Music for Sunday, January 31, 2021 +The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O Give Thanks Unto the Lord – Joseph Corfe (1740-1820)
• Hymn 493: O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)

Instrumental Music

• Suite Breve – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)
• Prelude (for the Foundations)
• Impromptu (for Flutes and Mutations)
• Fanfare (for the Reeds)
• Lament (for Strings)
• Epilogue (for Full Organ)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness – Mark Knickelbein
• Toccata Pontificale – Gordon Young (1918-1998)

This Sunday a trio sings an English anthem from the Classical period, and I play an organ Suite and a piano chorale prelude by two living American Composers.

First is the anthem by the English composer Joseph Corfe. He was born at Salisbury where he received his early musical education from the organist of the cathedral, and was for some time one of the choristers. In 1783 he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal but returned to Salisbury in 1792 as the cathedral organist there. In 1804 he resigned his post in favour of his son, Arthur Thomas Corfe, and died in 1820. Another of his sons, John David Corfe, was for many years organist of Bristol Cathedral, and his grandson, Charles William, (son of Arthur) was organist of Christ Church, Oxford. 

Joseph Corfe's best known compositions are in a volume of church music, containing a well-known service in B flat, and eleven anthems. Today's anthem was originally for two equal voices, but the editor of this edition added a bass part and changed the text from "I will magnify thee" to "O Give Thanks unto the Lord."

Craig Phillips

Far more prolific is the composer of the opening voluntary. Craig Phillips is the Canon for Music at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was born in Louisville, Kent., in 1961. He received a B.M. from Oklahoma Baptist University, and a M.M. and D.M.A. and the Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y.

Phillips is a noted composer, having received numerous commissions, including this work Suite Breve, which was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists' Boston 2009 Convention.

Suite Breve is a suite of five movements that demonstrates all the primary colors, or sounds, of the organ. The first piece, ‘Prelude,’ explores textures for foundations; the second, ‘Impromptu,’ flutes and mutations; the third, ‘Fanfare,’ uses the reeds; the fourth, a plaintive ‘Lament,’ is scored for strings; and the last section, ‘Epilogue,’ employs the full organ.

Mark Knickelbein

The piano piece played during communion is a setting of the Eucharist hymn Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness, which is found in our hymnal at hymn 339. It is arranged by Mark Knickelbein, editor of music and worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician. He has a Bachelor of Science in education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN, and a Master of Arts in music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously served Trinity Lutheran in Kaukauna, WI, as principal organist and choir director. 

Music for June 24, 2018

Instrumental Music

• Voluntary IX in G Major - John Stanley (1712-1786)
• Sent forth by God’s Blessing – Mark Knickelbein (21st C.)
• O God and Lord, BWV 714 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• If Thou but suffer God to Guide Thee, BWV 642 – Johann Sebastian Bach

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

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn R194 - Jesus, what a friend for sinners (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 608 - Eternal Father, strong to save (MELITA)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together  (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 561- Stand up, stand up for Jesus (MORNING LIGHT)
• Psalm 107:1-3, 23-26, 27-31 - Confitemini Domino

Mark Knickelbein

The offertory this week is a piano piece based on the English tune THE ASH GROVE, which has been used for the hymn Sent Forth By God's Blessing  (Renew 307). It was arranged by Mark Knickelbein, editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician, focusing on choral, piano, and organ church music. He has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN and Master of Arts in Music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously served Trinity Lutheran in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

John Stanley

John Stanley was a well known and popular organist in England during the 18th century. Organist at Temple Church for 52 years, where George Handel would often go just to hear Stanley play. Blind since age two, Stanley had a remarkable memory which helped him direct and accompany many of Handel's oratorios. If he had to play a new oratorio he would ask his sister-in-law to play it through just once – enough to commit it to memory. He also published much music for choir and keyboard.

It is from  Stanley's 1754 publication 10 Voluntaries, Op.7, we get our opening voluntary, Voluntary IX in G Major. Written for either organ or harpsichord, it starts with a slow, stately movement marked Largo Staccato, followed by a second movement marked Vivace (Lively). As one would expect from the Germans and their "prelude and fugue" form, this second movement is imitative, like a fugue, beginning with just the single musical line we can call the "subject."

Two chorale preludes by J. S. Bach are included in this Sunday's music. The communion voluntary is what one would call a relatively new work by Bach - meaning it was rediscovered at Yale University in the 1980s among 31 previously unknown early chorale settings by Bach. The second half of this chorale prelude is part of the Miscellaneous Choral Preludes collected by Ferdinand Roitzsch in the late 19th century; when it showed up in the Neumeister Collection in 1985, it served as an argument for the authenticity of both. The Neumeister version is preceded by a gorgeous French-style -stile-antico- prelude à 4.

This interesting prelude sets the hymn-tune in canon at the octave (between the soprano and tenor parts) with two motivic free parts; the central motive is scalar motion in four steps, the first four notes of the cantus firmus. The melody, whose first two lines are scales in opposite directions almost begs for canon, especially at the unison/octave, as Bach has set it.

The other Bach piece this week is from his popular collection, Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book"), a collection of 46 chorale preludes originally planned as a set of 164 chorale preludes spanning the whole liturgical year. The chorale preludes form the first of Bach's masterpieces for organ with a mature compositional style in marked contrast to chorales found in the Neumeister Collection mentioned above.

In Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten, the unadorned cantus firmus in 4/4 time is in the soprano voice. The two inner voices, often in thirds, are built on a motif made up of two short beats followed by a long beat—an anapaest—often used by Bach to signify joy. The pedal has a walking bass which also partly incorporates the joy motif in its responses to the inner voices. For Albert Schweitzer, the accompaniment symbolised "the joyful feeling of confidence in God's goodness."

Music for February 19, 2017 + The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

10:15 service

Instrumental Music

• These are the Holy Ten Commandments, BWV 678 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Prelude on “Chereponi” - Ann Krentz Organ (b. 1960)
• Baptized into Your Name Most Holy – Mark Nickelbein (21st C.)
• Fugue in G (Gigue) – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 518 - Christ is made the sure foundation (WESTMINISTER ABBEY)
• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn R289 - Jesu, Jesu (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 637 - How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (LYONS)

Bishop Andy Doyle Visitation at 5 PM

Vocal Music

• Teach Me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)
• The Servant Song – Richard Gilliard, arr. David Haas

Instrumental Music

• Baptized into Your Name Most Holy – Mark Nickelbein
• Fugue in G (Gigue) – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn R172 - In our lives, Lord, be glorified (LORD, BE GLORIFIED)
• Hymn R185 - Lord, prepare me (SANCTUARY)
• Hymn R5 - God is here, as we your people (ABBOT’S LEIGH)     
• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn R 266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart (GIVE THANKS)
• Hymn 602 - Jesu, Jesu (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 637 - How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (LYONS)

Charlton Heston (not Moses) 

Two services this Sunday! Same scriptures, but different feel. The choir will not be singing at the 10:15 service but will be at the 5 PM service with Bishop Doyle.

At the 10:15 service, I am starting with a chorale prelude by Bach based on an old chorale by Martin Luther. Luther wrote an entire hymn setting the 10 commandments in verse. Once very popular, appearing in over 100 hymns when it was first written, it has not appeared in any hymnals published since 1900. Bach's setting of the hymn, however, is still a classic.

Two things are going on in this chorale prelude. First, the tune is played by the left hand on a trumpet-like sound, in canon. A canon is a compositional technique that presents the melody with the same melody starting after a given duration (in this case, two measures.) Think of how you sing “Three Blind Mice” or a similar round. That’s what’s happening here. It is also what we call a strict canon, where the notes and rhythm of the second part is exactly the same as the leader. Most musicologists think Bach used this strict technique to emphasize the strictness of the law. (I find it interesting that the musical term for the imitative technique “canon” is also used to describe any church's or religion's laws, rules, and regulations, i.e. “canon law.”)

The other thing going on in this prelude is that the right hand is playing a lovely, lyrical melody full of chromaticism that could stand quite well on its own without the addition of the chorale melody. This lilting accompaniment is the perfect foil for the inflexible canonic entrance of the hymn-tune. Hermann Schroeder, in his book on the music of Bach, suggests that Bach purposely chose 

to bring warmth to the inflexible, inexorable cantus firmus in the Christian thought, "God is love." Serene faith and imploring sighs are the two poles of this feeling, as Bach expresses it here.

In other words, grace.

At the 5 PM service, the choir continues the Law theme with Thomas Attwood's short anthem, Teach Me, O Lord (the way of thy statutes). 

At first a chorister in the Chapel Royal, Thomas Attwood, in 1781, became a Page in the household of the Prince of Wales, who sent him to study in Naples and then in Vienna as a pupil of Mozart. Returning to London in 1787, he continued his connection with the court and was appointed organist at St Paul's Cathedral and composer of the Chapel Royal, eventually to take the position of organist. In the last decade of the eighteenth century he wrote a quantity of music for the theater, but his principal contribution in the end turned out to be to church music.

Music for August 7, 2016 + The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Panis Angelicus – César Franck (1822-1890) Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Variations on Holy Manna – Raymond H. Haan (b. 1938)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness – Mark Knickelbein (21st C.)
• Festive Trumpet Tune – David German (b. 1954)

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

• Hymn 636 - How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (Foundation)
• Hymn R37 - Father we love you  (Glorify your name )
• Hymn 178 - Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks to the risen Lord (Alleluia No. 1)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn 335 - I am the bread of life (I Am the Bread of Life )
• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Psalm 33 - Exultate, justi (refrain by Jacques Berthier)

Richard Murray sings one of the classics of sacred music this Sunday when he sings César Franck's Panis Angelicus. The text is part of the hymn Sacris solemniis written by Saint Thomas Aquinas. "Panis Angelicus" is often treated as a separate hymn and set to music, just as Franck did in his Messe solennelle in A major, Op.12. There it was written for tenor solo with cello, harp, and organ accompaniment. We will be singing the entire Messe solennelle in the spring.

Franck

Unlike many musicians whose parents had other aspirations for their children, César Franck was encouraged by his father to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. But at the Paris Conservatoire he failed to achieve the necessary distinction as a performer, so he turned his attention to composition and the organ. (Can’t play piano? Be an organist!) It was a smart move, for he became famouse in Paris as organist at the newly built church of Ste Clotilde, with its Cavaillé-Coll organ. He drew to himself a loyal and devoted circle of pupils and in 1871 became organ professor at the Conservatoire.

 As a composer, his best known orchestral works are the Symphonic Variations for solo piano and orchestra and the Symphony in D minor. Though he was best known in his day as a very distinguished organist, Franck wrote remarkably little for the instrument on which his improvisations had won him fame and pupils. The Organ pieces he did write, however, form the backbone of French Romantic organ literature, and have never gone out of style.

Raymond Haan

The variations on the hymn Holy Manna (used twice in the Hymnal 1982 - #238 and #580) were written by a public school educator to whom music was just a sideline. Raymond H. Haan was born in Falmouth, Michigan in 1938. As a boy, his piano teacher told him he'd never be a musician.Though it was his dream, he realized there was no way he could support himself as a musician in his denomination, the Christian Reformed Church and, as he says "...at that time leaving my church was not an option." So despite his desire to write music, he never took a music course of any kind.

Instead he became a middle school, then a high school English teacher and wrote music in his spare time-while also playing the organ, directing several choirs and being a father to four children. He became the Director of Music for the Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids when he was 22, and had this position for over 50 years.

Even in his spare time, he was able to write more than 500 compositions published by 24 music companies. Retired from teaching, his children grown, Haan can now give his music more attention. He still lives in Cutlerville, Michigan and his hobbies include bicycling, tennis and golf.

Mark Knickelbein

From a new collection of piano pieces based on hymns of Baptism and Holy Communion we find the communion voluntary by the young Lutheran composer Mark Knickelbein. Each piece in this volume highlights specific stanzas and uses effective text painting to feature each theme. This piece based on the German chorale Schmücke dich begins in a very similar way to the famous Canon in D by Pachelbel before adding the chorale melody. This neo-Baroque style continues through the first verse, and then, when the second stanza (from the Lutheran Hymnal, "Hasten as a bride to meet Him") begins, he switches to a Renaissance Dance rhythm, 123, 123, 12, 12 for a lively, hastening feel.

Mark Knickelbein is the editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician. He has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN and Master of Arts in Music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously worked as an organist and choir director in Lutheran churches.