Music for Easter + March 27, 2016

Vocal Music

• Now Glad of Heart - K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)
• This Joyful Eastertide – Alice Parker (b. 1925)
• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Instrumental Music

• A Prelude for Easter – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands – Georg Böhm (1661-1733)
• Symphony V: Toccata – Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)

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

• Hymn 207 - Jesus Christ is risen today (Easter Hymn)
• Hymn 417 - This is the feast of victory (Festival Canticle)
• Hymn 210 - The day of resurrection! (Ellacombe)
• Hymn 174 - At the Lamb’s high feast we sing (Salzburg)
• Hymns R29 - He is Lord, he is Lord (He Is Lord)
• Hymn 179 - “Welcome, happy morning!” (Fortunatus)

Three different styles of anthems encompass the varied emotions we experience at Easter. The anthem by K. Lee. Scott, Now Glad of Heart, is the typical barn-burner, a bright, rhythmic anthem employing full organ, starting with repeated Alleluias that are reminiscent of the Mission: Impossible theme,  a rollicking melody (which always reminded me of riding in a speed boat over a bounding main), a big choral fanfare in the middle, and more alleluias, this time tumbling down from Soprano to Bass like a cascading water fall.

The first communion motet is a short setting of the Dutch Easter Carol, VERUCHTEN, which was originally a seventeenth-century love song "De liefde Voortgebracht." It became a hymn tune in 1685 as a setting for "Hoe groot de vruchten zijn." The tune is distinguished by the melismas that mark the end of stanza lines and by the rising sequences in the refrain, which provide a fitting word painting for "arisen." 

Alice Parker arranged this in the early 1950s for Robert Shaw's choral group which was making a series of commercially successful recordings of hymns, carols and folk songs. She only set the first stanza. I was tempted to have us repeat this setting, singing the second stanza:

My flesh in hope shall rest,
And for a season slumber;
Till trump from east to west,
Shall wake the dead in number.

Can you guess why I was tempted to include it? God has a sense of humor, but I decided to go against my inclinations.*

The final anthem is J. S. Bach's setting of the Lutheran chorale, Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands. It is an adaptation of a medieval chant Victimae Paschali laudes arranged in 1524 as a four-part chorale by Johann Walther for the hymn text by Martin Luther. One of the earliest and best-known Lutheran chorales, CHRIST LAG IN TODESBANDEN is a magnificent tune in rounded bar form (AABA).Bach incorporated it extensively in his cantatas 4 and 158. It is the closing movement of Cantata 4 that we sing this morning.

Many organ compositions are based on this tune; I am playing a highly ornamented setting by Georg Böhm, a German Baroque organist and composer who is known for his development of the chorale partita (variation) and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach. 

The opening voluntary is a beautiful improvisatory organ work by former Dallas composer Gerald Near. Starting out quietly, Near incorporates the  the ancient chant Haec dies, the Gradual for Easter day, with those beloved words so familiar to us: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! (Psalm 118: 24).  As the piece builds in tempo and volume, another Easter chant, O filii et filiae, appears, first in just subtle hints, then triumphantly in the form we recognize from the hymnal (it's hymn 203; we'll sing its cousin, hymn 206, next Sunday for the Second Sunday of Easter.)

*One hymnal has translated this verse to 

My being shall rejoice, 

secure within God’s keeping,

until the trumpet voice 

shall wake us from our sleeping

Music for Maundy Thursday + March 24, 2016

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), arr. David Blackwell (b.1961)
• Ave Verum Corpus – Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
• Communion Song – Barry McGuire (b. 1935), arr. Mac Jones

Instrumental Music

• Wondrous Love (Variations on a Shaped-note Hymn) – Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
• Now, My Tongue, the Mystery Telling – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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

• Hymn 480 - When Jesus left his Father’s throne (Kingsfold)
• Hymn 602 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (Chereponi)
• Hymn R226 - Ubi Caritas et amor (Ubi Caritas)
• Hymn R148 - Brother, let me be your servant (The Servant Song)
• Hymn 439 - What wondrous love is this (Wondrous Love)
• Hymn 171 - God to dark Gethsemane (Petra)

Music for March 20, 2016 + Palm Sunday

Vocal Music

• Hosanna – Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1953)
• The Holy City – Stephen Adams (Michael Maybrick) (1841 – 1913)
• He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word – William M. Schoenfeld (b. 1949)
• O Savior of the World – John Goss (1800-1880)

Instrumental Music

• O Sacred Head, Now Wounded – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)

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

• Hymn 154 All glory, laud, and honor (Valet will ich dir geben)
• Hymn 458 My song is love unknown (Love Unknown)
• Hymn R235 O sacred head, now wounded (Herzlich tut mich verlangen)
• Hymn R227 Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 474 When I survey the wondrous cross (Rockingham)

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, (The Vatican)
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

This Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, and it encapsulates all the events from Christ's triumphal entry in Jerusalem to his death on the cross. It's an arduous journey which is made more real for us with the use of the art forms which we have available to us. In the past, that meant music, but this year we are fortunate to have the lovely paints of the stations of the cross that Jessica Dupree created last year, and liturgical dance provided by our dance troupe. 

One of the pieces we are singing is a beautiful arrangement for choir, piano, and cello on the Spiritual, "He Never Said a Mumbalin' Word." Alex Philips, a junior at Kingwood High is playing the cello, and Melissa Vann will be playing the piano. It is stunning in its simplicity.

The other piece is what we refer to as a chestnut, a musical piece that has been repeated to the point of staleness. The Holy City was sung every Palm Sunday for years at my home church in Tiptonville, Tennesse, by Mr. Hugh Whitford. It's a song that, much like the service on Palm Sunday, includes not only the triumphal entry but the crucifixion. The third stanza, however, goes on to detail the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. This will literally be heaven on earth. It is referred to in the Bible in several places (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:10; 12:22–24; and 13:14), but it is most fully described in Revelation 21. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate fulfillment of all God’s promises.

Michael Maybrick
(Stephen Adams)

The song was written by Michael Maybrick, an English musician, best known today under his pseudonym Stephen Adams as the composer of The Holy City. He studied keyboard and harmony in Germany, but later decided to train as a baritone  in Milan. After gaining experience in Italian theaters, he appeared with great success at all the leading concert venues in London and the provinces, as well as in English opera. He even toured America to great success. The Holy City was his biggest hit. He sang it in concert much like Michael Crawford sang On Eagle's Wings when he concertized.

Now, here comes the fun part of today's story. Maybrick was a keen amateur sportsman, being a cricketer, a yachtsman and a cyclist, and a Captain in the Artists Rifles. His friends spoke of his charming personality, but others thought him arrogant and vain. In 1893 he married his forty-year-old housekeeper, Laura Withers, and retired with her on the Isle of Wight. They were joined there by the two children of his brother, James Maybrick, later a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case, and whose wife Florence was convicted of his murder in 1889. (A re-examination of her case resulted in her release in 1904.) He died in 1913.

In October of 2015, screen writer Bruce Robinson published a huge tome called They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper. It was a culmination of 15 years of research in the study of the Jack the Ripper case. Based on his research (which some experts dispute), he points the accusing finger at Michael Maybrick (not his brother James) as detailed in this report.

Music for March 13 + The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Drop, Drop, Slow Tears – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), arr. David Blackwell (b.1961)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, Lead Thou On – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• Rockingham – Robert Buckley Farlee 

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 R122 - Surely it is God who saves me (First Song of Isaiah)
• Hymn 474 - When I survey the wondrous cross (Rockingham)
• Hymn R149 - I, the Lord, of sea and sky (Here I Am, Lord)
• Hymn 610 - Lord, whose love through humble service (Blaenhafren)
• Psalm 126 - In convertendo

Upon first glance, one might think today's anthem is straight out of the  Elizabethan age, but not entirely. The tune was composed by the eminent English organist and composer, Orlando Gibbons, considered to be one of the last great figures of the Tudor school. The text is by Phineas Fletcher, the English poet best known for his religious and scientific poem The Purple Island; or, The Isle of Man (1633). But the text and tune were not joined together until 1906 for the English Hymnal under the editorship of Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Phineas Fletcher

Orlando Gibbons

It's hard to imagine that the two weren't meant to be together. (Text and tune, not Dearmer and Vaughan Williams, though that could be argued, I suppose.) But this short, eight-bar hymn tune first appeared as part of a Christmas Hymn, As on that Night.

In this arrangement of the melody, English musician David Blackwell has the choir sing unaccompanied. In stanza two, the melody moves from part to part, first heard in the alto line, then the soprano, then briefly in the tenor, before ending up somewhere in the alto voice. Good luck finding it. All is well again on the final stanza when the sopranos reclaim their rightful part.

If Martin Luther called music one of the most delightful gifts God has given us, then Robert Buckley Farlee is really blessed. He is both an ordained Lutheran Pastor and a practicing church musician. He is the Cantor (music director) at Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis and senior editor for worship and music at Augsburg Fortress Press. He is also married to a Lutheran minister. That's a lot of church, and church music. He holds Master of Divinity and Master of Sacred Theology degrees from Christ Seminary-Seminex. He is a former president of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and a composer with hundreds of published works.

Music for March 6 + The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Thou Knowest, Lord, the Secrets of Our Hearts – Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Instrumental Music

• Solemn Melody – H. Walford Davies (1869-1941)
• Aria for Handbells - Dale Wood (1934-2002)

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)

I was shocked (shocked, I tell you) when I noticed that I have not scheduled any music of Henry Purcell in the two-plus years I've been writing these notes on this blog. Born in 1659, Purcell is generally considered to be one of the greatest English composers; no other native-born English composer approached his fame until the 20th century's Edward Elgar.

Henry Purcell

His father (also named Henry) was master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey. Though dad died when young Henry was but five, music had already taken hold of the young boy, and he became a chorister at the Chapel Royal. It’s said that he began composing at the age of 9, with his earliest known work an ode for King Charles’ birthday in 1670. He began studying with John Blow at the Chapel Royal, and by 20 had succeeded him as organist at Westminster Abbey. Legend has it that the elder musician stepped aside in recognition of the greater genius, and it is true that on Purcell's death in 1695 Blow returned to the post, and would write a noble Ode on the Death of Purcell. Purcell is buried next to the Westminster Abbey organ.

Purcell wrote secular and sacred music - odes for chorus and orchestra, cantatas, songs, catches, anthems, Services, chamber sonatas, keyboard works and incidental music for 49 plays. The largest part of his theatre music was composed during the last years of his life. It was during this period that he composed the chamber opera Dido and Aeneas, which is a very important landmark in the history of English dramatic music. 

The anthem today is taken from the Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, written by Purcell, for the funeral of Queen Mary II in 1695. She had died in December 1694, but her funeral was not until March 1695. Purcell composed a setting of the sixth of the seven sentences of the Anglican Burial Service (Thou Knowest Lord) for the occasion.  The anthem was performed at his own funeral in November of the same year.

And as to the pronuncation of his name: Nicholas McGegan, the famed conductor, sets us straight:

For some reason, people often mispronounce Purcell’s name. It’s “PUR-cell.” It should rhyme with “rehEARsal"

Not "Pure HELL"

Sir Henry Walford Davies

Another Henry who makes his first appearance in this blog (though not in our services) is Sir Henry Walford Davies, an English musician who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941. At various times in his 45-year career, Davies enjoyed wide recognition as a composer, teacher, organist, and lecturer and in the latter capacity, he became England's first popular radio personality on the subject of classical music. In 1926 the newly-formed British Broadcasting Corporation, in an effort to bring the very best in cultural information, began broadcasting his lectures on music on a program called Music and the Ordinary Listener, which lasted until the outbreak of war in 1939. and brought him great popularity with British radio audiences.

But as a composer he is represented only by a few short works including some church anthems, the World War I favorite R.A.F. March Past, and this morning's opening voluntary, Solemn Melody. It first appeared in 1908 in a version for organ with a version for cello and orchestra a year later. It is in a simple song form. The tune is rich, warm, and flowing, and avoids either a feeling of British pomp or a sense of religiosity.

Dale Wood

Finally I want to comment on the Aria for Handbells by Dale Wood. It is a lovely, quiet bell piece based on an old Finnish hymn by C. G. Liander called Via Delorosa. The text, like the melody, is perfect for Lent.

A way to Calvary leadeth from dark Gethsemane,
May every one behold him who weary walks that way.
The way doth lead to perfect bliss, but a way of pain it is

Music for February 28, 2016 + The Third Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

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

Instrumental Music

• Prelude in Classic Style – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• Aria (Op. 51) - Flor Peeters (1902-1986)
• My Shepherd Shall Supply My Need - Jessie S Irvine (1836 – 1887)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 143 - The glory of these forty days (Erhalt uns, Herr)
• Hymn 648 - When Israel was in Egypt’s land (Go Down, Moses)
• Hymn 142 - Lord, who throughout these forty days (St. Flavian)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of ages, cleft for me (Toplady)
• Hymn 344 - Lord dismiss us with thy blessing (Sicilian Mariners)

I'm out of town for the weekend, and in my absence, Jill Kirkonis will be playing the organ, and Mac Jones will direct the choir. The choir's anthem will be 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."

During communion you'll hear Aria by Belgian organist Flor Peeters. Peeters was one of the most renowned organists and composers for organ of the twentieth century. He attended the Lemmens Institute in Mechelen where he won the highest award, the Lemmens-Tinel Prize and at the age of twenty  was appointed a professor at the Institute. In addition, in 1923, he became assistant organist at the Cathedral of St. Rombout in Mechelen. In 1925, Peeters was appointed to succeed his former teacher at the Lemmens Institute as professor of organ.

He began to write what would become a large catalog of organ music and sacred choral works. He was particularly masterful in his use of the variation forms. Hi interest in Gregorian chant often influenced his slower music and sometimes forms the basis of longer compositions. In 1943, he completed his Practical Method for Accompanying Gregorian Chant.

Germany attacked and occupied both Belgium and the Netherlands in 1940. Peeters refused to perform for the German occupiers. As a result, his passport was confiscated. Nevertheless, he was permitted to travel regularly across the border between Belgium and the Netherlands in order to continue his teaching at Tilburg, and, in the course of doing this, he carried secret messages between the authorities of the cathedrals of these two countries.

Flor Peeters

The Aria dates from the War years; it originated in 1943 as the slow movement of a Sonata for trumpet and piano, and it is still a permanent fixture on exam syllabuses for aspiring young trumpeters. Peeters also arranged it for violin, for cello, and for solo organ, and it is in this form that we hear today. The expressive melody unfolds above an accompaniment of soft repeated chords—a technique that Peeters used to equally telling effect in the slow movement of the Organ Concerto. As in so much of his finest work, there is a simplicity and sincerity in this music that speaks directly to the heart.

Music for February 21, 2016 + The Second Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music-

• Lead Me, Lord – Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876)

Instrumental Music

• A piano prelude by Dominic Marchado
• O man, bemoan thy grievous sin, BWV 622 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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 147 - Now let us all with one accord (Bourbon)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus (In Babilone)
• Hymn R243 - You shall cross the barren desert (Be Not Afraid)
• Hymn 598 - Lord Christ, when first thou cam’st to earth (Mit Freuden zart)

This is one of those Sunday mornings which has been suddenly changed because of Wednesday night. Due to school, sickness, work, and family matters, I had almost half the choir absent at our weekly rehearsal. (You do realize, don't you, that your choir members spend at least four hours each week at church, either rehearsing or singing in services as part of their service to God?) We were scheduled to sing on of the movements from Antonín Dvořák's Mass in D, but since we missed last week's rehearsal due to Ash Wednesday, we were behind in our preparation. I called for a substitution mid-rehearsal, because I don't want my choir members to fret over something that can be changed. 

Samuel Sebastian Wesley
before he lost his hair.

SO: we are singing Lead Me, Lord, which is part of a longer anthem by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Praise the Lord, O My Soul, written in 1861. Wesley was the grandson of hymn-writer Charles Wesley, and the son of Samuel Wesley, another English musician, but it was Samuel Sebastian that became famous as one of his country's leading organists and choirmasters. He composed almost exclusively for the Church of England, writing some exquisite music, including the hymn-tune AURELIA (The Church's One Foundation). 

Since Samuel Sebastian Wesley was named after his father's favorite musician, Johann Sebastian Bach, it is only fitting that our music includes one of Bach's miniature masterpieces, his chorale-prelude on the choral, O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß (O man, bewail thy sins so great). It is a great hymn for the season of Lent. Read the first stanza, upon which our communion voluntary is based:

O mankind, mourn your great sins,

for which Christ left His Father's bosom

and came to earth;

from a virgin pure and tender

He was born here for us,

He wished to become our Intercessor,

He gave life to the dead

and laid aside all sickness

until the time approached

that He would be sacrificed for us,

bearing the heavy burden of our sins

indeed for a long time on the Cross.

It is a Lutheran Passion hymn with a text written by Sebald Heyden in 1530 on a melody, STRASBORG, around 1524. The author reflects the Passion, based on the Four Evangelists, originally in 23 stanzas. though most modern hymnals only include the first and last stanzas.

What makes this a favorite organ piece among Bach enthusiasts is his use of ornaments, or improvisatory decorations, on the original melody. In fact, the original melody is only clearly laid out in two places: at the place in the tune that sets the words that He would be sacrificed for us and for a long time on the Cross. These two places in the chorale-prelude stand out by their stark simplicity. Capturing the Affect (or sense) of a text in both composition and performance was indeed one of the foundational premises that Bach fully embraced.  

The prelude today is a piano piece by Dominic Marchado, a home-schooled sixth grader in the St. Gregory Choir. In addition to piano and choir, Dominic is also learning to play the violin. We welcome him to the piano this morning and encourage him in his music.