Music for October 4, 2015 + The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• For the Beauty of the Earth – John Rutter (b. 1945)
• O Kind Jesus - Robert Hunter, arr. (1929-2001)

Instrumental Music

• Air - Gerre Hancock (1934-2012)
• Jesus Loves Me- Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Now Thank We All Our God - Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

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 480 - When Jesus left his Father’s throne (KINGSFOLD)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus, stanzas 1-3 (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn - Jesus loves me, this I know (JESUS LOVES ME)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT)

Of the two choral offerings this Sunday, John Rutter's For the Beauty of the Earth is by far the best known. It's joyous text and infectious melody have made it a favorite among choirs throughout the world since it was first published in 1980, after he wrote it for The Texas Choral Director's Association. It incorporates several of Rutter's distinctive musical trademarks: an interesting, singable melody, several changes in key, and syncopated rhythms used in conjunction with smooth, straight legato lines. The accompaniment, which I will be playing on the piano, stands alone, supporting but not doubling what the choral parts do.


The other anthem, based on a simple Latvian folk tune, is arranged by Ralph Hunter. A choral conductor, educator, and arranger, Hunter was born in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1921. He began his musical career as a church organist at Newark, New Jersey’s First Reformed Church. He served in the Army during World War II and then attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1955, he became the conductor of New York’s Collegiate Chorale, the second conductor after founder Robert Shaw, and held that position until 1959. In the late 1950s, he was an arranger for Harry Belafonte, conducted the Radio City Music Hall Chorus, and formed his own group, the Ralph Hunter Choir, with whom he recorded five albums. In the 1960’s, he conducted a variety of groups, including a campaign chorus for Richard Nixon, called Voices for Nixon, as well as a chorus that performed on NBC television under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. From 1969-1987, he was a music professor at New York’s Hunter College, where he taught choral literature, conducting, and arranging. He conducted and arranged a wide variety of choral music, including the temperance songs we sing today. He is known for his arrangements and conducting of classical choral works by such early music composers as Thomas Tallis and Nicholas Porpora.

Sunday's Gospel lessons is about Jesus and divorce and and Jesus and the children. I've decided to focus on Jesus and the children. That's why we are singing these two anthems and today's hymns, especially Jesus Loves Me. Preceding the singing of Jesus Loves Me (in a rocking 6/8 setting by Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer as found in Lift Every Voice and Sing II, An African American Hymnal for the Episcopal Church), I will play an very improvisatory piano piece by Charles Callahan which quotes snippets of the tune while never playing the melody outright. \

Just this past week I watched an episode of "Call the Midwife" on Netflix (watch it, if you haven't yet!) where one of the characters dies tragically. His girlfriend laments that she cannot see God in this tragedy, and the head nun responds that God is not in the tragedy, God is in the response. That could be said about Martin Rinkart, the writer of our closing hymn.

Rinkart was a minister in the city of Eilenburg during the Thirty Years War. Apart from battles, lives were lost in great number during this time due to illnesses and disease spreading quickly throughout impoverished cities. In the Epidemic of 1637, Rinkart officiated at over four thousand funerals, sometimes fifty per day. In the midst of these horrors, it’s difficult to imagine maintaining faith and praising God, and yet, that’s exactly what Rinkart did. Sometime in the next twenty years, he wrote the hymn, Now Thank We All Our God, originally meant to be a prayer said before meals. Rinkart could recognize that our God is faithful, and even when the world looks bleak, He is “bounteous” and is full of blessings, if only we look for them. Blessings as seemingly small as a dinner meal, or as large as the end of a brutal war and unnecessary bloodshed are all reasons to lift up our thanks to God, with our hearts, our hands, and our voices.

The closing voluntary is Sigfrid Karg-Elert's setting of that tune, but the melody is hidden even more than in the piano piece of Callahan's on Jesus Loves Me. I've put up a diagram showing how fragment of the opening line is used as a basis for the main theme of this organ masterpiece.

Music for September 27, 2015 + The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Treasures in Heaven – Joseph W. Clokey (1890-1960)
• O Food to Pilgrims Given – Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)

Instrumental Music

• Sonata IV: I Adagio/Vivace ,BWV 528– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Sonata IV: II. Andante, BWV 528 – J. S. Bach
• Fugue in G, BWV 577 – J. S. Bach 

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

• Hymn R49 Let the whole creation cry (LLANFAIR)
• Hymn 609 Where cross the crowded ways of life (GARDINER)
• Hymn 709 O God of Bethel, by whose hand (DUNDEE)
• Hymn R 248 O let the son of God enfold you (SPIRIT SONG)
• Hymn R 291 Go forth for God; go to the world in peace (TOULON)

Joseph Waddell Clokey

The choir's offertory anthem this Sunday is an old chestnut from the pen of Joseph W. Clokey, an American composer from the first half of the last century. Trained as a mathematician, he also took music and composition lessons, and in 1915 returned to his alma mater, Miami University, not as a member of the math faculty, but as a teacher of organ and music theory. After a tenure at Pomona College in California, Clokey returned to Florida in 1939 as chair of the Fine Arts Department.

Though he wrote symphonies, orchestral suites, operas, and chamber music, it is his sacred music for which he is largely remembered. Treasures in Heaven is probably his best known work, as its elegant simplicity makes it accessible to most church choirs. Like the rest of Clokey's music, it is not ground-breaking nor terribly creative, but it is solid musical writing that is satisfying for a choir to sing. The text isn't bad, either. (It's scripture.)

An interesting side note is that Clokey, a confirmed bachelor, adopted an orphan boy in 1933 who grew up to create the children's television show, The Adventures of Gumby.

J. S. Bach
Look at that posture, those abnormally
high wrists. He should have taken lessons
from a knowledgeable teacher.

I'm playing music by Bach (the Bach, Johann Sebastian, father of all the rest). I will unashamedly say that playing Bach's organ music is almost a spiritual exercise for me.  Learning the notes, working out the fingerings and the pedaling, making the inner voices connect and stand out is actually liberating for my mind, causing me to leave whatever make be troubling me behind and just concentrate on the music. Not only is Bach's music logical, but it is beautiful. That is particularly true for me when I work on his trio sonatas. The sonata of the Baroque period was an instrumental piece in several sections in contrapuntal style. The trio sonata was major chamber-music genre, written in three parts: two top parts played by violins or other high melody instruments, and a basso continuo part played by a cello. For the organist, one person can do all of that, with one hand playing on one keyboard, the other hand on another, and the bass line played on the pedals.

I'm playing the first two movements from Bach's fourth Trio Sonata for Organ. It's in the key of E minor. Listen for the individual parts imitating each other as the melodic material is tossed back and forth between the two hands. It's particularly easy to hear that in the second movement which I'll be playing at communion.

Since I've never learned the third (last) movement of Sonata IV, I'm going to play Bach's Fugue in G for the closing voluntary. Known as the Gigue Fugue for it's bouncy, triple meter, it is hard to sit still, whether listening or playing. There is some discussion by scholars about it's authenticity as an actual work by Bach, because there is no autograph copy, and only one or two originals floating around. My feeling is that only a genius such as Bach could write such a fun piece. I was watching a You-Tube video of a German Organist playing it, and I marveled at the activity that the hands and feet keep up during the performance. Then I thought, "I play this piece?" Perhaps I shouldn't think and just do.

J.S. Bach 'Gigue' Fugue G-Major BWV 577, Matthias Havinga, Organ

Music for September 27, 2015 + St. Michael and All Angels

Vocal Music

• Mass in the Lydian Mode - Richard Webster (b. 1952)
• Abide With Me - Richard Webster

Instrumental Music

• Improvisation on "St. Clement" - Gerre Hancock (1934-2012)
• Improvisation on “Picardy” –Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Hymn-Prelude on “Darwall’s 148th” - Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)

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 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (PADERBORN)
• Hymn 324 - Let all mortal flesh keep silence (PICARDY)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)

ON Sunday Afternoon, at 5 PM, Good Shepherd will celebrate the Feast of St. Michael with a choral eucharist. 

The Feast of Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year. As it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days; in England, it is one of the “quarter days”.

There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December)). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes. They were the four dates on which new servants were hired or land was exchanged and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for the beginning of university terms. We use this service to mark the beginning of service for a new class of acolytes at Good Shepherd and the rededication of 81 members of our Acolyte Guild.

St Michael is one of the principal angelic warriors, protector against the dark of the night and the Archangel who fought against Satan and his evil angels. As Michaelmas is the time that the darker nights and colder days begin - the edge into winter - the celebration of Michaelmas is associated with encouraging protection during these dark months. It was believed that negative forces were stronger in darkness and so families would require stronger defences during the later months of the year.

The music for this year's service is written by Richard Webster, Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston. His hymn arrangements for brass, percussion, organ and congregation are heard across the English-speaking world.

A native of Nashville, Mr. Webster studied organ with Peter Fyfe, Karel Paukert and Wolfgang Rübsam. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Great Britain, as Organ Scholar at Chichester Cathedral under the late John Birch.

Richard loves running, and has completed 26 marathons, including eleven Boston Marathons.

Music for September 20, 2015 + The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Cantique de Jean Racine – Gabriel  Fauré (1845-1924)
• Lord, I Trust Thee – George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

Instrumental Music

• Voluntary on “Engleberg”– Robert A Hobby (b. 1962)
• Violin Sonata in F major, HWV 370: I. Adagio – George Frederic Handel (trns. John M. Klein)
• Fanfare and Chorale on “Abbott’s Leigh” – Robert A. Hobby

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

• Hymn 379 God is Love, let heaven adore him (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 660 O Master, let me walk with thee (MARYTON)
• Hymn 390 Praise to the Lord (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 711 Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn 477 All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine (ENGELBERG)

Gabriel Faure,
when he was young.

Two staples of choral music are included in our worship this Sunday. The first is an anthem by the French composer Gabriel Fauré. Best known for his art songs, chamber music, orchestral music, and his Requiem, this choral work was one of his first compositions, written in his final year at the Ecole Niedermeyer in1865. (He was 19 years old!) It used a religious poem by the playwright Jean Racine as its text, and it immediately made him famous as a composer. Its harmonic language is as rich and satisfying as a gateau au chocolat, and as complex as a fine cabernet sauvignon.

Great. Now I am Hungry.

By comparison, the communion anthem, Handel's setting of the 4th stanza of the hymn Deck, Thyself, my Soul, With Gladness (Hymn 339 in our hymnal), is a straight-forward chorale with a more elaborate (but still very reserved) accompaniment. It is taken from Handel's full scale setting of a libretto by Barthold Heinrich Brockes, an influential German poet who wrote Der für die Sünde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus (The Story of Jesus, Suffering and Dying for the Sins of the World). It was Brockes re-working of the traditional form of a Passion oratorio, in whichhe added reflective and descriptive poetry. Brockes Passion was well admired among musicians, and Handel's setting, though the best known, was not the only one. Handel's setting featured soloists more than choir, and for the most part, the choral parts were simple settings of hymns such as this.

The closing hymn is F. Bland Tucker's metrical setting of one of the great biblical hymns, Philippians 2:5-11. This is one of the several New Testament creedal statements found throughout the Epistles.

Francis Bland Tucker (1895-1984), was the son of a bishop and brother of a Presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. He himself became a priest after studying at Virginia Theological Seminary. He served parishes in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Christ Church in Savannah, Ga., where the missionary John Wesley was a priest.

Having a keen interest in hymnody, Tucker served on the joint commission that produced the Protestant Episcopal Hymnal 1940 and was a language consultant to this hymnal’s successor, The Hymnal 1982.

It is set to the tune ENGELBERG which Charles V. Stanford  composed as a setting for William W. How's "For All the Saints". The tune was published in the 1904 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern with no less than six different musical settings. It is clearly a fine congregational hymn with an attractive, energetic melody with many ascending motives, designed for unison singing with no pauses between stanzas. 

Music for September 13, 2015 + The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• You Are the Christ, O Lord – Richard Wayne Dirksen (1921-2003)
• Lord, for thy Tender Mercy’s Sake – John Hilton (1565-1708?)

Instrumental Music

• Suite du Premier Ton – Louis-Nicolas Clerambault (1676-1749)
• Basse et Dessus de Trompette on de Cornet séparé, en dialogue
• Récits de Cromorne et de Cornet séparé, en dialogue 
• Sortie – Noel Rawsthorne (b. 1929)

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

• Hymn 427 When morning gilds the skies (LAUDES DOMINI)
• Hymn 675 Take up your cross, the Savior said (BOURBON)
• Hymn 707 Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn R 232 There is a Redeemer (GREEN)
• Hymn 522 Glorious things of thee are spoken (AUSTRIA)

Richard Wayne Dirksen at
Washington National Cathedral.

Sunday's offertory is a hymn straight out of our hymnal (hymn 254), but one that is practically unknown by the congregation. I chose it because the text amplifies the opening of the Gospel this Sunday, which is the account of Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. William H. How, the same person who wrote "For all the saints, who from their labors rest," wrote this hymn to commemorate the Confession of St. Peter (January 18). The tune used for the text is by Richard Wayne Dirksen, who was for many years the Organist and Choir Master of Washington National Cathedral. He wrote it in 1982 for use in our hymnal. It's a canon, much like "Row, row, row your boat," in that it can be sung in a round. In fact, we will do that when we repeat the first stanza at the end of the anthem. Dirksen named the tune WYNGATE CANON to honor his son's family, who lived on Wyngate Street in Bethesda, Maryland.

The communion motet is a choir favorite, Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy's Sake. It's a jewel from the English Renaissance period of choral music. Once attributed to Richard Farrant, it now is thought to be by the elder John Hilton. Check out this previous post of mine to read more about this anthem and the mystery of it's composer.

Looking at my organ music, I realize all the titles are in French! (And it's not even close to Bastille Day!) So let me do a little translating to help you understand these strange (to most) words. Louis-Nicolas Clerambault was a French musician, best known as an organist and composer. He made his living and gained fame in France much in the same way and at the time as J. S. Bach in Germany (though without the enduring popularity.) He worked as both a court and church musician, composing a large number of religious motets and hymns, more than 25 secular cantatas, sonatas for violin and basso continuo, a book of dance pieces for the harpsichord, and two suites for organ. It is the first suite that I use for my opening and communion voluntaries. It was the custom at the time for the title to describe the compositional form of the piece. Hence, the opening voluntary (Basse et Dessus de Trompette on de Cornet séparé, en dialogue) is a work featuring the Bass and Soprano of the Trumpet stop and the Cornet stop, separately, in dialogue. A Cornet (pronounced kor-neh) is a compound organ stop, containing multiple ranks of pipes which create a bright tone suggesting the Renaissance brass instrument, the cornett. The quieter communion voluntary (Récits de Cromorne et de Cornet séparé, en dialogue) would be a solo by the Krummhorn (sort of an early oboe) and the Cornet in dialogue with each other. It's been said that melodic charm wins out over religious spirit in Clérambault's organ music.

Music for September 6, 2015 + The Fifthteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• O Christ, the Healer, We have Come – Richard Gieseke (b 1952)

Instrumental Music

• To God All Praise and Glory - John M. Rasley (1913-1998) (Tune "Mit Freuden Zart")
• The Desert Shall Rejoice - Lani Smith (1934-2015)
• To God Be the Glory - William H. Doane

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

• Hymn 493 O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
• Hymn 602 Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 610 Lord, whose love through humble service (BLAENHAFREN)
• Hymn 325 Let us break bread together (LET US BREAK BREAD)

This Sunday we hear the Gospel passage that tells the story of two healings. First, Jesus casts a demon out of the daughter of a Gentile woman, then he causes a deaf and dumb man to hear and speak. In response to that reading, the choir will sing a setting of Fred Pratt Green's hymn, O Christ, the healer, we have come.

O Christ, the healer, we have come

to pray for health, to plead for friends.

How can we fail to be restored,

when reached by love that never ends?

From every ailment flesh endures

our bodies clamor to be freed;

yet in our hearts we would confess

that wholeness is our deepest need.

In conflicts that destroy our health,

we diagnose the world's disease;

our common life declares our ills:

is there no cure, O Christ, for these?

Grant that we all, made one in faith,

in your community may find

the wholeness that, enriching us,

shall reach the whole of humankind.

The subject of health and healing is one that has changed over the last century. Earlier hymns, more holistic in approach, were reticent to mention mental health. Fred Pratt Green (1903-2000), a British Methodist minister and poet, produced a new hymn on the topic which the Rev. Carlton R. Young, editor of the United Methodist Hymnal, calls a “prayer for wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.”

Stanza one asks the question, “How can we fail to be restored / when reached by love that never ends?” Restoration should not be confused with physical healing. For the Christian, restoration may not take place in this life.

Stanza two places the emphasis upon “wholeness” rather than “every ailment flesh endures.” According to a member of the committee, stanza three suggests a Freudian awareness of the unconscious: “Release in us those healing truths / unconscious pride resists or shelves.”

Stanza three places our individual ailments in the broader context of the “world’s disease . . . [of] our common life.” The stanza ends with the rhetorical question: “Is there no cure, O Christ, for [our ills]?”

The hymn concludes with a petition that we should all be “made one in faith.” True healing and wholeness happens ultimately communally—in the restoration of “the whole of humankind.”

(from History of Hymns: “O Christ, the Healer” by C. Michael Hawn.  http://www.umcdiscipleship.org)

As I will be out of town this weekend, I am delighted to have Jill Kirkonis play the organ in my stead. She has recently retired from playing at The First Baptist Church in Porter, Texas, and has joined her husband Dennis in the congregation of Good Shepherd. She was confirmed by Bishop Doyle this past June, and is graciously playing for us this Sunday. 

Our opening hymn was chosen to support the Gospel Reading today. “If I had a thousand tongues, I would praise Christ with them all.” So said Peter Böhler to Charles Wesley, inspiring the first line of the classic hymn, “Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer’s praise” 

Written to celebrate the one year anniversary of Charles’ conversion to Christianity, this declaration of Christ’s power and victory in his own life, rich in Biblical imagery of the Kingdom of God, becomes our own hymn of praise. We stand with the angels before the throne of God, lifting our voices as one church to glorify the one who “bids our sorrows cease.”

And yet, we also sing in the knowledge that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully realized. We proclaim Christ’s victory as a declaration of hope that we will see Christ reign over all. We stand with the voiceless, the lame, the prisoner, and the sorrowing, and lift our song of expectation.

Music for August 30, 2015 + The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost + RALLY DAY

Vocal Music

• The Tree of Life – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Call to the Faithful – Rex Koury (1911-2006)
• Epithalame (Sortie) – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

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

• Hymn 473 Lift high the cross (CRUCIFER)
• Hymn 490 I want to walk as a child of the light (HOUSTON)
• Hymn 149 I, the Lord of Sea and Sky (HERE I AM, LORD)
• Hymn 306 We are marching in the light of the Lord (SIYAHAMBA)

A beautiful poem by the 17th century Slovakian pastor Pécselyi Király Imre, "Paradiczomnak te szép elö fája" (“You beautiful living tree of Paradise”) was translated by the English priest and hymnist Eric Routley for the ecumenical hymnal Cantata Domino in 1974. He paired it with Hungarian tune, then a decade later, chose another tune for publication in another hymnal, but the hymn did not gain traction in the worldwide church until it was set to a tune by Alabama composer K. Lee Scott, who was commissioned by the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama to write a hymn for their 1995 Year of Evangelism. He named the tune SHADES MOUNTAIN, after the mountain on which he lived near Montgomery, Alabama. (Shades Mountain is right at  the bottom of the Appalachian chain.)

Once this tune and text were paired, it has become a favorite anthem for choirs of all denominations, and has appeared in at least eleven hymnals (but none of them Anglican!)

Here is the text:

 There in God’s garden stands the Tree of Wisdom,

whose leaves hold forth the healing of the nations:

Tree of all knowledge,Tree of all compassion,

Tree of all beauty.

Its name is Jesus, name that says, “Our Savior!”

There on its branches see the scars of suffering;

see where the tendrils of our human selfhood

feed on its lifeblood.

Thorns not its own are tangled in its foliage;

our greed has starved it, our despite has choked it.

Yet, look! It lives! Its grief has not destroyed it

nor fire consumed it. 

See how its branches reach to us in welcome;

hear what the Voice says, “Come to me, ye weary!

Give me your sickness, give me all your sorrow;

I will give blessing.”

This is my ending, this my resurrection:

into your hands, Lord, I commit my spirit.

This have I searched for; now I can possess it.

This ground is holy.

All heaven is singing, “Thanks to Christ whose Passion

offers in mercy healing, strength, and pardon.

Peoples and nations, take it, take it freely!”

Amen! Our Savior!

It is not unusual for English church organists to leave the Land of Hope and Glory and move to the Land of the Free and the Home of the brave. The current choirmaster at Washington National Cathedral, Michael McCarthy moved to the states from London Oratory School, St. Thomas Church in New York City turned to St. Paul's Cathedral, London, when they called John Scott, who died this month way too soon. In Houston, we have Giles Brightwell at St. Thomas Church in Meyerland. This same migratory pattern is true for the two men who composed the voluntaries this week, though one ended up in Canada and the other in Hollywood.

Healey Willan was born in England, and he began musical training at age eight, with studies at St. Saviour's Choir School in Eastbourne. In 1913 Willan emigrated to Canada where he ended up at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Toronto. He is often quoted as saying, "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption." His organ music is very typical of English organ music of the early 20th century, with a soaring melodic line over thick, rich harmonies.

And just who is Epithalame Sortie? It's not a who, it's a what. It was originally (among the Greeks) a song in praise of bride and bridegroom, sung by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber. (That would slow down, if not halt, some wedding night bliss). Here the title is used with the word sortie (French for exit), denoting its use as a wedding recessional. 

Rex Koury in his retirement

The other organist is not nearly as well known in church music as Willan, but his music has been heard by literally millions. Rex Koury was born in London, but his family moved to America when he was but one year old. At age 14, he began to accompany silent movies, but when sound was introduced, he decided, at 17, to leave for Hollywood and try his hand at the movies. He never made it in motion pictures, but found his calling in the new medium of radio. He became staff organist for  NBC Hollywood and wrote free-lance compositions for CBS Radio. He was later appointed music director for ABC Hollywood. His best known work was in the music he wrote and directed for the CBS radio and tv show, Gunsmoke. He wrote the theme song, The Long Trail, in 1952.

When he retired in the 1970s, he began playing in churches, and wrote music for those services, which ultimately got published. In today's opening voluntary, you can here the trumpet rallying call to Christians to follow Christ. You can imagine that this tune could have easily been used as a theme song on a radio program in the 30s and 40s. 

We close our month of favorite hymns with the top favorite hymn, Lift High the Cross. Christ's death on a torturous cross was a horror beyond compare. But it wasn't the end of his story: The gruesome cross experience opened the way to Jesus' glorious victory over sin and death. Those two ugly realities have plagued the human race since the Fall in Eden. But today, the outcome of that battle is sure: Christ conquered sin and death on the cross.

Jesus' stunning sacrifice requires a response. And that's exactly what Lift High the Cross provides. With a triumphant melody, the hymn calls Christians to bring the story of the cross to the entire world. We are to "lift high the cross" for the world to see, so that they might come and adore Christ the victorious King. (from songsandhymns.org)

It's a great hymn for Rally Day!