Music for June 13, 2021 + The Third Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Hymn of Promise – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)

Instrumental Music

• Symphonie Gothique: 2. Andante Sostenuto - Charles-Marie Widor (1844 –1937)
• Jerusalem My Happy Home – George Shearing (1919-2011)
• Praeludium from Suite in D Minor – Johann Krieger (1651–1735)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 525 The Church’s one foundation (AURELIA) 
• Hymn 302 Father, we thank thee who hast planted (LYONS)
• Hymn 657 Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 92 – Tone VIIIa

This Sunday the Good Shepherd SUMMER Choir will sing one of the simplest and loveliest anthems in our library, the beautiful Hymn of Promise by Natalie Sleeth. I have written about it before, so if you want to read the story of how it came to be, please go here.

Often we sing hymns which we have sung all our lives, and never think about what they mean. This Sunday, we are closing the 10:15 service with Charles Wesley's great hymn, Love divine, all loves excelling. It's one of the few hymns of that era that depicts God as a loving god, and not a judgmental deity. Every line in this hymn can be traced back to the Bible. Every thought is based on God's word. Here is an example of just the last stanza of the hymn:

Finish then thy new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)
Pure and spotless* let us be, (Cant. 4:7, Eph. 5:27
Let us see thy great salvation, (Heb 2:3, 2 Peter 3:14)
Perfectly restored in thee; (Psalm 51:12, Isaiah 49:6, 58:12)
Changed from glory into glory (2 Cor. 3:18)
Till in heaven we take our place (John 14:2-3)
Till we cast our crowns before thee (Rev 4:10)
Lost in wonder, love, and praise (Rev. 8:1)
* the original word was "sinless," influenced by John Wesley's belief that humans could strive toward perfection, thus being sinless.

But a couple of lines are a bit obscure. I want to lift those out and give an explanation of them.

Line five of the third stanza says we are "changed from glory into glory." This comes from 2nd Corinthians 3:18

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

You have to remember the story of Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. It's said that his face was shining so brightly from being around the glory of God that he had to veil his face to keep from blinding his people. This glory comes from knowing the Law of God. But with Christ, we are a new creation (see the first line) and, as William Barclay says in his Commentary,

...we see the glory of the Lord with no veil upon our faces, and because of that we, too, are changed from glory into glory. Just possibly what Paul means is that, if we gaze at Christ, we in the end reflect him. It is a law of life that we become like the people we gaze at. (William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, The Westminster Press, 1954)

And in the penultimate line, we sing about casting our crowns before him. In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John describes an event that will take place sometime after the Judgment Seat of Christ. The scene involves twenty-four elders, sitting upon twenty-four thrones, all of which encircle the throne of God.

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads …. (Revelation 4:4)
The twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne. (Revelation 4:10)

For the saints to cast their crowns before the throne of God is to publicly acknowledge Christ’s right (and His alone) to wear those crowns. At this time they will “give credit where credit is due.” During their lives, these believers had faithfully represented Christ to the world in both character and service. But the ability to do so had not been generated by their own will and power but, instead, by the will and power of God. 

Music for February 24, 2019 + The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• O Lord, I Will Praise Thee – Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)
• We Are Not Alone – Pepper Choplin (b. 1957)
• Praise the Lord – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)

Instrumental Music

• Do Not I Love Thee, O My Lord? – Gardner Read (1913-2005)
• Hymne – Evángelos Papathanassíou (b. 1943)
• Toccata on “Lobe den Herren” – Gordon Young (1919-1998)

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 576 - God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 295 - Sing Praise to Our Creator (CHRISTE, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 657 - Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)

Natalie Sleeth

The Coventry Choir will sing this Sunday. Our first through fourth grade choir has been working on two anthems that they will sing today. The first is an anthem by Natalie Sleeth, an American composer of sacred songs and anthems. She wrote both text and tune of this fine praise hymn in 1975 when she worked with church school children and a junior choir at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. Similar to Psalm 150 and Francis of Assisi's "All Creatures of Our God and King" (hymn 600), this text is a wonderful catalog of things, times, and places. All instruments and all occasions can be used to sing our praise to the Lord. Note that God's praise is warranted not only in the good times but also in "the time of sorrow" or in "the peace and quiet" (st. 2).

Pepper Choplin

The second anthem, which they will sing with the Good Shepherd Choir, is the song We Are Not Alone, an a cappella anthem that captures that confident thought and presents it in a straightforward, honest way.  The adult choir sings a gentle, rhythmic choral ostinati ("We are not alone, God is with us") that supports the smooth, sustained melody, sung by the Coventry Choir.

It was written Pepper Choplin, a full-time composer, conductor and humorist (with a name like "Pepper" I guess it's natural he should have a sense of humor!) who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. With a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Choplin went on to earn a Master of Music degree in composition from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Good Shepherd Choir will also sing an anthem with a text based on Isaiah 12:1-6, set to music by English musician Gordon Jacob. Though there is a lot of unison writing, and the organ doubles the voices quite a bit, there are just enough syncopated rhythms, harmonic shifts, and wide, angular melodic motives that make it challenging for a choir such as ours that is used to square, predictable harmonies of Bach and Handel or the flowing melodies of Mendelssohn or Brahms.

A native of London, Jacob studied at the Royal College of Music in London, where his teachers included Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir Hubert Parry and Herbert Howells. He taught briefly at other schools before returning to the Royal College as a lecturer in 1926; he was to remain there until his retirement in 1966.

The opening voluntary is an organ arrangement of a tune that first appeared in A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony in1820. The tune, DETROIT, is found in our hymnal at no. 674, Forgive Our Sins As We Forgive. The composer of the organ prelude is Gardner Read. Professor emeritus of composition at Boston University, Read was a prolific composer of orchestral, choral, and chamber works and pieces for piano, organ, and solo voice. In addition, he authored a number of texts on musical notation and composition.

Gardner Read

Between 1941 to 1948, Read headed the composition departments at the St. Louis Institute of Music, the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1948, he was appointed composer-in-residence and professor of composition at the School of Music, Boston University, retiring in 1978. In addition, Read served as principal conductor with the St. Louis Philharmonic Orchestra in 1943 and 1944, and put in guest conducting appearances over the years with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and various university orchestras in performances of his own works.

Music for October 15, 2017 + Good Shepherd School Sunday

Vocal Music

• Rondo of Joy – Traditional, arr. Good Shepherd School
• Father God in Heaven – Suzanne Lord (b. 1946)

Instrumental Music

• Dona Nobis Pacem – Traditional, arr. Tom Anderson
• Symphony No. 9 (Ode to Joy) – Ludwig van Beethoven, arr. Tom Anderson
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is – Healey Willan

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 645 - The King of love my Shepherd is (ST. COLUMBA)
• Hymn - The Lord is my Shepherd (traditional round)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together on our knees (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 376 - Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)

This Sunday we celebrate our church's preschool, and we are delighted to have the children of the Good Shepherd School provide the music for our services. They are under the direction of Karen Silva, who does a fabulous job of teaching rudiments of music to these preschool and kindergarten students, while getting them to sing on pitch!

The offertory is one of her creations, a medley of children's songs set in the form of a Rondo. The Rondo is a form where the a principal theme (sometimes called the "refrain") alternates with one or more contrasting themes, generally called "episodes". Possible patterns could be ABA, ABACA, or ABACABA. Today, you will hear the song Gaudeamus by Natalie Sleeth as the principal theme (A), with Praise Him, Praise Him All Ye Little Children, I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, and He's Got the Whole World in His Hands as the B, C, and D themes. 

The communion anthem is a beautiful anthem by Suzanne Lord, a flute player, teacher and musicologist who last taught at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. It is a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer. Listen to the children sing a smooth, legato musical phrase (in contrast to the jaunty melodies of the Rondo of Joy!)

I think you will really be intrigued by the opening and closing voluntaries. These will utilize tuned percussion tubes called Boomwhackers. Boomwhackers are lightweight, hollow, color-coded, plastic tubes, tuned to musical pitches by length. They produce musical tones when struck together, on the floor, or against nearly any surface (even heads!) They are most commonly used in elementary music classrooms as an inexpensive, unbreakable alternative or supplement to traditional pitched instruments such as xylophones and metallophones.

Craig Ramsell came up for the idea for his boomwhackers in 1994 while at home recovering from radiation therapy for cancer. While cutting cardboard tubes into shorter lengths for recycling he happened to notice the different pitches resulting from the different lengths and decided to investigate their creative potential. He and his partner, wife Monnie Ramsell, formed their own company to market the tubes.

It is a great way to teach pitch, harmony, and rhythm. Today you will hear the students accompany the tune Dona Nobis Pacem and Beethoven's Ode to Joy. 

Music for April 19, 2015 + The Third Sunday of Easter

Music Appreciation Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hymn of Promise – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)
• Sing to the Lord – Ken Medema (b. 1943)

Instrumental Music

• Christians, We Have Met to Worship – arr. Sondra Tucker
• Beside Quiet Waters – Dan R. Edwards
• Choral Song - S.S.Wesley

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

• Hymn 492 Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 440 Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 295 Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn R 202 Sing alleluia to the Lord (SING ALLELUIA)
• Hymn 182 Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO)

This Sunday, the church is honoring the music ministry of Good Shepherd with a Music Appreciation Day. It is humbling to be honored in such a way for the work that we do, week by week, to glorify our God and King. For this weekend, I have the St. Gregory Choir and the Good Shepherd Handbell Guild joining the Good Shepherd Choir in the music for Sunday. The St. Gregory Choir will sing an anthem of praise by Ken Medema, the composer of our Spring Music, The Story-Tellin' Man II, which we will present on May 10. Then the Good Shepherd Choir will join them in one of the kid's favorite anthems, Hymn of Promise, by Natalie Sleeth.

Ken Medema is a singer/pianist who has published many works for choirs, soloists, and pianists. Born nearly blind, he began playing the piano when he was five years old, and three years later began taking lessons in classical music through braille music, playing by ear and improvising in different styles. Through his work as a music therapist, he started writing songs while at Essex County Hospital. "I had a bunch of teenagers who were really hurting," he says, "and I started writing songs about their lives. Then I thought, 'Why don't you start writing songs about your Christian life?' So I started doing that, and people really responded."

In his anthem Sing to the Lord, you'll hear the main theme presented in a pop-rock style, before going to a new theme (the B section). He returns to the first theme (A section), and when it is sung, you are introduced to more musical material in the C section of the piece. The entire anthem ends with one more visit to the A section before ending with a coda, the last line of music sung three times. The text for the anthem is a compilation of familiar verses from several psalms.

The anthem Hymn of Promise, a favorite of our choir, was first conceived as an anthem in 1985 for a festival concert on Natalie Sleeth's music at the Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg, Florida. Since then, it has been included in at least 17 hymnals, with the number growing each year.

Sleeth was as native of Evanston, Illinois. She began piano study at the age of four and gained much of her musical experience by singing in choral ensembles during her earlier years. Studying music theory, piano, and organ at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she received her B.A. in 1952.

Married to Ronald E. Sleeth, a United Methodist clergyman and professor of homiletics at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas in the late 60s and 70s, she served as music secretary at Highland Park United Methodist Church from 1969-1976. During this time, she studied music theory with Jane Marshall and audited a course in choral arranging taught by Lloyd Pfautsch at SMU. Her choral works for all ages number more than 200.

Sleeth had the ability to compose both texts and music. Hymn of Promise was written at a time when the author states that she was "pondering the ideas of life, death, spring and winter, Good Friday and Easter, and the whole reawakening of the world that happens every spring." Inspired by a T.S. Eliot line, the germ of the hymn grew from the idea "in our end is our beginning," the phase that begins the third stanza of the hymn.

While it carries the promise of spring and the hope of Easter in its beautiful metaphors, it is a very appropriate hymn for funeral and memorial services. Shortly after its composition, the composer’s husband was diagnosed with what turned out to be a terminal malignancy. Ronald Sleeth requested that Hymn of Promise be sung at his funeral service.

Michael C. Hawn, distinguished professor of church music at Perkins School of Theology, writes,

A wonderful child-like simplicity permeates "Hymn of Promise." Natalie Sleeth had a gift for composing texts on complex theological ideas that were still accessible to children. Her melodies seemed totally natural and therefore effortless for people to learn. "Hymn of Promise" is one of the most memorable hymns written by an American United Methodist in the last part of the twentieth century, and it promises to be sung for many years to come.

The Good Shepherd Handbell Choir will end it's choir season by playing two distinctly different pieces by two American composers. My friend Sondra Tucker has written an energetic piece for bells and percussion combining two Early American hymn-tunes, HOLY MANNA (Christians, We Have Met to Worship) and FOUNDATION (How Firm a Foundation). After a brief introduction you hear HOLY MANNA , then FOUNDATION as the drum drops out and the music becomes less rhythmic and more flowing. When the opening motif returns along with the drum, the two tunes are combined and played together. It's what the youth call a "mash-up."

• Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN) Though it first appeared in 1870 and was included in several hymnals of the time, our hymnal is the only major contemporary book that includes it. The tune was written in 1975 by Christopher Dearnley, an English organist, who served in Salisbury Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral.
• Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU) In this hymn, we acknowledge our need for the illumination of the Holy Spirit to fully understand God’s message to us. We also recognize and claim the promise of Christ concerning this help: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26 ESV).
• Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN) Set to a tune from the 1500s, this hymn was written by Omer Westendorf, one of the leading Roman Catholic hymn writers since Vatican II. Born in 1916, Omer first got interested in church music after World War II, when he discovered the new Mass settings in Holland.
• Sing alleluia to the Lord (SING ALLELUIA) Immensely popular, this praise chorus has been included in hundreds of songbooks, both in North America and in other continents. Linda L. Stassen-Benjamin originally composed it rather instantaneously (while she was in the shower!) in June 1974. Following oral tradition, the Renew Hymnal joins Stassen's stanza with four other stanzas derived from early Christian liturgies and the "Easter Canticle," which quotes from 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 and 15:20-22.  
• Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO) Brian A. Wren wrote the hymn during April of 1968. It was written for Easter Sunday, two weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Wren wrote: "I could not let Easter go by without speaking of this tragic event which was on all our minds. . . . The hymn tries to see God's love winning over tragedy and suffering in the world. . . . There is tension and tragedy in these words, not just Easter rejoicing."

Music for October 5, 2014 + The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• A Repeating Alleluia– Calvin Hampton (1938-1984)
• Everywhere I Go – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)
• God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)

Instrumental Music

• Andante – John Stainer
• March in G – Henry Smart (1813-1879)

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 (WESTMINSTER ABBEY)
• Hymn 458 – My song is love unknown (LOVE UNKNOWN)
• Hymn R-173 – O Lord hear my prayer (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 495 – Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)

In many traditions, especially Catholic and Episcopal congregations, it is customary to sing an Alleluia before the reading of the Gospel. Most protestant churches sing a hymn instead. This morning we are using A Repeating Alleluia by Calvin Hampton. One of the most important composers of American church music in the twentieth century, Hampton was Director of Music at Calvary Episcopal Church, New York City, from 1963 to 1983. Before his untimely death from AIDS at the age of 46, he developed a unique compositional voice, which is heard in his extensive catalogue of hymn-tunes and works for choir and organ; A Repeating Alleluia features an imaginative set of variations on a repeating eight-bar theme which the congregation will sing while the choir provides the two counter melodies. 

Calvin Hampton

Hampton had an energetic and inimitable approach to music in the church.  He experimented with unusual instruments like the Ondes Martenot and the Moog synthesizer, and various styles, from the Baroque to Rock. He created the famous “Fridays at Midnight” organ concerts, noted to be a “fixture of Manhattan cultural life” in the 1970s. His Halloween events at Calvary, where Hampton dressed as a werewolf, as the Frankenstein monster, or another scary specter; and many unique musical events that he presented, brought a wide range of people into the church.  This playful approach to sacred music seemed to attract a wide and diverse audience, not least of which were children. I know that the children of our St. Gregory Choir, who are singing with the adults this Sunday on this anthem, have grown to love A Repeating Alleluia.

Sir John Stainer

In reading the Gospel story this week about the vineyard owner who sent his son to collect the produce of the harvest, only to have the tenants kill the son, I was reminded of the favorite scripture of John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son." I felt called to use the familiar anthem with that text by John Stainer, from his famous oratorio, The Crucifixion, as the choir's communion motet today. Stainer had been the organist-choir master at St. Pauls, London in the late 1800s and wrote a large amount of organ and choral music, as well as a popular treatise on organ playing. I am playing one of his organ works as an opening voluntary. His music was fairly conservative for the time, and today seems rather dated, but he has faired better than his contemporary Henry Smart, the composer of the closing voluntary, Smart was highly rated as a composer during his time, but is now remembered only by a few organists and choral singers. His many compositions for the organ were described as "effective and melodious, if not strikingly original" by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica,

The offertory is an anthem for children's choirs by the 20th century composer Natalie Sleeth. The bright, cheery melody fits her own text of faith and assurance. 

Everywhere I go, the Lord is near me. If I call upon him, he will hear me. Never will I fear, for the Lord is near, everywhere I go.