Music for Sunday, March 27, 2022

Vocal Music

• Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – Richard Farrant (c. 1525-1580)

Instrumental Music

• Rhosymedre – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
• My Song Is Love Unknown
• Prelude au Kyrie – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Cwm Rhondda – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn R249 - Great is thy faithfulness (FAITHFULNESS)
• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn 693 - Just as I am, without one plea (WOODWORTH)
• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (ST. THOMAS (WILLIAMS))
• Psalm 32 – tone IIa

The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams is the composer of this morning's opening voluntary. Vaughan Williams is one of the first composers who wrote in what you could call a “distinct English style”; he made a point of breaking away from the German style which had a profound influence on classical music forms like symphonies, concertos, and chamber music. His studies with Ravel likely had something to do with this. He was also interested in folk tunes of the British Isles, as evidenced by today's prelude.

"RHOSYMEDRE" is Vaughan Williams's best-loved work for organ. It is sometimes used for the Lenten hymn "My Song is Love Unknown." (Our hymnal uses the tune LOVE UNKNOWN.) Though originally written for pipe organ, it's been arranged for orchestra and almost every ensemble possible. (I've even heard it played by a saxophone quintet.) As usual, in his arrangements of British folk music, Vaughan Williams succeeds here in turning an apparently simple tune into a work of profound emotional impact. Renaissance cadences much in evidence, in this short but sweet work Vaughan Williams crafts a wistful piece of great beauty. It's one of my favorites, and one that I want played at my funeral one day.

Ralph Vaughan Williams in World War I

Vaughan Williams had a strong sense of integrity, in that he believed music should be accessible to everyone. He also believed in being of service to his fellow citizens, to the point that he signed up at age 42 when World War One broke out. He was an ambulance wagon driver and became a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, being sent to fight in France in 1918. The constant sound of guns damaged his hearing and lead to his deafness in his old age. The war had an impact on his music, culminating in his Dona nobis pacem (“Grant us peace”) completed in 1936, at a time there must have been speculation of another war brewing.

A humble man, Ralph Vaughan Williams declined the honor of a knighthood. His ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey.

The communion voluntary is part of a larger work by French composer Jean Langlais called Hommage à Frescobaldi, written in 1952. This is the first piece in that collection, entitled, appropriately enough, "Prélude au Kyrie." It begins with a slowly-ascending melodic figure against suspended chords. When the opening material returns, halfway through, it is now accompanied by the pedal, which plays the chant theme from the Kyrie of the Mass "Cunctipotens genitor Deus."

Born in La Fontenelle, Brittany, France, a small village near by the Mont Saint-Michel, Jean Langlais became blind from the age of two. At the age of eleven, he was sent to the Paris National Institute for the Young Blind where he studied piano, violin, harmony and organ. Later, he entered the Paris National Conservatory of Music, obtaining a First Prize in 1930. 

In 1945, he became the successor to Cesar Franck and Charles Tournemire at the prestigious Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. He left that position in 1987 at the age of 80, having been organist for 42 years!

The closing voluntary is the well-known (at least among organists!) improvisation on our opening hymn this morning, CWM RHONNDA. (Guide me, O thou great Jehovah). It is by the American Lutheran composer Paul Manz. 

It's a little exuberant for the season of Lent, but today is Laetare Sunday, or the fourth Sunday in the season of Lent. Traditionally, this Sunday has been a day of celebration, within the austere period of Lent. It gets its name from the first few words of the traditional Latin Introit of the day from the Roman Catholic Mass, "Laetare Jerusalem" ("Rejoice, O Jerusalem"). Hence, I don't feel too badly that the opening of the piece sounds a lot like Handel's "Hxllelujxh" from Messiah.

Music for February 28, 2021 + The Second Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Take Up Your Cross – Ronald Corp (b. 1951)
• Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – Richard Farrant (c. 1525 – 1580)
• Hymn 401: The God of Abraham praise (LEONI)

Instrumental Music

• Variations on the hymn tune BOURBON – Don Michael Dicie (b. 1941)
• Hymn 675: Take up your cross, the Savior said
• Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jericho – arr. Fela Sowande (1905-1987)

The last day of February also brings us to the last Sunday of our series highlighting Black musicians who just happen to be/have been Anglicans. Today we focus on Fela Sowande.

Fela Sowande was a Nigerian organist and composer who was raised in the church. His father was Emmanuel Sowande, an Anglican priest and champion of Nigerian Church Music. 

Fela Sowande

His father, as well as the organist Thomas King Ekundayo Phillips (dubbed the “Father of Nigerian church music”), were a big influence on Sowande’s early music education. Sowande studied organ with Phillips, and performed as a chorister at his father’s church. As a youth he traveled to London to study Civil Engineering, but along the way, he obtained a Bachelor of Music from City University in London and became a Fellow of Trinity College. 

Sowande was not confined to one style of music. He was a theatre organist for the BBC at the same time as being part of a piano duo with Fats Waller; he was a choirmaster at the prestigious Kingsway Hall at the same time as recording tracks for the likes of Vera Lynn and Adelaide Hall ; he was a band leader, and an in-demand keyboardist.

But his compositions showed a more serious side. He wrote extensively for choir and organ, combining the classical training he received at school with the rhythmic patterns and melodies of West Africa. In the 50s, he began to use the spirituals and gospel songs of African-Americans, and a grant from the U. S. Government allowed enabled Sowande to travel to the United States in 1957 and give organ recitals in Boston, Chicago and New York.  

The organ piece I chose for today is Sowande's setting of the spiritual, Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jericho. (The dialect is original to Sowande's publication.) While the tune is strictly that of the spiritual, you can also hear the classical influence in musical form (there is a fugal section in the middle at the return of the refrain), and in the use of tone painting (at the end, where the harmonies descend, getting lower and lower, at the point in the song where "the walls came a-tumblin' down." )

I have resisted playing any of the typical spirituals this year, as I did not want to reduce the Black musical contributions to just spirituals, as significant as they are to the history of American music. But this collection of African-American spirituals by a classically-trained Nigerian organist was too great to pass by. (And it's so much fun to play!) So, to give you a taste of a more traditional but still fresh musical composition by Fela Sowande, please listen to this recording of his best-known work, the African Suite for string orchestra. Listen here (but not while in church!)

Music for October 4, 2020 + The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lord, for thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – Richard Farrant (c. 1525 –1580) or John Hilton (the elder) (1565 – 1609(?))

Instrumental Music

• All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name – Lani Smith (1934 - 2015)
• How Firm a Foundation – Lani Smith

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (IN BABILONE)
• Song of Praise S-280 - Canticle 20: Glory to God – Robert Powell

Pardon Me, Your Roots are Showing

I have a confession to make.

Well, actually, two confessions.

(1) From where I sit in the choir gallery, I have a clear view of the tops of people's heads. And from that perch, it is easy to see who dyes their hair, and who needs to have their roots touched up. I'm just saying...

Your roots don't lie. They tell you just who (or what color) you (or your hairs) really are.

(2) Back where I come from (both geographically and generationally), the epitome of classy church music was a well played piano and organ duet. I grew up in rural West Tennessee, in what was considered a "high-church" Methodist. Our congregation had a really beautiful building built in 1924, with the only pipe organ in our town. We were justifiably proud of our 13-rank Möller pipe organ. I was enamored with it from a young age. 

Yours truly at the console of the 1924 Moller

Back in 1927 or '28, the organist, Mrs. Mae Peacock started subscribing to a bi-monthly organ magazine published by The Lorenz Publishing Company. Lorenz was to church music as Ford or Chevrolet was to the automobile. (The same could be said about Möller.) And, like Möller and Chevrolet, Lorenz was all I knew when it came to published music. So in 1975, when I was just a Junior in high school, I ordered a book of piano and organ duets which I played with my piano teacher in church. And it's that same volume of music that I have pulled out of mothballs for this Sunday's service! Only this time I am playing the organ with my friend (and Good Shepherd's usual substitute organist) Rob Carty on the piano.

Lani Smith

They were arranged by Lani Smith, a man whose musical pedigree belied his position in what most modern day church musicians would label a rather pedestrian publishing house.  Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was educated at the College‑Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati (BM and MM), and in 1958 he was a co‑winner of the Joseph H. Bearns Prize in Music from Columbia University, an award that honors America's most promising young composers. At age twenty‑five, Smith published his first piece with Lorenz, thus beginning a long career at the company. From 1967–82, Smith was a member of the editorial and composition staff at Lorenz, where he had responsibility for a number of publications and organ magazines, just like the one Mrs Mae subscribed to in the 20s and 30s.

So now you know my true colors. I'm just a rural church organist at heart, pretending to be one of the big boys!

The choir's anthem is a choral setting of a sixteenth century prayer by Henry Bull, set to music by either Richard Farrant or John Hilton, both English composers of sacred music. Farrant was organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the middle of the sixteenth century, while Hilton was known as a counter-tenor and organist, most notably at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the beginning, the music is in a simple, a capella, hymn-like style which befits the reflective and restful mood of the text, but at the words "that we may walk in a perfect heart" the choir has a chance to play around with the rhythms of the words and sing much more independently of each other, finally ending with a contrapuntal "amen." This was a challenge for the choir to sing as a virtual group, but they rose to the occasion!

Music for September 11, 2016 + The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lord, for Thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – Richard Farrant (c.1530-1580) or John Hilton (1565-1708?)
• What Does the Lord Require? – Erik Routley (1917-1982)

Instrumental Music

• Elegy – George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987)
• Shalom (Peace) – Dan Locklair (b. 1949)
• Postlude in B-flat Major – John E. West (1863-1929)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 423 - Immortal, invisible, God only wise (St. Denio)
• Hymn 470 - There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (Beecher)
• Hymn 377 - All people that on earth do dwell (Old 100^th)
• Hymn 645 - The King of love my shepherd is (St. Columba)
• Hymn 708 - Savior, like a shepherd lead us (Sicilian Mariners)
• Psalm 51:1-4, 7-8, 11 - Miserere mei, Deus (Tone VIIIb)

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I dare say that very few things in the past 50 years have shaken the country like that horrible day. But out of pain come acts of hope and beauty. Such is the piece that I play today for the communion voluntary.

Dan Locklair

Dan Locklair wrote his Æolian Sonata between late January and March for a recital celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Duke University Chapel’s Æolian pipe organ in June 2002. This was the last organ the Æolian Organ Company built before they merged with the E.M. Skinner Organ Co., forming the great American classic organ company,  Æolian-Skinner.

In three movements, The Æolian Sonata musically celebrates the heritage and continued use of the historic Æolian organ in Duke Chapel, but it also pays tribute to the spirit of the American people in the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks. The title for each movement is in a different language, symbolically paying tribute to the outpouring of support that Americans have felt from peace-loving people throughout the world. In a spiritual way, the music of each movement is a reflection on its title, with these words being indicative of a healing nation.

The second movement,  Shalom (Peace),  is marked “Serene and unhurried.” It is a quiet and simple movement that lyrically dialogues flute and clarinet sounds as it gently reflects on the Hebrew word for peace. Locklair prefaced this movement with the dedication:

In remembrance of the darkness of September 11 from which emerged hope for Peace and joy in Thanksgiving.

Locklair is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina (USA). He holds a Master of Sacred Music degree from the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Presently, Dr. Locklair is Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The choir's anthem is a choral setting of a sixteenth century prayer by Henry Bull, set to music by either Richard Farrant or John Hilton, both English composers of sacred music. Farrant was organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the middle of the sixteenth century, while Hilton was known as a counter-tenor and organist, most notably at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the beginning, the music is in a simple, a capella, hymn-like style which befits the reflective and restful mood of the text, but at the words "that we may walk in a perfect heart" the choir has a chance to play around with the rhythms of the words and sing much more independently of each other, finally ending with a contrapuntal "amen."

The communion anthem is a hymn from our hymnal. Early in 1949 Albert F. Bayly wrote this text based on Micah 6:6-8 as one of a series of seventeen hymns he was writing on the Old Testament prophets. His objective was to present the prophets "in the light of the climax and fulfillment of the Old Testament revelation in the coming of Christ." "What Does the Lord Require" asks questions and states commands as if Micah were a modern-day prophet. The refrain line "Do justly. . ." subtly shifts from the imperative voice in stanzas 1 through 3 to a corporate confession in stanza 4. Erik Routley composed SHARPTHORNE in 1968 to be published as a setting for Bayly's text in a British hymnal. Sharpthorne is a village in Routley's native county of Sussex, England.

Don't forget the Concert of Remembrance and Peace tonight at Strawbridge United Methodist Church. Members from our choir will be a part of this event.

Music for March 1, 2015 + The Second Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Lord, for thy Tender Mercy's Sake – Richard Farrant (c.1530-1580) or John Hilton (1565-1708?)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Leoni” - Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• A Lenten Meditation – Robert Powell (b. 1932)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception “NORRIS” which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing.)

• Hymn 401 - The God of Abraham Praise (LEONI)
• Hymn 147 - Now let us all with one accord (BOURBON)
• Hymn - I can hear my Savior calling (NORRIS)
• Hymn 675 - Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)

The Choir is singing an anthem from one of my favorite eras and style of choral music: The 16th century Tudor anthem. The word “Tudor” is loosely used to denote the 100 years from the early 1500s to the 1600s, a period which some call the Golden Age of English church music. This genre includes simple four-part homophonic anthems to the more elaborate polyphony of six-, seven- or eight-part motets. Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy's Sake is one of two short anthems by either Richard Farrant or John Hilton, both English composers of sacred music. Farrant was organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the middle of the sixteenth century, while Hilton was known as a counter-tenor and organist, most notably at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the beginning, the music is in a simple, a capella, hymn-like style which befits the reflective and restful mood of the text, but at the words "that we may walk in a perfect heart" the choir has a chance to play around with the rhythms of the words and sing much more independently of each other, finally ending with a contrapuntal "amen."   The words are from Christian Prayers and Holy Meditations, by Henry Bull (1566).

Robert Powell at the console of the
organ at Christ Church, Greenville, SC

The Communion voluntary is a handbell piece by Robert Powell, retired music director of Christ Episcopal Church in Greenville, South Carolina. Born in Benoit, Mississippi, Powell attended Louisiana State University. After graduating from LSU, with a degree in organ and composition, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Tokyo, where he conducted a choir of American soldiers and Japanese women; their first big program was Handel's Messiah. After his military service, he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City. While there, he  was assistant organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, where Alec Wyton, his mentor, was organist and choirmaster. His first published work was in 1959, and since that time, he has published over 400 works for choir, organ, handbells, and other instruments, as well as his Service of Holy Communion, which is in our hymnal.

This Week's Hymns

• The God of Abraham Praise (LEONI) Forshadowing the reading from the Old Testament, we open our service with this hymn, which, according to Cyberhymnal.com, is based on The Yigdal of Daniel ben Judah, a Jewish judge in Rome, circa 1400, paraphrased by Thomas Olivers, circa 1765; first appeared in The Gospel Magazine, April 1775. The lyrics are based on the 13 creeds of Moses Maimonides (circa 1130-1204).  Indeed, Cyberhymnal prints twelve verses, which have been shortened to five in our hymnal.  
• Now let us all with one accord (BOURBON) We have a few Early American hymn tunes in our hymnal.  This tune, BOURBON, appeared in Columbian Harmony (1825) and was therein attributed to Freeman Lewis (1780-1859).  The melody is actually in a pentatonic key, which means its scale has five notes.  It also means you could play it on the piano on all black keys.  The tune name comes from Bourbon Country, Kentucky, not from the drink!
• I can hear my Savior calling (NORRIS) - This old gospel hymn is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II (LEVAS), a hymnal published for African-American congregations in the Episcopal Church. The text was written in 1890 by E.W.Blandy, with music composed for it by John S. Norris. LEVAS leaves out the fermatas (the held-out notes) on the last line, ("with him        , with him       ...), so I am going to follow good performance practice and include them as we sing this hymn. This hymn calls us to obey the call of Jesus, and "take up my cross."
• Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)  Charles W. Everest, an Episcopal priest , was but nineteen when he published Visions of Death, and Other Poems; from this work this popular hymn is taken. This hymn is perfect as a response to today's Gospel, as it describes the fully committed Christian life as denying self, facing all dangers, and following Christ to the uttermost. And, yes, this is the same tune as we sang earlier in the service!

Music for September 28, 2014 + The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost + St. Michael and All Angels

Vocal Music

• Wondrous Love – Robert Shaw/Alice Parker (1916-1999/b. 1925)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Wondrous Love” – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• Choral – Michael Larkin (b. 1951)
• Voluntary on “Engelberg” – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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

• Hymn 492 - Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness (FINNIAN)
• Hymn 435 - At the Name of Jesus (KING'S WESTON)
• Hymn R173 - O Lord hear my prayer (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn R228 - Jesus, remember me (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 477 - Al praise to the, for thou, O King divine (ENGLEBERG)
• Psalm 25:1-8 - Tone Ig

5:00 P.M.  – Choral Eucharist for St. Michael and All Angels

Vocal Music

• Behold Now, Praise the Lord – Everett Titcomb (1884-1968)
• Call to Remembrance – Richard Farrant (c. 1525-1580)

Instrumental Music

• Basse des Trompette – Jean-François Dandrieu (1682-1738)
• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Rigaudon - André Campra (1660 –1744)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 618 – Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 282 – Christ, the fair glory of the holy angels (CAELITES PLAUDANT)
• Hymn 625 – Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)

The scripture readings for today reminded me of the wondrous love that God in Christ has for us. Especially poignant is this passage from the epistle reading for today from Philippians 2:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

That is indeed a wondrous love, so I was lead to use the hymn What wondrous love is this, O my soul as the choir’s offering today. The hymn is taken from one of the early American shape note books, hymnals (or song books) in which the note heads are printed in one of seven different shapes to indicate a place on the scale. These compositions are folk hymns, using secular tunes for the setting of religious texts. Wondrous Love was first found in The Southern Harmony, a compilation of hymns, tunes, psalms, and songs published by William Walker in 1834. Wondrous Love also is found in the most famous of these shape note books, The Sacred Harp, first published by Benjamin White in 1844. Both of these compilations still are published today.

Alan Lomax, noted folk song authority, relates the secular background of the tune:

This hymn is a member of the “Captain Kidd” family, so called because the ballad of Captain Kidd is set to one form of the tune. The ‘Captain Kidd’ type has for several centuries been responsible for a very large number of beautiful songs, including The Wars of Germany, Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye, Sam Hall and Sugar Babe.” Captain William Kidd (1645-1701), an English sailor, was commissioned by New York and Massachusetts to hunt pirates. He supposedly turned pirate himself and killed one of his crew, an action for which he was hanged in 1701. The following ballad appeared soon after his death. You will find that the words easily fit the tune for Wondrous Love.

My name is William Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed
My name is William Kidd, as I sailed
My name is William Kidd, God’s laws I did forbid
And most wickedly I did, as I sailed, as I sailed.

This arrangement is one of the many hymns and folk songs that Alice Parker arranged in collaboration with Robert Shaw. Shaw early achieved recognition as a consummate choral conductor while still in college. Fred Waring, the popular musician, bandleader and radio personality, enlisted Shaw to move to New York and direct his group, “The Pennsylvanians” in 1937. Four years later, Shaw founded and directed the Collegiate Chorale, a highly dedicated amateur New York chorus of 185 singers that grew into a significant symphonic chorus under his leadership. After intense studies with Julius Herford, Shaw formed the Robert Shaw Chorale, which toured the United States and later performed in thirty countries throughout Europe, the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Latin America under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. The Robert Shaw Chorale was signed to an exclusive recording contract by RCA Victor. Shaw wished to record only choral masterworks, but RCA Victor also wanted recordings of the Shaw Chorale performing light popular music, in the hope that these would sell well to the American public. Shaw enlisted one of his former students, Alice Parker to do research and create choral arrangements for the new touring and recording ensemble. This resulted in a collaboration that lasted over 17 years, producing many settings of American folksongs, hymns and spirituals which have for many years been standard repertoire for high school, college, and community choruses, and are to this day widely performed.

The St. Michael Window at Good Shepherd, Kingwood

The opening voluntary is also based (loosely) on Wondrous Love. In this arrangement, Gordon Young takes liberties with the notes in the melody, changing it just enough to make the listener familiar with the hymn to go "Huh?" and wonder if the organist has missed a note. He has not.

The closing voluntary is an improvisation by Charles Callahan on the hymn tune ENGELBERG. Charles V. Stanford composed ENGELBERG as a setting for William W. How's "For All the Saints" in 1904 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern but lost out as the definitive tune for that text when Ralph Vaughan Williams published the New English Hymnal in 1906, using his own tune, SINE NOMINE for that text. ENGELBERG came into its own, however, when it was used as the tune for today's closing hymn. You will also remember it as the tune for "When in our music God is glorified" and "We know that Christ is raised," both hymns that we sing regularly at Good Shepherd.

In his improvisation, Callahan uses several of the attractive, energetic motives in his composition. Listen for the "Alleluia" and "All praise to thee" motives used over and over (and over) again.

Music for September 14, 2014 + The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy's Sake – Richard Farrant (c. 1525-1580)

Instrumental Music

• When We Are In Utmost Need, BWV 641 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

• Amazing Grace – arr. A. R. Laurence 

• Fugue in G, BWV 576 – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 376 – Joyful, joyful, we adore thee (HYMN TO JOY)

• Hymn S-208 – Canticle 8: Song of Moses (plainsong, Tone 1 and Tonus Peregrinus)

• Hymn R-10 – Be still and know that I am God (BE STILL AND KNOW)

• Hymn R184 – “Forgive our sins as we forgive” (DETROIT)

• Hymn R192 – God forgave my sin in Jesus’ name (FREELY FREELY)

• Hymn 690 – Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONNDA)

Today is the 14th day of September, and it's the 14th Sunday after Pentecost (in year 14 of the 2000s). Little things like that fascinate me.

I am starting the service this week with one of J. S. Bach's little gems from his collection of chorale preludes called Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book). As the Concordia Publishing House says on its webpage, "If any one collection of organ music can be called common property of organists throughout the world, it is surely the Orgelbüchlein of J. S. Bach. It continues to fascinate and challenge organists and other serious musicians both as pedagogical work and as a collection of music unsurpassed in the inventiveness and spiritual depth." 

The chorale I am playing, Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (or "When we are in utmost need"), is a short piece, just over 2 minutes long, but is contains one of the most beautifully ornamented melodies in all of Bach's organ music; only "Allein Gott in der Höh" from the "Great Eighteen" comes close. Instead of presenting the melody as a simple hymn tune, as one would sing it, Bach uses the notes as a frame work on which he hangs his ornaments, much in the same way that some would hang baubles on a Christmas Tree, decorating with so many ornaments that the tree (and melody) are almost hidden from view. Albert Schweitzer says the soprano part flows "like a divine song of consolation, and in a wonderful final cadence seems to silence and compose the other parts." This melody, which is well known among Lutheran musicians, is not present in any of our hymnals.

a typical Renaissance Choir

The anthem is also a little gem, which has been variously attributed over the years to a number of 16th century composers. Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake may be by a composer by John Hilton, but our sources all list Richard Farrant, an English composer whose early life, like many composers of his day,  are not well documented. The first acknowledgment of him is in a list of the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1552. It is assumed from that list that his birth was around 1525. In Farrant's twelve years with the Chapel Royal, he was able to participate in  the developments in Latin Church Music, as composers like William Byrd and Christopher Tye were busy expanding and elaborating on the church music of the day. After his work there, he took up a post as organist at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. It was here that he was able to establish himself as a successful composer, develop the English drama considerably, found the first Blackfriars Theatre, and be the first to write verse-anthems. 

This anthem works well with the Gospel this Sunday, as it has a penitential emphasis, asking for forgiveness, then looking forward to a new life in which 'we may walk with a perfect heart'.