Music for February 18, 2018 + The First Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Lord Jesus, Think on Me – Raymond Haan (b. 1938)

Instrumental Music

• Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No.  2  – Johannes Brahms (1833-1896)

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

• Hymn 150 - Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH)
• Hymn 143 - The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R223 - Soften my heart, Lord  (SOFTEN MY HEART)
• Hymn R206 - Holy, holy (HOLY HOLY)
• Hymn 559 - Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us (DULCE CARMEN)
• Psalm 25:1-9 Tone IIa

Today's anthem, Lord Jesus, Think On Me, is an arrangement of the hymn that is found in over 111 hymns since the turn of the 20th century. Well over two-thirds of those hymnals use this tune, SOUTHWELL, written  in 1579 by William Daman, an Italian transplant to London  in 1566 as a servant of Sir Thomas Sackville. In 1576 he became a recorder player at the Court of Elizabeth I.

The text is one of the oldest in the hymnal, written by Synesius of Cyrene around A. D. 410. After marrying a Christian in 403, he was converted to Christianity and in 410 was made bishop of Ptolemais by popular demand. In spite of his dissent from some of the tenets of the church, his outstanding character alone made him acceptable. "Lord Jesus, Think On Me" is the last of ten hymns he wrote the year he was consecrated as a bishop.  The English translation was made by Allen William Chatfield, an Anglican minister in England.

The arrangement is by Raymond H. Haan, a Michigan native who was the Director of Music for the Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids for over 50 years. He is a graduate of Calvin College and the University of Michigan. He is the composer of hundreds of compositions for organ, voice, choir, handbells, piano, and other instruments.

This anthem was written for Jonathan Tuuk and the choir of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids.

This will be the first Sunday of Lent, so the service begins differently than it usually does. We will not have an organ voluntary and opening hymn, but instead will begin with the Great Litany, an intercessory prayer in the form of a litany that includes an invocation of the Trinity; a series of petitions seeking deliverance from evil, spiritual harm, and natural calamities; a series of supplications pleading for the power of Christ in our deliverance; prayers of general intercession; and asking for mercy.

As is the custom at our church as well as many others across the globe, we will sing the Litany in procession around the church. ( The Litany's use in church processions was ordered by Henry VIII when England was at war with Scotland and France.) As the procession takes many turns and loops around the nave by the choir and altar party, it is often referred to as "The Holy Pretzel."

 As is my custom during Lent, I omit playing a festive closing voluntary, opting instead to let the Lenten worshiper leave the church in contemplative silence.

Music for August 7, 2016 + The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Panis Angelicus – César Franck (1822-1890) Richard Murray, baritone

Instrumental Music

• Variations on Holy Manna – Raymond H. Haan (b. 1938)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness – Mark Knickelbein (21st C.)
• Festive Trumpet Tune – David German (b. 1954)

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

• Hymn 636 - How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (Foundation)
• Hymn R37 - Father we love you  (Glorify your name )
• Hymn 178 - Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks to the risen Lord (Alleluia No. 1)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn 335 - I am the bread of life (I Am the Bread of Life )
• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Psalm 33 - Exultate, justi (refrain by Jacques Berthier)

Richard Murray sings one of the classics of sacred music this Sunday when he sings César Franck's Panis Angelicus. The text is part of the hymn Sacris solemniis written by Saint Thomas Aquinas. "Panis Angelicus" is often treated as a separate hymn and set to music, just as Franck did in his Messe solennelle in A major, Op.12. There it was written for tenor solo with cello, harp, and organ accompaniment. We will be singing the entire Messe solennelle in the spring.

Franck

Unlike many musicians whose parents had other aspirations for their children, César Franck was encouraged by his father to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. But at the Paris Conservatoire he failed to achieve the necessary distinction as a performer, so he turned his attention to composition and the organ. (Can’t play piano? Be an organist!) It was a smart move, for he became famouse in Paris as organist at the newly built church of Ste Clotilde, with its Cavaillé-Coll organ. He drew to himself a loyal and devoted circle of pupils and in 1871 became organ professor at the Conservatoire.

 As a composer, his best known orchestral works are the Symphonic Variations for solo piano and orchestra and the Symphony in D minor. Though he was best known in his day as a very distinguished organist, Franck wrote remarkably little for the instrument on which his improvisations had won him fame and pupils. The Organ pieces he did write, however, form the backbone of French Romantic organ literature, and have never gone out of style.

Raymond Haan

The variations on the hymn Holy Manna (used twice in the Hymnal 1982 - #238 and #580) were written by a public school educator to whom music was just a sideline. Raymond H. Haan was born in Falmouth, Michigan in 1938. As a boy, his piano teacher told him he'd never be a musician.Though it was his dream, he realized there was no way he could support himself as a musician in his denomination, the Christian Reformed Church and, as he says "...at that time leaving my church was not an option." So despite his desire to write music, he never took a music course of any kind.

Instead he became a middle school, then a high school English teacher and wrote music in his spare time-while also playing the organ, directing several choirs and being a father to four children. He became the Director of Music for the Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids when he was 22, and had this position for over 50 years.

Even in his spare time, he was able to write more than 500 compositions published by 24 music companies. Retired from teaching, his children grown, Haan can now give his music more attention. He still lives in Cutlerville, Michigan and his hobbies include bicycling, tennis and golf.

Mark Knickelbein

From a new collection of piano pieces based on hymns of Baptism and Holy Communion we find the communion voluntary by the young Lutheran composer Mark Knickelbein. Each piece in this volume highlights specific stanzas and uses effective text painting to feature each theme. This piece based on the German chorale Schmücke dich begins in a very similar way to the famous Canon in D by Pachelbel before adding the chorale melody. This neo-Baroque style continues through the first verse, and then, when the second stanza (from the Lutheran Hymnal, "Hasten as a bride to meet Him") begins, he switches to a Renaissance Dance rhythm, 123, 123, 12, 12 for a lively, hastening feel.

Mark Knickelbein is the editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician. He has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN and Master of Arts in Music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously worked as an organist and choir director in Lutheran churches.