 1910, when he began to study the works of César Franck and Max Reger. By 1913 the eighteen-year old composer received his first major public recognition when the Chicago Symphony premièred his Violin Concerto. Three years later the Symphony would give an unprecedented all-Sowerby concert, beginning his relationship as resident composer which would last into the 1940's.

Sowerby served as bandmaster for the 332nd Field Artillery in the U. S. Army during World War I, during which time he completed his graduate work through the American Conservatory in Chicago and prepared several earlier works, including A Liturgy of Hope of 1917, for publication.

Between his discharge from the Army and his appointment in 1927 as organist/choirmaster at St. James Episcopal Church (later Cathedral) in Chicago, Sowerby held a number of church jobs, including  Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, where he served as associate organist/choirmaster.

Leo Sowerby came of age at the same time as did American music. With a few isolated exceptions, American composers before the 1920s had merely tried to imitate the voices of their Central European teachers, but Sowerby's generation, led by such men as George Gershwin, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland,  and Walter Piston, took the old European forms and poured into them music which sounded distinctly American in its melody, harmony, and rhythm. You can hear that distinctive America sound in today's anthem, I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes. Sowerby's most popular work of all, it is a masterful expression of genuine religious faith. Taking Psalm 121 as his text, Sowerby avoids counterpoint, choosing a simple, unaffected melody with choral accompaniment, including a gentle whiff of blues-tinged harmony. What resulted has remained a repertory staple of church choirs for over 75 years.

Early on, a publisher had purchased the anthem outright for a one-time payment of $10. Much to the composer's great regret after the fact, he would receive no royalties on what was destined to become a "best seller."