Music for July 21, 2019

Vocal Music

• Be Thou My Vision – arr. Richard Walters, Harrison Boyd, baritone

Instrumental Music

• All Glory Be to God on High – Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718 – 1795)
• Jesus, All My Gladness – Friedrich Marpurg
• All Glory Be to God on High – Johann Pachelbel

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 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus! (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn R201 - Be still, for the Spirit of the Lord (BE STILL)
• Hymn R 10 - Be still and know that I am God (BE STILL AND KNOW)
• Hymn 344 - Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Psalm 15 - tone VIIIa

Hymns are the backbone of our worship. Next to the word of God, music deserves the highest praise. That's not original to me, unfortunately - I wish I could say something that deep. (Martin Luther gets the credit.) But it does echo my own feelings. Our hymnal is equal in importance to our prayer book. So it's fitting that everything we are doing this week is derived from our body of hymnody.

Look at the offertory solo that Harrison Boyd will be singing. It is an arrangement of the beloved Celtic hymn Be Thou My Vision by Richard (Rick) Walters. With a bachelor’s degree in piano from Simpson College and graduate study in composition at the University of Minnesota with Dominick Argento, Rick Walters is now vice president of classical and vocal publications at Hal Leonard Corporation, the world’s largest source for printed music. In addition to his duties as an editor and publisher, he also finds time to compose and arrange music for singers.

Harrison Boyd with your organist

This will be Harrison's last Sunday singing with us before he heads off to Mississippi to start college at the University of Mississippi. As I said on Senior Sunday, he has been an asset to our choir, helping to the lead the basses with his mellow voice and excellent musicianship. We will miss him terribly, and wish him the best.

All the organ music is also based on hymns. The opening and closing voluntaries are settings of the hymn-tune we have been singing as the Song of Praise  at the 10:15 service all summer. Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (All glory be to God on high) is a Lutheran hymn from the 1500s,which was intended as a German version of the Gloria part of the Latin mass. As a hymn usually sung every Sunday, it was often the basis for chorale preludes. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote six settings alone! Other composers from the 18th century include Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Georg Böhm.

In the Pachelbel setting that I am using for the closing voluntary, the melody does not come in right away. It begins with a small fughetta employing a chipper, 16th-note melodic subject. After two pages, the melody enters in the pedal with a flourish in the manual parts. It is played in a slow duple meter, as opposed to the quick triple meter setting we sing on Sundays. For that reason the tune may appear only vaguely familiar.

The same may be said about the opening voluntary using the same tune. Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg begins with a triple meter setting, but only outlining the usual harmonies of the hymn. There is no out-right presentation of the cantus firmus (melody) until the second half,  when he presents the full chorale - but, like Pachelbel, in a duple meter: 4/4 time instead of 3/4. Even at a typical hymn tempo it sounds different than what we are accustomed to.

Marpurg was German musicologist just after Bach in the Age of Enlightenment. Best known for his treatises on music theory and as a music critic, he still found time to write a collection of choral preludes, including today's opening voluntary as well as the communion voluntary, based on another German Chorale, Jesu, Meine Freude. You can find that hymn in our hymnal at 701, Jesus, all my gladness. 

Music for August 20, 2017 + The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• This Is My Father’s World – arr. Richard Walters (21st C.)
• Jade Panares, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Berceuse – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• From God shall nought divide me  - Von Gott will ich nicht lassen,  BWV 658 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Carillon de Longpont – Louis Vierne

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

• Hymn 380 - From all that dwell below the skies (OLD 100TH)
• Hymn 470 - There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (BEECHER)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works (LYONS)
• Hymn R249 - Great is thy Faithfulness (FAITHFULNESS)
• Hymn R173 - O Lord, hear my prayer (Taizé)
• Hymn 371 - Thou, whose almighty word (MOSCOW)
• Psalm 67 - Tone VIIIa

Last weekend at the Old Fashioned Hymn Sing, one of the requests was the hymn "This Is My Father's World," sung to the tune TERRA BEATA that is used in most hymnals. (For some reason the editors of The Hymnal 1982 chose a new tune which only appears in one other hymnal, making it fairly unattractive to ecumenical singing.) TERRA BEATA was originally a traditional English folk tune, a variant of which, entitled RUSPER, appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906.  In 1915, Franklin L. Sheppard arranged the tune for Maltbie D. Babcock's poem and published it in the Presbyterian church school hymnal Alleluia, edited by Sheppard (Babcock and Sheppard were friends). Since that time the text and tune has been published in 89 hymnals (except ours.)

Jade Panares, our soprano section leader, will be singing a setting of this hymn this weekend. Jade will be beginning her third year at the University of Houston, majoring in voice. In this arrangement, the simple melody has been left pretty much intact, with a lilting, syncopated piano accompaniment that the arranger describes as 'light rock.' (VERY light, in my opinion.) We chose to sing this hymn this week in light of the events of the past week here in the States. We refer to the last stanza (which also is NOT in The Hymnal 1982.)

This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad! 

The opening and closing voluntaries are from a collection of organ music 24 Pièces en style libre, Opus 31, Volume II, by Louis Vierne. The opening voluntary is No 19, Berceuse. A berceuse is a lullaby or cradle song.  It's dedicated to "à ma fille Colette" (to my daughter, Colette). But when it was published, Vierne had divorced from his wife who had quickly, while still married, fallen in love with Charles Mutin.. After seeing this dedication, Vierne's former wife wrote him: "A ta fille ? Elle n'est même pas de toi !" (to your daughter? But it's not YOUR daughter!"). How cruel, but still more cruel when one reads the dedication of  Vierne's 2nd symphony "A mon ami Charles Mutin" (To my friend Charles Mutin), written just after the Viernes were first married!

The closing voluntary is No 21, Carillon. It is based on the carillon of the Chapel of the Castle of Longpont, in Northern France.  Vierne was the organist at Notre-Dame in Paris, and good friends with the Montesquiou family, who would often invite him to spend August at the Castle. On August 15, 1913, he first heard the four bell chime (not really a carillon) play the now-famous air, and he was inspired to write this piece. Later he published it, dedicating it to the memory of his brother, René, who had been killed on May 29, 1918, by Austrian shrapnel, on the Plateau Branscourt (Marne), not far from Longpont.

It opens with full organ, the Carillon theme entering in an energetic ostinato in the pedals, above which powerful, detached chords appear. In the middle the volume drops and the carillon theme continues on the manuals. Striking features are the modulations, the highly effective staccato articulations, and the dynamic effects created by the swell box. A gradual crescendo leads into the reprise of the opening, ending with a coda.

The Communion voluntary is Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, a chorale prelude from the Great Eighteen Choräle Preludes, which J. S. Bach published in the last 10 years of his life, using earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The works form an encyclopedic collection of large-scale chorale preludes, in a variety of styles harking back to the previous century, that Bach gradually perfected during his career. 

No. 7, From God shall nought divide me, is an example of the cantus firmus chorale: The melody of the chorale is sounded in long notes throughout the piece, in the pedal in this case. The ornate three-part keyboard accompaniment is derived from the opening notes of the hymn and a separate "joy motif" that permeates the piece, exquisitely "winding above and around [the chorale melody] like a luxurious garland of amaranth." [1]  Only four lines of the melody are heard in the pedal, the chorale prelude closing with a seemingly timeless bell-like coda over a pedal point, perhaps illustrating the final lines of the hymn, "after death we will be buried deep in the earth; when we have slept, we will be awoken by God." It is also interesting to note that in this "bell" coda, the note C sharp is heard 7 times consecutively, within a fourth voice, outside of the three accompaniment voices. This would seem to be indicative of the German funeral bell.

[1] Stinson, Russell (2001), J.S. Bach's Great Eighteen Organ Chorales, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-516556-X, p. 85

Music for August 16, 2015 + The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• How Can I Keep from Singing – American Folk Song, arr. By Richard Walters (b. 1956), Leila Hays, mezzo-soprano

Instrumental Music

• O God, Thou Faithful God – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Trumpet Tune in E – David N. Johnson (1922-1988)
• Two Reflections on Hymn Tunes – David Ashley White (b.1944)

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

• Hymn 688 A Mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)*
• Hymn R37 Glorify your name
• Hymn 662 Abide with me, fast falls the eventide (EVENTIDE)*
• Hymn 335 I am the bread of life (I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE)*
• Hymn 680 O God, our help in ages past (ST. ANNE)*

One of our newest choir members, Leila Hays, sings an arrangement of an old gospel hymn, How Can I Keep From Singing? by the 19th century Baptist preacher Robert Lowry (who also wrote Shall We Gather At the River). It is arranged by Richard Walters, managing editor of the concert music division at Hal Leonard Publishing and an extraordinary pianist, arranger, and orchestrator. I met Richard in New Orleans over 13 years ago, and our similar backgrounds (He's from Mississippi, I'm from Tennessee, we were both raised in the Methodist church and very active in its music ministries) caused us to develope a great friendship. Upon my return to Kingwood, I received a large box of music from Hal Leonard Publishing containing many volumes of his music, some of which he edited, and some of which he arranged. It is one of those pieces we are using today.

This hymn is a reminder of the joy of faith, especially in times of trial. It opens with an assertion that the troubles of this world are nothing when compared to the new creation that is to come. By keeping our focus on our Lord – that He is our Rock and that He lives – we can follow the admonition of the apostle James: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2). This arrangement is rather quiet and has a peaceful mood.

Johannes Brahms, date unknown
(Library of Congress)

Johannes Brahms, composer of the opening voluntary, had no particular personal relationship with the organ - he was not a church musician and had not studied the instrument - so it is strange that he would turn to it for his last compositions. They were written in the summer of 1896 after his dear friend Clara Schumann’s death, and it is highly probable that Brahms was already aware of his own illness at that point.  The preludes are “settings” (albeit wordless) of religious texts--Lutheran hymns and their associated chorale melodies. Though not a particularly religious man, he may have found comfort in the hymns of his upbringing.  This may have influenced his decision to set, twice each, the chorales "Herzlich tut ich verlangen nach einem sel'gen End" (I sincerely wish for a happy end) and "O Welt, ich muss dich lassen" (O world, I must leave you). Indeed, the second of the two "O Welt" settings contains the last notes the composer ever wrote.

But it is not one of the funeral hymns that we hear today, but the chorale "O Gott, du frommer Gott" (O God, Thou faithful God), a prayer of faith, hope, and healing.

O God, Thou faithful God,
Thou Fountain ever flowing,
Without whom nothing is,
All perfect gifts bestowing,
A pure and healthy frame
O give me, and within
A conscience free from blame,
A soul unhurt by sin.

At communion I am playing two piano arrangements of hymn-tunes by David Ashley White, a Houston composer who retired as the director for the Moores School of Music in 2014. He's arranged the hymn-tune MARTYRDOM (Alas, and did my Savior bleed or, as in the case of our 1982 Hymnal, As longs the deer for cooling streams) and his own tune, GARDEN DISTRICT, which he wrote in 2005 after the devastating Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

* We continue our singing of the top 15 (though it turned out to be 17) favorite hymns from our Summer Hymn survey. The astute (and faithful) congregant will notice that once again we are singing I am the bread of life. That's because we are in Year B of the lectionary, and "B" stands for Bread. We are hearing six weeks of bread readings during the last days of summer. As one of my friends on twitter says,

Jesus describes himself as the bread of life.  I've spent my life being afraid of carbs. Hmmm. There's a sermon in that....   Daniel D. Brereton, @RevDaniel on Twitter) 

Perhaps that explains my disdain for this hymn. (But let it be noted that I still schedule hymns that I don't like as well as the ones I do!)

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide (EVENTIDE) is today's featured hymn. According to an edition of the British Weekly, in the late summer of 1847, after preaching his final sermon, knowing his time on earth was drawing to a close, Henry Francis Lyte

walked in the valley garden in front of the home, then down to the rocks, where he sat and composed. It was a lovely sunny day and the sun was setting over distant Dartmoor in a blaze of glory. On the left lay Brixham harbor like a pool of molten gold, with its picturesque trawling vessels lying peacefully at anchor. After the sun had set, Lyte returned to his study. His family thought he was resting, but he was putting the finishing touches to his immortal hymn. (Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns, 171). 

Later that fall, Lyte passed away, but his hymn has indeed endured through the years as a beloved hymn of peace and prayer in the face of change. Theodore L. Cuyler once relayed a story in which a dying woman recited this hymn as she lay in bed during her last hours. He writes,

As I came away from that room, which had been as the vestibule of heaven, I understood how the ‘light of eventide’ could be only a flashing forth of the overwhelming glory that plays for ever around the throne of God (Sankey, My Life and Sacred Songs, 57). 

What a beautiful image when we see the light of day ebbing – this light is only a shadow of the light of life that shines forth from Christ.

William H. Monk wrote the tune EVENTIDE for Lyte's text in ten minutes. As the story goes, Monk was attending a hymnal committee meeting for the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern of which he was music editor. Realizing that this text had no tune, Monk sat down at the piano and composed EVENTIDE. The hymn was then published in that edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. The tune has always been associated with this text.