Music for the Triduum + April 18-20, 2019

April 18, 2019 + Maundy Thursday (7 PM)

Vocal Music

• Ave Verum – Stephanie Martin (b. 1965)
• Ubi Caritas – Ola Gjielo (b. 1978)

Instrumental Music

• Récit du chant de l'hymne precedent: Pange, lingua, gloriosi  Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703)
• Ubi Caritas et Amor – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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

• Hymn R116 - What shall I render to the Lord? (ROCKINGHAM)
• Hymn 576 - God is Love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (THE SERVANT SONG)
• Hymn R289 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi caritas (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 439 - What wondrous love is this (WONDROUS LOVE)
• Hymn 171 - Go to dark Gethsemane (PETRA)
• Hymn R170 - Stay here and keep watch with me (Jacques Berthier)
• Psalm 116:1, 10-17 Tone IIa 

April 19, 2019 + Good Friday (NOON)

Vocal Music

• Were You There? - Spiritual, Richard Murray, soloist

Instrumental Music

• Ah, Holy Jesus – arr. John A. Behnke (b. 1953)
• Come, Sweet Death – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of that marked LEVAS which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 158 - Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended (HERZLIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 441 - In the cross of Christ I glory (RATHBUN)         
• Hymn LEVAS - On a hill far away (OLD RUGGED CROSS)

April 20, 2019 + Easter Vigil (7 PM)

Vocal Music

• Now the Green Blade Riseth – Ken Heitshusen (c. 1950)
• Psalm 122: I Was Glad – Peter Hallock (1924-2014)

Instrumental Music

• O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing – Denis Bédard (b. 1950)
• Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked LEVAS which are from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn  - Within Our Darkest Night (Taize), 
• Hymn LEVAS - He’s Got the Whole World In his Hands (Whole World)
• Hymn LEVAS - Wade in the Water (Spiritual)
• Hymn 296 - We know that Christ is raised and dies no more (ENGLEBERG)
• Hymn 187 - Through the Red Sea brought at last (STRAF MICH NICHT)
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (SALZBURG)
• Hymn 199 - Come, ye faithful, raise the strain (ST. KEVIN)

Three holy days enfold us now
in washing feet and breaking bread,
in cross and font and life renewed:
in Christ, God’s firstborn from the dead. (1)

From early times Christians have observed the week before Easter as a time of special devotion. As an early Christian pilgrim, Egeria, recorded in the late fourth century, Jerusalem contained many sacred places that were sites for devotion and liturgy. Numerous pilgrims to the holy city followed the path of Jesus in his last days. They formed processions, worshipped where Christ suffered and died, and venerated relics. From this beginning evolved the rites we observe today on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. 

The three holy days, or Triduum, of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday are at the heart of the Holy Week observance. We observe these days with three special services, which, in turn, call for seasonal music. (2)

The choir, cantors, and organist provide much of what supplements the hymns that the congregation sings. Of particular interest this year are the anthems to be sung at the Maundy Thursday service, the Handbell music at the Good Friday Service and Richard Murray's annual singing of "Were You There," and the spirituals that will accompany the readings on Saturday at the Vigil.

In mid-April, 2011, the Norwegian composer Ola Gielo spent 3 days on the Central Washington University Campus for a project in which he joined the choir in recording 3 of his compositions. Gjeilo would add an improvised accompaniment  to his a capella choral music. One particular improvisation, his setting of the Ubi Caritas text, garnered so much attention on YouTube  that he figured it would made sense to publish a score that was as close to the original performance as he could notate. We will be singing that collaboration during communion on Maundy Thursday.

(1) Three holy days enfold us now, Words by Delores Dufner, OSB (b. 1939) © 1995, Sisters of St. Benedict.

(2) from https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/holy-week, accessed April 17, 2019

Music for April 8, 2019 + The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Let Nothing Ever Grieve Thee – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• Ave Verum – Stephanie Martin (b. 1965)

Instrumental Music

• Herzlich tut mich verlangen, BWV 727 – Johann Sebastian Bach
• O Welt, ich muß dich lassen – Johannes Brahms, Op. 122, #10

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

• Hymn 398 - I sing the almighty power of God (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM)
• Hymn 678 - Surely it is God who saves me (THOMAS MERTON)
• Hymn 479 - Glory be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
• Hymn 344 - Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn 610 - Lord, whose love through humble service (BLAENHAFREN)
• Psalm 126  - Tone IIa

Today the choir sings two lovely works which fit the solemn Lenten season.

First is Johannes Brahms' lovely anthem, Geistliches Lied (Sacred Song), often called by the first line of the text by Paul Flemming, "Lass dich nur nichts nicht dauren," or "Let nothing ever grieve thee." It was one of Brahms' earlier works, written when he was only 23 years old. What began as an exercise became one of his most loved shorter choral works.

What is fascinating to me about this work is the marriage of a hopeful Christian message with Brahms' masterful handling of the compositional technique known as the canon. A canon is a melody with one or more imitations of that melody played after a given duration (e.g., quarter rest, one measure, etc.). "Row, row, row your boat is a simple canon (or 'round.')  Here though we have not one melody but two different melodies, sung not in the same key, but in two different keys at the same time. with the tenor part imitating the soprano part four beats later at the unusual interval of a ninth, and then the bass doing the same with the alto using a different melody that fits in with the first. The imaginative organ interludes also incorporate quasi-canons at the ninth.  While accompanying the voices, the organ moves to a secondary role, but becomes active in the middle section.  All of the compositional complexities somehow come together in a piece of exceptional beauty, most notably in the final “Amen,” where the basses lead the altos instead of following them.

The other anthem is a new setting of the ancient communion hymn Ave Verum Corpus (Hail, true body) by the Canadian composer Stephanie Martin. We have sung settings of this same text by Mozart, Elgar, and Saint-Saens, so we are happy to have this acapella setting by Martin.

Stephanie Martin

She is one of the leaders in vocal music in Canada today, and deserves a bigger place internationally. At present she is associate professor of music at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design; director of Schola Magdalena (a women’s ensemble for chant, medieval and modern polyphony,) conductor emeritus of Pax Christi Chorale; and past director of music at the historic church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto.

In addition to many shorter works for choir, she has written a Requiem for All Souls, which premiered in San Diego in November, 2017 and Missa Chicagoensis for St. John Cantius parish in Chicago, in June 2017. Her choral symphony Babel premièred at Wilfrid Laurier University in April 2016, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the WLU Faculty of Music. Martin’s current project with librettist Paul Ciufo is Llandovery Castle, an opera about the Canadian hospital ship torpedoed in the Atlantic in June 1918.