Music for February 13, 2022 + The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Blessed Is the Man – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Instrumental Music

• If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee – Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
• Hymn 635 in The Hymnal 1982
• Holy Manna – arr.Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Hymn 580 in The Hymnal 1982
• Erhalt Uns, Herr – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Hymn 191 in Renew

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

• Hymn 48 - O day of radiant gladness (ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN)
• Hymn R191 - O Christ, the healer, we have come (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but trust in God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn R127 - Blest are they, the poor in spirit (BLEST ARE THEY)
• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Psalm 1 – Tone Va

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was arguably, one of Russia's greatest composers. After his triumphant tour of America in 1891, and being awarded an honorary doctorate at Cambridge University in 1893, he was accepted as a world figure, not a merely national composer but one of universal significance. In 1891 the Carnegie Hall program booklet proclaimed him, together with Brahms and Saint-Saëns, to be one of the three greatest living musicians, while music critics praised him as "a modern music lord".

He wrote several works which still enjoy popularity, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin. But he also wrote many smaller works, including an Album for the Young, op. 39. Robert Schumann wrote a similar book some years earlier, under the same title. Schumann wrote his collection because there wasn’t much good piano material at an easier level, and Tchaikovsky likely wrote his own collection for the same reasons.

In this collection, Tchaikovsky wrote pieces inspired by Russia, his travels, dances, and various children’s concepts (like "The Sick Doll"). It’s a really diverse collection both in emotion and content.

Today's anthem is an adaptation of one of those pieces, titled "In Church." The text comes from different scripture sources, including the psalm appointed for today, Psalm 1.

All of the organ music today is based on hymn tunes, two of which are being sung in the service today. The opening voluntary is a set of two variations of the tune WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT, which we will sing at the presentation of the offering. The hymn in our hymnal is in 3/4 time, while the setting by the German composer Georg Böhm, is in 4/4 time.

Georg Böhm was one of the leading organists and organ composers in North Germany in the years around 1700. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach. The opening voluntary is from one of his chorale partitas, large-scale compositions consisting of several variations on a particular chorale melody. He effectively invented the genre, writing several partitas of varying lengths and on diverse tunes. Later composers also took up the genre, most notably 

Bach. Böhm's chorale partitas feature sophisticated figuration in several voices over the harmonic structure of the chorale. His partitas generally have a rustic character and can be successfully performed on either the organ or the harpsichord.

Music for February 17, 2019 + The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Blessed Is the Man - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
• O How Amiable – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Instrumental Music

• Grazioso – Arnold B. Sherman (b. 1948)
• Partita on  Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten - Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
• Präludium in A Minor - Georg Böhm

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

• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible, God only wise (ST. DENIO)
• Hymn R191 - O Christ, the healer, we have come (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but trust in God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn R127 - Blest are they, the poor in spirit (BLEST ARE THEY)
• Hymn R224 - Healer of my soul (John Michael Talbot)
• Hymn 493  - O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)

Two anthems by the choir, plus a work for Handbells, are featured in this Sunday's music. 

First is a work by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Known primarily for his symphonies, concertos and ballets, Tchaikovsky was also deeply interested in the music and liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1878 he set the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom to music, followed by the All-Night Vigil and nine sacred songs. All of these were of seminal importance in the later interest in Orthodox music, which up until this time was highly controlled by the Imperial Chapel.

This anthem, Blessed Is the Man, is not the "Blazhen Muzh" (Blessed is the man - Psalm 1) from his All-Night Vigil, but is a creation by Gene Lowell, an American choral director active in the 1950s, who took a piano work of Tchaikovsky (In Church, the last number in his collection Album pour enfants, Op. 39) and added words based on two verses from Psalm 1.

 The offertory anthem is the grand work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the great English symphonist of the 20th century. Though he was described as "a cheerful agnostic," he was highly influential in the music of the Anglican church, not only writing some beautiful choral works, but serving as Musical Editor of the English Hymnal (1904) and writing two of our most beautiful and well-known hymntunes, SINE NOMINE (For all the Saints) and DOWN AMPNEY (Come Down, O Love Divine). His interest in folk songs and hymn tunes is evident in many of his works, including today's anthem. Terry Blaine, in his notes to the CD Anthem - Great British Hymns & Choral Works recorded by the Huddersfield Choral Society, wrote this about the anthem:

Simplicity is a keynote in Vaughan Williams’s O how amiable, and the reason is the circumstances in which it was composed. In 1934 the novelist E.M. Forster wrote “The Abinger Pageant”, a play about the history of England, performed to aid preservation work at a church near where he lived in Surrey. Vaughan Williams’s anthem was written to be sung by amateur performers as part of the festivities, and the mainly unison writing reflects this. It also emphasizes the communal nature of the pageant experience, as does the addition of a verse from the famous hymn “O God our help in ages past” at the conclusion. (c) 2016 by Terry Blaine

The Handbell piece at communion is a beautiful work written in memory of Norma Taubert Brown, a handbell ringer, who died of cancer in 1988. The music tells the story of Norma's life, her struggle with illness, and her ultimate journey to heaven.  Each section of the music reflects this journey.

It was commissioned by Area 10 of the Handbell Musicians of America right after Norma had been in Seattle to share the podium with Arnold Sherman, the composer of Grazioso. She was ill at that time but wanted to keep her commitment to conduct at the Greater Puget Sound Festival. When she was not conducting, she would lay on a couch  that had been moved into the gym. When it  was her turn to conduct, she  seemed to have extra strength to ascend the podium,  conduct her rehearsal as if she were in perfect health and then return to the couch after she had finished.  She passed away two weeks later.

Arnold Sherman is director of Music and Fine Arts at Pollard United Methodist Church in Tyler, Texas as well as a free-lance composer and co-founder of Red River Music. His undergraduate work in music education was done at Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland, and Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Arnold was the founder and Director of the East Texas Handbell Ensemble. A clinician and guest conductor, he has led choral and handbell workshops, festivals, and reading sessions throughout the United States, Canada, England, Japan and the Bahamas. Arnold has over four hundred choral and handbell pieces in print and has been an active member of the AGEHR where he has served as Area IX Chairman.

Music for May 17, 2015 + The Seventh Sunday after Easter and The Sunday after Ascension Day

Vocal Music

• Blessed is the Man – Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
• O Taste and See - Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Instrumental Music

• Danket dem Herren (Thank the Lord) - Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Prière du Christ montant vers son Père ("Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father") - Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
• Hyfrdol - Ralph Vaughan Williams

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 314 Humbly I adore thee (ADORO DEVOTE)
• Hymn 460 Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)

Known primarily for his symphonies, concertos and ballets, Pytor Tchaikovsky was also deeply interested in the music and liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Though his sacred output was not large, it still included A Hymn to the Trinity (1877), the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (1878), an All-Night Vigil (1881), and 9 Sacred Pieces (1884–85). He published a book in 1875, A Short Course of Harmony adapted for the Study of Russian Church Music.

Interestingly, the anthem the choir sings today is not from one of his sacred works, but is an arrangement from his piano work Album for the Young, Op.39, subtitled "24 simple pieces à la Schumann". It is a cycle of piano pieces composed between May and July 1878, and No. 24., In Church, is the source for our anthem.  As a prelude to this short anthem, I will play the first number from that volume called Morning Prayers.

Olivier Messiaen in March, 1952.
He looks a LOT like my Aunt Bonnie.

Some composers labor for years before finding their own voice. But Olivier Messiaen, even in his earliest works, sounds like Messiaen and no one else. In his work L’Ascension, we see (or hear) Messiaen’s language emerge before our very eyes as passages influenced by his early models — chiefly Debussy and Stravinsky — begin to evolve in entirely new directions. One bedrock of Messiaen’s music was the composer’s Catholic faith, which is behind every note he composed.

Messiaen was only 25 when he completed L’Ascension. He had graduated from the Paris Conservatoire just three years earlier. Since 1931, he had been the organist at the Church of the Trinity in Paris, a position he would hold for the rest of his life. Written for orchestra (he rewrote it for the organ a year later in 1933), it was his reflections on the Feast of the Ascension. Here, Christ’s reunion with His Father gives cause for joy, but also for the contemplation of a deep mystery. Messiaen prefaced each movement with a quote from the Bible or the Catholic liturgy to set the tone.

I will be playing movement four during communion today. Messiaen assigned this saying of Jesus to 4. Prayer of Christ Ascending to His Father.

Father . . . I have revealed Your name to humanity. . . . Now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I come to you (John 17: 1, 6, and 11). 

The tempo is slow (Extrêment Lent – extrememly slow – is the tempo marking); the texture is homophonic, and the harmonies iridescent and otherworldly. The music climbs higher and higher (in keeping with the idea of Ascension) and ends on a resplendent dominant-seventh chord. According to Western musical conventions, this chord would call for resolution, but in this context, the lack of resolution is a perfect ending point for this quite extraordinary set of harmonies.

The opening voluntary is a short setting of an old Lutheran hymn which, loosely translated, is Thank the Lord. That’s the way I feel with summer quickly approaching. The closing voluntary is one of three works that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote for the organ. It is based on the closing hymn tune today.

• All hail the power of Jesus’ Name!  (CORONATION) It is interesting that those who express the most eloquent praise are often the people we would deem the least likely to have the ability. Yet David, the adulterating, murdering, lying king of Israel wrote a good deal of the Psalms, which we still use today as our guide for worship. In the same way, all accounts show Rev. Edward Perronet (1721-1792) to be a sharp-tongued, difficult personality, who would rather pick a fight over theology than display brotherly love.  This one has been published in over 2,760 hymnals!
• Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA) Composed in 1868 for this text by Matthew Bridges, George J. Elvey named the tune DIADEMATA. “Diademata” is Latin, basically meaning “wearing a crown.” Almost 150 years later, this sturdy, rousing tune is still thouroughly connected to this text.  
• Humbly I adore thee (ADORO DEVOTE) One of the oldest hymns in our hymnal, it is part of a larger hymn written by St. Thomas Aquinas. We may not get to sing it this Sunday, due to the length of the communion voluntary.
• Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL) One of the favorite hymns of the Episcopal Church, it combines the Welsh tune HYFRYDOL with a text by William Chatterton Dix, who also wrote the words for As with Gladness Men of Old and What Child Is This? The second stanza is often left out, but we will sing it today, as we remember the ascension of Christ.