Music for May 30, 2021 + Trinity Sunday

Vocal Music

• Round the Lord in Glory Seated – C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918)
• Christ, be with Me – Noel Rawsthorne (1929-2019)

Instrumental Music

• Suite for Organ – John Stanley (1712-1786)
• I. Introduction and Allegro
  
• II. (Slow with expression)
• III. Trumpet Voluntary
• Allein Gott in der Höh – Andreas Nicholas Vetter (1666 – 1734)
• Allein Gott in der Höh - Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau (1663 - 1712

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 362 Holy, holy, holy (NICEA)
• Hymn 295 Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IST MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn 371 Thou, whose almighty word (MOSCOW)
• Canticle 13 Glory to You (John Rutter)

"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory." Isaiah 6:3

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, the only day in the Liturgical calendar to commemorate a doctrine rather than a person or event. As the name suggests, Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's always the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity.

Musically, we observe the day by singing hymns praising the Trinity. One of the most familiar, and a personal favorite, is the opening hymn Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. One that is not as well known, but equally as beautiful and powerful, is the hymn Round the Lord in Glory Seated.

Our hymnal pairs a text by the 19th century Anglican Bishop Richard Mant with a tune by C. Hubert H. Parry, an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Parry is best known for the choral song Jerusalem, the coronation anthem I was glad and the hymn tune REPTON, which sets the words "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind". 

Hubert Parry earned a Bachelor of Music degree at Oxford at the age of 18.  Although an accomplished organist, pianist, and violinist, he initially worked for three years as a clerk at Lloyd’s of London before leaving to further his musical studies.  Parry published his first orchestral work in 1878 (Piano Concerto in F# Minor) and then went on to compose a wide variety of works including oratorios, librettos, chamber pieces, cantatas, choral works and solo songs.

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

In 1883 he joined the Royal College of Music as a teacher and became its director in 1894, a position he held until his death.  He was knighted in 1898 and made a baronet in 1903.  Probably his most notable pupils were Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.  Parry was not a distant man and inspired others through his kindness, warmth and enthusiasm.  From 1900-1908, he served as a Professor of Music at Oxford and received three honorary doctorate degrees from Cambridge, Oxford and Dublin.  Most music critics in recent years consider him to be one of the most underrated of the late Romantic composers and a number believe he was one of the most influential English composers since Henry Purcell.

RUSTINGTON was first published in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book (1897) as a setting for Benjamin Webb's "Praise the Rock of Our Salvation." The tune is named for the village in Sussex, England, where Parry lived for some years and where he died.

St. Patrick's Breastplate is a poem that is often used on Trinity Sunday. This great Trinitarian text belongs to a Celtic style of hymn known as a lorica, from the Latin word for “armor” or “breastplate.” In effect, it serves as both a statement of faith and a prayer for God’s protection. The most familiar part of this poem is the prayer "Christ be with me," which has been set to a new tune by the British organist Noel Rawsthorne. He was organist of Liverpool Cathedral for 25 years and City Organist and Artistic Director at St George’s Hall, Liverpool.

Another lesser known British Composer is John Stanley, a contemporary and friend of George Fredrick Handel. He was completely blind from the age of two, but in spite of this he was greatly admired both as a composer and as a performer, and Handel himself was often seen, along with other famous musicians of the day, listening to Stanley's performances on the organ of the Temple Church, London, where he was organist for more than 50 years.

The opening voluntary is a group of pieces taken from a collection of voluntaries which have been grouped together by Henry Coleman to form a suite , and have been freely transcribed for the modern organ. The organ of 18th century England did not have the full pedalboard that organs now have, so the music has been arranged to accommodate that.

Music for Sunday, May 23, 2021 + Pentecost

Vocal Music

• If Ye Love Me – Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 1585)
• Gracious Spirit, Dwell in Me – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Dearest Jesus, We Are Here – Johann L. Krebs (1713-1780)
• Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now – Johann G. Walther (1685-1748)
• Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist (Come God, Creator, Holy Ghost) BWV 667– Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

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

• Hymn 511 Holy Spirit, ever living (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn R168 If you believe and I believe (Zimbabwean)
• Hymn R291 Go forth for God, go to the world in peace (GENEVA 124)
• Psalm 104 – tone VIIIa

Thomas Tallis was the preeminent composer of the English Renaissance. He was such an important  person during the Tudor period that he was one of the characters in the 2007 BBC television series The Tudors, though in a highly fictionalized version. A Catholic, he was able to survive the the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism, and his music often displays characteristics of the turmoil. During Elizabeth I's reign, he wrote music using Latin texts, in a florid style. 

Henry VIII's break from the Roman Catholic church in 1534 and the rise of Thomas Cranmer noticeably influenced the style of music being written. Cranmer recommended a syllabic style of music where each syllable is sung to one pitch, as his instructions make clear for the setting of the 1544 English Litany. As a result, the writing of Tallis and his contemporaries became less florid, using English texts.

Today's anthem is an example of English text writing. If Ye Love Me was actually written during the reign of Elizabeth I, but it is a noted example of this Reformation compositional style, essentially homophonic but with some elaboration and imitation. Typically for Anglican motets of this period, it is written in an ABB form, with the second section repeated. It has become a favorite of English speaking choirs the world over. 

It was sung at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle in 2018.

The other anthem is a setting of a hymn by the 19th century English Congregational minister, Thomas T. Lynch. Lynch's hymn is set in this meter: 7.7.7.7.7.7 (seven syllables per line). But K. Lee Scott sets this text to the tune ADORE DEVOTE, a chant from the 13th century, which has the meter 6.5.6.5. D (Doubled). As you can imagine, some creative license has been used in fitting the 19th century text to the 13th century tune, including writing an entirely new 4th stanza written by the composer. Thankfully, it works. (The tune ADORE DEVOTE is in the Eucharist section of the hymnal as hymn 314: Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen, as well as the hymn 357, Jesus, Son of Mary, fount of life alone in the Burial section.)

All the organ music for this Sunday comes from the Baroque period, the period in music history that is roughly the years 1600-1750. It was the period where the organ truly was the king of instruments, especially in Germany, the home of all three of today's composers. The first piece is a piece by Johann Ludwig Krebs. Krebs studied under his father and was later a favorite pupil of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach at Leipzig. His music shows many of the same attributes found in Bach's music, and his best organ works equal anything by Bach. Bach (who had also instructed J. Ludwig's father) held Krebs in high standing. However, it was quite difficult for Krebs to obtain a patron or a post at any cathedral. This can be attributed to the fact that by this time the Baroque tradition was being left behind in favor of the new galant music style. This point in time also marked the transition to the classical music era, with composers such as Bach's son, C.P.E. Bach. 

Today's opening voluntary is one of a set of pieces for organ and wind instruments that Krebs wrote. The trumpet part is played by Sydney Peltier, our alto section leader. She came to us at the start of the year. She is a teacher in Houston ISD, after teaching for a couple of years as a middle school choir director in Humble ISD.

The next two opening voluntaries are by another contemporary of Bach, Johann Gottfried Walther. Not only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to that of Johann Sebastian Bach, he was the famous composer's cousin.  Walther as a city organist of Weimar wrote exactly 132 organ preludes based on Lutheran chorale melodies. Two of those are the settings of the hymn Lord Jesus Christ, be Present Now which I'll be playing for the second half of the opening voluntary. (The same tune is used in our hymnal for No. 3,  Now that the daylight fills the sky and No. 310, O saving Victim, opening wide).

The first one is written for keyboard alone - no pedal and no trumpet. But the second one was written with the pedal part playing the melody, which today will be played on the trumpet.

The closing voluntary is the extended chorale setting of Come, God, Creator, Holy Ghost, from Bach's The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668. This chorale prelude on Martin Luther's hymn for Pentecost "Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist" consists of two variations linked by a bridging interlude: the first is a miniature chorale prelude almost identical to BWV 631 in the Orgelbüchlein, with an uninterrupted cantus firmus in the soprano line; in the second, the four lines of the cantus firmus are heard in the pedal, beneath a flowing imitative ritornello accompaniment on the keyboard.

It is one of the last things he ever wrote. In 1750 when Bach began to suffer from blindness before his death in July, BWV 666 and 667 were dictated to his student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol and copied posthumously into the manuscript. 

Music for May 16, 2021 + The Seventh Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether – Harold Friedell (1905-1958)
• The Tree of Life – K. Lee Scott (b. 1950)

Instrumental Music

• Concerto in E-flat Major – Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Kevin Mendoza, trumpet
• I. Allegro
• II. Andante
• I Thank Thee, Lord, through Thy dear Son – Johann Christoph Bach (1642 –1703)
• Arrival of the Queen of Sheba – G. F. Handel (1685-1759)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked with an asterisk which are from Lift Every Voice and Sing II.)

• Hymn 460 - Alleluia! sing to Jesus! (HYFRYDOL)
• Hymn 494 - Crown him with many crowns (DIADEMATA)
• Hymn - I have decided to follow Jesus (ASSAM)
• Psalm 1 - simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachen

The music for this Sunday (which is Confirmation Sunday for us) begins with parts of a trumpet concerto by Franz Joseph Haydn, played by a student from Lone Star College in Kingwood, Kevin Mendoza. The concerto was one written by Haydn for his friend Anton Weidinger, a trumpet virtuoso and inventor of the first "keyed" trumpet which would allow a trumpet player to play in any key. 

the "natural" trumpet

A valve trumpet from the 1880s

You see, before this innovation, trumpets had no valves, and could only play a limited range of harmonic notes by altering the vibration of the lips; this is why it is called by the name of "natural trumpet". Most of these harmonic notes were clustered in the higher registers, so previous trumpet concertos could only play melodically with the high register. 

Weidinger developed a keyed trumpet which could play chromatically throughout its entire range, though his idea of drilling holes and covering them with flute-like keys was not a success as it had very poor sound quality. Weidinger did not perform the Concerto in public until 1800. Surviving in a single manuscript copy, this extraordinary work wasn't performed again until 1929.

 The valved trumpets used today were first constructed and used in the 1830s.

Harold Friedell

The offertory anthem is one of our choir's favorites, partly, I imagine, because of its lyrical melody and partly because of its imaginative and descriptive text. "Tether" is not a word used much today except in the term "Tether Ball," but I think that is an extremely accurate term for how the spirit connects us together, and to God. If you ever played tether ball as a child, you know that the ball is tied, or tethered, to the pole, and no matter how hard it is hit, it is connected to that pole, and will always return. Crafters in the group also love the term "knit thou our friendship up," though modern hymnals have tried to replace that with the pedestrian phrase "so now bind our friendship up."

This beautiful setting was written by Harold Friedell, an American organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer. Friedell was raised in New York state, and worked at several prominent churches, ending up at St. Bartholomew's in New York City. Draw Us In the Spirit's Tether was composed while he was at St. Bart's. He also taught at Julliard and Union Theological Seminary. You can read more about him here.

The communion anthem is another beautiful setting of a hymn text. Eric Routley, an English Congregational pastor, musician and hymn writer, was the preeminent 20th-century hymnologist of the English-speaking world. He translated a 12-stanza hymn by a 17th-century Hungarian pastor to produce this text. K. Lee Scott wrote the tune for Routley’s text as a commission for the Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Alabama for their Year of Evangelism in 1995. He remembers studying Routley’s texts (“because Routley had such an eye for texts”) and being drawn especially to this one because it was so panoramic. Scott remembers late at night sitting on the organ bench with just the organ light on in little Altadena Valley Presbyterian Church, walking back and forth from the organ bench down the aisles, as the tune gradually emerged out of his meditating on the text.

K. Lee Scott

K. (Keaton) Lee Scott is an internationally known composer and choral conductor of church music.  A life-long resident of Alabama, he received two degrees in choral music from The University of Alabama School of Music and has served as adjunct faculty for The University of Alabama School of Music, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Music, and Samford University School of Music.  He travels widely as a guest conductor and clinician in North America and beyond.  He is also director of music at Altadena Valley Presbyterian Church.  He has traveled extensively as guest conductor and clinician throughout the United States, as well as to Canada and Africa. 

Music for May 9, 2021 + The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Come Down, O Love Divine – arr. Fernando Ortega (b. 1957)
• Harrison Boyd, solo

Instrumental Music

• Christ the Lord Is Risen Again – Sondra K. Tucker
• Be Thou My Vision – arr. Julie Turner
• Trumpet Prelude – Johann Helmich Roman (1694-1758)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the canticle which is from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

• Canticle Christ our Passover (Pascha nostrum) (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 413 New Songs of celebration render (RENDEZ à DIEU)
• Hymn 297 Descend, O Spirit, purging flame (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn 610 (stanzas 1,2,4) Lord, whose love through humble service (BLAENHAFREN)

It seems like I have been excited about the music each Sunday ever since the choir has been been back, and this Sunday is no exception, except this week it is because the Good Shepherd Handbell Guild is back to play for us! We are playing two pieces, both of which are based on hymn tunes. 

The opening voluntary is a setting of the old German Easter chorale Christ ist erstanden (hymn 184). The tune is from 1533, so it is akin to a Renaissance dance.  The use of tambourine and flute enhance this vibrant setting of the ancient Easter hymn. We are still in the Easter Season, so it is still appropriate! 

Sondra Tucker

It is arranged by my friend Sondra Tucker. She and I were musicians in Memphis together, then we both moved to Houston. She then moved back to Memphis before returning back to Houston! In fact, she has been playing with our group this Spring, and we are thrilled to call her a friend of our bell choir. Sondra is a well-known composer for handbells, for choir, for organ, and for flute ensemble.  Since 2013 Sondra has served as Handbell Editor for Alfred Publishing Company.  She is in demand as a conductor and clinician, having served on the faculty of numerous local, area, and national events. She is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and the University of Memphis. Away from music, Sondra is an avid knitter, swimmer, and motorcycle rider.  She is married to Roger, who has also played with us this Spring.

The other handbell work is a setting of the beloved Irish hymn Be Thou My Vision (hymn 488), paired with another tune, THAXTED," a melody by the English composer Gustav Holst. Holst's air is based on the stately theme from the middle section of the Jupiter movement of his orchestral suite The Planets and named after Thaxted, the English village where Holst lived much of his life. He adapted the tune in 1921 to fit the patriotic poem "I Vow to Thee, My Country."  You'll hear that melody in the middle of the piece, played on the bells while accompanied by the handchimes.

Julie Turner

This medley is a product of Julie Turner, a musician from Tennessee who specializes in Handbell music. Since 2006, Turner has been the Associate Conductor, Composer in Residence and a Board Member of Music City Bronze, Nashville's advanced community handbell group. She has also been the handbell director at her church in Nashville since 1999. She holds a B.A. in Music from Cumberland University and was a contract music engraver for the United Methodist Publishing House for nine years. Julie has over 30 published handbell arrangements and compositions and was named Composer of the Year in 2009 by Jeffers Handbell Supply. Julie and her husband Jim have lived in Nashville since 1986, where they raised their two children.

The choir is not singing an anthem this week. Instead, we will hear a solo by Harrison Boyd, who will be leaving this week to continue his education with an internship in Iowa. Harrison has chosen an arrangement of the hymn Come Down, O Love Divine (hymn 516) by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is in an arrangement by Fernando Ortega, a contemporary Christian Musician from New Mexico who now works in an Anglican church. He has produced 20 albums of sacred music in both contemporary and more traditional hymnody since 1999, and has won three Dove Awards. He's become known for his contemporary take on traditional hymns. You might find interesting his 2016 blog entry where he discusses the difference between upbeat worship songs that "were always so corny and utterly forgettable," and the hymn which Harrison sings for us today.

Music for May 2n 2021 + The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Unto Thee, O Lord – Virgil T. Ford (1922-2005)

Instrumental Music

• Variations on Gaudeamus Pariter – Jayson A. Snipes (b. 1983)
• Hymn 200: Come, ye faithful, raise the strain
• I. Theme
• II. Cantabile
• III. Allegro
• IV. Toccata
• Rhosymedre – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
• Sortie – Jâcques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “*” which is from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

• Canticle* Christ our Passover (Pascha nostrum) (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 379 God is love: let heaven adore him (ABBOTT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 529 In Christ there is no East or West (MCKEE)
• Psalm 22:24-30 simplified Anglican chant by Jerome W. Meachen

Virgil Ford

Today’s anthem is a quiet, acapella setting of verses from the 25th Psalm: Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee. Show me thy ways, lead me in thy truth. Teach me thy paths, for thou are the God of my salvation. This setting, from 1960, is by American church musician Virgil T. Ford. An ordained minister of music in the United Methodist Church, he was active as a church organist/choirmaster for over 40 years at churches in Norfolk, Virginia and Eastern Massachusetts.

Ford was born in Norfolk, Virginia and started taking piano lessons at the age of 9. He attended The College of William & Mary and earned a B.A. Degree in 1943, and University Extension Conservatory of Chicago and earned a B. Music Degree (Composition) in 1955. He had over 250 published compositions that include anthems, cantatas, youth music collections and new hymn tunes.

The opening voluntary is a set of variations on the Easter hymn Come, ye faithful, raise the strain (Hymn 200), set to the tune GAUDEAMUS PARITER. It is by the contemporary American composer Jayson Snipes. He is a native of Winston-Salem, NC, and received a B.M. in Music Education, and M.M. in Choral Conducting from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he studied organ, voice, and conducting. Currently, he serves as Director of Traditional Music at Maple Springs United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem, and is Artistic Director of Piedmont Chamber Singers.

The communion voluntary is Ralph Vaughan William’s luscious setting of the Welsh tune RHOSYMEDRE. This hymn tune was written by the 19th-century Welsh Anglican priest John David Edwards who named the tune after the village of Rhosymedre in the County Borough of Wrexham, Wales, where he was the vicar from 1843 until his death in 1885.

The hymn tune appears in a number of hymnals and is sung to a variety of texts. In our hymnal, it is set to a lovely text about the Christian family (“Our Father, by whose name”, hymn 587). However, I first associated the tune with the text “My song is Love Unknown, my Savior’s love to me,” and that’s the text I still associate with it. So, when reading the Epistle lesson for today about the love of God, this immediately came to mind.

This piece was originally written for pipe organ in 1920. As usual, in his arrangements of British folk music, Vaughan Williams succeeds here in turning an apparently simple tune into a work of profound emotional impact. In this short but sweet work Vaughan Williams crafts a wistful piece of great beauty. It has since been arranged for string orchestra, concert band, and other various instruments.

This prelude was played at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales at the request of Lady Sarah McCorquodale. It was also played at the weddings of her two sons: Prince William (in April 2011) and Prince Harry (in May 2018). It is such a favorite of mine that I want it played at my memorial service, as well. (But not soon.)

Music for April 25, 2021 + The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Vocal Music

• Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – William Bradley Roberts (b. 1947)

Instrumental Music

• He Leadeth Me/Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us – arr. Phillip Keveren (b. 1961)
• My Shepherd Will Supply My Need – arr. Brian Henkelmann (b. 1956)
• Communion – Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
• Tuba Tune – C. S. Lang (1891-1971)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “*” which are from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

• Canticle*- Christ our Passover (Pascha nostrum) (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 208 - Alleluia! The Strife is O’er (VICTORY)
• Hymn 304 - I come with joy to meet my Lord (LAND OF REST)
• Psalm 23 - simplified Anglican chant by Jerome W. Meachen

The fourth Sunday of Easter is also called Good Shepherd Sunday, for the Psalm is always Psalm 23, and the Gospel reading references sheep. Many churches named after saints will often claim that saint's day as their "patronal" festival, so it is fitting that the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Kingwood should look to this day as our own feast day.

Jackson Hearn and Grace Tice
(looking for all the world like a prom picture)

With that in mind, we celebrate with music appropriate to the day. Not only does this Sunday mark the official return of the choir, but also brings a guest musician, the oboist (and my dear friend) Grace Tice. Grace is a free-lance musician in the Houston area, with degrees from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) and Rice. She has performed with the Houston Ballet Orchestra as well as several regional orchestras. She is a favorite of church musicians in Houston, because not only is she extremely musical but also because she lives up to her name, Grace.

Grace will be heard on the choir's anthem, a setting of the text "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us" which first appeared in Hymns for the Young, 1840, which was edited by Dorothy Ann Thrupp. Although no author's name appears with the text, it is thought that Thrupp wrote it, since she often published hymns anonymously, under the pseudonym "Iota," or simply using her initials. 

The text is coupled with a new tune written by William Bradley Roberts, the Professor Emeritus of Church Music at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria. Previously he was a parish musician, serving at St. John’s, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., and at churches in Tucson, Newport Beach, Louisville, and Houston, where he was a student at Houston Baptist University.

In addition to playing with the choir on their anthem, Grace and I will play arrangements of some "Shepherd Hymns" for oboe and piano. We will start with a "mash-up" of two American hymn-tunes associated with the texts He Leadeth Me and Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us. If you came to the Episcopal church out of any other Protestant tradition, you will likely recognize these two tunes.

He Leadeth Me is a hymn paraphrase of Psalm 23, written in the late 1800s by Baptist minister Joseph Gilmore. With its tune by William Bradbury, it has appeared in well over 1150 hymnals - with 50 of those being published since 1979. It is not in The Hymnal 1982.

The other tune in this "mash-up" (I still can't use that term without thinking of the TV series GLEE which introduced it to me.) is the  tune used in most hymnals for Savior, like a Shepherd lead us. This tune is named BRADBURY, after its composer, William Bradbury (the same William Bradbury who wrote He Leadeth Me.) This tune is pair with this text in at least 254 modern hymnals, while the tune in our hymnal, SICILIAN MARINERS, is paired only three times.

This arrangement of these two hymns is the work of Phillip Keveren, a multi-talented keyboard artist and composer living in Brentwood (Nashville), Tennessee. He composes in a variety of genres, and is widely acclaimed for his piano publications. Mr. Keveren is a prolific arranger, orchestrator and producer. His work is featured in numerous instrumental recordings, church choral, educational piano and Christian artist releases. His arrangements and compositions appear on recent projects by Sandi Patty, Travis Cottrell, Sara Groves and Ronan Tynan. Keveren holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from California State University, Northridge, and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Southern California.

The other piece in the opening voluntary is a oboe and piano setting of the Southern hymn, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need. It is arranged by Brian Henkelmann, a pianist, organist, composer and educator currently living in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he is organist at the First United Methodist Church and on the faculty of Arkansas State University. Henkelmann holds a bachelor of arts in music from Moravian College, a master of arts in theological studies from Moravian Theological Seminary, and a master of church music from Concordia University Chicago. 

Music for April 18, 2021 + The Third Sunday of Easter

Vocal Music

• Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain – R. S. Thatcher (1888-1957)
• Come, Risen Lord – Alfred Morton Smith (1879-1971)

Instrumental Music

• Partita on Middlebury – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Hymn 213 - Come Away to the Skies
• Hornpipe – George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of the canticle which is from Wonder, Love, and Praise.)

• Canticle Christ our Passover (Pascha nostrum) (SINE NOMINE)
• Hymn 182 Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (TRURO) (stanzas 1,2,5)
• Hymn 180 He is risen, he is risen! (UNSER HERRSCHER) (stanzas 1,2,4)

The anthem this Sunday morning is by Reginald Thatcher, an English musician and educator who lived in the first part of the 20th century. From all accounts, he was an unassuming man, though he held leadership positions at several fine schools before becoming principal of the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1944. He was also the assistant director of music for the BBC during the early war years in the late 30s until 1943. 

His anthem, Come, Ye Faithful, was written when he was director of the Harrow School, one of the most prestigious schools for boys in the world. It uses the text by eighth-century Greek poet John of Damascus (c. 675- c. 754) who is especially known for his writing of six canons for the major festivals of the church year. (A canon is a form of Greek hymnody based on biblical canticles. Greek canons demonstrate how Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ's resurrection.) This text was written around 750 and inspired by the Song of Moses in Exodus 15.

The communion motet is simply a hymn straight from our hymnal. I’ve chosen it because it is perfect for today’s Gospel and the celebration of the Eucharist. It is a fine text which celebrates the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Stanzas 1 and 4 allude to the part of the Emmaus story (Luke 24:28-35) in which the two disciples invite Jesus to be their guest, but then Jesus becomes their host. Stanza 2 focuses on our partaking of the sacrament and stanzas 3 and 4 on the oneness we share with all believers in this world and in heaven.

Originally written as "Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest," the text by George W. Briggs (1875 -
1959) was first published in the original edition of the British hymnbook Songs of Praise (1925). Briggs was a well-known twentieth-century hymn writer. A clergyman in the Church of England, he served a number of parishes and was a chaplain in the Royal Navy. He was especially interested in promoting meaningful worship in the British schools and consequently wrote Prayers and Hymns for Use in Schools (1927) and Prayers and Hymns for Junior Schools (1933). Briggs was a founding member of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

This tune was written by the Rev. Alfred M. Smith, an Episcopal priest from Pennsylvania whose avocation was music. He has written three hymn-tunes, two of which are in our hymnal.