Music for May 5, 2019 + The Third Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Thy Perfect Love – John Rutter (b. 1945)

Instrumental Music

• Inception – Jason W. Krug (b. 1978)
• Joyance – Ron Mallory (b. 1973)
• Processional – William Mathias (1934-1992)

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

• Hymn 182 - Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO)
• Hymn 374 - Come, let us join our cheerful songs (NUN DANKET ALL UND BRINGET EHR)
• Hymn 307 - Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA)
• Hymn R202 - Lift up your hearts unto the Lord (SING ALLELUIA)
• Hymn R232 - There is a Redeemer (GREEN)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (PADERBORN)
• Psalm 30 - Simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome W. Meachen

This Sunday we will hear the Good Shepherd Handbell Guild play two selections in our 10:15 service, which brings their 2018-2019 season to a close. To say that I appreciate the talent and hard work these women bring to rehearsal each week would be a gross understatement, as I know personally the sacrifice and the commitment they show week in and week out. In a time where it is getting harder and harder to get people to commit to anything, these folks are always here. Not counting the time the spend on their own preparing their part, we figure more than 411 hours have been spent this year rehearsing and preparing the music that you hear at Church and the Live Nativity. Our members range from teenagers to women in their 60s. So take a minute this Sunday to say thanks to those who play our bells.

Jason Krug

The Handbells will begin the service with Jason Krug's exciting original work Inception. This up-tempo piece has a repeating rhythmic accompaniment played on the bells with mallets, supporting the spacious, soaring melody in the higher bells. Later, the upper bells take up that same motif while the lower bells carry the melody. Because of its intricate rhythms and bell changes, we are only using three of our five octaves.

Krug is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana.  He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000 with a degree in Music.  He is currently a freelance composer, arranger, clinician, and teacher. 

Krug's handbell career began in 2001 when he began ringing with and arranging music for the Wagner Memorial Bell Choir at Irvington United Methodist Church, and in 2005, he took over as the choir's director.  Since his first publication in 2006, he's had over 300 handbell compositions released, with more on the way.  His pieces have been featured at numerous local, state, and regional festivals and workshops, both in the United States and abroad, and he has been guest clinician at handbell events from coast to coast. 

Ron Mallory

The offertory, Joyance, is a winner of the Handbell Musicians of America Area 2 Festival Conference Composition Contest. Using all five octaves of bells and our 3 octaves of handchimes, this catchy and rhythmic original piece is a festive offertory for this Easter season. It is written by Ron Mallory, a church musician at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Bellevue, Washington.

Mallory has a master's degree in choral conducting from the University of Washington and a bachelor's degree in music composition from California State University, Long Beach. He has been playing, directing, and composing for handbells since his college days. He has published more than 100 handbell pieces and has won composition contests sponsored by Bells of the Sound and Handbell Musicians of America.

Music for November 5, 2017 + All Saints Sunday

Vocal Music

• I Heard a Voice from Heaven – John Goss (1800-1880)

Instrumental Music

• Fanfare Flourish – Ron Mallory (B. 1973)
• Chant de Paix – Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
• Placare Christe Servulis (O Christ Forgive Thy Servants) – Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)

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

• Hymn 287 - For all the saints, who from their labor rest (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 526 - Let saints on earth in concert sing (DUNDEE)
• Hymn 618 - Ye watchers and ye holy ones (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn R127 - Blest are they, the poor in spirit (BLEST ARE THEY)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)
• Hymn - Taste and See (James Moore) Paraphrase of Psalm 34:1-4, 8

The choral music of the English composer Sir John Goss is among the core works of Anglican choirs’ repertoire; our choir often sing his works and we sing his best known hymn tune, LAUDA ANIMA with the text, “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven” (#410). Goss is best remembered for his vocal music and is one of the last English composers who devoted their work almost entirely to writing church music.

Sir John Goss, by unknown artist, circa 1835.

Born in Fareham, Hampshire, England, Goss was a descendant of a long line of English musicians. Several in his family were excellent singers, and his father was the organist of the parish church in Fareham. Goss was educated in London, sang as a chorister for the Chapel Royal, and studied organ with Thomas Attwood, organist of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Goss was appointed to several prestigious organist positions in London including Stockwell Chapel in South London, St. Luke’s Church in Chelsea, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, succeeding his former teacher there in 1838. While at St Paul’s, Goss had little influence over the music of the cathedral, and he struggled to improve musical standards there.

Goss was also an active teacher, serving as a professor at the Royal Academy of Music where he taught harmony from 1827 to 1874, and taught at St. Paul’s. His instructional book written in1833, An Introduction to Harmony and Thorough-Bass, was a standard music text of the era.

Goss was remembered by his students for his pious, religious life, patience and gentleness of character. Following years of poor health during the 1870s, Goss died in his home in Brixton. He is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Goss was knighted by Queen Victoria when he retired from St. Paul’s in 1872. In 1876, he received an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Cambridge. Numerous posthumous memorials honoring Goss were erected in London and Fareham.

The closing voluntary is a wonderful work by Marcel Dupré on the chant Placare Christe Servulis which is traditionally sung at Vespers on the Feast of All Saints in the Roman Breviary. It is the last piece in Dupré's organ collection, Tombeau de Titelouze (16 Chorals sur des Hymnes liturgiques), Op 38. During an Organ Week held in Rouen in 1942, the Abbé Robert Delestre, Maître de Chapelle of Rouen Cathedral showed Dupré the unmarked grave of Jean Titelouze, the founding father of French organ music. It immediately inspired Dupré to compose this volume which he inscribed to the Abbé. Placare Christe servulis treats the hymn melody in the form of a toccata (D major, 12/8) for All Saints Day.