Music for May 8, 2022 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter: GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY

Vocal Music

• Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep – Philip Ledger

Instrumental Music

• Jubilate – Julie C. Stitt
• Rondo Jubilee – Brenda Austin
• Jesus, Meine Zuversicht – Anton Wilhelm Leupold (1867-1940)

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

• Hymn 366 - Holy God we praise thy Name (GROSSER GOTT)
• Hymn R139 - Halle, halle, Hallelujah (CARRIBEAN)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Psalm 23 – setting by Hal H. Hopson

We feature music of two contemporary American female composers as our Handbell Choir plays this morning.

The first piece is a setting of a tune from the early 1800s called VESPER HYMN. It appeared in John A. Stevenson's Selection of Popular National Airs (1818) as a setting for "Hark! The Vesper Hymn Is Stealing." Some later hymnals attributed the tune to Dimitri Bortniansky, but no tune resembling this one has been found in that Russian composer's published works. Stevenson is generally recognized as being the arranger if not also the composer. In this arrangement, you will hear the melody not only in the top line of the bells, but sometimes in the middle of the bell choir, while the upper bells sound like a music box, and the lower bells are played with mallets.

This arrangement is by Julie Stitt, who is a middle school teacher in the northern Minneapolis Metro area. She is also the director of Handbells at at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.

Stitt grew up in San Bernardino, CA where she began ringing handbells at an early age at First United Presbyterian Church. After completing a Master’s Degree from the University of Minnesota, she  began composing and arranging handbells.  . She has published handbell pieces in print with several publishing companies. Several pieces have been performed at area festivals around the United States. Her original composition, La Paix, was performed at the Loire Valley Handbell Festival in France in 2004 by Twin Cities Bronze. 

The communion voluntary is Rondo Jubilee. A rondo is a musical form that can be thought of as an extension of Binary and Ternary form. Binary form is AB and Ternary form is ABA, and a rondo takes this a step farther by adding other letters – it goes ABACADAEA. 

Brenda Austin

It essentially takes a principle theme, or refrain, and alternates it with one or more different themes, which are called episodes. So the refrain is the repeating “A” section, and the alternating episodes are the “B”, “C”, “D”, and “E”. In this piece, you will not only hear the bells but also our three octave hand chime set. We will use almost every technique known to humankind in this piece, which is the longest piece we have played to date. 

It is written by Brenda E. Austin, the Artistic Director for the Detroit Handbell Ensemble and Director of Worship and Music at First United Methodist Church in Eaton Rapids, MI, She is Handbell Editor for Agape, a major publishing company for church music.

She graduated with degrees in Vocal Performance from Western Michigan University and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.  

The closing voluntary is a setting of the German Chorale JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT, which is used in our hymnal for the communion hymn "Let thy blood in mercy poured" (hymn 313), but in many churches is also used for the hymn "Jesus lives! Thy terrors now can no longer, death, appall us". (That text is also in our hymnal, but with different tunes.)

A. W. Leupold

The tune is by the early Baroque composer and Lutheran musician Johann Crüger, whom you might know better for his tunes for other hymns such as "Now thank we all our God", "Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness", "Ah, Holy Jesus", and "Christ, whose glory fills the skies." The setting is by the 20th century German composer Anton Leupold, but his arrangement is more 18th century than 20th. He uses the typical compositional style of Bach - use of counterpoint, harmony, and imagery that was common to that great Baroque master. For instance, running throughout the lower three voices is an instrumental motif made up of two short beats followed by a long beat—an anapaest—often used by Bach to signify joy - perfectly appropriate for this season of Easter!

Anton Wilhelm Leupold was the organist at the St. Petri Church in Berlin for almost forty years. He composed motets, sacred and secular songs, chamber music and organ works of all kinds. Leupold left around 200 organ preludes to almost all the melodies in the hymn book. His son Ulrich Leupold (1909-1970) was also a composer and was the editor of his father's music.

Music for May 7, 2017 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• Loving Shepherd of thy Sheep – Philip Ledger (1937-2012)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Brother James' Air" – Searle Wright (1918-2004)
• Sheep May Safely Graze – J.S. Bach (168501750)
• Preludium in G BWV 568 – J.S. Bach

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

• Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The strife is o’er, the battle done (VICTORY)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn R195 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Hymn 343 - Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless (ST. AGNES)
• Psalm 23 - Dominus regit me (Mode 6)

Brother James’ Air is a hymn tune written in 1914 by James Leith Macbeth Bain, a Scottish mystic, minister, and poet who became known to his peers simply as Brother James.  The tune is most commonly used as the tune for the hymn text, “The Lord’s My Shepherd,” although in our hymnal it is used for the text “How lovely is thy dwelling-place.” (Hymnal 1982 #517) Because the Fourth Sunday of Easter is the Sunday normally referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” I am thinking of the Psalm 23 paraphrase as the text as I play it this Sunday.

The arrangement is by Searle Wright, a native of Pennsylvania who grew up in Binghamton, New York. As a teenager he made money playing the organ at the Palace Theatre in Binghamton, but his future lay in Classical organ.  He studied in New York City with T. Tertius Noble and at Columbia University, where he later served the faculty as well as at the Union Theological Seminary. In 1977, he returned to Binghamton as the Link professor of music at the State University of New York in Binghamton. (SUNY)

In this setting you hear the tune three times: First, it is played on the strings in the Swell division, then the melody is heard in the pedal division, played (by the feet, of course) on a soft trumpet stop. After a brief interlude that begins on full organ and then gradually decreases in volume, the melody returns as it began, on the soft strings sounds of the Swell Division.

Philip Ledger

The offertory anthem this morning is a little gem by Sir Philip Ledger, an English organist and choral director best known for his years as director of the King's College Choir in Cambridge.

Ledger was born in Bexhill and educated at King's College, Cambridge. When appointed Master of Music at Chelmsford Cathedral, he became the youngest cathedral organist in the United Kingdom.
As Director of Music at the University of East Anglia, he worked closely with Benjamin Britten as an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival before returning to King's College, Cambridge as Director of Music. There he conducted the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols which is broadcast each year on Christmas Eve, made an extensive range of recordings with the famous choir and directed recitals and tours throughout the world. He then became Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

This anthem is a setting of a simple 12-bar melody, which itself is divide into two, almost identical, parts. On the first verse the trebles sing, followed by the men on verse two in a new key. The third stanza has the entire choir singing in four parts, unaccompanied, with a new theme in the melody. The final stanza returns to the original tune sung by all voices entering at different times.

Last week I played a piece by J. S. Bach that he had arranged for organ from one of his vocal works. This week, I'm playing another work arranged for organ from one of his solo vocal cantatas, but this time it is arranged by the 20th century organist E. Power Biggs.

Sheep May Safely Graze is from his secular cantata BWV 208, Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd (The lively hunt is all my heart's desire). Originally performed by a soprano, two recorders, and basso continuo, here the melody is played in the left hand on the organ stop called a Chromhorne (or Krummhorn), the right hand plays the two recorder parts on the flute stop, and the pedal fills in the basso continuo line.

This cantata, often called The Hunting Cantata, was composed in 1713 by Bach for the 31st birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels. Despite its BWV number (#208 out of 216 cantatas that we a sure Bach wrote), this is Bach's earliest surviving secular cantata, composed while he was employed as court organist in Weimar. The work may have been intended as a gift from Bach's employer, William Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, for his neighboring ruler, Duke Christian, who was a keen hunter.