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 May 20, 2018 + The Day of Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Soon ah Will Be Done – William Dawson (1899-1990)
• Listen, Sweet Dove – Grayston Ives (b. 1948)

Instrumental Music

• Nun Bitten Wir den Heiligen Geist, BuxWV 208 - Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• There is a Spirit that delights to do no evil – Ned Rorem (b. 1923)
• Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BuxWV 199 - Dietrich Buxtehude

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

• Hymn R283 - Creating Spirit, holy Lord (PUER NOBIS)
• Hymn 225 - Hail thee, festival day (SALVE FESTA DIES)
• Hymn 513 - Like the murmur of the dove’s song (BRIDEGROOM)
• Hymn 511 - Holy Spirit, ever living (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn R248 - Oh, let the Son of God enfold you (SPIRIT SONG)
• Hymn R90 - Spirit of the Living God (Daniel Iverson)
• Hymn R168 - If you believe and I believe (Traditional, Zimbabwe)
• Hymn R305 - Lord, you give the Great Commission (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Psalm 104:25-26, 28-32, 35 – refrain by Rawn Harbor

The Good Shepherd Choir is singing two anthems for Pentecost Sunday. One is based on a text with direct mention of the Holy Spirit, Listen Sweet Dove by Grayston Ives.

Ives is an English composer whose whole professional life has been centered on choral music. As a child, he was a chorister at Ely Cathedral, then he studied music at Cambridge University under Richard Rodney Bennett.  After university, "Bil" Ives sang as a tenor with the Kings Singers between 1975-1985. He then became Organist, Informator Choristarum (Choir Director), Fellow and Tutor in Music at Magdalen College, Oxford until 2009.


Listen Sweet Dove was published in 2005. The lyrics are taken from a longer poem called Whitsunday by George Herbert (1593–1633). More than ninety of Herbert's poems have been set to music over the centuries, some of them multiple times.  In our hymnal alone there are five hymns written by him.

Listen sweet dove unto my song,
and spread thy golden wings in me;
hatching my tender heart so long,
till it get wing and flie away with thee.

Such glorious gifts thou didst bestow
the earth did like a heav’n appeare,
the starres were coming down to know
if they might mend their wages and serve here.

The sunne which once did shine alone,
hung down his head and wisht for night,
when he beheld twelve sunnes for one
going about the world and giving light.

Lord though we change thou art the same,
the same sweet God of love and light:
restore this day for thy great name,
unto his ancient and miraculous right.

The other anthem is an arrangement of the Spiritual Soon Ah Will Be Done by William L. Dawson. Dawson was the Alabama native who helped popularize the spirituals of the African-American slaves with 'stylized' arrangements through creative and attractive 'packaging' that has an appeal far beyond the original music. He was the Head of the Music Department at the Tuskegee Institute from 1931–1956, where he developed the Tuskegee Institute Choir into an internationally renowned ensemble; they were invited to sing at New York City's Radio City Music Hall in 1932 for a week of six daily performances.

This arrangement of Soon Ah Will Be Done (Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world) belies the original intent of the slave song. Here the themes of dissatisfaction with "the troubles of the world" and the desire to go "home to live with God" (and to see "my mother") are sugar-coated with insistent rhythms and a driving tempo. Still, it is fun to sing. I will admit it has nothing  to do with Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, but we had been working on it to sing on May 13 when one of the choir suggested that it would be better sung on a day other than Mother's Day. I agreed.

The opening and closing voluntaries are organ chorales by the German Composer Dietrich Buxtehude on two classic German-Lutheran chorale-tunes for Pentecost.  The tune for the closing voluntary can be found in our hymnal at hymn 501.

Music for November 23, 2014 + The Last Sunday after Pentecost + Christ the King Sunday

Vocal Music

• Lord of Life and King of Glory – Michelangelo Grancini (1605-1669)
• Sing, My Soul – Ned Rorem (b. 1923)

Instrumental Music

• Suite Brève: II. Cantilène – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Hymne D’action de Grâce “Te Deum” – Jean Langlais
• There is a Spirit that Delights To Do No Evil – Ned Rorem (b. 1923)

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

• Hymn 450 – All hail the power of Jesus’ name (CORONATION)
• Hymn 494 – Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn R-268 – King of Kings (KING OF KINGS)
• Hymn 460 – Alleluia, sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)

This Sunday is New Year's Eve, as far as the church calendar goes. Christ the King Sunday (the last Sunday after Pentecost) ends the liturgical calendar for churches such as ours. Christ the King Sunday celebrates the all-embracing authority of Christ as King and Lord.
To honor that feast, the Good Shepherd Choir sings an anthem based on a duet by the 17th century composer Michelangelo Grancini. Originally called Dulcis Christe, it was edited by the Chicago musician Richard Proulx as a work for 2-part mixed voice choir with the English text which we sing today.

Michelangelo Grancini was an Italian organist and composer who spent his entire life in Milan. He served several churches there and eventually became choir master of the Milan Cathedral in 1630, where he remained until his death. He was so highly regarded that he received a special dispensation enabling him to hold the Cathedral post which customarily excluded married men. During his life time he published nearly 20 volumes of his works including both sacred and secular music, but only a few pieces of his are now in existence.

Ned Rorem, during his Paris days.
Photo by Man Ray, 1953

We also feature music by the American composer and author Ned Rorem. He has received a Pulitzer Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Time Magazine called him "the world's best composer of art songs," yet his musical and literary ventures extend far beyond this specialized field. Rorem has composed three symphonies, four piano concertos and an array of other orchestral works, music for numerous combinations of chamber forces, ten operas, choral works of every description, ballets and other music for the theater, and literally hundreds of songs and cycles. He is the author of sixteen books, including five volumes of diaries and collections of lectures and criticism. A native of Richmond, Indiana, he now lives in New York City.

The communion anthem is from his set of Three Hymn Anthems which he wrote for Paul Calloway, director of music at Washington National Cathedral, in 1962. The three hymns, taken from the Episcopal Hymnal, are written for a mixed choir without accompaniment. They are chiefly homophonic, sometimes strophic, and generally one note per syllable, such as one might find in a hymnal. There the similarities end, however, for Rorem adds delicious twists and turns of chromaticism and key-changes, yielding a most listenable and affirming effect in every case

The organ piece is a selection from A Quaker Reader, Rorem's first major work for organ. It was premiered by Leonard Raver at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in 1977. Rorem was a Quaker, and though he was raised in Quaker silence, he says "I craved Catholic sound". He wrote this suite based on writings of Quakers.“There Is a Spirit That Delights to Do No Evil . . .” is from the dying words of James Naylor (1660)

Rorem spent 7 years of his life after graduate school in Paris, during the same time that our other composer, Jean Langlais, lived and worked as the organist at Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. If Rorem did indeed crave Catholic sound, then he surely must have heard Langlais play the organ, undoubtedly including improvisations or compositions of Langlais.  One wonders if there was any influence on the young composer.

• Hymn 450 – All hail the power of Jesus’ name (CORONATION) - Who doesn't know this thrilling hymn to Jesus? Written  by Edward Perronet, a friend and advisor of John and Charles Wesley, this hymn has gone through many alterations since it first appeared in 1780. It has also been sung to several tunes, including DIADEM and MILES LANE, in addition to the more familiar CORONATION.
• Hymn 494 – Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA) Speaking of Coronation, we continue the theme of Christ the King with another favorite hymn. Matthew Bridges wrote the hymn to illustrate the text, "And on his head were many crowns" (Revelation 19:12).
• Hymn R-268 – King of Kings (KING OF KINGS) Naomi Batya Ginsberg wrote "King of Kings" at the age of 13 with her friend Sophie Conty using a Hebrew melody as the tune. She has gone on to make a career out of songwriting and has written hundreds of songs for independent films, cable TV, ads and video games. The song now appears in 12 major hymnals.
• Hymn 460 – Alleluia, sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL) And yet another barn-burner favorite of the church universal. One usually does not expect an insurance agent to write hymns, but William C. Dix wrote this text as a new Communion hymn for the Church of England. William Dix also wrote "As with gladness men of old," "What child is this?" and 46 other hymns.