Music for November 20, 2016 + Christ the King Sunday

Vocal Music

• Christus Factus Est – Felice Anerio (c.1560-1614)
• The Crucifixion – Samuel Barber (1910-1981) Jade Panares, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Organ Concerto in A Minor BWV 593 after Vivaldi RV 522 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• I. Allegro
• II. Adagio
• Menuet Gothique from Suite Gothique, Op.25 – Léon Boëllmann (1862 – 1897)

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

• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (Diademata)
• Hymn R128 - Blest be the God of Israel (Forest Green)
• Hymn R238 - We will glorify the King of kings (We Will Glorify)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn R227 - Jesus, remember me (Taizé)
• Hymn 544 - Jesus shall reign where’er the sun (Duke Street)

This week it's Christ the King Sunday! And while you would think that the music would be all about Jesus seated on the throne, or Jesus in the clouds, or even Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem, the vocal music has Jesus on the cross. What gives?

You can blame (?) it on the Lectionary; it chooses the passage from Luke, chapter 23, as the Gospel, where Christ is crucified, and the soldiers mock him, saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews." One of the thieves also being crucified asks Jesus to remember him, and Jesus tells him that they will be together in paradise. It certainly is a different way to begin one's reign.

So the choir's anthem is a setting in Latin of the verse from the second chapter of Philippians.

Christ was made for us obedient to death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place,
and gave Him the name above all names.

It is by the Italian composer Felice Anerio, a composer who came from a family of musicians. His father, Maurizio, was a trombonist at the Oratory of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Rome), and his younger brother, Giovanni Francesco, was a choirmaster and composer. The two brothers sang in the Papal Chapel choir under Giovanni de Pierlugi Palestrina, and when Palestrina died in 1594, Felice was appointed as composer to the Papal Chapel, the only other person to have been so named.

Christus factus est is notable for the striking dissonance of its opening, and for its effective use of suspensions as the main expressive device. This motet, for which Anerio is now most widely known, was not published in his lifetime along with his other sacred works.

The Gospel lesson is also the reason that we are hearing "The Crucifixion" from Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs. (well, that, and the reality that our soprano section leader, Jade Panares, (who is a sophomore voice major at the Moores School of Music at UH) learned it this semester!)

Samuel Barber

Barber was the American composer of whom music critic Donal Henahan said, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." He wrote a song cycle called Hermit Songs on a grant from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, using 10 anonymous Irish monastic poems. Soprano Leontyne Price, with the composer at the piano, premiered the cycle on October 30, 1953, at the Library of Congress. They have become a staple of the soprano repertoire ever since.

Here is the text of "The Crucifixion."

At the cry of the first bird
They began to crucify Thee, O Swan!
Never shall lament cease because of that.
It was like the parting of day from night.
Ah, sore was the suffering borne
By the body of Mary's Son,
But sorer still to Him was the grief
Which for His sake
Came upon His Mother.

Music for November 13, 2016 + Kirking of the Tartan

Vocal Music

• Judge Eternal – Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)
• Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether - Jack H. Ossewaarde (1918-2004)

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral - James D. Wetherald, arr., Richard Kean, piper
• In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified (A Sylvan Poeme) – Fred Bock (1939-1998)

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

• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (Ratisbon)
• Hymn S-204 - Glory be to God on High - Old Scottish Chant
• Hymn R276 - Soon and very soon (Soon and Very Soon)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn 615 - “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee (St. Flavian)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! How sweet the sound (New Britain)
• Hymn 371 - Thou, whose almighty word (Moscow)
• Canticle 9: The First Song of Isaiah (Ecce, Deus) Isaiah 12:2-6 – Tone VIIIg

Malcolm Archer has written a sprightly, rhythmic anthem on the text "Judge Eternal, throned in splendor." It's distinct trademark is the use of variable meter, alternating 7/8 time with 4/4 time throughout the melody. Other than that one (noticeable) characteristic, it is very much like a typical hymn. All four stanzas are set to the same tune, with treble voices singing the first stanza, tenors and basses singing the second stanza, and all voices singing the last stanza in unison. Only the the third stanza is sung in four parts, without organ, and in a different key. 

I decided to schedule this anthem this past summer, as the presidential election took an ugly turn. The text spoke to me as a Christian as well as a citizen of this great country. Several times in rehearsal choir members would remark that we should have sung this before the election. It will still bring healing and hope in it's presentation this Sunday.

Judge eternal, throned in splendor,
Lord of lords and King of kings,
with thy living fire of judgment
purge this land of bitter things;
solace all its wide dominion
with the healing of thy wings.

Still the weary folk are pining
for the hour that brings release,
and the city's crowded clangor
cries aloud for sin to cease;
and the homesteads and the woodlands
plead in silence for their peace.

Crown, O God, thine own endeavor;
cleave our darkness with thy sword;
feed all those who do not know thee
with the richness of thy word;
cleanse the body of this nation
through the glory of the Lord.

The text is by Henry Scott Holland, an English priest who was Canon of St. Paul's, London, for years. His hymn, "Judge eternal, throned in splendour" (Prayer for the Nation), first appeared in the Commonwealth for July 1902. It has since been included in over 95 hymnals.

Malcolm Archer is one of the leading church musicians in England today, having also served at St. Paul's, London as director of music.

Many of us have sung and loved Harold Friedell's wonderful anthem, Draw Us In the Spirit's Tether. As with many great texts, there are other musical settings. One of those is a short motet using just the first stanza written by Jack H. Osseraarde. Osserwaarde was Organist and Choir master at Calvary Church in New York City  before coming to Houston in 1953 to be Organist and Choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral and organist and program annotator of the Houston Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stowkowski.

During his time in Houston, Ossewaarde wrote a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in C, and “Hosanna to the Son of David.” His anthem Draw us in the Spirit’s tether was published during his tenure at the Cathedral, though it was actually written while he was still at Calvary Church, New York City.

He left Houston in 1958 to return to New York, this time as director of music at St. Bartholomew's in Manhattan.

I refer the reader to a previous post of mine about "Kirking of the Tartan." It's not on the official prayerbook liturgical calendar, but we have been observing the Sunday closest to the feast day of Samuel Seabury as "Kirking Sunday" for 19 years now. Some of the congregation still are at a loss why we do it.  Our piper this Sunday is Mr. Richard Kean, a professional piper and native of Scotland.

Mr. Richard Kean, piper

Music for November 6, 2016 + All Saints Sunday

Vocal Music

• O Thou, Whose All-Redeeming Might – arr. David Blackwell (b. 1961)

Instrumental Music

• Les Vepres du Commun des Saints – J. Guy Ropartz (1865-1955)
• We run to you for your sweet fragrance. – Song of Solomon 1:3a
• Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone – Song of Solomon 2:11
• Shall We Gather at the River – Gordon Young (1919-1998)
• For All the Saints – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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 625 Ye holy angels bright (Darwall’s 148th)
• Hymn 707  Take my life, and let it be consecrated (Hollingside)
• Hymn R127 Blest are they, the poor in spirit (Blest Are They)
• Hymn 618 Ye watchers and ye holy ones (Lasst uns erfreuen)
• Psalm 149 – Tone VIIb

J. Guy Ropartz

The opening organ voluntaries are two selections from a collection of organ antiphons written for Vespers of the Common of Saints by a little known French composer, Joseph Guy Ropartz. These organ antiphons were to be played between the plainsong verses of the canticles for the vesper services. 

As a child, Ropartz played bugle, horn, and double bass in a local orchestra, but his father wanted him to prepare himself for life in a more secure profession. Therefore, he was given a Jesuit education, then studied law and literature, obtaining a degree from Rennes in 1885. Once he fulfilled his father's wishes, Ropartz then enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied music with Theodore Dubois, Jules Massenet, and Cesar Franck. Ropartz was a devout Catholic, and the influence of the modes of the plainsong chants he heard in church can be found in his music, both secular and sacred.

The anthem is a setting of a plainsong hymn arranged by British composer David Blackwell. The text was written in 1861 by the Rev. Richard M. Benson, a clergyman of the Church of England, for the Feast of St. Barnabas. He spent some time in 1870-71 in the United States, labouring with zeal and success in several dioceses

The communion and closing voluntaries are organ arrangements of two popular hymns by two popular composers for church music. The communion voluntary is based on the American Gospel hymn, Shall We Gather At the River.

 Yes, we'll gather at the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river
that flows by the throne of God.

It was arranged by Gordon Young, who was recognized as one of this country's leading composers of both organ and choral works in the last half of the 20th century, with many of his nearly 1000 works having entered the standard repertory. 

His undergraduate degree in music was earned at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas. Following that he was a scholarship pupil at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and then he received his Doctor of Sacred Music from Southwestern in 1964.

During the course of his career, he was a radio organist in Tulsa, a music critic and columnist for daily newspapers in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, and choirmaster in churches in Philadelphia and Kansas City. Mr. Young taught organ in conjunction with Wayne State University and for 15 years was organist and choir director at the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit.

The closing voluntary is that great All Saints hymn with which we open today's service. It is arranged by  Charles Callahan, a native of Cambridge, Mass., who is well known as an award-winning composer, organist, pianist, and teacher. Callahan’s compositions are performed frequently in church and concert. Like Gordon Young, Callahan is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as well as the Catholic University of America, with additional study in England, France, Germany, and Belgium. 

Music for October 30, 2016 + The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Let thy blood in mercy poured – Johann Cruger (1598-1662)

Instrumental Music

• Praise to the King – Bill Ingram (contemporary)
• Riguadon – André Campra (1660-1744)
• Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured – Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
• Rondeau from Abdelazer - Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

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

• Hymn 411 - O bless the Lord, my soul (St. Thomas (Williams))
• Hymn 605 - What does the Lord require (Sharpethorne)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (East Acklam)
• Hymn 301 - Bread of the world, in mercy broken (Rendez a Dieu)
• Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (Lauda anima)
• Psalm 32:1-8, Tonus Pergrinus, refrain by David Clark Isele

This Sunday, the Good Shepherd Bell Choir will ring for the first time this season. We have a great group of ringers this year, and are excited about the coming year. We will be ringing two pieces in worship. First is an original piece for bells by Texas composer Bill Ingram. Ingram is a native of Longview, Texas and a graduate of East Texas Baptist University. He began work as a minister of music in 1963 and served several Baptist churches in Texarkana, Dallas, and Pasadena, (all Texas) before residing in Baytown, Texas.

Now Ingram is a freelance composer and arranger and serves as handbell editor for two different publishers. He often serves churches in the Houston area as interim Minister of Music.

Mr. Ingram says, “I began writing for hand bells when we purchased bells at First Baptist Church, Baytown in 1975. My first compositions and arrangements were probably published in 1976. I have over 650 arrangements and compositions in print." In 1996, Jeffers Handbell Supply honored him as the “Composer of the Year” when “Do Lord” was the best seller that year.

The other piece we will play is an arrangement of the French baroque composer André Campra's Rigaudon from his opera Idoménée. Arguably his most familiar work, it is most often used as a wedding processional. It is in the form of a rondo, a work ,with one principal musical theme that is stated at least three times in the same key and to which return is made after the introduction of each subordinate theme.

Andre Campra. His hair was not
all he had in common with Henry Purcell

The most significant composer for the French stage between Lully and Rameau, Campra had his beginnings as a church musician. His father, an amateur violinist, provided him with his first music lessons, and at age 14 he joined the choir of St. Sauveur. At one point he nearly lost his place in the choir when he was caught giving unauthorized performances in secular theaters on the side. In August of 1681 he became the director of music at the church of Ste. Trophime in Arles, and two years later moved on to the same position at the Cathedral of St. Étienne in Toulouse. In 1694 he became choir master at Notre Dame. Until he arrived in Paris he had composed mostly sacred music, but even though he had reached a top position in the world of church music, the dramatic stage once again began to draw his creativity.

He began writing a new form of entertainment, the opéra-ballet, which he had published in his younger brother's name because he was afraid of losing his church appointment. His first three works were so successful, however, that he became confident in his ability to support himself with secular music. In 1700, he left Notre Dame and wrote his first of eight operas. Of these, only Tancrède (1702) and Idomenée (1712) have been performed with any regularity in the twentieth century.

The closing voluntary is an organ arrangement of a Rondeau by Henry Purcell. (Note the French spelling of the word Rondo.) The similarity of our handbell offertory by Campra and the organ voluntary is more than just the musical form, however. Both are arrangements of popular tunes from theatrical works by leading composers of the same time period.

The Rondeau is from the incidental music that Henry Purcell composed for the play Abdelazer, or the Moor's Revenge. One of Purcell’s last works, the play was staged in 1695, the year of Purcell's death. The Rondeau’s place in history was assured when the composer Benjamin Britten chose it for his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell (1946).

The choir will sing the four part hymn by Johann Cruger, Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured, as the communion motet. This is one of the top five hymns by Cruger, whose other hymns are much better known to modern worshippers.

• Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended

• Now Thank We All Our God

• Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness

• Jesus, Priceless Treasure

• Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured

Cruger was the son of an innkeeper, born at Gross-Bressen, near Guben in Prussia. He studied theology at the University of Wittenberg but left early to be the cantor of St. Nicholas Church in Berlin and to teach at the Gymnasium of the Grey Friars.

A friend of Paul Gerhardt, Cruger composed melodies for many hymns by Gerhardt and others. He composed seventy-one sacred chorales and also created elaborate instrumental accompaniments for hymns, actively promoting congregational singing. He was also a musicologist and wrote about the theory and practice of music. His hymnals also included other famous tunes such as Praise to the Lord, the Almighty and O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.

I will follow the choir's singing of the hymn with an organ work based on the same hymn by the contemporary of J. S. Bach, the German organist Johann Gottlieb Walther.

Music for October 23, 2016 + The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• If Ye Love Me – Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585)

Instrumental Music

• Prelude on “Fight On, My Soul” – Robert J. Powell (b. 1932)
• Ubi Caritas and Adoro Te Devote - Michael Larkin
• Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing – Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927)

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

• Hymn 557 Rejoice, ye pure in heart (Marion)
• Hymn 552 Fight the good fight with all thy might (Pentecost)
• Hymn 429 I'll praise my maker while I've breath (Old 113th)
• Hymn R122 Surely it is God who saves me (First Song of Isaiah)
• Hymn R188 Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord (Bob Hudson)
• Hymn 637 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (Lyons)
• Psalm 65 (Tone 5a)

I'm adding two new pieces to my organ repertoire this week, and both by living, American composers. And one of them (GASP!) is a woman! At this rate, no telling where gender equality goes. We might even have a woman run for president!

Let's talk about the closing voluntary first. It's an organ setting of the old hymn-tune EBENEZER, used for the Southern hymn Come thou Fount of Every Blessing. The composer, Emma Lou Diemer, has put the melody in the pedal for the first exposition of the melody, with the manuals accompanying with rippling 16th note broken chords. After one presentation of the hymn, the whole piece transposes to the key of F (from D), but a new element is added: the melody is now in a canon at the fourth, meaning the pedal plays the melody in F, and the top of note of the accompaniment is playing the melody in B-flat. What fun!

Emma Lou Diemer

Emma Lou Diemer is a native of Kansas City, Missouri. She studied piano from an early age, wrote little piano pieces as a child, and began to play the organ in church at age 13. She determined to be a composer about that time with a strong interest also in piano. Her degrees in composition are from the Yale School of Music (BM,1949; MM, 1950) and from the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D.,1960), and she studied composition further in Brussels on a Fulbright Scholarship and at the Berkshire Music Center.

From 1954-1965 she taught in several schools and was organist in area churches. In 1965 she joined the faculty of the University of Maryland as an assistant professor of theory and composition. In 1971 she was appointed to a similar position at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and subsequently became a full professor and, since 1991, professor emeritus. Her present position as organist is at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara.

The opening voluntary is an organ setting of an old Southern Harmony hymn by J. P Reese from 1859, Fight on, my soul.

Fight on, my soul, till death
Shall bring thee to thy God

Robert Powell

Even if you knew this old tune, you might not recognize the melody as it is hidden in the left hand of the manual parts. It is not until the quieter B section that you can clearly hear the melody played by the oboe stop of the organ against a flute accompaniment. The rollicking open theme returns, but this time the melody is clearly stated in the pedal part with the trumpet. On the fourth repetition of the tune, the melody is a again heard in the top line as the full organ declaims the tune.

Robert J. Powell retired in 2003 as organist and choirmaster at Christ Church in Greenville, S.C., a position he had held since 1968. Previously he served as director of music at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H.; organist and choir director at St. Paul's Church in Meridian, Miss.; and associate organist at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in N.Y.C. Powell's music was first published in 1959, and he has written over 200 works for chorus, solo voice, organ and brass.

The life of Thomas Tallis is a mirror of the musical effects of the Anglican Reformation in England. He served in the Chapel Royal for some 40 years, composing under four Monarchs with widely differing religious practices. Tallis was among the first to set English words to music for the rites of the Church of England, although most of his vocal music was written in Latin. A composer of great contrapuntal skill, his works show intense expressivity and are cast in a bewildering variety of styles.

During the reign of King Edward VI (1547-1553) it was mandated that the services be sung in English, and that the choral music be brief and succinct "to each syllable a plain and distinct note." If Ye Love Me is the classic example of these new English anthems: mainly homophonic, but with brief moments of imitation. Like many early Anglican anthems, it is cast in ABB form, the second section repeated twice.

Music for October 16, 2016 + The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes – Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)

Instrumental Music

• Trumpet Prelude – Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758)
• Aria – Philip Baker (b. 1934)
• Prelude in G, BWV 568 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 372 - Praise to the living God! (Leoni)
• Hymn 631 - Book of books, our people’s strength (Liebster Jesu)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (East Acklam)
• Hymn 669 - Commit thou all that grieves thee (Passion Chorale)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Seek Ye First)
• Hymn 535 - Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim (Paderborn)
• Psalm 119:97-104 (Tone VIIc)

Leo Sowerby was the leading composer of American church music and many virtuoso organ works during the first half of the twentieth century and, at the same time, the most distinguished Anglican musician to be produced by the Protestant Episcopal Church in North America. During his career he would compose music in all genres, with the exception of opera, but it is in the field of church music that his life's major work was accomplished.

He was a largely self-taught musician, beginning his study of harmony and music theory from a textbook at age eleven and composing his first works shortly thereafter. His interest in choral music and the pipe organ date from as early as 1910, when he began to study the works of César Franck and Max Reger. By 1913 the eighteen-year old composer received his first major public recognition when the Chicago Symphony premièred his Violin Concerto. Three years later the Symphony would give an unprecedented all-Sowerby concert, beginning his relationship as resident composer which would last into the 1940's.

Sowerby served as bandmaster for the 332nd Field Artillery in the U. S. Army during World War I, during which time he completed his graduate work through the American Conservatory in Chicago and prepared several earlier works, including A Liturgy of Hope of 1917, for publication.

Between his discharge from the Army and his appointment in 1927 as organist/choirmaster at St. James Episcopal Church (later Cathedral) in Chicago, Sowerby held a number of church jobs, including  Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, where he served as associate organist/choirmaster.

Leo Sowerby came of age at the same time as did American music. With a few isolated exceptions, American composers before the 1920s had merely tried to imitate the voices of their Central European teachers, but Sowerby's generation, led by such men as George Gershwin, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland,  and Walter Piston, took the old European forms and poured into them music which sounded distinctly American in its melody, harmony, and rhythm. You can hear that distinctive America sound in today's anthem, I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes. Sowerby's most popular work of all, it is a masterful expression of genuine religious faith. Taking Psalm 121 as his text, Sowerby avoids counterpoint, choosing a simple, unaffected melody with choral accompaniment, including a gentle whiff of blues-tinged harmony. What resulted has remained a repertory staple of church choirs for over 75 years.

Early on, a publisher had purchased the anthem outright for a one-time payment of $10. Much to the composer's great regret after the fact, he would receive no royalties on what was destined to become a "best seller."

Music for October 9, 2016 + The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Amazing Grace – arr. Ed Lojeski
• Hide Me Under the Shadow of thy Wings – John Ebenezer West (1863-1929)

Instrumental Music

• Adagio – Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
• Fantasy – Daniel Elder (b. 1986)
• Praeludium and Fughetta in E – Johann Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer (1656-1746)

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 424 - For the fruit of all creation (East Acklam)
• Hymn R4 - Lord, I lift your name on high (Rick Founds)
• Hymn R191 - O Christ, the healer (Erhalt uns, Herr)
• Hymn R232 - There is a redeemer (Green)
• Hymn 397 - Now thank we all our God (Nun danket alle Gott)
• Psalm 111 Confitebor tibi – Tone IVe

Ed Lojeski

The choir is back down by the piano this Sunday as we sing a gospel-style arrangement of that old favorite Amazing Grace. It is arranged by Ed Lojeski, Director of Music at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Westlake Village, CA. But he is much more than a typical church choir director; in addition to being a choral/vocal arranger and composer, he has served as accompanist and musical consultant for movie productions and on TV films. Mr. Lojeski has served as pianist-conductor and/or vocal coach for Elvis Presley, Johnny Mathis, Kathryn Grayson, The Lettermen, Tony Martin, Cyd Charisse and many others. Choral groups under his direction have appeared on television, at the Hollywood Bowl, and on tour in Europe, Australia and Hawaii.

Ed Lojeski is acknowledged as one of the finest choral arrangers of pop music in the business today. Admittedly, this arrangement of the old hymn has more Hollywood than heaven about it, but it's fun to sing and is a nice change from our usual, more sophisticated fare.

Franz Liszt as a young virtuoso

The most famous of piano virtuosos of the Romantic era (19th century) and still one of the most highly regarded was Franz Liszt. Born in Hungary but educated in Paris, he began touring across Europe to the same kind of adulation that later pop stars such as Frank Sinatra and The Beatles experienced in their concerts.) He was a spectacular pianist, and his dashing good looks made the women swoon even more. He continued touring until 1848,  when Liszt gave up public performances on the piano and went to Weimar, acting as conductor at court concerts and at the theatre. He also gave lessons to a number of pianists and wrote articles championing the music of Berlioz and Wagner.

Liszt in 1886, after taking
holy orders.

In 1861 Liszt retired from music and joined the Franciscan order in 1865, receiving four Minor Orders of the Catholic Church (namely, Porter, Lector, Exorcist and Acolyte). He had always felt a calling to the church, being a devout Roman Catholic, and in his retirement was no longer hindered in his quest. It was during this time that he wrote many of his smaller organ organ works which fit in with the religious aesthetic needed for liturgical use. The piece I am playing for the prelude this morning comes from the first year of his retirement. In it, you can hear the same harmonies, chord progressions, and melodic turns that one comes to expect from the late Romantic music of Wagner.

 I love finding new composers. Recently, I ran across some You Tube videos of some choral music by a young man from Atlanta named Daniel Elder. His choral music was beautiful (look for something in the coming months sung by the GS Choir). I also found his "Piano Rhapsody," his first composition for the instrument, written while he was a student at the University of Georgia in 2008. In true Rhapsody style, it has several different sections which it doesn't strictly follow any real form.

Daniel Elder,
(c) 2016 Natalie Watson Photography

Critics have hailed his works as “deeply affecting” and "without peer," with emotional evocations ranging from lush lyricism to jagged polyphony. Daniel’s compositions have been performed extensively in the USA and abroad, including a recording at Abbey Road Studios by the Grammy-award-winning Eric Whitacre Singers. The first commercial album of Daniel's choral works, "The Heart's Reflection: Music of Daniel Elder," was released in October 2013 by Westminster Choir College (Princeton, NJ) and Naxos of America, and debuted at #53 on the overall classical Billboard chart. Daniel’s choral music is currently published by Carus Verlag, Edition Peters, GIA Publications, and Walton Music, and his instrumental music by Imagine Music and Wingert-Jones Publications.
He's a year younger than my oldest child. I feel old.

Check out his You Tube channel here.