Music for Sunday, July 18, 2021 + The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Instrumental Music

• Adagio in E Major – Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
• God Is My Shepherd – BROTHER JAMES AIR, arr. David Gale (21st C.)
• Prelude on “St. Columba” – Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
• Trumpet Tune in E – David N. Johnson (1922-1987)

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

• Hymn 48 O day of radiant gladness (ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVÖGELEIN)
• Hymn 708 Savior, like a shepherd lead us (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Hymn R307 Sent forth by God’s blessing (THE ASH GROVE)
• Psalm 23 – Tone VIIIa

The psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 23. Two of the pieces I am playing this Sunday are based on hymn tunes associated with metrical versions of this psalm. 

At the offering, I am playing a piano piece based on the hymntune, BROTHER JAMES' AIR. This tune was composed by James Leith Macbeth Bain, the healer, mystic, and poet known simply as Brother James. The tune was first published in his volume The great peace: being a New Year's greeting ... (1915).

Born in a devout Christian home, Bain came to doubt the faith but later regained a mystical belief with the aid of the Christo Theosophic Society. He founded the Brotherhood of Healers, and he and his fellow healers often sang to their patients during healing sessions. In the latter years of his life he worked among the poor in the slums of Liverpool. He published a book on healing entitled The Brotherhood of Healers ... (1906).

In 1934, the British composer Gordon Jacob published an arrangement of this tune with the text "The Lord's my shepherd, I’ll not want" which has become the best known pairing of text for this tune. In our hymnal, the tune is paired with another Psalm paraphrase, How lovely is thy dwelling place (hymn 517)

 

This well-loved tune is in bar form (AAB) with an unusual final phrase that rises to a high tonic cadence.

The piano piece is arranged by David Gale, a composer, arranger, pianist and choir director from Tucson, Arizona. His education includes a bachelor's and master's degrees from Texas Tech University, and a doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University. Retired from 26 years at Flowing Wells Junior High School, Dr. Gale is currently in his 24th year as music director for First Christian Church in Tucson, where he focuses on creating music for the church service including piano arrangements and choir pieces.

The other hymn-tune setting is much older. Charles Villiers Stanford, the Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era, published several organ works, including two sets of short preludes and postludes, which included this setting of the Irish folk tune, ST. COLUMBA. You can find this in our hymnal at hymn 645, "The King of Love my shepherd is." It's s simple setting with the tune interspersed with original music by Stanford.

Music for July 11, 2021 + The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Instrumental Music

• Christus, der ist mein Leben– Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• We pray now to the Holy Spirit—Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• Strengthen for Service, Lord – arr. Anne Krentz Organ (b. 1960)
• Toccata in E Minor – Johann Pachelbel

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 686 Come, thou fount of every blessing (EBENEZER)
• Hymn 295 Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn 671 Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Psalm85:8-13– Tone VIIIa

Years ago, before I began my work as a musician in the Episcopal Church, I had a short stint working at a Kinkos. I was tired of church music, and, since I loved paper and office supplies, I thought working at Kinkos might be fun. "Fun" might not be the best word to describe my two years there, but "interesting" sure fits.

Working those huge copiers gave me the opportunity to see a lot of documents. Some were so technical that I showed no interest. (Flight manuals for FedEx transport planes.) What really pique my interest were wedding service leaflets. My favorite to this day is the one which had a hand-drawn cover with the Bible verse on the front in calligraphy: "What God hath joined together let no man put us under." (sic) Another favorite was the one which listed the music, including the famous Canon in D by the composer Paco Bell. 

I thought about that this week as I was choosing music for the service, and Hymn 295, Sing praise to our Creator, wound up as one of my choices for hymns. I remembered Johann Pachelbel had written a partita (a set of variations) on the German chorale, Christus, der ist mein Leben, which is the tune used for hymn 295 in our hymnal. Since the partita doesn't include much pedal, I decided that it would be a great choice for this Sunday since I would be out of the office this week, with little time to practice the organ.

(Regular organ practice is essential to anyone who wants to play interesting and challenging literature on any musical instrument. You may not realize it, but two hours with an instrument a day is not unusual for an active musician. In fact, two hours is almost the minimum.)

Since I was playing a chorale-based selection of Pachelbel, I decided to choose one of his "free" organ works for the closing voluntary. The Toccata in E Minor is a serious if flashy organ work with little pedal work. It's got a great sense of forward motion which is perfect for the closing of the service as we are sent out to "do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord."

Pachelbel was an organist during the Baroque period who is credited with bringing the south German organ school to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era. 

During that same time, you have Dietrich Buxtehude, a Danish-born organist who spent the last 40 years of his life at Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church) in Lubeck in Northern Germany. He was very well known and influential. Both G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach wanted to follow Buxtehude at St. Mary's, but neither one wanted to marry his daughter as that was a condition for the position. I'm playing another chorale-based work by him for the offertory.

Anne Krentz Organ

To balance all that Baroque organ music, I looked to the piano music of the contemporary American composer with the ironic name of Anne Krentz Organ. She is the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL. She  holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Valparaiso University, a Master of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Illinois, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Church Music from Concordia University in River Forest, IL. She is a leader in contemporary Lutheran Church music, having served on the staff of the Lutheran Summer Music Program as organist and handbell choir director, additionally teaching classes on church music and hymnody. Organ currently serves as the President of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.

In today's Communion voluntary, Organ takes an original hymn tune of another Lutheran Composer, Robert Hobby, and crafts a beautifully meditative piano piece. The tune, BUCKHURST RUN, is paired with the text "Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands" (see The Hymnal 1982, #312) in the 2006 hymnal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Worship. BUCKHURST RUN is named after the street in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the Hobby family lives.

Music for July 4, 2021 + Independence Day

Instrumental Music

• Variations on “God Save the Queen” (America) – Charles Wesley (1757-1834)
• Meditation on "Finlandia"- Brenda Portman (b. 1980)
• Improvisation on “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies” – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• The Stars and Stripes Forever – John Philips Sousa (1854-1932)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 718 - God of our fathers, whose almighty hand (NATIONAL HYMN)
• Hymn 716 - God bless our native land (AMERICA)
• Hymn 599 - Lift every voice and sing (LIFT EVERY VOICE)
• Psalm 145:1-9 – Tone VIIIa

It's a rare day when the fourth of July falls on a Sunday. The Book of Common Prayer has readings and prayer for Independence Day in the lectionary, and while it is not supposed to supersede the Propers for the day, we are taking the liberty to assert our independence and observe the day in our worship services.

This gives me the opportunity to schedule hymns and music with a more patriotic bent. The hymns all work together to focus on our reliance on God and in recognition of his blessings on us individually and as a people. Some of the more overtly patriotic hymns will be sung at the church picnic after the 10:15 service ("My country, tis of thee", "O beautiful for spacious skies"*). The hymns sung this morning are truly American, however.

Take the first hymn, which is called "The National Hymn." Daniel C. Roberts wrote this patriotic hymn in 1876 for July 4 centennial celebrations in Brandon, Vermont, where he was rector at St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Originally entitled "God of Our Fathers," this text was later chosen as the theme hymn for the centennial celebration of the adoption of the United States Constitution. It was published in the Protestant Episcopal Hymnal of 1892.

Many American patriotic hymns extol the beauty and worth of the United States first, and treat God almost as an afterthought, which makes it difficult for some Christians to be comfortable singing them in the context of a worship service. This hymn puts God first, and is constantly addressed to Him as a prayer for the nation, without reference to American superiority. The second and third stanzas allude to a nation's need for God's law and guidance to maintain peace.

The hymn God bless our native land is a translation of a German hymn written in 1815 by writer Siegfried A. Mahlmann. It is set to the tune AMERICA, which is also the English National Anthem, “God save the Queen." It's this tune that we hear for the opening voluntary, a set of variations by the English musician Charles Wesley. He was the son of Sarah and Charles Wesley (the great hymn-writer and one of the founders of Methodism), and the brother of Samuel Wesley, also an organist and composer. He is usually referred to as "Charles Wesley junior" to avoid confusion with his more famous father. 

Although Charles Wesley junior is much less well known than his brother Samuel Wesley, he was, like Samuel, regarded as a musical prodigy in childhood, and he was playing the organ before the age of three. He became a professional musician in adulthood, and the European Magazine of 1784 reported that "his performance on the organ has given supreme delight". However he did not enjoy public performance, and worked mainly as a private organist, at one time to the Prince Regent; he was connected with the royal family through much of his life, having first played at the Queen's House at the age of 18.

For communion I have chosen a setting of the hymn tune FINLANDIA, which is taken from a tone poem of the same name by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was written in 1899 for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire. The premiere was on 2 July 1900 in Helsinki. Later, Sibelius later reworked the Finlandia Hymn into a stand-alone piece. This hymn, with words written in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, is one of the most important national songs of Finland. 

With different words, it is also sung as a Christian hymn, "Be Still, My Soul" and the text which I had in mind when I chose it for today. The American poet Lloyd Stone wrote "This Is My Song" in 1934, when he was 22. It was paired with FINLANDIA by an editor at Lorenz Publishing Company as the anthem "A Song of Peace: A Patriotic Song." He wrote the stanzas for inclusion in the collection, Sing a Tune. During the brief time of peace between two world wars, it was a song of hope for all nations—“for lands afar and mine.” I love how Stone acknowledges love for his own country, but balances that with the love that others feel around the world for their nations.

Brenda Portman

The second stanza begins by alluding to the blue skies, the ocean, sunlight, “cloverleaf and pine” of Stone’s own country, but then acknowledges that in other countries, “skies are everywhere as blue as mine.” The stanza concludes: “O hear my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for their land and for mine.”

The arranger of this piece, composer Brenda Portman, is currently Resident Organist at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati where she also serves as Executive Director of the church's renowned Organ Concert Series. She is also Adjunct Organ Instructor at Xavier University in Cincinnati. She is a graduate of Wheaton College, Northwestern University, and University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. 

Meditation on Finlandia was featured in the  AAM Virtual Conference Evensong at Washington National Cathedral; Thomas Sheehan, organist, on June 14th of this year.

I end the service as I do every year that Sunday and Independence Day collide with E. Power Bigg's arrangement of John Philip Sousa's stirring march,
The Stars and Stripes Forever! Feel free to clap along!

*I'll play this one for the offertory on Sunday.

Music for June 27, 2021 + The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• For the Beauty of the Earth – David Ashley White (b. 1944)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

1. Hymn 518 Christ is made the sure foundation (WESTMINSTER ABBEY)
2. Hymn 707 Take my life and let it be consecrated (HOLLINGSIDE)
3. Hymn 493 O for a thousand tongues to sing (AZMON)
4. Psalm 30 – Tone VIIIa

This week I am on holiday visiting my children in Tennessee. Karen Silva has graciously agree to play the service, leading the choir through the anthem, a setting of the familiar text, For the Beauty of the Earth, by Houstonian David Ashley White.

It's a setting he wrote for his parents 50th anniversary. 

Music for June 20, 2021 + The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• We Shall Be Delivered – Sea Chanty, arr. Sanford Dole

Instrumental Music

• Fantaisie en ut - César Franck (1822-1890)
• Humbly I Adore Thee – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• March Pontificale – Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881)

Congregational Music (hymns from the Hymnal 1982, or Renew (marked “R”) or Lift Every Voice and Sing II (marked *)

• Hymn R194 - Jesus, what a Friend for sinners (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn* - When the storms of life are raging (STAND BY ME)
• Hymn 608 - Eternal Father, strong to save (MELITA)
• Psalm 107– Tone VIIIa

We all know sea shanties. A sea shanty (chantey or chanty) is a genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large merchant sailing vessels. They were found mostly on British and other European ships, and some had roots in lore and legend. These songs were simple, rhythmic melodies that were easy to learn and easy to sing. There is usually lots of repetition, either of lyrics or a refrain. The most commonly known is probably “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor.” The Gilligan’s Island theme song is written in the style of a sea shanty.

 
Sea shanties resurfaced in popular culture. In 2009 a BBC Radio presenter was in Cornwall on holiday and came across homemade CDs of some local fishermen. An agent travelled to Port Isaac and negotiated a recording contract worth £1 million for them with Universal Music Group, who, taking quite a gamble, signed them to a recording deal. To everyone’s surprise, Fisherman’s Friends and their album reached number 9 in the charts and achieved Gold Record status.

 
Then early this year, a Scotland-based postman named Nathan Evans posted a rendition of the New Zealand shanty "Soon May the Wellerman Come," on TikTok. Nathan’s incredible rendition of The Wellerman exploded on the platform and has even become something of a TikTok challenge.

Using the TikTok duet feature - which lets you record a video alongside another TikTok user - users are layering their harmonies over Nathan’s original video, including the renowned composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. To date, over 17.5 million people have watched the original video.

Taking that same song, “Soon May the Wellerman Come,” some Episcopal church musicians in California have rewritten the words to fit this Sunday’s Gospel lesson.

One day our Lord, his sermon over, said, “Let’s go off to the other shore.”
So each disciple took an oar and they began their voyage.
The boat set out for the other side and for an hour did gently ride,
but then the watchman loud did cry, “A storm is coming in!”
Then how the wind did blow, the waves did over the gunwales flow,
strong as the crew did row, the ship was close to found’rin’.

I have to admit, it’s a fun song to sing, and I hope it will help cement the lesson in our hearts as well as our minds.

All of the hymns reinforce the theme that Jesus calms our troubled seas. The opening hymn is Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners by the great Presbyterian evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman. The hymn includes these two stanzas:

Jesus! what a help in sorrow!

While the billows o'er me roll,

even when my heart is breaking,

he, my comfort, helps my soul.

    Refrain:

Hallelujah! what a Savior!

Hallelujah, what a Friend!

Saving, helping, keeping, loving,

he is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a guide and keeper!

While the tempest still is high,

storms about me, night o'ertakes me,

he, my pilot, hears my cry. [Refrain]

The opening and closing voluntaries are works by two Belgian organist who live at the same time, César Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck, who was based in Paris most of his adult life, and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, who studied in Paris and Germany before returning to Belgium. 

Music for June 13, 2021 + The Third Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Hymn of Promise – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)

Instrumental Music

• Symphonie Gothique: 2. Andante Sostenuto - Charles-Marie Widor (1844 –1937)
• Jerusalem My Happy Home – George Shearing (1919-2011)
• Praeludium from Suite in D Minor – Johann Krieger (1651–1735)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 525 The Church’s one foundation (AURELIA) 
• Hymn 302 Father, we thank thee who hast planted (LYONS)
• Hymn 657 Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 92 – Tone VIIIa

This Sunday the Good Shepherd SUMMER Choir will sing one of the simplest and loveliest anthems in our library, the beautiful Hymn of Promise by Natalie Sleeth. I have written about it before, so if you want to read the story of how it came to be, please go here.

Often we sing hymns which we have sung all our lives, and never think about what they mean. This Sunday, we are closing the 10:15 service with Charles Wesley's great hymn, Love divine, all loves excelling. It's one of the few hymns of that era that depicts God as a loving god, and not a judgmental deity. Every line in this hymn can be traced back to the Bible. Every thought is based on God's word. Here is an example of just the last stanza of the hymn:

Finish then thy new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)
Pure and spotless* let us be, (Cant. 4:7, Eph. 5:27
Let us see thy great salvation, (Heb 2:3, 2 Peter 3:14)
Perfectly restored in thee; (Psalm 51:12, Isaiah 49:6, 58:12)
Changed from glory into glory (2 Cor. 3:18)
Till in heaven we take our place (John 14:2-3)
Till we cast our crowns before thee (Rev 4:10)
Lost in wonder, love, and praise (Rev. 8:1)
* the original word was "sinless," influenced by John Wesley's belief that humans could strive toward perfection, thus being sinless.

But a couple of lines are a bit obscure. I want to lift those out and give an explanation of them.

Line five of the third stanza says we are "changed from glory into glory." This comes from 2nd Corinthians 3:18

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

You have to remember the story of Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. It's said that his face was shining so brightly from being around the glory of God that he had to veil his face to keep from blinding his people. This glory comes from knowing the Law of God. But with Christ, we are a new creation (see the first line) and, as William Barclay says in his Commentary,

...we see the glory of the Lord with no veil upon our faces, and because of that we, too, are changed from glory into glory. Just possibly what Paul means is that, if we gaze at Christ, we in the end reflect him. It is a law of life that we become like the people we gaze at. (William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, The Westminster Press, 1954)

And in the penultimate line, we sing about casting our crowns before him. In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John describes an event that will take place sometime after the Judgment Seat of Christ. The scene involves twenty-four elders, sitting upon twenty-four thrones, all of which encircle the throne of God.

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads …. (Revelation 4:4)
The twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne. (Revelation 4:10)

For the saints to cast their crowns before the throne of God is to publicly acknowledge Christ’s right (and His alone) to wear those crowns. At this time they will “give credit where credit is due.” During their lives, these believers had faithfully represented Christ to the world in both character and service. But the ability to do so had not been generated by their own will and power but, instead, by the will and power of God. 

Music for June 6, 2021 + The Second Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Lead Me, Lord – S. S. Wesley (1810-1876)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan (What God Ordains Is Always Good) – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) 
• Nocturne in A Minor – David Karp
• Toccata in C – Johann Pachelbel 

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the last hymn which is from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 594 Go of grace, and God of glory (CWM RHONDDA)
• Hymn 533 How wondrous and great thy works (LYONS)
• Hymn When peace like a river (VILLE DU HAVRE)
• Psalm 130– tone VIIIa

As I am away this week at the Diocese of Texas Music Camp for Youth, I am unable to go into a detailed account of the music. So here are some quick notes

The anthem is an excerpt from a much longer anthem, Praise the Lord, O my soul, by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, an English organist and composer. The grandson of Charles Wesley, he was born in London, and sang in the choir of the Chapel Royal as a boy. He learned composition and organ from his father, Samuel, completed a doctorate in music at Oxford, and composed for piano, organ, and choir. He was organist at Hereford Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, Leeds Parish Church, Winchester Cathedral, and Gloucester Cathedral. Wesley strove to improve the standards of church music and the status of church musicians; 

The original anthem was written in 1861, with this excerpt first published in 1905 in The Anthem Book, no. 8. But it was not until it was published in The Church Anthem Book in 1933 that it became quite popular. Now you can find this simple song in almost 30 hymnals, including the Episcopal book Lift Every Voice and Sing II, and the Renew hymnal which is in our pews.

Music by Johann Pachelbel opens and closes our service. First is a partita (an instrumental piece composed of a series of variations, as a suite) on the Lutheran Chorale What God Ordains Is Always Good (Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan). There are nine variations of varying difficulty and styles, even including a gigue, which is perhaps a little out of character for church music, but is fun to play, nevertheless.

During communion you will hear a Nocturne in A Minor by David Karp. As you mighty imagine, a nocturne is a slow, dreamy, sleepy kind of piece. This one is no exception. David Karp was on the piano faculty while I was at SMU, and, in fact, still is. He wrote this piece in memory of another professor at SMU, Louise Bianchi, who was Professor Emerita of Piano Pedagogy.

Dr. Karp is a nationally known pianist, composer, educator, lecturer and author, who holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Colorado with additional doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. At Southern Methodist, he teaches classes in performance, chamber music, improvisation, advanced class piano for piano majors, required piano classes for music majors and sight-reading classes for piano majors. In addition to his academic work,  he is prolific composer, with compositions numbering over several hundred and published by several major music publishers in America. These compositions are performed in competitions, recitals and a variety of music venues all over the world, often listed as required repertoire for students.