GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD Music for March 5, 2023 + The Second Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, meine Zuversicht – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Suite for Organ: III. Aria – Philip E. Baker (b. 1934)
• Aus Tiefer Not – Gerald Near

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

• Hymn 401 The God of Abraham praise (LEONI)
• Hymn R 132 As Moses raised the serpent up (THE GIFT OF LOVE)
• Hymn 143 The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 691 My faith looks up to thee (OLIVET)
• Hymn R231 How blessed are you (Taizé)
• Hymn 473 Lift high the cross (CRUCIFER)
• Psalm 121 – tone IIa

God So Loved the World

The Gospel reading this week is one of the most familiar pieces of scripture in the world. It sums up the Gospel message - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoso believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." I felt called to once again use the familiar anthem by John Stainer, from his famous oratorio, The Crucifixion, as our offertory anthem today. Stainer had been the organist-choir master at St. Paul's, London in the late 1800s and wrote a large amount of organ and choral music, as well as a popular treatise on organ playing.

The Crucifixion: A Meditation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer. The work is dedicated "to my pupil and friend W. Hodge and the choir of Marylebone Church", who first performed it on 24 February 1887, the day after Ash Wednesday. There have been performances in Marylebone Church annually since then, and has been recorded several times.

Despite the popularity of God So Loved the World, critical opinion of the entire oratorio has not been kind. The composer Ernest Walker dismissed the work, writing in 1924 that "Musicians today have no use for The Crucifixion". Edmund Fellowes said: "It suffers primarily from the extreme poverty, not to say triviality, of the musical ideas dealing with a subject which should make the highest demand for dignity of treatment". Kenneth Long said that Stainer had a libretto "which for sheer banality and naïveté would be hard to beat". Stainer himself characterized his work as "rubbish."

Gerald Near

American composer Gerald Near is a composer with broad appeal to musicians in all liturgical denominations. With an extensive catalogue of compositions, he has added to the literature of organists, harpsichordists, and choirs. He is particularly adept at writing organ music based on hymn-tunes and chant-tunes. I play two such works today, using tunes appropriate for Lent, but not so well known to our congregation.

The first is the communion hymn, Let thy blood in mercy poured, found at hymn 313. The closing voluntary is a setting of the hymn 151, From deepest woe I cry to thee. Both tunes are German Chorale tunes. Both settings feature the melody played in the left hand using the trumpet stop, while the right hand and feet use fragments of the melody to provide the accompaniment. Of the two tunes, AUS TIEFER NOT is the most famous. Both the text and tune were written by Martin Luther in 1524 as a paraphrase of Psalm 130. Since then, the tune has been used by many musicians, most notably J. S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, and Max Reger. Georg Friedrich Handel quoted the characteristic intervals from the beginning of the chorale's tune several times at the end of the last aria of his oratorio Messiah, If God be for us, leading into the final chorus Worthy is the Lamb

Aria

The communion voluntary is by Philip Baker, organist and composer who was director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas for many years, including those I spent at Southern Methodist University working on my masters. His Suite for Organ was published just before I moved to Dallas, and it includes one of the loveliest melodies of all time, and one of my personal favorite organ pieces to play, Aria. 

Since retiring from active music making, he and his wife Tissa have moved to Houston.

Music for October 18, 2020 + The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

Laudate Dominum – W. A. Mozart (1756-1791), Christine Marku, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Philip E. Baker (b. 1934)
• I. A Trumpet Tune for Beginnings
• III. Aria
• Meditation on "Old Hundredth" - Rudy Davenport (b. 1948)
• Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

As we return to in-person worship we'll be doing some things a little differently, at least for the time being. Choirs will not be a part of worship as group singing is thought to be a quick way of spreading the Covid-19 virus. We won't be singing hymns at this time, either. 

But hymns have such a prominent place in our worship that we don't want to just ignore their value. Therefore we will be including lyrics to familiar hymns in the worship leaflet for the congregation to read and meditate on while an instrumental setting of the tune most often associated with that text is played. 

This Sunday I will be playing two settings of the familiar hymn-tune, OLD HUNDREDTH. One is a piano setting played between scripture readings by the contemporary composer Rudy Davenport. Davenport is a freelance composer, pianist and church musician residing in Austin, Texas. 

Born in 1948 in Hayesville, North Carolina, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Young Harris Junior College, Cardinal Stritch College and Florida State University, where he studied composition with Harold Shiffman and Dr. John Boda. 

He has a wide and varied religious background. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Sacred Heart School of Theology in Milwaukee, where he studied composition with the late John Downey, Composer-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He studied the music and writings of the Vaishnava devotional sect of Hinduism in India, and of Zen in a Zendo. While living in a Trappist Monastery, he learned about the Catholic mystical saints. 

His musical tastes are as diverse as his religious studies. Davenport has written music for and played in a rock band, worked with developmentally delayed children by using music therapy, taught piano, and for many years was the Director of Music at several large Catholic churches.

The other setting of the tune which we most often think of as "The Doxology," Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow, is an organ setting by the South German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel. It presents the well-known tune in the pedal, while the hands play a fugal-like accompaniment.

We are fortunate this Sunday to hear Mozart's beautiful setting of Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum, sung by Christine Marku. From his large work, Vesperae solennes de confessore (Solemn Vespers for a Confessor), Laudate Dominum originally was a solo with choir (the choir singing the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalm.) Since we have no choir, we will omit the Gloria.

Christine is the choral director at Riverwood Middle School.

The opening voluntary is by Philip Baker, organist and composer who was director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas for many years, including those I spent at Southern Methodist University working on my masters. His Suite for Organ was published just before I moved to Dallas, and it includes one of the loveliest melodies of all time, and one of my personal favorite organ pieces to play, Aria. 

Since retiring from active music making, he and his wife Tissa have moved to Houston, where (before Covid) I got to see him at various concerts around town.

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."

Music for Sunday, August 2, 2015

Vocal Music

• Jesus, Shepherd, Be Thou Near Me – J. S. Bach (1685-1750) Bruce Bailey, tenor.

Instrumental Music

• Toccatina – R. M. Stults (1861-1933)
• Jubilee March – R.M. Stults 
• Aria – Philip Baker (b. 1934)

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

• Hymn 8 - Morning has broken, like the first morning (BUNESSAN)
• Hymn 335 - I am the bread of life (I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE)
• Hymn R-247 - Shine, Jesus, shine (SHINE, JESUS SHINE)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together (LET US BREAK BREAD)

I began my organ career at my home church, the First United Methodist Church of Tiptonville, Tennessee. We lived across the street from the church that my mother had attended all her life and served as the volunteer choir director. I cannot remember the first time I had attended choir practice with her, playing in the church while she led the small choir through their paces, but when I was fourteen, I began to sneak into the church and play around with the 1924 Möller Organ.

The 20's were a decade of unprecedented economic growth in America, coming off the end of World War I. Even small town churches like First Methodist were able to build some small but beautiful buildings and furnish them with pipe organs. During the 1920s it is said that the M.P. Möller Organ company was building an organ a day to keep up with the demand.

First United Methodist Church, Tiptonville, Tennessee

In spite of the abundance of church organs, there proved to be a dearth of trained organists, so local pianists would be pressed into service to play for the local congregations. Obviously, they would need simpler music to play, so the Lorenz Publishing Company began publishing a bi-monthly magazine of simple, useful organ music for these novice organists. The organist of First Methodist, Tiptonville, was one of those who subscribed to this magazine, and when I started playing the organ, a stack of these magazines, dating back to the 1920s, was what I used as my introduction to the organ. This Sunday I am playing two pieces from those magazines.

These two pieces, Toccatina and Jubilee March, are from the pen of  Robert Morrison Stults, an American composer of popular music in the late 19th century and early 20th century. His most popular work, The Sweetest Story Ever Told, was published in 1892 and was still popular into the first half of the 20th century. Prior to 1910, Stults mostly wrote popular music, but after 1910, he wrote more sacred and bigger works, including a number of works for the organ. Toccatina is a short, perpetual movement sort of piece with limited pedals (perfect for those piano teachers who could manage the manual (hand) parts but were not as sure with their feet.) The Jubilee March is a typical march, but the pages of music I have are missing what would be the Trio (the B section in the middle), so I have re-created the trio with some music of my own.

The hymns today are from the list of the top 17 favorite hymns as determined from our Summer Hymn Survey. You can see the total results here:
 http://goodshepherdsongs.blogspot.com/2015/08/our-favorite-hymns.html

Morning Has Broken
“Morning has broken” first appeared in the USA in the Presbyterian Hymnbook (1955), but it was not until Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) sang it on his triple platinum album Teaser and the Firecat in 1971 that the song became well known and, as a result, has been included in most hymnals since that time. This is a rare, though not unique, example of a Christian hymn receiving acclaim through the popular media.

Percy Dearmer, editor of Songs of Praise (1931), requested a thanksgiving text from the poet Eleanor Farjeon to the lilting Gaelic tune BUNESSAN. Farjeon (1881-1965) who had around 80 works to her credit including Nursery Rhymes of London Town and The Glass Slipper, wrote a hymn that effectively links and expresses the creation stories in Genesis 1 and John 1, and reminds us that each new day is a gift from God.
The tune BUNESSAN demands a lesser-used poetic meter (dactylic) in threes. The result, according to British hymnologist J. R. Watson, is a “springy rhythm… [and a] beautifully sustained… poem [that] makes a delightful and charming morning hymn.”