A Hymn for Such a Time as This

Here in America, in a country overflowing with every kind of food imaginable, streets lined with glittering stores stuffed full of clothing and toys, and amenities like water and electricity at our fingertips, we have been brought to a sudden and complete standstill by the world-wide pandemic called COVID-19. We feed our anxiety by following every news report, watching the stock market roller coaster, and stock piling such things as toilet paper and hand sanitizer. But it could be and has been worse.

In 1618, the future Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand II, in his role as king of Bohemia, attempted to impose Roman Catholic absolutism on his domains, and the Protestant nobles of both Bohemia and Austria rose up in rebellion. Thus began what was known as The Thirty Years War, one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. It resulted in eight million fatalities not only from military engagements but also from violence, famine, and plague.

A walled city, Eilenburg, Germany, quickly became a place of refuge for thousands of frightened and displaced Germans fleeing the devastating conflict. The sudden overcrowding caused widespread food shortages, and starving residents soon began fighting in the streets for dead cats and birds.

On top of the famine, densely-packed humanity and filth soon led to an outbreak of plague. The four ministers in the town began officiating ten or more funerals a day -- each. One overwhelmed pastor eventually fled and two others died, leaving Martin Rinkart the sole minister in the desperate and overpopulated city.

Alone, Rinkart was tasked with burying up to 50 people a day, including his own wife. By the end of the ordeal, he’d conducted nearly 4,500 funerals. The dead eventually became so numerous they had to be buried in mass trenches without services.

In the face of overwhelming pressure, constant risk and horrendous conditions, Rinkart never stopped ministering to the people of his city. He gave away nearly everything he owned to the poor and needy, though he could barely clothe and feed his own children. He mortgaged his own future income to provide for his family and his community.

After nearly thirty years of ceaseless struggles, it began to look like peace was within grasp. Wanting to give his children a song to sing to God in thanks at the dinner table, Rinkart sat down and wrote what would become one of the most well known Thanksgiving hymns of all time -- “Now Thank We All Our God.” Set to a simple tune by Johann Crüger, it's been said that aside from Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," no other song is sung more often in Lutheran churches today than Rinkart's table grace.

Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom this world rejoices.
Who, from our mother's arms,
Hath led us on our way,
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts
and blessed peace to cheer us,
to keep us in his grace,
and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills
of this world in the next.

All praise and thanks to God
the Father now be given,
the Son and Spirit blest,
who reign in highest heaven
the one eternal God,
whom heaven and earth adore;
for thus it was, is now,
and shall be evermore.

listen to one of these renditions of this great hymn. Perhaps you can sing along. The first is the traditional choir and organ, the other is a more contemporary, acoustic solo version.
Now Thank We All Our God

Now Thank We All Our God by Reawaken (Acoustic Hymn)

Music for March 15, 2020 + The Third Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Jesus, My Breath, My Life – K. Lee Scott

Instrumental Music

• O Man, Bewail Thy Grievous Fall – J. S. Bach
• Prelude in C, BWV 846  – J. S. Bach
• Christ, the Lamb of God – J. S. Bach

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

• Hymn 522 - Glorious things of thee are spoken (AUSTRIA)
• Hymn R 9 - As the Deer pants for the water (Martin Nystrom)
• Hymn 686 - Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
• Hymn 676 - There is a balm in Gilead (BALM IN GILEAD)
• Hymn 679 - Surely it is God who saves me (THOMAS MERTON)
• Hymn 685 - Rock of ages, cleft for me (TOPLADY)
• Hymn 690 - Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn S-35 - Psalm 95: The Venite (Jack Noble White)

Notes on some of our hymns this week: Notice the theme of water that runs through many of them.

Glorious things of thee are spoken (AUSTRIA)
John Newton, author of "Amazing Grace," wrote this hymn to educate his congregation about the Bible. Most classic hymns are Biblically oriented, and this text has references to Isaiah 33:20, Psalm 87:3, I Peter 2, Revelation 1, and Exodus 17:1-7, which describes the streams of living water, referring to the Israelites journey through the wilderness in today's Old Testament reading.

As the Deer pants for the water (Martin Nystrom)
Nystrom was at a Bible College in Dallas one summer when a friend challenged hymn to take up a fast. On the 19th day of the fast he found himself sitting at a piano trying to write a song. "I was simply playing chord progressions when I noticed a Bible on the music stand of the piano. It was open to Psalm 42. My eyes fell on the first verse of that chapter... As the hart (deer) panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. After reading the verse I began to sing its message, right off the page. I wrote the first verse and the chorus of a song, pretty much straight through. The whole of the adventure was completed in a matter of minutes."
"As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after thee."

Come, thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON)
In 1752, a young Robert Robinson attended an evangelical meeting to heckle the believers and make fun of the proceedings. Instead, he listened in awe to the words of the great preacher George Whitefield, and in 1755, at the age of twenty, Robinson responded to the call he felt three years earlier and became a Christian. Another three years later, when preparing a sermon for his church in Norfolk, England, he penned these words which have become one of the church’s most-loved hymns.
The imagery of Christ as the giver of living water reminds us of his encounter with the woman at the well in today's Gospel.

Surely it is God who saves me (THOMAS MERTON)
Isaiah 12 consists of two stanzas of praise (12: 1-3 and 4-6). Together they make up the "First Song of Isaiah," one of the "lesser" Old Testament canticles used by the medieval church. As songs of joy and praise for God's deliverance, these stanzas are the climax to a group of prophecies spanning Isaiah 7-11. In stanza 1, Isaiah 12:2 echoes Exodus 15:2 of the Song of Moses (see also 152), and 12:3 uses the "wells of living water" image, often a biblical symbol of salvation (John 4:10). Carl P. Daw, Jr., versified these passages in 1981 for The Hymnal 1982.

Rock of ages, cleft for me (TOPLADY)
There is a legend that Augustus Toplady was inspired to write this hymn after finding shelter from a thunderstorm in a cleft in a rock at Burrington Combe in Somerset, England in 1776. While evidence to support that story is lacking, it does provide a vivid image which echos the themes of both the Old Testament reading and Gospel.

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)
At the urging of a Welsh evangelist, under whom he was converted, William Williams began writing hymns as a Welsh Calvinist-Methodist. His brother Peter, who was later expelled from the church for heresy, provided the translation. The Exodus and the journey through the wilderness to Canaan is the basis of the hymn, with its reference to "the crystal fountain" being perfect for the Old Testament reading of Exodus 17.

Music for March 8, 2020 + Lent II

Vocal Music

• God So Loved the World – John Goss (1800-1880)

Instrumental Music

• Wär Gott nicht mi tuns diese Zeit – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• (Had God Not Been With Us This Time)
• Contemplation on “Beautiful Savior” – Matthew Compton (b. 1994) 
• Good Shepherd Handbell Guild
• Lift High the Cross – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)

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 R 132 - As Moses raised the serpent up (GIFT OF LOVE)
• Hymn 635 - If thou but trust in God to guide thee (WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT)
• Hymn 691 - My faith looks up to thee (OLIVET)
• Hymn 313 - Let thy Blood in mercy poured (JESUS, MEINE ZUVERSICHT)
• Hymn 473 - Lift high the cross (CRUCIFER)
• Psalm 121 – tone IIa

Sir John Goss, looking for all
the world like Franz Schubert.

This Sunday's anthem is a setting of a verse from Sunday's Gospel reading, a verse that is probably the most well known and memorized verse from the Bible. Most choirs know and sing John Stainer's setting of God So Loved the World, but few know the setting by Stainer's teacher and predecessor, Sir John Goss, who was an English organist, composer and teacher.

Born to a musical family, Goss was a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal, London, and later a pupil of Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul's Cathedral. After a brief period as a chorus member in an opera company he was appointed organist of a chapel in south London, later moving to more prestigious organ posts at St Luke's Church, Chelsea and finally St Paul's Cathedral, where he struggled to improve musical standards.

As a composer, his best-known compositions are his hymn tunes "Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven" and "See, Amid the Winter's Snow". The music critic of The Times described him as the last of the line of English composers who confined themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music.

From 1827 to 1874, Goss was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, teaching harmony. He also taught at St Paul's. Among his pupils at the academy were Arthur Sullivan, Frederic Cowen and Frederick Bridge. His best-known pupil at St Paul's was John Stainer, who succeeded him as organist there.

Goss was noted for his piety and gentleness of character. His pupil, John Stainer, wrote, "That Goss was a man of religious life was patent to all who came into contact with him, but an appeal to the general effect of his sacred compositions offers public proof of the fact." His mildness was a disadvantage when attempting to deal with his recalcitrant singers. He was unable to do anything about the laziness of the tenors and basses, who had lifetime security of tenure and were uninterested in learning new music.

I can relate.

Music for March 1, 2020 + The First Sunday of Lent

Vocal Music

• Wilt Thou Forgive That Sin – John Hilton (ca. 1599 – 1657), arr. Peter Crisafulli

Instrumental Music

• Forty Days and Forty Nights – Malcolm Archer (b. 1952)
• Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt, BWV 637– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott – Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809)

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

• The Great Litany
• Hymn 147 - Now let us all with one accord (BOURBON)
• Hymn 150 - Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH)
• Hymn R 112 - You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord (ON EAGLES WINGS)
• Hymn R 109 - You are my hiding place (Michael Ledner)
• Hymn 688 -  A mighty fortress is our God (EIN FESTE BURG)
• Psalm 32 – Tone II.a

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. We will sing the Great Litany, in procession, at the opening of the service, for nothing says "Oh God, I am miserable" like wandering around the church singing "We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord." (BESEECH? Oh my goodness, we are a sorry lot, aren't we?)

John Donne

John Hilton

The anthem is a setting of hymn 140 in our hymnal. It's not known to our congregation, so it makes a perfect anthem. It's text is from the poem A Hymn to God the Father by the English Renaissance writer John Donne. John Hilton, an English composer living around the same time as Donne, set the poem to this tune which has since become known simply as DONNE. It is, in my opinion, a perfect match of text and tune.

If you don't have a hymnal nearby, you can read the entire poem here. You can see that Donne was convicted of his sin.

The communion voluntary is a short setting of the German Chorale, Durch Adams Fall (Through Adam's Fall All Mankind Fell). It is from Bach's collection Die Orgelbuchlein. (Little Organ Book). I felt it was particularly appropriate for the first Sunday in Lent, where we hear the Old Testament Lesson: Genesis 2:15 - 3:21. It's all about the fall of man.

Russell Stinson, in his book Bach, The Orgelbuchlein, says this chorale is "a work of great profundity and originality, especially in terms of textual-musical relationships". The text, which is all about the fall of man, has a particularly obvious musical motif depicting that fall.  There is a descending-seventh motif that occurs continuously throughout the pedal line. Philipp Spitta, a German music historian best known for his 1873 biography of  Bach, was the first to suggest that this pedal motif must represent Adam's fall from grace, not only in its descending motion, but also in its regular use of the diminished seventh, which was usually associated with grief.

The closing voluntary is by Johann Christian Kittel, a German organist, composer, and teacher who was one of the last students of Johann Sebastian Bach. This is the first year in 23 that I have included a closing voluntary during Lent. I decided to continue playing these voluntaries, but using shorter, simpler, and quieter organ works that I usually choose. I hope you like it.

Music for February 23, 2020 + The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• This Glimpse of Glory – David Ashley White (b. 1944)
• The Gift to be Simple – Dale Wood (1934-2009)

Instrumental Music

• Adoration – Florence B. Price (1887–1953)
• Hyfrydol – Healey Willan (1880-1968)

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 135 - Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)
• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn 383 - Fairest Lord Jesus (ST. ELIZABETH)
• Hymn 328 - Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord (SONG 46)
• Hymn 599 -  Lift Every Voice and Sing (LIFT EVERY VOICE)
• Psalm 99 - Hal H. Hopson

The last Sunday of Epiphany is also the last Sunday of Black History Month, and we end both with two pieces which represent a crucial point in music history.

Florence Beatrice Smith Price

The opening voluntary is an organ piece by Florence Beatrice Price, the first African-American woman to have had her work performed by a major symphony orchestra. In 1933 the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E minor. This was a time when very few women composers were given time on the concert programs. The fact that this young black woman from Arkansas had any training was pretty unique in itself.

Florence Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was taught music by her mother from a young age after she was denied music education from the city. She then attended Boston's New England Conservatory in 1903 to study piano, organ, and composition, and returned to Arkansas with a teaching certificate to bring music education back to her hometown. However, after a series of violent, racially-charged events occurred in Little Rock, Price relocated to Chicago in 1927, where her music career greatly accelerated. She went on to have a prolific career, writing dozens of orchestral, vocal, instrumental, and chamber works, with a musical style influenced by composers such as Dvořák and Coleridge-Taylor as well as Negro spirituals and vernacular dances.

Price graduated as high school valedictorian at age 14. Her daughter once explained that Price really wanted to be a doctor, but no medical school would accept her application. So she became a composer instead! She had also been denied entry to higher musical learning in the south, so she left Little Rock in 1904 to attend the New England Conservatory and, after following her mother’s advice to present herself as being of Mexican descent, earned a bachelor of music degree in 1906, the only one of 2,000 students to pursue a double major (organ and piano performance).

Price continued to read medical journals and attended classes at local colleges and universities. She was a true lifelong learner. Music was her passion and became the field that offered her fulfillment, despite the struggles she encountered.

This simple organ work is from one of the several organ magazines of the 30s and 40s, and is more indicative of what was the norm for church music, rather than an example of Price's more sophisticated orchestral style.

James Weldon Johnson

Our Bishop, Andy Doyle, shared a post last week about the 120th anniversary of the great song of the African-Americans, Lift Every Voice and Sing. Written in 1900 as a poem honoring the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, it was first sung by a chorus of 500 school children. Within the next two decades, it became  known as the Negro anthem. And in 1919, though it rejected the idea of a separate “anthem” for African Americans, the NAACP declared Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing as its official song.

The poem was written by James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother, Rosamond. It's impact on Americans cannot be disputed.

Music for February 16, 2020 + The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Consideration – Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993)
• Amy Bogan, soloist
• Ave Verum Corpus – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Instrumental Music

• Fanfare and Alleluia – Douglas E. Wagner
• The Good Shepherd Handbell Choir
• 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 594 - God of Grace and God of Glory (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn 511 - Holy Spirit, ever living (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Spiritual- I will trust in the Lord (Negro Spiritual)
• Hymn R 291 - Go forth for God; go to the world in peace (GENEVA 124)
• Psalm 119:1-8 – Mode VI

Every year February and its emphasis on Black History encourages me to actively look for music from African-American composers. We've done several works by David Hurd, who is arguably one of the leading musicians in the Episcopal Church today. We've also sung many spirituals which always garner thanks and praise from the congregation. I was delighted last fall when our soprano section leader, Amy Bogan, brought to my attention a little known piece by the man many acknowledge to be the father of gospel music, Thomas A. Dorsey

The Father of Gospel Music

Dorsey is arguably the most influential figure ever to impact Gospel Music. A versatile composer whose material shifted easily from energetic hard gospel to gossamer hymns, he penned many of the best-known songs in the gospel canon, among them "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley". The founder of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, he was also a pioneering force in the renowned Chicago gospel community, where he helped launch the careers of legends including Mahalia Jackson and Sallie Martin.

Early Years

Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, GA on July 1, 1899 and raised in the Atlanta area; there, in addition to the traditional hymns, he also absorbed early blues and jazz. A child prodigy, he taught himself a wide range of instruments, and was playing blues and ragtime while still in his teens; under the stage name Georgia Tom, he was a prolific composer, authoring witty, slightly racy blues songs like the underground hit "It's Tight Like That."

From Blues to Jesus

Thomas A. Dorsey
As a young man, and later in life

Dorsey settled in Chicago in 1918, where he briefly enrolled at the city's College of Composition and Arranging; within months of his arrival, he began playing with area jazz bands including Les Hite's Whispering Serenaders. Dorsey also formed his own group, the Wildcats Jazz Band, which traveled in support of Ma Rainey. He later collaborated in a duo with Tampa Red, but in 1928, after suffering his second nervous breakdown before the age of 30, he opted to retire from the music business. A two-year recovery period followed, during which time a minister convinced Dorsey to return to music, albeit to move from the blues to the church. His first attempt at writing a gospel song, 1921's "If I Don't Get There," had met with some success, and he now returned with a renewed sense of purpose, renouncing secular music to devote all of his talents to the church circuit. Initially, Dorsey met with little success -- forced to reject blues jobs and with no gospel offers forthcoming, he soon resorted to peddling song sheets to make a living.

Rising from Despair

Dorsey's luck appeared to be on the upswing by 1932, the year he organized one of the first gospel choirs at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church; his pianist, Roberta Martin, would in a few years emerge among the top talents on the church circuit. That same year, he also founded the first publishing house devoted exclusively to selling music by Black gospel composers. However, a few months later -- while traveling with Theodore R. Frye to organize a choir in St. Louis -- tragedy struck when Dorsey discovered that his wife had died while giving birth to their son, who died two days later. Devastated, Dorsey locked himself inside his music room for three straight days, emerging with a completed draft of "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," a song whose popularity in the gospel community is rivaled perhaps only by "Amazing Grace."

Mozart pays a debt, we reap the reward

In his short adult life, Mozart always seemed to have money trouble, often writing music as a way to get out of a debt. Today's anthem,  Ave verum corpus,  is a work that Mozart composed in the final year of his life as a payment to a friend. Anton Stoll was a chorus master at a small church in Baden and had often helped Mozart by making travel arrangements for his wife, Constanze. Despite having his money worries, Mozart still liked to make sure his wife had her restorative periods at Baden.

Simple yet Sublime

Writing very simply, Mozart was perhaps conscious of the limitations of a small-town choir, although, as the Austrian pianist Artur Schnabel once said of the work, it is ‘too simple for children, and too difficult for adults’. It was written to be performed on the Feast of Corpus Christi and contains the words sotto voce (meaning ‘subdued’) in Mozart’s hand on the score.

Music for February 9, 2020 + The Fifth Sunday after Lent

Vocal Music

• Arise, My Soul, Arise – Dale Wood (1934-2003)

Instrumental Music

• Jesus, Thy Church with Longing Eyes – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• Dialogue de flutes pour l’Elévation – Nicholas De Grigny (1672-1703)
• Tuba Tune – Norman Cocker (1889–1953)

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

• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 488 - Be thou my vision (SLANE)
• Hymn 124 - What star is this? (PUER NOBIS)
• Hymn L221 - This little light of mine (Spiritual)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together on our knees (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn R 306 - We are marching (SIYAHAMBA)
• Psalm 112:1-9 – Mode Va

The offertory anthem is by the renowned composer, organist, and choral director Dale Wood, who was best known for his church music compositions.  Wood's career as a composer was launched at the age of 13 when he became the winner of a national hymn-writing competition for the American Lutheran Church. His first choral anthem was accepted for publication one year later.

Wood has served as organist and choirmaster for Lutheran and Episcopal churches in Hollywood, Riverside, and San Francisco, California. Hymns and canticles composed by Dale Wood are found in every major hymnal except ours!

Wood's musical activities have not been limited to sacred music. While still a college student, he entertained as organist at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and appeared on television shows produced in Hollywood. In 1975, he was employed by the Royal Viking Line to entertain passengers on a 70-day cruise of the South Pacific and Orient.

Wood used the Finnish folk tune NYT YLÖS, SIELUNI as the basis for the anthem "Arise, My Soul, Arise," with text by Swedish writer Johan Kahl. The sturdy tune is first sung in unison before being sung in canon on the second stanza. Wood's creative compositional style is evident in the accompaniment of this verse, which at first seems unrelated to the melodic material the choir sings, but up closer examination you realize that it is actually the original tune, but in augmentation, a compositional device where a melody is presented in longer note-values than were previously used. During the third line of that stanza, the whole choir sings the tune in augmentation, without accompaniment. The third stanza returns to the original rhythm and feel with an abrupt but strong ending.

Another good Lutheran chorale, this time from Germany, is the basis for the opening voluntary. The chorale O JESU CHRISTE, WAHRES LICHT, was used by Paul Manz with the Advent text, Jesus, Thy Church with Longing Eyes, in mind, but I choose to think of the text O Christ, Our True and Only Light this morning, as we continue our themes of light during Epiphany.  I love this sprightly arrangement, with the melody played in the left hand while the right hand plays a moving eighth note counter-melody, all while the pedal plays octave leaps, driving the rhythm forward.