Music for August 7, 2022 + The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Simple Song – Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
• Jim Sikorski, tenor, Grace Tice, oboe

Instrumental Music

• Impromptu on “Adoro te Devote” – Rachel Laurin (b. 1961)
• Gabriel’s Oboe – Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)
• Quasi Allegro – César Franck (1822-1890)

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

• Hymn R5 God is here! (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 421 All glory be to God on high (ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HÖHE)
• Hymn 637 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (LYONS)
• Hymn From North and South (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 68 Rejoice! rejoice, believers (LLANGLOFFAN)
• Psalm 50:1-8 – Tone IIa

Simple Song

My friend Jim Sikorski is coming to Kingwood to sing for us this Sunday. He is singing "A Simple Song" from Leonard Bernstein's Mass. (For some background on why the Jewish Bernstein would write a setting of the Catholic Mass, see my notes from an earlier column here.)

Jim has been in Houston for over 40 years, and during that time, he has sung with the Houston Grand Opera chorus, Theatre Under the Stars, and, and 43 consecutive seasons, he has sung the National Anthem for the Houston Astros. (You can imagine how I feel about that! Go, 'Stros!)

Gabriel's Oboe

Another friend of mine is coming to play oboe on "A Simple Song," so while here, I thought I would get Grace Tice to play one of my favorite oboe pieces, Gabriel's Oboe, originally written by the composer Ennio Morricone for the film "The Mission." The score for that movie was nominated for an Oscar, and Morricone recieved a Golden Globe for his music for that film.

Since it's appearance in 1986, this tune has become a standard of instrumental and vocal repertoire. Sarah Brightman, Il Divo, Yo Yo Ma, and a host of others have recorded it. Our handbell choir played an arrangement of it in May of 2018. I'm sure you remember.

Impromptu on Adoro te Devote

Today I am playing an organ piece by one of the hottest names in organ music from Canada, the talented organist and composer Rachel Laurin. After her studies at the Montreal Conservatory, she became Associate Organist of Raymond Daveluy at St-Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal (1986-2002), and from 2002 to 2006, she was Titular Organist at Notre Dame Cathedral, Ottawa. She now devotes herself to composition, recitals, master classes and lectures.

She has performed organ recitals in major cities in Canada, the United States, and Europe (including the University of House), and has made more than twelve recordings, including two CDs devoted to her own compositions. She has composed hundreds of works for various solo instruments, voice, instrumental ensembles, choir, and orchestra. In 2020, the American Guild of Organists granted her the AGO “Distinguished Composer Award” in recognition of her important contribution to the organ repertoire.

Quasi Allegro

Last week I talked about the French Composer Cesar Franck, his 200th birthday, and his collection call "L'Organiste." Today I play another piece from that collection for the closing voluntary.

Music for August 16, 2020 + The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Build My House from Peter Pan – Leonard Bernstein (1918-1919), Kimberly Bollinger, soprano 

Instrumental Music

• Ach Gott und Herr – Johann Gottfried Walther 1684-1748 (attr. To Johann Sebastian Bach)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 420 - When in our music God is glorified (ENGLEBERG)
• Song of Praise S-236 – Canticle 13: Glory to You – John Rutter (b. 1945)

One of the unexpected blessings of virtual worship is that the same technology which enables me to bring the Good Shepherd Choir together in this time of quarantine also allows me to work with friends who live hundreds or thousands of miles away. One former choir member, Kim Bollinger, has been part of our virtual congregation these past few months, which led me to ask her to sing for one of our services. She readily agreed, and suggested a song from Leonard Bernstein's little known musical, Peter Pan. 

Most folks don’t know it, since it didn’t have a big run on Broadway. Bernstein wrote half a dozen songs for the show, which starred (of all people) Boris Karloff! (He was Hook, of course). The song Kim suggested is sung by Wendy, where she expresses her hope that her home will be be built with Peter Pan. It's a beautiful song, but I wondered what Kim was thinking! What does this have to do with the worship of God?

Then I reread the lyrics, and heard, for the first time, the voice of God, speaking to us! It was like a parable, and we know how much Jesus loved speaking in parables! Read these words:

Will you build me a house?
A house that really will be mine.
Then let me give you my design.
A simple scheme of ... the house I dream of.

Build my house of wood.
Build my house of stone.
Build my house of brick and mortar.

Make the ceiling strong.
Strong against the storm.
Shelter when the days grow shorter.

But build my house of love.
And paint my house with trusting.
And warm it with the warmth of your heart.

Make a floor of faith.
Make the walls of truth.
Put of roof of peace above.
Can you build my house of love?

Copyright (C) 1950, 1980 by The Estate of Leonard Bernstein. Copyright Renewed. Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company, LLC, Publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. Sole Agent

I can imagine God asking this of each of us. Not so much as in our church, but in ourselves. In Paul's letters to the Corinthians, he often asked,  "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?"  We would do well to survey our own life and see of what our "temples" are made.

The opening and closing voluntaries are two settings of the same German Chorale, O God and Lord,These pieces were part of a collection of organ chorale preludes found in the music library of Johann Kirnberger, a pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach. Many of Bach's manuscripts had been preserved in Kirnberger's library (the "Kirnberger collection"), as well as other pieces that Bach had transcribed for his pupil. These two settings of Ach Gott und Herr were among those, and were for centuries thought to be by the master himself, but modern scholarship has attributed the authorship to the baroque composer Johann Gottfried Walther, a second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach whose his life was almost exactly contemporaneous to that of the famous composer. 

Music for June 14, 2020 + The Second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music:

• Simple Song from “Mass” – Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• There Is a Spirit That Delights to Do No Evil – Ned Rorem (b. 1923)
• Intrada on “Abbot’s Leigh” – Rebecca Groom te Velde (b. 1956)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of hymn 780, which is from Wonder, Love and Praise, the supplement to the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 780 Lord, you give the great commission (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn S-280 - Glory to God in the highest - Robert Powell (b. 1932)

We continue this week using music with texts or tunes by Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz. Last week we heard his text set to his own music (When You Believe, from Prince of Egypt). This week we hear his set to music by Leonard Bernstein. The song is Simple Song, from Bernstein's Mass.

Bernstein with the 23-year old Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz was only 23 years old when he was approached to write the lyrics for Mass. He had just finished Godspell, and had acquired an agent, Shirley Bernstein, who was the older sister of Leonard Bernstein. When Bernstein wanted a lyricist for his Mass, Shirley brought the two men together. Stephen and Lenny became personal friends, closing the circle that began when Schwartz heard Candide on WQXR as a schoolboy.

“He had a commission to do a piece for the opening of the Kennedy Center in September of 1971, and it was May, and he was getting increasingly desperate. It was a mammoth, major, gigantic piece and Lenny had nothing done. There were all these little shreds and starts of pieces, and two lines here, and a bit of a tune there, and three months to go to do a piece with 200 singers and dancers. Needless to say, Lenny was relatively panicky at that point. I wrote lyrics to music that he had, and reworked lyrics that he had written.” (1)

Some of the words haven’t aged well — phrases like “I’m so freaky-minded” — while others are clever, like “They can fashion a rebuttal that’s as subtle as a sword / But they’re never gonna scuttle the Word of the Lord.” But the text for Simple Song is timeless, for parts come straight from the Psalms of the Hebrew Testament:

I will sing the Lord a new song
To praise Him, to bless Him, to bless the Lord.
I will sing His praises while I live
All of my days.

Blessed is the man who loves the Lord,
Blessed is the man who praises Him.
Lauda, Lauda, Laudē
And walks in His ways.

I will lift up my eyes
To the hills from whence comes my help
I will lift up my voice to the Lord
Singing Lauda, Laudē.

For the Lord is my shade,
Is the shade upon my right hand
And the sun shall not smite me by day
Nor the moon by night

I wrote more on this fascinating work two years ago, when it was sung during one of our services, and you can read that here.

The organ opening voluntary is also another stunningly simple (at first glance) musical work. Ned Rorem, the American composer, wrote an large scale organ work called A Quaker Reader. Rorem, who was raised a Quaker, wrote organ works based on lines from the works of various Quaker writers. This work, "There is a Spirit Who Delights to Do No Evil," comes from the writings of James Nayler, an English Quaker leader from the 17th century who was part of the Valiant Sixty, a group of early Quaker preachers and missionaries who preached against enclosure and the slave trade.

There is a Spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatsoever is of nature contrary to itself; it sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself so it conceives none in thoughts to any other. If it be betrayed it bears it,b for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. (2)

Rebecca Te Velde

The wistful melody is first heard with simple chords as accompaniment. After a key change, it is heard in canon, with the left hand echoing the tune. Another key change, and the pedal part is added, ascending almost to the top of the pedal board.

The closing voluntary is a brief "intrada" (introduction) to the hymn-tune "Abbot's Leigh" which is used as our hymn of the day. It is arranged by Rebecca Groom Te Velde, a third generation professional organist who serves as organist of First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, OK. She is an active performer, composer, clinician, and adjunct instructor of music at Oklahoma State University where her husband, John, is associate professor of German.

1. https://theculturalcritic.com/stephen-schwartz-at-mid-career/, accessed June 11, 2020.
2. Several Papers of Confessions, Prayer, and Praise; by James Nayler, London, 1659.

Music for March 11, 2018 + The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• A Simple Song – Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
• Thou Knowest, Lord – Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Instrumental Music

• Meditation on “Valley” – Gilbert M. Martin (b. 1941)

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

• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn R132 - As Moses raised the serpent up (GIFT OF LOVE)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works (HANOVER)
• Hymn R189 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn R9 - As the deer pants for the water (Nystrom)
• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
• Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 Tone IIa

This Sunday former choir member Kim Bollinger returns to Kingwood for the weekend to sing at our 10:15 service. Kim has been enjoying the peripatetic life of an Army wife, living in places such as Germany, Washington, Rhode Island, and now Georgia as her husband serves our country. 

I'm even more delighted because she is going to sing "A Simple Song" from Leonard Bernstein's Mass. His Mass was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy in memory of her late husband President Kennedy and was premiered in 1971 at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Bernstein. a Jew, had already written his Symphony No. 3: Kaddish, dedicating it to the memory of Kennedy shortly after his assassination, so with this commissioned he turned to the form of the Catholic mass to honor the memory of Kennedy (a Roman Catholic).

The Mass has fascinated composers for centuries as a musical form, but Bernstein created something new, a "theatre piece for singers, players and dancers" combining not only different religious traditions (Latin liturgy, Hebrew prayer, and plenty of contemporary English lyrics) but also different musical styles, including classical and rock music.

As in any theater piece, there is a story and a conflict. Bernstein and his collaborator, Stephen Schwartz (who had already told the story of Jesus in his hit Broadway musical Godspell)

took the Tridentine Mass, a highly-ritualized Catholic rite meant to be recited verbatim, and applied to it a very Jewish practice of debating and arguing with God. The result was a piece that powerfully communicated the confusion and cultural malaise of the early 1970s, questioning authority and advocating for peace. (1)

Partly intended as an anti-war statement, it was originally a target of criticism from the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand and contemporary music critics who objected to its Broadway/populist elements on the other. (music critic Harold Schoenberg wrote of the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS: “So this MASS is with it — this week? But what about next year?”) In the present day, it is perhaps seen as less blasphemous and more a piece of its era: in 2000 it was even performed in the Vatican.

Jaqueline Kennedy (center) and Leonard Bernstein (r)
at the premier of MASS (1971)

MASS begins with a cacophonous prelude of a pre-recorded 12-tone "Kyrie Eleison" played over four speakers, overlapping like people talking over one another at a cocktail party (or during my prelude last Sunday.)  Suddenly, the Celebrant cuts through this with his electric guitar, strumming the open strings to play a G and a D.("G - D," the traditional Jewish way of spelling the name of God without actually saying it.) As the composer Daron Hagen says in his deeply personal analysis of "A Simple Song," it is "a chord that anyone who can pick up the guitar can strum without knowing how to play. So begins a supposedly “simple” song: A Simple Song.

Jackson Hearn (your devoted organist, left) and the
effervescent Kimberly Livingston Bollinger (right) at
lunch on Lake Houston (2014)

(1) https://leonardbernstein.com/works/view/12/mass-a-theatre-piece-for-singers-players-and-dancers