Music for Sunday, February 14, 2021 + The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O Splendor of God’s Glory Bright – Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
• Hymn 135: Songs of thankfulness and praise (SALZBURG)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on ST. ELIZABETH – Carson P. Cooman (b. 1982)
• I. Theme
• II. Duo
• III. Gigue
• IV. Meditation
• V. Chorale
• Walk With Us – Alexis Ffrench (b. 1970)
• Fanfare and Chorale – Calvin Fuller (21st C.)

The music for this Sunday includes the music of two living Black composers, one living White composer, and one very dead White man. Since we are observing Black History month, let’s start with the two Black Composers.

I’m really happy and excited to be playing the piano piece during the eucharist by the British classical soul pioneer, composer, producer and pianist Alexis Ffrench (that’s not a typo – he spells his name with two ffs). Not only is Ffrench the UK's biggest selling pianist of 2020, he has headlined London's Royal Albert Hall, collaborated with fashion houses Miyake and Hugo Boss, played Latitude Festival, worked with Paloma Faith, composed several film scores and shares the same management team as Little Mix and Niall Horan.

Ffrench's music has amassed over 200 million streams and both albums Evolution and Dreamland reached No. 1 in the classical music charts. "Even calling yourself 'a classical artist' is a barrier of entry to many people. My music has a classical signature in its DNA, but it's borderless, a synthesis of many styles.”

Alexis Ffrench

Ffrench has been improvising on the piano since the age of four. Before his formal music education, at the age of seven Ffrench was appointed head organist at his local church in Surrey, becoming the UK's youngest church organist. Growing up in a household full of the music of Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley and Ella Fitzgerald, Ffrench first honed his craft by playing the kitchen table aged four and writing his first pieces at five, his prodigious gifts convincing his parents to buy a second-hand piano. He received scholarships to study at The Purcell School for Young Musicians, the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

His 2020 single "Walk With Us" pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. Like everyone else, he's watched the news of George Floyd unfold with a sense of horror, grief-stricken at events in the United States.

"From traumas, past and present, as we collectively breathe new life into urgent conversations and actions, I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: 'The problem can only be solved when there is a kind of coalition of conscience'. Only together can we meet the moment purposefully and move forward in positivity and love."

"I hope that by lending my musical voice to the Black Lives Matter movement through this video I can elevate the cause in some small way and entreat listeners to #walkwithus..."

The closing voluntary comes from much closer to home, as I repeat my friend Calvin Fuller’s bombastic Fanfare and Chorale which I first played during the virtual services this past summer. You can read about it here.

Carson P. Cooman

The opening voluntary is a set of short variations on the familiar hymn, “Fairest Lord Jesus,” by the young American organist, Carson Cooman. A native of Rochester, New York, he is a composer, concert organist, editor, and consultant. As an American composer with a catalog of hundreds of works in many forms, from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes, his works have been performed on six continents and have been recorded on over 40 CDs. As a performer, over 300 new compositions by more than 100 international composers have been written for him, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of CD releases and more than 3,000 recordings available online.

Since 2006, Cooman has held the position of Composer in Residence at The Memorial Church, Harvard University. From 2008-11, he also served as Composer in Residence to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts. Since 2015, he has been Organ and Choral Editor for Lorenz Publishing Company and Sacred Music Press.

The anthem for this Sunday is an excerpt from a larger motet by the very dead Claudio Monteverdi, an Italian composer, singer, and priest from Cremona, Italy. Monteverdi is one of the most important composers in the history of Western music, whose music marked the transition from the late Renaissance to the new "Baroque" style, combining the brand-new basso continuo technique with formal counterpoint. He did much to develop the then-new genre, the opera, writing one of the very first operas, L'Orfeo (1607),  which is still performed regularly today. 

He was also a pioneer in music for the Church: his Vespero della Beata Vergine of 1610 is a landmark work for choir and orchestra that introduces, alongside archaic polyphony, such forward-looking techniques as concertato writing and ritornello forms to sacred music.

Music for February 7, 2021 + The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies - Rachel Aarons (b. 1984) 
• One Thing I Ask of the Lord – Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
• Hymn – O Christ, the Healer, We Have Come (ERHALT UNS, HERR)

Instrumental Music

• Six Short Preludes and Intermezzos for Organ – Hermann Schroeder (1904-1984) 

VI. Poco Vivace
V. Andantino
IV. Allegretto
III. Allegro moderato
II. Andante Sostenuto
I. Maestoso

• Prelude in C, BWV 533 – attr. To J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

February is Black History Month, so I want to highlight the black composers who contribute so much to our worship life, not just in February, but all year long.

Take, for instance, the Sanctus and Fraction anthem which we have been singing since Christmas. As familiar as this music is to most of us, you may not know that it is written by an Black American Episcopal Musician. David Hurd is widely recognized as one of the foremost church musicians and concert organists in the United States, with a long list of awards, prizes, honors, and achievements, and immeasurable expertise in organ performance, improvisation, and composition.

From 1976 until 2015, David Hurd was a faculty member at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City, first as Director of Chapel Music and later also as Professor of Church Music and Organist. He is the composer of dozens of hymns, choral works, settings of the liturgy, and organ works published by a number of major houses. He was one of the major contributors of new hymnody and liturgical settings for the Episcopal Church’s Hymnal 1982 and his music is seen in hymnals and choir libraries in churches of all religious denominations. In 2010 he became the fifteenth recipient of The American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer award. From 1998-2013 he was Music Director and Organist at Church of the Holy Apostles (Episcopal) in New York City. Dr. Hurd is now Organist/Choirmaster of the famed Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Times Square.

As a concert organist David Hurd enjoys instant recognition both at home and abroad. Since winning both first prizes (in performance and improvisation) of the 1977 International Congress of Organists, he has performed throughout North America and Europe, has been a featured artist at numerous national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. 

He studied both at the Preparatory Division of the Juilliard School and at Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art. Later he attended Oberlin College in Ohio, graduating with a music degree in 1971, and went on for further study at the University of North Carolina and, back in New York, at the Manhattan School of Music. His organ teachers have included Bronson Ragan, Garth Peacock, Arthur Poister, and Rudolph Kremer.

The offertory anthem this Sunday is a setting of the hymn, Christ, whose glory fills the skies, written by the Wyoming native, Rachel Aarons. While in college, she studied piano, voice, and composition while pursuing a B.A. in French Language and Literature. Rachel composes for her church choir where she is happy to be a Back Row Alto. She lives in Virginia with her husband, and her two dogs, and stays busy as a real estate agent. 

She has written a new melody for the familiar lyrics - well, two melodies, actually. The first stanza is in a lilting, 6/8 meter, with a sparkling accompaniment. Stanza two is more subdued, in common 4/4 time (befitting the words, "dark and cheerless is the morn, unaccompanied by Thee." Stanza three sees the return of the first melody, this time in canon, with the tenor echoing the soprano. 

During communion we hear a setting of Psalm 27:4-5 from the Kleine geistliche Konzerte (1636) of the early baroque composer Heinrich Schutz. Eins bitte ich vom Herren (One thing I ask of the Lord) is for two equal voices, characterized by elegant vocal writing and wonderful harmonic movement which Schutz is known for.

Schütz was a German Lutheran composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before J.S. Bach, and, along with Monteverdi, often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century.

The opening voluntary is a collection of short pieces by German composer and a Catholic church musician Hermann Schroeder. His music is characterized by quintal and quartal harmonies and 20th-century polyphonic linear, sometimes atonal writing similar to that of Paul Hindemith. This collect was not meant to be played as a suite, but as individual pieces, which is why I am NOT playing them in the order in which they are written. I'm starting at the BACK of the book, working my way toward the front!

Music for Sunday, January 31, 2021 +The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O Give Thanks Unto the Lord – Joseph Corfe (1740-1820)
• Hymn 493: O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)

Instrumental Music

• Suite Breve – Craig Phillips (b. 1961)
• Prelude (for the Foundations)
• Impromptu (for Flutes and Mutations)
• Fanfare (for the Reeds)
• Lament (for Strings)
• Epilogue (for Full Organ)
• Deck Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness – Mark Knickelbein
• Toccata Pontificale – Gordon Young (1918-1998)

This Sunday a trio sings an English anthem from the Classical period, and I play an organ Suite and a piano chorale prelude by two living American Composers.

First is the anthem by the English composer Joseph Corfe. He was born at Salisbury where he received his early musical education from the organist of the cathedral, and was for some time one of the choristers. In 1783 he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal but returned to Salisbury in 1792 as the cathedral organist there. In 1804 he resigned his post in favour of his son, Arthur Thomas Corfe, and died in 1820. Another of his sons, John David Corfe, was for many years organist of Bristol Cathedral, and his grandson, Charles William, (son of Arthur) was organist of Christ Church, Oxford. 

Joseph Corfe's best known compositions are in a volume of church music, containing a well-known service in B flat, and eleven anthems. Today's anthem was originally for two equal voices, but the editor of this edition added a bass part and changed the text from "I will magnify thee" to "O Give Thanks unto the Lord."

Craig Phillips

Far more prolific is the composer of the opening voluntary. Craig Phillips is the Canon for Music at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was born in Louisville, Kent., in 1961. He received a B.M. from Oklahoma Baptist University, and a M.M. and D.M.A. and the Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y.

Phillips is a noted composer, having received numerous commissions, including this work Suite Breve, which was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists' Boston 2009 Convention.

Suite Breve is a suite of five movements that demonstrates all the primary colors, or sounds, of the organ. The first piece, ‘Prelude,’ explores textures for foundations; the second, ‘Impromptu,’ flutes and mutations; the third, ‘Fanfare,’ uses the reeds; the fourth, a plaintive ‘Lament,’ is scored for strings; and the last section, ‘Epilogue,’ employs the full organ.

Mark Knickelbein

The piano piece played during communion is a setting of the Eucharist hymn Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness, which is found in our hymnal at hymn 339. It is arranged by Mark Knickelbein, editor of music and worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician. He has a Bachelor of Science in education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN, and a Master of Arts in music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously served Trinity Lutheran in Kaukauna, WI, as principal organist and choir director. 

Music for January 24, 2021 + The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• They Cast Their Nets in Galilee – Michael McCabe (b. 1941)
• You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore –
  Cesáreo Gabaraín (1936-1991)
• Hymn 660: O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee (MARYTON)

Instrumental Music

• Suite on Auf meinen lieben Gott – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707)
• Rigaudon – André Campra (1660-1744)

This Sunday two of our sopranos, Amy Bogan and Ana Zhang, will come together to sing three hymns from our hymnals which are appropriate to the readings for this Sunday, the miracle of the great catch at Galilee. It is a poem by poet, lawyer, and farmer William Alexander Percy, from Greenville, Mississippi. 

Michael McCabe

The tune for They Cast Their Nets was written for this text for the Hymnal 1940, the predecessor of our current hymnal. David McK. Williams was the organist/Choirmaster at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City. He named the tune GEORGETOWN, for the church of his friend, F. Bland Tucker, who was rector of St. John's, Georgetown Parish in Washington, D.C. 

This arrangement is by Michael McCabe, an American composer with a 20 year career in the military, which provided McCabe with unique learning opportunities, such as study with such notable musicians as Leo Sowerby, David McK. Williams, Thomas Matthews, and Dale Wood. He has served numerous churches, including Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

The communion anthem is the Spanish hymn, Tú has venido a la orilla. Written by the Spanish priest Cesáreo Gabaraín, it is one of the most popular songs to emerge from the 1970s revival of religious song in Spain. It asks singers to become like the fishermen who left boats and nets to follow Jesus, first as disciples learning his way of love, then as apostles carrying that love to others. Various translations have appeared in over forty hymnals since it first was published in 1979. It is included in Wonder, Love, and Praise, the supplement to the Episcopal hymnal published in 1997.

Dietrich Buxtehude wrote a set of variations based on the hymn Auf meinen lieben Gott: 

Auf meinen lieben Gott                            In my beloved God

Trau' ich in Angst und Not,                     I trust in anxiety and trouble;

Der kann mich allzeit retten                    He can always deliver me

Aus Trübsal, Angst und Nöten,              from sorrow, anxiety, and troubles;

Mein Unglück kann er wenden,              he can change my misfortune,

Steht all's in seinen Händen.                   everything is in his hands.

I am playing this for the opening voluntary. What is so weird to me is that he wrote these variations in the form of a dance suite. An important musical form of in the Baroque period, the Suite was a collection of pieces for keyboard or instrumental ensemble consisting of a number of smaller movements, each in the character of a dance and all in the same key. What is perplexing is the combination of a hymn with dance rhythms. The Church was strongly opposed to dancing, connecting it to heathen rituals and lasciviousness. Nevertheless, here we have a hymn set in various dance forms: 

I. Chorale (not part of Buxtehude's original work. I'll just play the 4-part hymn setting to give you an idea of the melody.)
II. Prelude - Buxtehude's original opening movement, is a stylized setting of the chorale.
III. Double - A French term for a simple type of variation (of the prelude.)
IV. Sarabande - a dance in a slow triple meter in a dignified style, usually (as here) with an accent on the second beat of the measure.
V. Courante - This one is in the French style, which is much more refined than the Italian. It is also in a triple meter, but not as slow as the Sarabande.
VI. Gigue - probably the most familiar dance to modern folks (as in jig), it is a lively dance in compound duple time (6/8 or 6/4). 

Music for January 17, 2021 + The Second Sunday of the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts – Beverly Ward (b. 1935)
• The Summons – John Bell (b. 1949)
• Bidkar Cajina, baritone
• Hymn 707: Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
• Sinfonia
• Ayre
• Trumpet Tune
• Rondeau
• Trumpet Tune
• Adagio
• Trumpet Tune
• Trumpet Tune in D Major – Henry Purcell

This Sunday I have a Men's Schola leading the music. In monasteries, the name schola cantorum is often applied to certain selected monks whose duty it is to chant the more elaborate portions of the liturgical music, such as the graduals and alleluias at Mass, the rest of the community joining only in the simpler parts. These men from the Good Shepherd Choir will be singing a setting (in English paraphrase) of the Latin hymn Jesu dulcis memoria, retaining the traditional plainsong melody, with a lovely organ accompaniment and a canonic verse in the middle. It is arranged by Beverly Ward. I was happy to see this piece as I am trying to find and use more music written by women composers.

Mr. Ward, however, is not a woman.

Mr. Ward was the organist and choirmaster at St. James Episcopal Church, Hendersonville, NC, and St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC, from 1994 until 2003. Mr. Ward has also served as organist and choirmaster at St. James Cathedral, Chicago.  A graduate of Furman University, Eastman School of Music, he is also a graduate of the College of Church Musicians of Washington, an elite group who studied at Washington National Cathedral. Mr. Ward undertook advanced study at the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, while teaching there. He was a composition student of Leo Sowerby. His works can be found in the catalogs of Flammer, H.W. Gray, Augsburg, and St. James Music Press.

During Communion you will hear Bidkar Cajina sing the beautiful hymn "The Summons" by Scotsman John Bell. I wrote about this hymn and John Bell when he last sang this in October, so please check out my post here.

The organ music is all music of Henry Purcell, the finest and most original composer of his day. Though he was to live a very short life (he died at age 36), he was able to enjoy and make full use of the renewed flowering of music after the Restoration of the Monarchy.

Henry Purcell

As the son of a musician at Court, a chorister at the Chapel Royal, and the holder of continuing royal appointments until his death, Purcell worked in Westminster for three different Kings over twenty-five years.

He is responsible for much choral music for the church, but also music for opera and theatre. While Purcell was known for being the organist at Westminster Abbey, the English organ was nowhere near the size nor as elaborate as the organ in Germany, so what little organ music Purcell wrote was rather inconsequential to the great body of organ literature. Thus, modern organists have had to turn to transcriptions of his orchestral works for their portion of music from Purcell.  The Suite I am playing for the opening voluntary is an arrangement of various works from his incidental music for the English stage.

Music for January 10, 2021 + The Baptism of Our Lord

Vocal Music

• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – William Roger Price (b. 1955)
• Camryn Creech, soprano and Harrison Boyd, baritone
• Hymn 297 Descend, O Spirit, purging flame (ERHALT UNS, HERR)

Instrumental Music

• When Jesus went to Jordan’s Stream, BWV 684 and 685 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Chorale – Ola Gielo (b. 1978)
• Toccata in E, BWV 566 – Johann Sebastian Bach

This Sunday, the focus of the service is Jesus' baptism. Jesus goes to the River Jordan and is baptized by his cousin John (hereinafter known as "the Baptist," meaning his action, not denominational affiliation). Baptism offered a new beginning, and this was true of Jesus. Mark;s Gospel includes nothing of Jesus' life before his baptism, where Jesus went public and begins his ministry.

The Baptism of Christ Window 
at Good Shepherd

To mark that, I am playing two preludes by J. S. Bach based on the Lutheran hymn Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Hymn 139 in our hymnal, When Jesus went to Jordan's stream.) These two chorale preludes are found in the third volume of his Clavier-Übung, which means keyboard exercises, but in typical Bach fashion, they are really beautiful works of art. The first, BWV 684, is a four-part setting for two manuals and pedal; and the second, BWV 685, a setting for single manual with no pedal part. 

BWV 684 is a trio sonata with the melody in the tenor register of the pedal . Bach specifically stipulates two keyboards to give different sonorities to the imitative upper parts and the bass part. In the left hand you’ll hear an unceasing figure of flowing 16th notes which give the idea of the water flowing at the Jordan River, while the right hand motif depicts the descending of the Holy Spirit over Jesus Christ.

The manualiter chorale prelude BWV 685, despite being only 27 bars long and only in three-parts, is a complex composition with dense fugal writing. The subject and countersubject are both derived from the first line of the cantus firmus (the melody). The subject is presented three times as written, and three time inverted (or turned upside down.) Hermann Keller suggested that this represents the three immersions at baptism. Others have seen allusions to the Trinity in the three voices. The subject and countersubject have been seen as representing Luther's baptismal themes of Old Adam and New Man.

The closing voluntary, the Toccata in E Major, BWV 566, is the first of five sections of a larger organ work written by J. S. Bach when he was young. In 1703, when he was but 18, Bach was appointed organist at the New Church in Arnstadt. In 1705, he was granted a four week leave of absence to visit the organist and composer Dieterich Buxtehude in the northern city of Lübeck. The visit to Buxtehude involved a 280 mile journey each way, reportedly on foot. Four weeks turned into four months, which did NOT sit well with his employer. 

This work is probably from that period, for its compositional form resembles that of the preludes by Buxtehude. The first section alternates manual or pedal cadenzas with dense suspended chords.

Bach also wrote a transposed version of the piece in C major (BWV 566a), to play on organs tuned in meantone where E major would sound discordant due to the tuning of the organ (with a very sharp D♯). Modern organs or those tuned to a more equal temperament do not have this need.

Our offertory today is a setting of the hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, arranged by the Oklahoma composer and pianist, Roger Price. It is sung by our college students Camry Creech and Harrison Boyd, who are singing one last time before returning to their respective schools in Oklahoma (Camryn - Oklahoma City University) and Mississippi (Harrison - The University of Mississippi.)

Music for January 3, 2020 + The Second Sunday after Christmas

Instrumental Music

• How Brightly Shines the Morning Star (BuxWV 223) – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Meditation on “Dix”
• Prelude on “Puer Nobis” - Rudy Davenport
• Praise God, All Ye Christians - Dietrich Buxtehude

For this Sunday, I am playing a mix of Chorales and hymn tunes which are appropriate to the Second Sunday after Christmas. We are still in the season after Christmas, but the alternate Gospel for today is the story of the visit of the Magi, so I'm leaning heavily on that theme.

Before the Gospel, you'll hear an improvisation on the hymn-tune DIX, which we often use to sing the words of hymn 119, "As with gladness men of old did the guiding star behold; as with joy they hailed its light, leading onward, beaming bright..." This hymn is a prayer for God's presence in our lives as we draw closer to Him. The Magi showed faith in God and eagerness, as well as sacrifice, in their journey to see the Christ-child. So may we live as though we really believe and eagerly look forward to the day when we shall one day see Him. In the third stanza, the gifts of the Magi are not even named. The Magi took the trouble to bring “gifts most rare” on a long journey. So may we “All our costliest treasures bring, Christ, to Thee, our heavenly King.” This pilgrimage is not easy, so we sing, “Holy Jesus, every day keep us in the narrow way,” remembering that Jesus said, “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14, ESV).

Puer natus est nobis  

 At communion I'll play a piano improvisation of the German Chorale PUER NOBIS, a 15th century choral which gets its tune name from the incipit of the original Latin Christmas text, which was translated into German by the mid-sixteenth century as "Uns ist geborn ein Kindelein," and later in English as "Unto Us a Boy Is Born." But I am using it not for its connection to the Christmas season, but because our hymnal uses it with the Epiphany text found at hymn 124, "What star is this, with beam so bright, More lovely than the noonday light? ’Tis sent to announce a newborn king, Glad tidings of our God to bring."

The opening voluntary is an extended chorale fantasia on the German chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern by Dieterich Buxtehude. Buxtehude composed a fantasy in several long sections, characterized by the use of different means, such as the use of rhetorical figures and the abundant use of repetitions and echo effects. The first section begins with the melody of the hymn played in the bass, with a subsequent shift to the soprano. A section in stylus phantasticus follows, with rapid succession of thirty-second notes and triplets .

After a very short richly decorated largo, the composition continues with a jig in 6/8, followed by an episode in fugue style. The work ends with exhibitions of new thematic material, in the form of fantasy. In the last four bars the score includes the use of the pedal board for the very first time.

The Morgenstern mentioned in the first line (How bright appears the Morning Star, with mercy beaming from afar; the host of heav'en rejoices) may refer to the star of Bethlehem, but I think it points to Jesus, the Light of the world. Either way, it's entirely appropriate for the season.

The closing voluntary is another of Buxtehude's chorale settings, though much shorter than the fantasy on Wie schön leuchtet. "Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich" is a German Christmas carol from the 16th century.