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Music Notes for November 17, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Jerusalem, My Happy Home (ELW 628)
Text: F. B. P., 16th cent.
Tune: LAND OF REST, North American traditional; arr. hymnal version

This hymn is five stanzas - #11, 2, 17, 21 and 6 - taken from a twenty-six stanza English hymn found in a manuscript in the British Museum, c. 1616, where it is headed “A Song Mad [sic] by F:B:P. To the tune of Diana." Behind it lies the medieval Latin Liber Mediationum (which also lies behind "Ah, holy Jesus”). In Julian’s Dictionary William T. Brooke discusses this hymn at length. He gives the Latin, all twenty-six stanzas by F. B. P., points to a corrupted nineteen-stanza version from The Song of Mary the Mother of Christ (1601), and suggests a prior common but now unknown source. He gives another version of the hymn from The Glass of vain-glorie (1585). It has forty-four stanzas, most of which relate to the new Jerusalem, F. B. P., and the Liber Meditationum, but some of which paraphrase the Song of Solomon (which prompted "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds"). The best guess about the initials F. B. P. is that they may denote a Roman Catholic priest, and the "tune of Diana" is equally unclear.

This "originally pentatonic tune" was paired with "O land of rest, for thee I sigh!" in the 1836 Appendix of Samuel Wakefield's shape-note tune book called The Christian Harp (Pittsburgh, 1832). Herbranson linked his hymn with John Dahle's tune LUTHER SEMINARY, found in the Service Book and Hymnal (1958). In Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) it was paired with a more pensive tune by Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) called PERRY, for which Kevin Norris wrote a chorale concertato. In Evangelical Lutheran Worship it gets a third tune. More than the first two, LAND OF REST highlights the motion and physicality of the text. If one finds such things significant, it also has a compound background beat whose three can be seen as reflecting or underscoring the trinitarian Three in whose name the church baptizes.

Offertory Anthem: “Unless You Lead Me, Love” Thomas Keesecker

Thomas Keesecker's setting of poetry by 13th cent. mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg invites us to dance and sing with the love that created the world. The music is not simplistic in its message or writing, and this anthem is a wonderful combination of metaphor, poetry, and beautiful melodic writing.

Mechthild of Magdeburg’s ideas are inspiring in their own right, but are all the more amazing considering the era she lived in (1207-1282) – a time from which women’s voices are mostly lost in the mists of time. What seems today as a literary jewel, was a “stone of offence” back then, because a FEMALE Beguine composed writings with a theological content in vernacular German and not in Latin, and she referred to a divine authorization for her mission. Her criticism of church dignitaries, religious laxity and claims to theological insight aroused so much opposition that some called for the burning of her writings. How fortunate we are that her words survive so we can bask in her reflected light.

Thomas Keesecker has served as a musician in Lutheran and Roman Catholic parishes in Virginia, Montana, and Maryland. His award-winning choral music has been published by several publishers. His studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Catholic University School of Music in Washington, D.C. prepared him for a career in which he has mixed classical technique and jazz improvisation. During the last decade, he has explored the nexus of creativity and healing and its implication for liturgical musicians.

I cannot dance, Lord,
unless you lead me.
If you want me to leap with abandon,
You must intone the song.
Then I shall leap into love,
From love into knowledge,
From knowledge into enjoyment,
And from enjoyment
beyond all human sensations.
There I want to remain,
yet want also to circle higher still.

Opening Voluntary: “Melody” Richard Purvis (1913-1994)

Richard Purvis was an American organist, composer, conductor and teacher. He began playing the organ publicly at the age of 14 in churches and in the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. In addition to recitals and church services, Purvis played nightly recitals broadcast on the 7-rank style "E" Wurlitzer organ at the Chapel of the Chimes over local radio station KRE. His stage name was Don Irving and his theme song was “I'll Take an Option on You”.

He was admired as one of the finest organ improvisateurs in the U.S. In an era when so-called "romantic" music was out of favor with most composers, and atonal, serial music was considered the hallmark of serious composition, he was not afraid to write tuneful, accessible, richly colored, and even whimsical compositions that possessed commercial viability. He is especially remembered for his expressive recordings of the organ classics and his own lighter compositions for the instrument.

Closing Voluntary: “Puer nobis nascitur” David Schelat (1955)

PUER NOBIS is a melody from a fifteenth-century manuscript from Trier. However, the tune probably dates from an earlier time and may even have folk roots. PUER NOBIS was altered in Spangenberg's Christliches Gesangbüchlein (1568), in Petri's famous Piae Cantiones (1582), and again in Praetorius's Musae Sioniae (Part VI, 1609), which is the basis for the triple-meter version used in the 1987 Psalter Hymnal. Another form of the tune in duple meter is usually called PUER NOBIS NASCITUR. The tune name is taken 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." The harmonization is from the 1902 edition of George R. Woodward's Cowley Carol Book. PUER NOBIS is a splendid tune with strong ties to both Christmas and Easter texts. So, if you might be asking yourself if I have been influenced by the commercial holiday decorations we now see everywhere, the answer is: no, the text I consider pertinent today is one based on the writings of Hildegard von Bingen, “O Holy Spirit, Root of Life”

David Schelat, recently retired Director of Music at First & Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, is president and artistic director of Market Street Music (MSM), a non-profit corporation that creates musical experiences for audiences and musicians in the Delaware Valley. For MSM, he produces Thursday Noontime Concerts and Festival Concerts, as well as conducts Center City Chorale (a community choir of downtown workers), and Mastersingers of Wilmington (a concert choir of professional and amateur singers). Committed to new music, Mr. Schelat has facilitated commissions by Bruce Neswick, Gerald Near, and James Bassi and has conducted a number of Delaware premieres of recent compositions. In addition, he has explored a significant amount of secular and cross-cultural choral literature with the choral ensembles of First & Central and MSM.

Music Notes for November 10, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us (ELW 707)
Text: Eliza S. Alderson (1818-1889)
Tune: HYFRYDOL, Rowland H. Pritchard (1811-1887)

Eliza S. Alderson wrote this text about tithing, sent it to the committee working on an addition to Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) and requested that, if it were chosen, her brother John B. Dykes would be asked to write a tune for it. It was chosen, and he wrote the pleasant and not memorable CHARITAS.

Rowland H. Pritchard was a textile worker and an amateur musician. He had a good singing voice and was appointed precentor in Graienyn. Many of his tunes were published in Welsh periodicals. He composed this most loved Welsh tune when he was only nineteen. It was published with about forty of his other tunes in his children's hymnal Cyfaill y Cantorion (The Singers' Friend) in 1844. HYFRYDOL means delightful, beautiful, sweet, melodious, etc. The “H” in the tune name is pronounced, both the ‘y’s are sounded like the ‘u’ in ‘nut’ and the ‘f’ is voiced like ‘v’. This tune can be found published with at least 91 different texts. This is probably because HYFRYDOL is not only a tune that is quite friendly to congregations but one that accommodates many texts very well.

Offertory Anthem: “O Taste and See” Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958)

Ralph Vaughan Williamsnwas an English composer in the first half of the 20th century, and the founder of the nationalist movement in English music. He composed "O Taste and See" for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The piece is a short motet for choir and organ, setting a text from Psalm 34. It reflects Vaughan Williams' deep interest in English choral traditions and his ability to blend simplicity with profound expressiveness. The work is characterized by its lyrical melody and harmonic richness, typical of Vaughan Williams' style, which often incorporated elements of English folk music and modal harmonies. His compositions frequently aimed to evoke a sense of English identity and spirituality, which is evident in "O Taste and See" through its serene and contemplative nature.

O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blest is the man that trusteth in him.

Opening Voluntary: “Hyfrydol” David Cherwien

David Cherwien is a prominent musician who serves as the Cantor at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis and is the Artistic Director of the National Lutheran Choir. He holds degrees in Choral Music Education, Organ Performance, and Music Theory and Composition, and has extensive experience in church music across various cities, including Chicago, Seattle, and Berlin.

Closing Voluntary: “Trio #4” from Ten Trios for the Organ, Op. 49 Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was an organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein and resident in Germany for most of his life. Young Josef showed exceptional musical talent at an early age. When only seven years old, he was already serving as organist of the Vaduz parish church, and his first composition was performed the following year. In 1849, he studied with composer Philipp M. Schmutzer (1821–1898) in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg. In 1851, his father, who had initially opposed his son's desire to embark on the life of a professional musician, relented and allowed him to enter the Munich Conservatorium. Not long after graduating, he became professor of piano and of composition at the same institution. When this first version of the Munich Conservatorium was dissolved, he was appointed répétiteur at the Court Theatre, from which he resigned in 1867.
Rheinberger married his former pupil, the poet and socialite Franziska "Fanny" von Hoffnaass (eight years his senior) in 1867. The couple remained childless, but the marriage was happy. Franziska wrote the texts for much of her husband's vocal work.

The stylistic influences on Rheinberger ranged from contemporaries such as Brahms to composers from earlier times, such as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert and, above all, Bach. He was also an enthusiast for painting and literature (especially English and German).

In 1877 he was appointed court conductor, responsible for the music in the royal chapel. He was subsequently awarded an honorary doctorate by Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. A distinguished teacher, he numbered many Americans among his pupils, including Horatio Parker, William Berwald, George Whitefield Chadwick, Bruno Klein, Sidney Homer and Henry Holden Huss. Other students of his included German composers Engelbert Humperdinck and Richard Strauss and the conductor (and composer) Wilhelm Furtwängler. When the second (and present) Munich Conservatorium was founded, Rheinberger was appointed Royal Professor of organ and composition, a post he held for the rest of his life.

Music Notes for November 3, 2024

Hymn of the Day: “Let Streams of Living Justice” ELW 710
Text: William Whitla (1934)
Tune: THAXTED, Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

William Whitla wrote this hymn text in 1989. It was published in Sing Justice! Do Justice! (1998), a collection of hymns that "grew out of a formal search for hymns on justice sponsored by the organizations Alternative for Simple Living and The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. It had four stanzas.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship, not the only hymnal to do so, prints three of the four by omitting the second. Whitla is "not very keen" on this move, which he views as "cutting out both the too incarnational and the too feminine images." Here is what he says about the hymn:

"I wrote the hymn in 1989 just after the events in Tiananmen Square, and when the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina were bringing their campaign to the conscience of the world. At the same time, the religious and racial disputes in Ireland, Israel-Palestine, the Congo and other parts of Africa, and in Canada and many other countries over First Nation or Aboriginal rights all seemed impossible to solve. Unfortunately, similar events are still replayed, and only too-similar images in the Near East, Irag, Afghanistan, and now Somalia- not to mention the school shootings at home-recur and are now extended well beyond those earlier sad happenings. So I used some images from those events, especially in verse two, seen through echoes of the holocaust, to tell of the bad news before the Good News of verses three and four. Subsequent events only sharpened those images, alas. To me all of these parts are needed for a full expression of the biblical promises of hope and justice so long awaited, including the too-common images of both the child with the gun and the old ones dreaming for peace."

Here is stanza 2:

The dreaded disappearance of family and friend;
the torture and the silence- the fear that knows no end;
the mother with her candle, the child who holds a gun,
the old one nursing hatred- all seek release to come.
Each candle burns for freedom; each lights a tyrant's fall;
each flower placed for martyrs gives tongue to silenced call.

The tune, THAXTED, was originally set to the text "I vow to thee, my country" and then used for others. That it is a splendid melody is clear. Whether it is a congregational one is less clear. Like Parry's JERUSALEM (#711-for which Whitla has written "O dream of peace,") is the melody more orchestral than congregational, with problems of length, range and Anglophilia?

Choral Music for All Saints: REQUIEM, for Choir, Soprano and Baritone solo Eleanor Daley

Eleanor Daley (1955) is a Canadian composer of choral and church music, a church choir director, choral clinician and accompanist. She lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. Among her best-known works are The Rose Trilogy and Requiem. Eleanor Daley began composing as a result of practical need. “I fell into composing quite by accident. I was sick and tired of the one book of introits that was available for the church choir, and so I began writing my own.” As she did not intend to compose, her formal study is limited to one required class during her time at university. Daley found that she greatly enjoyed writing for her choir, and decided to write a new introit every week. This evolved into the composition of descants, psalm settings and pieces for full choir. Despite several awards and over 100 pieces in print, she humbly describes herself as self-taught and still learning.

Set to texts by poets Clare Harner (“Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep”) and Carolyn Smart (“The Sound Of The Birds”), and passages from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, her Requiem serves as a celebrative exploration of life.

Daley is the recipient of numerous commissions. Her compositions have been widely performed, recorded, and aired throughout North America, Great Britain, Europe, South Africa, and the Far East.

Daley’s awards include the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors’ 1994 and 2004 National Choral Award for Outstanding Choral Composition of the Year, as well as three first place awards in the Amadeus Choir Carol Competition. She is the first Canadian composer to be commissioned by the American Choral Director’s Association Regional Conventions (2008), and her works have been featured on award winning recordings.

1. Requiem aeternam I

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.
Grant them rest eternal, Lord our God, we pray to Thee.
— From Missa pro defunctis

Each night I listened for your call, when your call stopped I held my breath, suspended,
I'd grow accustomed to a dialogue with silence,
then wait for the sounds of night
you, dying,
and I but witness to the end
— From The Sound of the Birds*

2. Out Of The Deep

Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
O let Thine ears consider well: the voice of my complaint.
If Thou Lord wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord, who may abide it?
For there is mercy with Thee: therefore shalt Thou be feared.
I look for the Lord: my soul doth wait for Him: and in His word is my trust.
My soul fleeth unto the Lord; before the morning watch, I say, before the morning watch.
O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy: and with Him is plenteous redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel from their sins.
— Psalm 130

3. And God Shall Wipe Away All Tears

I heard a voice out of heaven saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with all people and God shall dwell with them and they shall be God's people. God shall be with them and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away."
— Revelation 21:3,4

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine.
Light eternal shine upon them, Lord.
— From Missa pro defunctis

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
— From the Burial Service
1662 Book of Common Prayer

4. In Remembrance

Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glint on snow, I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle morning rain.
And when you wake in the morning's hush, I am the sweet uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die.
— Anonymous

5. I Heard A Voice From Heaven

I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours: even so saith the spirit."
— From the Burial Service
1662 Book of Common Prayer

6. Thou Knowest, Lord

In the midst of life we are in death.
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge Eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death to fall from Thee.
— From the Burial Service
1662 Book of Common Prayer

7. Requiem aeternam II

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, dona eis sempiternam requiem.
Grant them eternal rest, Lord our God, we pray to Thee, grant them everlasting rest.
— From Missa pro defunctis

The stillness is a room I've moved into, and you are not here, you are gone
the dark heart of a night without song
— From The Sound of the Birds*

8. In paradisum

Go forth upon Thy journey from this world, O Christian soul, in the name of God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, in company with the blessed angels and archangels and all the heavenly host. May Thy portion this day be in peace and Thy dwelling place in Jerusalem.
— From a Russian Benediction

In paradisum deducant angeli, in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere, aeternam habeas requiem.
May the angels receive Thee in paradise. At Thy coming may the martyrs receive Thee and bring Thee into the Holy city Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive Thee and with Lazarus, once a beggar, may Thou have eteral rest.
— From Missa pro defunctis

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, dona eis sempiternam requiem.
Grant them eternal rest, Lord our God, we pray to Thee, grant them everlasting rest.
— From Missa pro defunctis

* The Sound of the Birds appears in Carolyn Smart's The Way To Come Home, Brick Books, London. Ontario. 1992

Music Notes for October 27, 2024

Hymn of the Day: God Whose Almighty Word ELW 673
Text: John Marriott (1780-1825)
Tune: ITALIAN HYMN, Felipe Giardini (1716-1796)

This hymn, beginning "Thou Whose eternal word," was quoted by the Rev. Thomas Mortimer, M.A., Lecturer of St. Olave's, Southwark, and afternoon Lecturer at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, at the meeting of the London Missionary Society in Great Queen Street Chapel, London, on Thur., May 12, 1825, and was printed with a digest of the speech in the Evangelical Magazine, June 1825. It was probably copied from the Magazine into the Friendly Visitor of July , 1825. Written, his son says, "about 1813." It was printed in The Friendly Visitor, July, 1825, in 4 st. of 11., with the Title "Missionary Hymn," and without signature. This text differs only in two or three words from the original as supplied by the author's son to Dr. Rogers and published by him in his Lyra Brittanica, 1867, p. 395. Two texts are known which are received as original, the first the undoubted text in Lyra Brittanica, and the second that given by Lord Selborne from the Collection of Dr. Baffles, Congregational Minister of Liverpool.

When young, Felice Giardini studied singing, harpsichord, and violin and became a composer and violin virtuoso. By age 12 he was playing in theatre orchestras. His most instructive lesson: While playing a solo passage during an opera, he decided to show off his skills by improvising several bravura variations that the composer, Jommelli, had not written . Although the audience applauded loudly, Jommelli, who happened to be there, went up and slapped Giardini in the face. He learned a lesson from that. He toured Europe as a violinist, considered one of the greatest musical artists of his time. He served as orchestra leader and director of the Italian Opera in London, giving concerts. He tried to run a theatre in Naples, but encountered adversity. He went to Russia, had little fortune there but remained until his death.

Offertory: “Psalm 46” Peter R. Hallock (1924-2014)

Psalm 46 is the 46th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble". In Latin it is known as "Deus noster refugium et virtus". The song is attributed to the sons of Korah. The psalm forms a regular part of Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant liturgies. According to Charles Spurgeon, Psalm 46 is called a "song of holy confidence"; it is also known as "Luther's Psalm", as Martin Luther wrote his popular hymn "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" using Psalm 46 as a starting point. Luther's hymn has been quoted in many musical works, both religious and secular, including Bach's cantata Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80.

2024 is the centenary of Peter Hallock’s birth. Peter Hallock’s compositions are rooted in the experience of the spiritual — especially through the acoustical space of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, Washington, where he spent the major part of his working life. Organist/choirmaster at Saint Mark’s for 40 years (1951-1991) and founder and director of The Compline Choir (1956-2009), Hallock produced works that have greatly enriched the sacred repertoire. He also made a number of pioneering contributions to local and national church music traditions in the United States, promoting such things as the tracker-action organ, the countertenor voice, Easter services with brass and percussion, modern liturgical dramas and processions, and performances with historically-informed instruments. But his most notable gift to the church was the creation of a choir that sings the Office of Compline at St. Mark’s every Sunday evening, attracting attendees in the hundreds, and thousands listening each week to the broadcast — reviving interest in this last of the Divine Hours.

1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, and though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea;
3. Though its waters rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble at its tumult.
5. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
6. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be over-thrown; God shall help her at the break of day.
7. The nations make much ado, and the kingdoms are shaken; God has spoken, and the earth shall melt away.
9. Come now and look upon the works of the Lord, what awesome things he has done on earth.
10. It is he who makes war to cease in all the world; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire.
11. “Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”

Opening Voluntary “Amazing Grace” Jack Schrader, arr. (1942)

Part of our American heritage, Amazing Grace is a hymn everyone knows, and this arrangement in a slow, gospel style adds a richness to the melody and power to the message.

Jack Schrader, arranger, composer, conductor, vocalist, and organist/pianist, is past editor with Hope Publishing Company, retiring in January of 2009. His association with Hope began in 1978. A 1964 graduate of Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, where he majored in Voice and Organ, he also received the Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Nebraska (1966). Further studies in theology culminated in Jack's ordination by the Evangelical Free Church of America (1975). Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he now resides in Florida.

Closing Voluntary: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” Wilbur Held (1914-2015)

In 1946 he joined the faculty at the Ohio State University, where he became Professor of Organ and Church Music and head of the keyboard department. He remained in this position for over 30 years, and for most of that time was also organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio.

Music Notes for October 20, 2024

Hymn of the Day: O Christ, What Can It Mean for Us (ELW 431)
Text: Delores Dufner, OSB, (1939)
Tune: ALL SAINTS NEW, Henry S. Cutler, (1824–1902)

This hymn tune was first published in Delores Dufner’s collection The Glimmer of Glory in Song (2003). Dufner, the author of the hymn text, says this about it:

The question is, “What can it mean for us to claim Christ as our king?” My answer: It means that we may not wield poower over others as the world does, letting might take precedence over right. The way of love is opposite the way of power and, as followers of Jesus, we are called to take the way of love. Love shows itself in other-centered service rather than self-centeredness. The fact that we are wealthy and powerful as individuals, and as a nation, places on us a special responsibility to care for those who are poor and weak.

In this hymn she “tried to reflect that humbler image of Christ, a ‘different kind of king’ whom we are invited to imitate.”

Henry Stephen Cutler composed ALL SAINTS NEW in 1872 for Reginald Heber's text "The Son of God Goes Forth to War," and the two were published together in Hymnal with Tunes, Old and New (1872). That text refers to "the glorious band" of God's people, helping to explain the chosen tune title. The NEW is to distinguish this tune from others that are also called ALL SAINTS. ALL SAINTS NEW has a processional or martial character, inherited no doubt from Cutler's love for the British cathedral tradition of choir processions.

Cutler studied music in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1844. He moved to England, where he listened with interest to the cathedral choirs and came under the influence of the Oxford Movement. Returning to Boston in 1846, Cutler became organist of the Episcopal Church of the Advent and formed a choir of men and boys, to whom he introduced the wearing of liturgical robes. When he took a position at Trinity Church in New York City, he removed women from the choir and used the occasion of a visit by the Prince of Wales to the church to introduce his newly vested men and boys' choir. He also moved the choir from the gallery to the chancel and initiated the chanting of the psalms and the singing of part of the worship service. Cutler compiled The Psalter, with Chants (1858) and published The Trinity Psalter (1864) and Trinity Anthems (1865).

Offertory Anthem: “O For A Closer Walk With God” Charles Stanford (1852-1924)
Text: William Cowper (1731-1800)
Tune: CAITHNESS (anonymous tune, Scottish Psalter, 1635)

Today’s anthem is a beloved setting by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford of the Anglican hymn, “O For A Closer Walk With God,” its text written by William Cowper and set to an anonymous tune from the Scottish Psalter, 1635.

William Cowper (pronounced “Cooper”) is regarded as one of the best early Romantic poets. To biographers he is also known as "mad Cowper." His literary talents produced some of the finest English hymn texts, but his chronic depression accounts for the somber tone of many of those texts. Educated to become an attorney, Cowper was called to the bar in 1754 but never practiced law.

William Cowper wrote this text on December 9, 1769, during the illness of his long-time friend and housekeeper, Mrs. Unwin. In a letter written the next day Cowper voiced his anxieties about her condition and about what might happen to him if she died. Saying that he composed the text "to surrender up to the Lord" all his "dearest comforts," Cowper added,

Her illness has been a sharp trial to me. Oh, that it may have a sanctifying effect! . . . I began to compose the verses yesterday morning before daybreak, but fell asleep at the end of the first two lines; when I awoke again, the third and fourth were whispered to my heart in a way which I have often experienced.

Although Cowper frequently battled depression, doubt, and melancholy, this text speaks of a very intimate walk with the Lord. This song reminds us of the reality that we, though being children of God, do still wander from him, lose the sense of his presence, and need to return.

For the last two decades of his life Cowper lived in Olney, where John Newton became his pastor. There he assisted Newton in his pastoral duties, and the two collaborated on the important hymn collection Olney Hymns (1779), to which Cowper contributed sixty-eight hymn texts.

O for a closer walk with God, a calm and heavenly frame,
a light to shine upon the road that leads me to the Lamb!

Return, O holy Dove, return, sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made Thee morn and drove Thee from my breast.

So shall my walk be close with God, calm and serene my frame;
so purer light shall mark the road that leads me to the Lamb.

Opening Voluntary “Marching to Zion” Robert Buckley Farlee

To set the tone for the Gathering Hymn, I’ve chosen a setting of the hymn tune ”Marching to Zion” by Robert Lowry (1826 – 1899), an American preacher who became a popular writer of gospel music in the mid-to late 19th century. Some of his music includes “Shall We Gather at the River” and “How Can I Keep From Singing”.

Closing Voluntary “Carillon” Phillip M Young (1937)

Philip M. Young is a native of Greenville, South Carolina. He received his education at North Greenville University, Furman University, and the Graduate School of Music of Florida State University. In 1987 he was awarded the honorary Doctor of Letters from Campbell University.

He served as Minister of Music of The First Baptist Church of Henderson, NC from 1959 to his retirement in 2004, when he was named the church's Composer in Residence.

As a composer he has received numerous awards and commissions. He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, having won numerous ASCAP standard compositions annual awards.

Music Notes for October 13, 2024

Hymn of the Day: God of Grace and God of Glory (ELW 705)
Text: William Williams, 1717-1791
Tune: CWM RHONDDA, John Hughes, 1873-1932

The original text of this hymn was written in Welsh by William Williams, a circuit-riding preacher, in 1745, and given the original title, “A prayer for strength to go through the wilderness of the world.” It has since been translated in seventy-five languages. It was translated into English by Peter Williams (no relation) in 1771. Most modern hymnals now use the first verse of Peter’s translation, and the last two from William’s own translation into English.
The notion of “the wilderness” or “the unknown” is not an idea we’re overly fond of. Part of us would love to know how the future plays out - what to prepare for, what to let go because it won’t be successful anyway. C. S. Lewis alludes to this desire in Prince Caspian, in this conversation between Lucy and Aslan. “Please, Aslan!” said Lucy, “am I not to know?” “To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No, nobody is ever told that.” “Oh dear,” said Lucy.” Not knowing what the future holds brings a certain uneasiness to our lives. And yet, in a strange kind of way, there is comfort in the fact as well. Whatever happens to us or our loved ones is out of our hands; we simply couldn’t know anything about it if we tried. There is a common phrase: “Let go, and let God.” In this hymn by William Williams, we are given the words to express our prayer that God would guide us as we walk through a life of unknowns. At the end of her conversation with Aslan, Lucy, her head previously buried into Aslan’s mane, suddenly sits up and says, “I’m sorry, Aslan…I’m ready now.” Let us pray that we are always ready to go with God wherever He takes us, songs of praises ever on our lips.

CWM RHONDDA is a popular hymn tune written by John Hughes in 1907. The tune name is taken from the Welsh name for the Rhondda Valley. It is usually used in English as a setting for William Williams' text "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer" (or, in some traditions, "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah"), originally Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch ("Lord, lead me through the wilderness") in Welsh. The tune and hymn are often called "Bread of Heaven" because of a repeated line in this English translation.

In Welsh the tune is most commonly used as a setting for a hymn by Ann Griffiths, Wele'n sefyll rhwng y myrtwydd ("Lo, between the myrtles standing"), and it was as a setting of those words that the tune was first published in 1907.
John Hughes wrote the first version of the tune, which he called "Rhondda", for the Cymanfa Ganu (hymn festival) in Pontypridd in 1905, when the enthusiasm of the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival was quite high. The present form was developed for the inauguration of the organ at Capel Rhondda, in Hopkinstown in the Rhondda Valley, in 1907. Hughes himself played the organ at this performance. The name was changed from RHONDDA to CWM RHONDDA by Harry Evans, of Dowlais, to avoid confusion with another tune, by M. O. Jones.

Besides being sung at churches and concerts (all-male choirs particularly seem to love this tune), CWM RHONDDA is heartily sung at rugby matches and royal weddings in Wales. The tune has been praised for its ability to stir up hwyl, a strong feeling of passion, by those who sing it. This is due in no small part to the climbing melody in the tune’s third phrase (“bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more”) which reaches its climax on a dominant seventh chord.

Offertory Anthem: “Even When God is Silent” Sumner Jenkins (1962)

This is a beautifully set, powerful and moving testament to faith. The anonymous text found written on a basement wall in Cologne, Germany had been written by someone hiding from the Gestapo during the Nazi holocaust.
Mr. Jenkins holds degrees in Church Music and Organ Performance from Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Winchester, VA. and has done additional study with Dr. Wilma Jensen and Diane Meredith Belcher. He is an active member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and the American Guild of Organists. Sumner joined St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lynchburg, VA in September, 2016.

I believe in the sun even when it isn't shining.
I believe in love even when feeling it not.
I believe in God even when God is silent.
I believe in the silence.

Opening Voluntary: “Jesus, Our Divine Companion” Robert Hebble (1934–2020)

This piece is a setting of PLEADING SAVIOR. It was composed by Joshua Leavitt (1794-1873) who was born in Heath, MA, earned a degree from Yale College, practiced law in Putney, VT, was graduated from Yale Seminary, was ordained and served as a Congregational minister at Stratford, CT for four years before he moved to New York City to serve as Secretary of the American Seamens’ Friend Society. He was for many years musical advisor to the most famous revivalist of the Second Great Awakening, Charles Grandison Finney. In 1831 he compiled and published The Christian Lyre, the first hymnal to print music (melody and bass) for every hymn.

American organist and composer Robert Hebble was a graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Vittorio Giannini and Roger Sessions. He also spent a year in Paris in private study with Nadia Boulanger. For over thirty years, Hebble's career was closely linked with the famed organist Virgil Fox. Fox was one of the first to recognize Hebble's creative gifts, appointing Hebble as his assistant at New York's Riverside Church at the age of sixteen.

Closing Voluntary: “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah (ZION)” Herbert Colvin, arr. (1924 - 2011)

I found this setting of William Williams’ text set to the tune ZION composed by Thomas Hastings, and give it here today for an interesting comparison with the Hymn of the Day. In fact, the pairing of this text and ZION is found in more hymnals than CWM RHONDDA.

Thomas Hastings was born at Washington, Lichfield County, Connecticut. In 1786, the family moved to Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y. There, amid rough frontier life, his opportunities for education were small; but at an early age he developed a taste for music, and began teaching it in 1806. Seeking a wider field, he went, in 1817, to Troy, then to Albany, and in 1823 to Utica, where he conducted a religious journal, in which he advocated his special views on church music. In 1832 he was called to New York to assume the charge of several Church Choirs, and there his last forty years were spent in great and increasing usefulness and repute. He died at New York, May 15, 1872. His aim was the greater glory of God through better musical worship; and to this end he was always training choirs, compiling works, and composing music. His hymn-work was a corollary to the proposition of his music-work; he wrote hymns for certain tunes; the one activity seemed to imply and necessitate the other. If we take the aggregate of American hymnals published during the last fifty years or for any portion of that time, more hymns by him are found in common use than by any other native writer. Not one of his hymns is of the highest merit, but many of them have become popular and useful.

Herbert Colvin was Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Theory Department at Baylor University. His compositions include both organ and choral literature. He was organist at Seventh and James Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. When Baylor University acquired a carillon, Dr. Colvin became the University Carillonneur until he retired from that position in 2006.

Music Notes for September 29, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Holy God, We Praise Your Name, ELW 414
Text: source unknown; tr. Clarence A. Walworth, 1820–1900
Tune: GROSSER GOTT, TE DEUM Katholisches Gesangbuch, Vienna, 1774

Translators are hymn writers too, and they contribute significantly to Christian hymnody. Translating hymn texts for singing is even more challenging than translating prose. The translator must honor the content of the original poetry, while writing a version that fits the meter and word accent of a pre-existing tune. Then the words should sing as naturally as possible in the new language. In many ways, translating a hymn text for singing is like writing a new hymn text.

Clarence Augustus Walworth studied for the ministry at Union College (1838), considering a vocation as an Episcopal priest. Then, following his father’s bidding, he studied law, passed the bar, and became an attorney in 1841. Abandoning law, he continued his study at General Theological Seminary, New York City. According to his obituary, Walworth decided to become a Roman Catholic priest while in New York, entered the Order of Redemptorists and, under their direction, continued his study in Belgium for five years. He served in England for two years before returning to the United States. In 1858 he collaborated with others to form the Order of Paulists. Following a severe bout with malaria, he became a pastor of St. Mary’s Church, Albany, New York, from 1866-1892. He died in Albany in 1900. In addition to publishing a number of works, he was an amateur geologist, developing an extensive knowledge of the geological topography of New York State.

Also known as: FRAMINGHAM, GROSSNER, GROSSER GOTT, HALLE, HUNGARIAN MELODY, LAUDAMUS, PARIS, PASCHAL, STILLORGAN. GROSSER GOTT was set to the German versification in the Katholisches Gesangbuch. Variants of the tune abound.

Offertory Anthem: “Eternal Light Shine in My Heart” K. Lee Scott (1950)

K. Lee Scott has emerged as one of America’s foremost composers of music for the church during the past two decades. His hymns are found in eight hymnals including A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools (Yale University Press), Voices United (The United Church of Canada), and With One Voice (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America).

The text by Christopher Idle is based on Corinthians 4:6.

Eternal light, shine in my heart; Eternal hope, lift up my eyes;
Eternal pow'r, be my support; Eternal wisdom, make me wise.

Eternal life, raise me from death; Eternal brightness, help me see;
Eternal Spirit, give me breath; Eternal Savior, come to me:

Until by your most costly grace, Invited by your holy word,
At last I come before your face To know you, my eternal God.

God, who commanded the light to shine in the darkness, Has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledg Of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Opening Voluntary: Aria on “Jewels” Dale Wood (1934-2003)

“Jewels” is a hymn tune and text written by George F. Root, who was born at Sheffield, Massachusetts, and named after the German composer George Frideric Handel. Root left his farming community for Boston at 18, flute in hand, intending to join an orchestra. He worked for a while as a church organist in Boston, and from 1845 taught music at the New York Institute for the Blind, where he met Fanny Crosby with whom he would compose fifty to sixty popular secular songs. At least two of his children, Frederic Woodman Root and Grace W. Root, also became composers. He was a romantic American composer, who found particular fame during the American Civil War, with songs such as "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" and "The Battle Cry of Freedom". He is regarded as the first American to compose a secular cantata. Four of his hymns are in I. D. Sankey's Sacred Songs & Solos, 1878. Although he wrote over 400 hymns texts and tunes, he is much more widely known as a composer of popular music than as a hymn writer. He died Aug. 6, 1895.

Dale Wood was known throughout the musical community as a master of melody, and "the difficult art of simplicity." In addition to his prolific volume of published choral works and hymn tunes, his compositions for handbells, harp, and organ are performed on a regular basis throughout the world. Every Christmas, Easter, and Sunday morning, one can expect to hear his music being sung or played somewhere by small church choirs, renowned organists, symphony orchestras, and choral groups as large and well-known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which has performed and recorded many of his works.

Closing Voluntary: “Archangel Suite: I Michael” Craig Phillips

“Michael" is a trumpet processional with a martial opening in trumpet-tune style portraying St. Michael, the chief angelic adversary of Satan.

Craig Phillips is a distinguished and popular American composer and organist and Director of Music at All Saints' Church, Beverly Hills. His choral and organ music is heard Sunday by Sunday in churches and cathedrals across the United States, and many of his works have been performed in concert throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He was named the American Guild of Organists Distinguished Composer for 2012, the seventeenth recipient of this special award. In 2015 Dr. Phillips was named an honorary canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Diocese of Los Angeles, at a gala event at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and in 2016 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Virginia Theological Seminary.

Music Notes for September 22, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service ELW 712
Text: Albert F. Bayly, 1901-1984
Tune: BEACH SPRING, The Sacred Harp, Philadelphia, 1844.

Albert F. Bayly wrote this text in response to a Hymn Society of America search for new hymn texts dealing with social welfare. It was chosen as the theme hymn for the Second National Conference on the Churches and Social Welfare held in Cleveland, Ohio, October 23-27, 1961. The Hymn Society published the text in Seven New Social Welfare Hymns (1961). The text begins with recognition of Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the cross and then points to the continuing needs of the homeless, the hungry, the prisoners, and the mourners. Bayly's words remind us of modern refugees, AIDS patients, and famine victims who are as close as our doorstep or who are brought to our attention via the news media. The final two stanzas encourage us to move from Sunday worship to weekday service; such integrity in the Christian life is truly a liturgy of sacrifice, pleasing to God.

Albert F. Bayly was born in Bexhill on Sea, Sussex, England. He received his education at London University (BA) and Mansfield College, Oxford. Bayly was a Congregationalist (later United Reformed Church) minister from the late 1920s until his death in 1984. His life and ministry spanned the Depression of the 1930s, the Second World War, and the years of reconstruction which followed. After retiring in 1971, he moved to Springfield, Chelmsford, and was active in the local United Reformed Church. He wrote several pageants on mission themes, and librettos for cantatas by W. L. Lloyd Webber.

Offertory: “Children of the Heavenly Father” Paul Sjolund (1935)

Caroline W. Sandell Berg (1832- 1903), is better known as Lina Sandell, the "Fanny Crosby of Sweden." "Lina" Wilhelmina Sandell Berg was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor; she wrote hymns partly to cope with the fact that she witnessed his tragic death by drowning. Many of her 650 hymns were used in the revival services of Carl O. Rosenius, and a number of them gained popularity particularly because of the musical settings written by gospel singer Oskar Ahnfelt. Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish soprano, underwrote the cost of publishing a collection of Ahnfelt's music, Andeliga Sänger (1850), which consisted mainly of Berg's hymn texts. This hymn promises amazing life and hope from a woman who lived in great pain and anguish. Much like Horatio Spafford’s timeless hymn, “When Peace like a River,” Lina Sandell-Berg’s “Children of the Heavenly Father” was written under the influence of incredible grace amidst heart-wrenching pain. The gorgeous tune is just as comforting as the lyrics, lifting the soul and calming the spirit. The tune for this hymn is called TRYGGARE KAN INGEN VARA. The exact composer is unknown, but the tune is probably a Swedish folk song— although variations on the tune are known to have been in Germany in the early 1800’s.

Paul Sjolund is a leading composer of American church and choral music. The range of his style includes a wide spectrum of majestic anthems, fanfares and festival hymns, poignant children's music, and exhilarating range of spirituals and folksongs.

Children of the heav'nly Father, safely in His bosom gather;
nestling bird nor star in heaven such a refuge e’er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish; in His holy courts they flourish.
From all evil things He spares them; in His mighty arms He bears them.

Neither life nor death shall ever from the Lord His children sever;
unto them His grace He showeth, and their sorrows all He knoweth.

Tho' He giveth or He taketh, God His children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely to preserve them pure and holy.

Opening Voluntary: “Morecambe,” Pamela Decker (1955)

Frederick Atkinson (1841-1897) wrote the Victorian tune MORECAMBE, named after a town in England’s Midland district. His intent was to provide a musical setting for Henry Francis Lyte’s famous text, “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide”. Indeed the rhythm is identical between EVENTIDE, the tune associated with “Abide with me,” and MORECAMBE. There is, however, no doubt that MORECAMBE is well suited to the text “Spirit of God.” In the first stanza, a descending melody accompanies the words, “descend upon my heart.” Likewise an ascending melody in the third line allows the words “mighty as thou art” to blossom. This rising figure works amazingly well with the text of each stanza. The final three notes of the melody, all on the same pitch, do not end on the customary tonic, home tone or first degree of the scale, but on the third degree. By concluding the melody on the third degree of the scale, there is a floating quality to the ending of each stanza, reminiscent of the hovering of the descending Dove, one of the metaphors of the Spirit.

Pamela Decker is Professor of Organ/Music Theory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona and she also serves as organist at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tucson. She has won prizes in national and international competitions for organ and composition.

Closing Voluntary: KIRKEN DEN ER ET (Built on a Rock) Wilbur Held (1914-2015)

Composed for this text by Ludwig M. Lindeman (1812-1887), KIRKEN was published in Wilhelm A. Wexel's Christelige Psalmer (1840). A bar form (AAB) tune in the Dorian mode, it is a suitably rugged, folk-like tune for this text, with a satisfying climax in the final line.

KIRKEN (also called LINDEMAN) was the first hymn tune Lindeman wrote. Born into a family of musicians, Lindeman received his early organ training from his father, for whom he became a substitute organist at the age of twelve. Although he studied theology in Oslo (then called Christiana), after 1839 he turned to a career in music. He was the organist of the Church of the Savior in Oslo (1839-1887) and became a virtuoso performer. In 1871 he was invited to come to London to give inaugural recitals on the new organ in Albert Hall. Lindeman published hymn collections and organ works as well as the influential Koralbog (1877), which contained tunes (restored to rhythmic shape) for Landstad's hymnal of 1869. He was also an excellent teacher and founded an organ school (later the Oslo Conservatory) with his son in 1883. A scholarly collector of Norwegian folk music, Lindeman traveled the country collecting folk songs, which he published in a series of volumes (1853-1867) and which influenced the works of composer Edvard Grieg.

Wilbur Held was born in the little Chicago suburb of Des Plaines. Dr. Held’s mother was an accomplished violinist, and there was always music in his home and his church. But piano lessons were poorly practiced, and the decision to get serious about music didn’t happen until after graduation from high school when he enrolled at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, studying organ with Frank van Dusen and theory/composition with John Palmer. After getting serious he did pretty well, and midway in his studies he became Leo Sowerby’s assistant at St. James Church–an association that lasted seven years. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the conservatory. In 1946 he joined the faculty at the Ohio State University, where he became Professor of Organ and Church Music and head of the keyboard department. He remained in this position for over 30 years, and for most of that time was also organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio.

Music Notes for September 8, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Healer of our ev'ry ill ELW 612
Text: Marty Haugen, 1950
Tune: HEALER OF OUR EV’RY ILL, Marty Haugen

Marty Haugen wrote this meditative song during the winter of 1985-86. During this time, his family was staying at Holden Village, a retreat center in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger crashed shortly after takeoff. According to Haugen:

In addition to the loss of seven astronauts, this crash was a symbolic loss for Americans. At Holden we had very infrequent communication with the outside world, so we did not know of the disaster for a couple of days. When we got some information, we held a service in the evening together, and “Healer of our Every Ill” was written as an expression for our community to grieve together (Daw, 2016, 795, quoting Westermeyer, 2010, 451).

Haugen uses the text of this hymn as a prayer for healing, not only of the body but also of the mind and spirit. The refrain, “Give us peace beyond our fear, and hope beyond our sorrow,” is a powerful prayer and helps us express thoughts we find difficult to put into words. This hymn is also about joy, as evidenced in stanza two with the words, “your grace is still unfolding.” Stanza three’s text, “Give us strength to love each other,” uses language that urges us, even in times of sorrow and fear, to show love and kindness to our sisters and brothers in Christ. The last verse of the hymn asks us to teach Christ’s way of healing and to fill each heart with compassion.

Marty Haugen was born in Wanamingo, Minnesota. Haugen studied piano, violin, trombone, and organ through high school, and he played organ in the Lutheran church where his family attended. He holds degrees from Luther College and United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and participated in graduate work in Pastoral Studies at what is now Luther Seminary and the St. Paul School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas (Canterbury Dictionary). His hymns have become very popular and can be found in many hymnals today, including the Chalice Hymnal and Evangelical Lutheran Worship. The majority of his compositions are published by GIA publications, including two settings of the liturgy for Lutheran use, “Holden Evening Prayer” and “Now the Feast and Celebration.” He has also composed settings of the Catholic Mass, including the “Mass of Creation.” Haugen has composed numerous choral arrangements, sacred songs, and hymns, including “Gather Us In,” “Eye Hath Not Seen,” “Canticle of the Sun,” “We Are Many Parts,” “We Remember,” “Shepherd Me, O God,” and “Awake!” Currently, he writes contemporary hymns and liturgies for the Lutheran church and holds a position as composer in residence at Mayflower Community Church in Minneapolis.

Offertory: Sing a New Song Michael Praetorious (1571-1621), Mark Schweitzer, arr.

This is the famous cannon offered today in 3 parts with a dance-like arrangement by Mark Schweitzer and a text based on Psalm 96. Michael Praetorius was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns. His family name in German appears in various forms including Schultze, Schulte, Schultheiss, Schulz and Schulteis. Praetorius was the conventional Latinized form of this family name, Schultze meaning "village judge or magistrate" in German. The Latin Praetorius means "magistrate-related or one with the rank of a magistrate."

Sing a new song, sing to God with a voice of triumph,
Make his praises known to all the nations,
Sing the honor of his name.

Opening Voluntary: “Prelude” from Suite Breve Craig Phillips (1961)

Craig Phillips is a distinguished and popular American composer and organist and Director of Music at All Saints’ Church, Beverly Hills. His choral and organ music is heard Sunday by Sunday in churches and cathedrals across the United States, and many of his works have been performed in concert throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He was named the American Guild of Organists Distinguished Composer for 2012 — the seventeenth recipient of this special award. Dr. Phillips joins an illustrious list that includes past honorees Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Daniel Pinkham, Stephen Paulus and David Hurd.

Closing Voluntary “Herr Jesu Christ! dich zu uns wend” Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933)

The text Herr Jesu Christ! dich zu uns wend, was first published in 1648. Whoever the composer was, the hymn soon became justly popular, and in 1678 it was formally directed to be sung in all the churches in Saxony on all Sundays and festivals. It is a simple and forcible hymn, which survived the Rationalistic period, and text and tune are currently found together in 136 hymnals.

The chorale improvisation based on this hymn, is one of my favorites by Sigfrid Karg-Elert, who composed primarily for small ensembles or solo instruments like organ, piano and harmonium. The 66 Chorale Improvisations on Evangelical Church Hymns Op. 65, are his first organ works composed directly for this instrument. And I find it interesting he wrote 30 Caprices for Flute specifically for a friend, a flautist bound for service in the war. These short exercises were designed to challenge linear one-staff thinking and in short, keep the friend from becoming bored. They are now a standard set of technical, dynamic, and phrasing exercises for young flute students all over the world.

Music Notes for September 1, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways ELW 772
Text: Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, alt.
Tune: EVAN, William H. Havergal, 1793-1870

“Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways” (ELW 772) is a prayer that God will give us the will and the ability to live according to God’s ways, which are called “a delightful road.” “Statutes” is one of the synonyms for commandments that occurs in our translation of the psalms. Isaac Watts wrote this hymn as a versification of part of Psalm 119, the psalm for this day. Watts is called the father of English hymnody. Although many in his church asserted that the only songs Christians could sing in worship were the psalms straight from the Bible, Watts wrote over six hundred hymns and psalm paraphrases that have become classic staples in Christian worship around the world.
— Gail Ramshaw

William H. Havergal was educated at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford (B.A. 1815, M.A. 1819). On taking Holy Orders he became rector in various churches until, 1845, when he became Hon. Canon in Worcester Cathedral from 1845. His hymns, about 100 in all, were in many instances written for special services in his own church, and printed as leaflets. Several were included in W. Carus Wilson's Book of General Psalmody, 1840 (2nd ed., 1842); and in Metrical Psalms & Hymns for Singing in Churches, Worcester, Deighton, 1849, commonly known as the Worcester Diocesan Hymn Book, and of which he was the Editor. In Life Echoes, 1883, his hymns are given with those of Miss Havergal. Of those in common use the greater part are in Mercer, and Snepp's Songs of Grace & Glory. Although his hymns are all good, and two or three are excellent, it is not as a hymnwriter but as a musician that Canon Havergal is best known.

Opening Voluntary: Trio #3 “Allegretto” from Ten Trios for the Organ, Op. 49 Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)

Rheinberger was a prolific composer. His religious works include twelve Masses, a Requiem and a Stabat Mater. His other works include several operas, symphonies, chamber music, and choral works.
Today Rheinberger is remembered above all for his elaborate and challenging organ compositions, including two concertos, 20 sonatas in 20 different keys (of a projected set of 24 sonatas in all the keys), 22 trios, and 36 solo pieces. His organ sonatas were once declared to be undoubtedly the most valuable addition to organ music since the time of Mendelssohn. They are characterized by a happy blending of the modern Romantic spirit with masterly counterpoint and dignified organ style.

Offertory: Andante Maurice Greene (1696-1755) Maurice Greene

Born in London, the son of a clergyman, Greene became a choirboy at St Paul's Cathedral under Jeremiah Clarke and Charles King. He studied the organ under Richard Brind, and after Brind died, Greene became organist at St Paul's.

With the death of William Croft in 1727, Greene became organist at the Chapel Royal, and in 1730 he became Professor of Music at Cambridge University. In 1735 he was appointed Master of the King's Musick. At his death, Greene was working on the compilation Cathedral Music, which his student and successor as Master of the King's Musick, William Boyce, was to complete. Many items from that collection are still used in Anglican services today.

He wrote very competent music in the style prevalent in Georgian England, particularly longer Verse Anthems. His acknowledged masterpiece, “Lord, Let Me Know Mine End,” is a representative example. Greene sets a text full of pathos using a polyphonic texture over a continuous instrumental walking bass, with a particularly effective treble duet in the middle of the work. Both this section and the end of the anthem contain superb examples of the Neapolitan sixth chord. His organ voluntaries - published only some years after his death - are more contrapuntal than melodic. They display a more reflective and profound character, and do not specify manuals or stops unlike later contemporaries such as Bennett, Boyce and Stanley.

He died in 1755 aged 59 and was initially buried at St Olave Old Jewry. On the church's demolition in 1887, he was reburied in St Paul's Cathedral.

Closing Voluntary: Voluntary in B flat Jonathan Battishill (1738-1801)

Jonathan Battishill was a near contemporary of Haydn (1732-1809) but belonged to a quite different musical tradition, namely that of English cathedral music and the London stage. Handel had been living in London for over 20 years at the time of Battishill's birth and his powerful influence on eighteenth century English music can be felt in his compositions. And yet the melodic shapes and certain musical gestures found within the piece are distinctly Battishill's.

He seems to have been a man of remarkable mental powers, but a failed marriage led him to drink; and this, in turn, robbed him of achieving his ambition to become Organist of St Paul's Cathedral. Nevertheless he was buried in the crypt of St Paul's and you can see his near that of the composer William Boyce and a later composer of music for church and (more famously) the stage: Arthur Sullivan.

Music Notes for August 25, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness ELW 488
Text: Johann Franck, 1618–1677; tr. Lutheran Book of Worship
Tune: SCHMÜCKE DICH, Johann Crüger, 1598–1662

This text is often considered the best and most popular of the Lutheran chorales for the Lord's Supper. The dominant tone is one of deep joy enhanced by a sense of awe. We express joy and praise for "this wondrous banquet" (st. 1), and we show reverence in receiving Christ (st. 2). Thankful for "heavenly food" and drink (st. 3), we rejoice in Christ's love for us and in its power to unite us (st. 4).

Johann Cruger composed the hymn tune specifically for the text. Johann S. Bach used this tune in his Cantata 180; he and many other composers have written organ preludes on the melody.

Offertory: “Hungry Feast” David Cherwein (1957)

In recent weeks Pastor has remarked on the recurring references to “bread” in the readings. And in the music we have sung or heard, “bread” has certainly been well represented, including today’s three organ pieces.

Ray Makeever (1943) wrote this hymn text and music for a communion liturgy, after hearing Gordon Lathrop speak about the eucharist as a hungry feast—hungry for a word of peace, hungry for a world released from hungry people of every kind, and hungry that the hunger cease. It was first published in With All Your Heart: Songs and Liturgies of Encouragement and Hope (1984).

Opening Voluntary: “Bread of Life” Seth Bingham (1882-1972)

Seth Bingham was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, the youngest of four siblings in a farming family that soon relocated to Naugatuck, Connecticut. After extensive childhood activities in church music, he studied organ and composition with Harry Benjamin Jepson and Horatio Parker at Yale University, gaining a B.A. in 1904. Taking time also to study in Paris with Alexandre Guilmant, Vincent d'Indy and Charles-Marie Widor, Bingham earned his B.Mus. from Yale in 1908, and subsequently taught theory, composition and organ at Yale from 1908 to 1919. Beginning in 1913, he was organist and choirmaster at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, a position he held until his 1951 retirement. He was an associate professor at Columbia University from 1922 to 1954, received an honorary doctorate from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1952, and lectured at the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary from 1953 to 1965.

William F. Sherwin (1826-1888) composed this tune, BREAD OF LIFE, for Mary Artemisia Lathbury's hymn in 1877, the same year the text itself was written, and the two were published together the next year in Chautauqua Carols. It is a quiet and meditative tune that fits the stream of what Sherwin's teacher Lowell Mason considered a "chaste" European model with "scientific improvement" and "correct" tunes.

Closing Voluntary: “Holy Manna” Wilbur Held (1914-2015)

The tune HOLY MANNA was composed by William B Moore (1790-1850). He was born, possibly in TN. Having contributed tunes to Wyeth’s Repository (1810), he is known for his tunebook Columbian Harmony (1825). He also composed and arranged several tunes in William Walker’s Southern Harmony (1835).

HOLY MANNA is most often found paired with the text “Brethren, we have met to worship.” The tune’s name comes from this text, where the last two lines in each of its five stanzas is some form of “holy manna will be shower’d all around.”

Wilbur Held was born in the little Chicago suburb of Des Plaines. Dr. Held’s mother was an accomplished violinist, and there was always music in his home and his church. But piano lessons were poorly practiced, and the decision to get serious about music didn’t happen until after graduation from high school when he enrolled at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, studying organ with Frank van Dusen and theory/composition with John Palmer. After getting serious he did pretty well, and midway in his studies he became Leo Sowerby’s assistant at St. James Church–an association that lasted seven years. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the conservatory.
In 1946 he joined the faculty at the Ohio State University, where he became Professor of Organ and Church Music and head of the keyboard department. He remained in this position for over 30 years, and for most of that time was also organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio.

Music Notes for August 18, 2024

Hymn of the Day: I Am the Bread of Life ELW 485
Text: Suzanne Toolan, RSM, (1927)
Music: Suzanne Toolan, RSM
Tune: I Am the Bread, Bread of Life (Toolan)

Sr. Suzanne Toolan was born in Lansing, Michigan. She joined the Sisters of Mercy in Burlingame, California, in 1950, where she taught at Mercy High School. One day in 1964 Toolan wrote the hymn during her free period. She claims to have discarded the original copy before being inspired to keep it by a student who overheard her working on it. She originally presented the hymn at a diocesan music educators' conference in 1966. The popularity of the hymn coincided with the use of vernacular languages following the Second Vatican Council.

Along with its use in the Worship hymnal for the Catholic Church, the hymn also appears in the Episcopal Church's The Hymnal 1982 and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

The hymn text is a close paraphrase of John 6:35, 44, 51, and 53. With the exception of stanza 5, it is the words of Jesus. Putting the words of God or Jesus in the congregation's mouth has some historical precedent in a writer like Paul Gerhardt or a hymn like "How firm a foundation", but the connective links are more obscure in the twentieth century and subtly join its temptation for humanity to play God. That is clearly not the author's intention.

It is more interesting to me that musically, the attributes necessary for a hymn to support communal singing are very weak or almost absent in the verses of this tune. The verses are not metric, the syllables of each are set in constantly changing ways and, although the refrain is more melodically friendly and its high range expresses “raising up”, the vocal shifts from the low notes of the verse to the high range of the refrain and back down again, are awkward for many.

Still, this hymn is much loved by many who find hope and consolation in these words of Jesus.

Offertory: “Piano Improvisation on Let Us Break Bread” Charles Callahan

Here is another hymn tune setting by Charles Callahan, this time a short meditation for piano. This hymn is a traditional spiritual, probably from the antebellum period in the American south. It may have been used by slaves to signal a secret gathering, since such assemblies were illegal. In that case, perhaps the original version of the song consisted of only the final stanza and the refrain. Some writers are of this opinion, and add that after the Civil War, the first two stanzas were added in order to make it a Communion hymn. However, an understanding of certain aspects of church history and tradition present another theory.
In the antebellum South, many slaves were required to attend church every Sunday at an early morning service, while their white owners attended the later service. The song text refers to kneeling during Communion, which is common in certain liturgical traditions. It also refers to having one's “face to the rising sun.” Horace Boyer has pointed out that “it is an old tradition for Christian Churches to be aligned on an East-West axis so that early morning communion was always 'into the sun.' This was the tradition of Anglican church buildings almost universally until about 1800” . Therefore, it is possible that this song was first sung by slaves in Episcopal Virginia for whom the experience of taking Communion would have involved kneeling toward the rising sun.

Opening Voluntary: Cantilène, Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937)

Gabriel Pierné has been called the most complete French musician of the late Romantic/early Twentieth
Century era. Pierné’s compositional style can be described as very traditional and classical in form while possessing a modern spirit. He was able to eloquently balance his own personal language with the elements of both discipline and instinct. Evidence of his studies with both Massenet and Franck are very apparent. From Massenet he acquired a sense of melody and lightness, while from Franck he developed a sense of structure and consciousness of art, and an inspiration for religious music. Though much of his music is overshadowed by other French composers from his day, it is because his time was devoted primarily to conducting.

One of my favorite pieces to play in summer, Cantilène is the second of Trois Pieces, Op. 29.

Closing Voluntary: “Scherzo” Alan Ridout (1934-1996)

Last Sunday’s Congregational Meeting at the end of the service has resulted in the rescheduling of Alan Ridout’s “Scherzo” to this Sunday.

Alan Ridout studied briefly at the Guildhall School of Music before commencing four years of study at the Royal College of Music, London with Herbert Howells and Gordon Jacob. He was later taught by Michael Tippett, Peter Fricker and (under a Dutch government scholarship) Henk Badings.

Ridout was a prolific composer; the complete list of his works runs to 100 pages. His style is mostly tonal, though in younger life he wrote some microtonal works. His works include church, orchestral and chamber music, often intended for amateurs and children. Much of the church music came out of a collaboration between Ridout and Allan Wicks, organist and master of the choristers at Canterbury Cathedral which began in 1964.

Music Notes for August 11, 2024

Hymn of the Day: O Living Bread from Heaven ELW 542
Text: Johann Rist, 1607–1667; tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1827–1878, alt.
Tune: AURELIA, Samuel S. Wesley, 1810–1876

Phrase after phrase in “O living Bread from heaven” (ELW 542) complements this Sunday’s readings. Like Elijah, we too are strengthened to live and to serve God by serving others. The author Johann Rist (1607–1667) was a Lutheran pastor who, while serving in many situations of social calamity and personal agony, wrote nearly 700 hymns. The tune, AURELIA, was composed by Samuel Wesley, the grandson of Charles Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism.
— Gail Ramshaw

AURELIA (meaning "golden") was published as a setting for “Jerusalem the Golden” in Selection of Psalms and Hymns, which was compiled by Charles Kemble and Wesley in 1864. Shortly after, to the chagrin of some, it was paired with “The Church’s One Foundation”, a text by Samuel John Stone (1839-1900): Dr. Henry Gauntlett was apparently very annoyed by this match-up, as he thought Wesley’s tune was “inartistic, secular twaddle.” Though opinions vary concerning the tune's merits, it has been firmly associated with Stone's text since tune and text first appeared together in the 1868 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Offertory: Carlisle, Charles Callahan (1951)

The hymn tune “Carlisle” was written by Charles Lockhart (1745-1815). He was first organist of the Lock Hospital, and was for some years associated with Martin Madan in the musical arrangements there. Though blind from infancy, Lockhart had a distinct musical gift, and was especially known for training children’s choirs. He published a set of hymn tunes about 1810 of which this was one. “Carlisle” was his most popular hymn tune and it can be found in 92 hymnals.

Charles Callahan is a well-known composer, organist, choral conductor, pianist and teacher. He is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. The serene and tranquil nature found in the “Carlisle” tune pairs well with the gentle, confident lyricism of Callahan’s compositions.

Opening Voluntary: Chorale Improvisation #51, Op. 66, “Schmücke Dich” Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

Having made substantial contributions to the organ and flute repertoires, Sigfrid Karg-Elert is well-known to organists and flutists. His music is colorful and impressionistic, but he also drew on the established ways of writing organ music - including works based on Lutheran chorales (hymn tunes).

This beautiful piece is a Choral-Improvisation based on the melody “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele”, a eucharistic hymn published in Berlin in 1649.

Closing Voluntary: “Scherzo” Alan Ridout (1934-1996)

He went on to teach at the Royal College of Music, the University of Birmingham, the University of Cambridge, the University of London, and at The King's School, Canterbury. He also broadcast musical talks on the radio.
He lived for much of his life in Canterbury, but after a serious heart attack in 1990 he moved to France.
Ridout was a prolific composer; the complete list of his works runs to 100 pages. His style is mostly tonal, though in younger life he wrote some microtonal works. His works include church, orchestral and chamber music, often intended for amateurs and children. Much of the church music came out of a collaboration between Ridout and Allan Wicks, organist and master of the choristers at Canterbury Cathedral which began in 1964.

Music Notes for July 28, 2024

Hymn of the Day: All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name! ELW 634
Text: Edward Perronet, 1726-1792, sts. 1-4; J. Rippon, A Selection of Hymns, 1787, sts. 5-6
Tune: CORONATION Oliver Holden, 1765-1844

The first stanza of this hymn was printed anonymously in the Gospel Magazine (November (1779). Six months later the Gospel Magazine (April 1780) printed it again, this time with seven more stanzas by Edward Perronet and the title "On the Resurrection, the Lord is King." The hymn appeared once more in A Selection of Hymns (London, 1787) by John Rippen (1751-1836), There some stanzas were altered or completely changed. The title was "The spiritual Coronation," with a reference to Song of Solomon 3:11. Seven stanzas follow with titles: Angels, Martyrs, Converted Jews, Believing Gentiles, Sinners of Every Age, Sinners of Every Nation, Ourselves." With only minor modifications Evangelical Lutheran Worship uses as its first four stanzas the first four of Perronet from the Gospel Magazine and as its last two the last two from Rippon ("Sinners of Every Nation" and "Ourselves").

As with "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds" (ELW 620), the name of Jesus is associated with the imagery of the church as the bride of Christ from the Song of Solomon, but here the crowning on the wedding day is emphasized.

Edward Perronet came from a family of Huguenots who had fled from France to Switzerland and then moved to England, where Edward's father was an Anglican priest who sympathized with the Wesleys. In 1746 Edward and his brother became itinerant Methodist preachers. However, against the Wesleys' wishes, as one of these preachers he administered communion. In 1757 he published The Mitre, an intemperate satire on the Church of England, which further angered the Wesleys. He left them in 1771 to become one of the ministers of Selina, the Countess of Huntingdon. His attacks were not welcome there either, and he became a Congregational minister of a church near Canterbury. He wrote three volumes of religious poems.

John Rippon was born in England, joined the Baptist church at the age of sixteen, and the next year began to study for the Baptist ministry at the Baptist Academy in Bristol. In 1772, when he was twenty-two, he became the interim pastor at the Carter Lane Baptist Church in London. A year later he was made permanent and stayed for the next sixty-three years, until he died.

Heinrich Schütz, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel, German born musicians and composers who did much to enrich our musical lives, are commemorated as musicians in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on 28 July. In recognition of this, today’s Opening and Closing Voluntaries and Offertory feature music by each of these great musicians.

Offertory: Ich heb me in augen Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672)

Schütz was a Lutheran composer and church musician, one of the finest composers of the seventeenth century and of the church generally. He linked the evangelical and the catholic, the Renaissance and the Baroque, and the Italian and the German.

Writing large and small pieces of tonal splendor as well as ones with a more archaic and delicate flavor, his music was sometimes a result of being forced to work with reduced forces because of the Thirty Years' War. He set German and Latin texts very well; his skill at setting German ones is unsurpassed. Like Bach, his vocation was a choral, not a congregational one, though in the Becker Psalter he tilted in a congregational direction.

Heinrich Schütz wrote this music as the setting for Psalm 121 in his Becker Psalter. Using the rhymed psalm paraphrases of the Leipzig theologian Cornelius Becker that were published in 1602, he began the Becker Psalter in the early 1620s as the psalms at the morning and evening prayers of his choirboys at Dresden, for whom he also wrote table graces. After the death of his wife he completed these psalms and published them in 1628. They had been sung to hymn tunes. Schütz took over thirteen of those tunes and added ninety new ones. As usual, he conceived them with choral textual declamation. Hymnbooks understandably have not generally included these settings.

Opening Voluntary: Sonata #7 in F Major: Siciliana and Gigue Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1789)

George Frideric Handel was a composer of baroque music who was born in Germany but became an English citizen. His most famous works include his Messiah, Water Music, baroque Italian operas, and English oratorios. A hugely successful composer in his own lifetime, his last years were blighted by blindness. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Handel's Sonata #7 in F major for Recorder and Basso continuo, is thought to have been composed around 1725. This sonata is a favorite among flute and recorder players. Of the 15 or so sonatas for solo instrument and basso continuo composed by Handel that have at various times been lumped together under the title Opus 1, a full third were originally composed for the recorder. In fact, only the violin is more fully represented in the collection. They are all splendid examples of Handel's youthful craftsmanship. In many of these sonatas Handel either quotes or anticipates himself, and so it is no surprise that Handel adapted this Sonata in FM into an organ concerto for himself to play which probably indicates his own fondness of the work.

The Gigue is a joyous and infectious reworking of one of Handel's favorite instrumental themes. This kind of piece, also known under the Italian spelling Giga, is to be thought as the music to the lively baroque dance of the same name, which originates from the British jig.

Closing Voluntary: “Chorale Prelude: “Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father, who art in Heaven)” BWV 737, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Johann Sebastian Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic, and motivic organization, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures that he learned from his experiences abroad, particularly in Italy and France. Throughout the18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some significant Bach biographies, and by the end of that century, all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions.

The organ works of Bach can be broadly divided into two groups. First, there is a large assortment of pieces of all kinds which includes the famous Toccatas, Preludes and Fugues, the six Trio Sonatas, and numerous other pieces in various styles and forms. Second, there is the large corpus of Chorale Preludes. Many of these are miscellaneous compositions while others belong to collections which follow a plan with regard to their content and some of which were published in the composer’s lifetime. The latter is very significant because in the early 18th century a great deal of music still circulated only in manuscript form, either autograph manuscripts (in the composer’s own hand) or copies (frequently made by pupils). This setting of “Vater unser” employs a somewhat antique style in which imitative treatment of each phrase of the melody acts as a precursor to its presentation in the highest voice.

Music Notes for July 21, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Build a Longer Table ACS 1062
Text: David Bjorlin, (1984)
Music: NOËL NOUVELET, French carol

“If you have more than you need,” says a popular proverb, “it’s better to build a longer table than a taller fence.” In this proverb, writer David Bjorlin heard a resonance with the obstacles that refugees often meet when seeking safety far from their countries of origin. Bjorlin’s text uses the love of Christ as its model in calling us to respond to refugees with long tables, wide doorways, and safe refuges rather than with violence and exclusion. The tune is likely known with its pairing, “Now the green blade rises” (ELW 379).
— Gail Ramshaw

Offertory: Praeludium Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)

Girolamo Frescobaldi was an Italian organist and one of the first great masters of organ composition. He strongly influenced the German Baroque school through the work of his pupil J.J. Froberger. Frescobaldi began his public career as organist at the church of Sta. Maria in Trastevere in Rome, in 1607. He travelled to the Netherlands the same year and published his first work, a book of madrigals, in Antwerp. In 1608 he became organist at St. Peter’s in Rome, and, except for the period when he was court organist at Florence (1628–34), he remained at St. Peter’s until his death. Frescobaldi’s style is characterized by a dramatic inventiveness and a bold use of chromaticism, but these qualities were carefully subordinated to a logical, effective construction within the piece. He was one of the first to develop the modern principle of monothematic writing, which replaced the rapid presentation of a number of themes typical of the early ricercar and canzone. Much of Frescobaldi’s keyboard music was intended for the harpsichord, however one remaining publication, the Fiori musicali of 1635, consists of organ music intended for liturgical use.

Opening Voluntary: Resignation (My Shepherd You Supply My Need) David Evan Thomas (1958)

The music of David Evan Thomas is praised for its eloquence, lyricism and craft. Critics note the composer’s loving ties to tradition, expressed in a refreshing, contemporary voice. Performers appreciate the clearly executed scores and technical know-how. Listeners respond to the music’s warmth, playfulness and sheer invention.

Born in Rochester, New York in 1958, David Evan Thomas grew up as the fourth of five children in a musical family, the son of flutist John Thomas and Marian (Parsons) Thomas. He attended Penfield High School and the Eastman “Prep” Department, graduating with Honors in Trumpet and receiving encouragement in composition from David Russell Williams. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, he studied trumpet and composition and learned the basics of organ playing from Robbe Delcamp. While there, he conducted the Gilbert and Sullivan Guild and sang in the Alice Millar Chapel Choir under Grigg Fountain’s direction. As a master’s degree student at Eastman, he was awarded the Director’s Fellowship; he then taught at Montana State University/Billings through the 1980s. Thomas served as Dominick Argento’s assistant at the University of Minnesota, where he also taught composition and orchestration, receiving the PhD in 1996.

Closing Voluntary: Old Hundredth Piet Post (1919-1979)

Dutch Organist and Composer Piet Post spent his entire life in or near Amsterdam. Other than the church organist and teaching positions he held, little is known of his life. He mainly composed music for organ and choir.

One of the most famous melodies in all of Christendom, the Protestant doxology known as the Old 100th, is commonly attributed to Louis Bourgeois.

Music Notes for July 14, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Lead On, O King Eternal ELW 805
Text: Ernest W. Shurtleff, 1862-1917
Tune: LANCASHIRE, Henry T. Smart, 1813-1879

With the encouragement of his fellow graduating classmates, Ernest W. Shurtleff wrote this text in 1887 for Andover Theological Seminary's commencement ceremonies. Winning immediate acclaim, the text was published in Shurtleff's Hymns of the Faith that same year. Since that publication it has appeared in many American hymnals.

Graduation is one milestone on our life's journey, a road sign that points to the future as much as it marks the end of formal education. Consequently, "Lead On, O King Eternal" is a battle call to go forward in Christian service. Initially laced with war imagery, the text moves on to biblical imagery-"deeds of love and mercy"-and concludes with a note of hope. The text has remained mostly unchanged since its composition. The only differences lie in the modernization of language, changing “thee” to “you,” etc. Its message is as urgent today as it was a hundred years ago.

Before studying at Andover, Shurtleff attended Harvard University. He served Congregational churches in California, Massachusetts and Minnesota, before moving to Europe. In 1905 he established the American Church in Frankfurt, and in 1906 he moved to Paris, where he was involved in student ministry at the Academy Vitti. During World War I he and his wife were active in refugee relief work in Paris.

The rousing marching tune LANCASHIRE was composed by Henry T. Smart and set to Shurtleff’s text in 1905. It is an easy melody to pick up. This song was written for young people, and was for many years a popular choice at youth camps and young people’s worship gatherings.

Henry Smart was a capable composer of church music who wrote some very fine hymn tunes (REGENT SQUARE, is the best-known). Smart gave up a career in the legal profession for one in music. Although largely self taught, he became proficient in organ playing and composition, and he was a music teacher and critic. Organist in a number of London churches, including St. Luke's, Old Street, and St. Pancras, Smart was famous for his extemporizations and for his accompaniment of congregational singing. He became completely blind at the age of fifty-two, but his remarkable memory enabled him to continue playing the organ. Fascinated by organs as a youth, Smart designed organs for important places such as St. Andrew Hall in Glasgow and the Town Hall in Leeds. He composed an opera, oratorios, part-songs, some instrumental music, and many hymn tunes, as well as a large number of works for organ and choir. He edited the Choralebook (1858), the English Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), and the Scottish Presbyterian Hymnal (1875). Some of his hymn tunes were first published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861).

Offertory: Petit Offertoire César Franck (1822-1890)

It took a Belgian composer to convince France of the value of German musical ideas. Before César Franck arrived in Paris, French Romantic music had been primarily a tradition of dazzling orchestral color and seductive harmonies. Franck was interested in the structural and expressive innovations of Beethoven, Liszt and Wagner. His music combines the best of the two approaches, its Gallic lyricism and harmonic color shaped through German structural ideas into powerful dramatic forms. His legacy to French music was complex and varied. Parisian organists took inspiration from his phenomenal improvisation skills. He also pioneered extended compositions for the organ, which would lead to even grander works by Widor and Vierne. His advocacy of Liszt’s cyclic forms would later influence Debussy and Ravel. But for audiences around the world, Franck will be best remembered for his exhilarating orchestral works. Although few in number, their character marks them out as the work of a master equally at home in both German and French musical traditions.

This work, from his mature period, was published in 1864 in the collection Cinq Pièces pour harmonium (Five Pieces for Harmonium), Op.23. It is a gentle pastorale.

Opening Voluntary: O Gott, du frommer Gott Max Reger (1873-1916)

Composed by Ahasuerus Fritsch (1629- 1701), DARMSTADT first appeared in his Himmels-Lust und Welt-Unlust (1679). The melody was altered when it was published in the 1698 Darmstadt Geistreiches Gesangbuch and in several other eighteenth-century German hymnals. The tune is also known as O GOTT, DU FROMMER GOTT (named after a text by Heermann) and as WAS FRAG ICH NACH DER WELT (named after an association with a text in the Darmstadt hymnal).

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He was noted for his organ works, which use Baroque forms and was one of the last composers to infuse life into 19th-century musical traditions. He worked as a concert pianist, a musical director at the Leipzig University Church, a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, and a music director at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen. Reger first composed mainly Lieder, chamber music, choral music and works for piano and organ. He later turned to orchestral compositions.

Closing Voluntary: Prelude on “Richmond” Healey Willan

RICHMOND (also known as CHESTERFIELD) is a florid tune originally written by Thomas Haweis and published in his collection Carmina Christo (1792). Samuel Webbe, Jr., adapted and shortened the tune and published it in his Collection of Psalm Tunes (1808). It was reprinted in 1853 in Webbe's Psalmody. Webbe named the tune after Rev. Leigh Richmond, a friend of Haweis's. The CHESTERFIELD name comes from Lord Chesterfield, a statesman who frequently visited Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, for whom Haweis worked as a chaplain.

In all, Willan wrote and published 99 chorale preludes, almost all from 1950 or later. Most are in a traditional style and in forms derived from those found in the works of Bach, an indebtedness anticipated in the organ compositions of Willan’s influential British forebears, Parry and Stanford.

Music Notes for July 7, 2024

HYMN OF THE DAY: O Christ, Our Light, O Radiance True ELW 675
Text: Johann Heermann, 1585-1647; tr. composite
Tune: O JESU CHRISTE, WAHRES LICHTENSTEIN, Gesangbuch, Nürnberg, 1676

Johann Heermann's own suffering and family tragedy led him to meditate on Christ's undeserved suffering. The only surviving child of a poor furrier and his wife, Heermann fulfilled his mother's vow at his birth that, if he lived, he would become a pastor. Initially a teacher, Heermann became a minister in the Lutheran Church in Koben in 1611 but had to stop preaching in 1634 due to a severe throat infection. He retired in 1638. Much of his ministry took place during the Thirty Years' War. At times he had to flee for his life and on several occasions lost all his possessions. Although Heermann wrote many of his hymns and poems during these devastating times, his personal faith and trust in God continued to be reflected in his lyrics. He had begun writing Latin poems about 1605, and was crowned as a poet at Brieg in 1608. He ranks with the beat of his century and is judged to be the finest hymn writer in the era between Martin Luther and Paul Gerhardt. Some indeed regard him as second only to Gerhardt. He marks the transition from the objective standpoint of the hymnwriters of the Reformation period to the more subjective and experimental school that followed him. His hymn texts are distinguished by depth and tenderness of feeling; by firm faith and confidence in face of trial; by deep love to Christ, and humble submission to the will of God. Many of his texts became at once popular, passed into the hymnbooks, and still hold their place among the classics of German hymnody.

OFFERTORY: Charity: Berceuse (Homage to Louis Vierne) David Bednall (1979)

Celebrating French music through the channels of an English hymn tune, Charity: Berceuse reimagines Vierne’s classic with Stainer’s tune at its heart. Here we have a fine example of Bednall’s rich, romantically-infused harmonic vocabulary, leisurely unfolding.

And here, a fine example of some of David Bednall’s thoughts on the art of composing.

“One of the challenges for any contemporary composer is to discover a compositional style and language which has a distinct nature. The radical and far-reaching changes in 20th century music have brought us to a point where one might question what remains to be done. This, perhaps, has particular relevance to the continued use of tonality as a compositional force. My belief, which has been demonstrated by many composers since the advent of atonality, is that the tonal, or at least the poly-tonal world, is far from exhausted. What I admire most in the work of other composers, and have used as the main ingredients for my own compositions, are colour and texture. I believe these to be essential elements in establishing mood and atmosphere, and crucial in any successful and reflective setting of a text.”

OPENING VOLUNTARY: “Berceuse” from 24 Pièces en Style libre pour Orgue, Op. 31 Louis Vierne, (1870-1937)

This is Vierne’s classic gem which inspired today’s Offertory music. The most charming lullaby ever written for the organ? Perhaps, but either way Louis Vierne's "Berceuse" from his 24 Pieces Written in Free Style (24 Pièces en Style libre pour Orgue) is a very soothing and calm lullaby.

Louis Vierne dedicated Berceuse to his daughter, Colette. The term “berceuse” is French for “lullaby” so perhaps when he played it he thought of tucking in his little girl. The lullaby has a warm and kind tonal language and is one of the highlights of this collection of 24 organ pieces.

Vierne is one of the most important French romantic composers for the organ, using the instrument as a means to perform ‘symphonic’ music, inspired by the new possibilities of the new organs built at the time.

The blend of styles in his organ music is unique with aspects of Romanticism combined with an impressionistic ‘pastel-like’ quality. Like many of his contemporary colleagues, Vierne felt a strong fascination with Wagnerian chromaticism.

There is a very sad story about this piece. It is dedicated. When the dedication to "à ma fille Colette" was published, Vierne had divorced from his wife who had quickly, while still married, preferred Charles Mutin. And, seeing the dedication, his former wife wrote to Vierne : "A ta fille ? Elle n'est même pas de toi !" (to your daughter ? But it's not YOUR daughter"). And still more cruel when one reads the dedication of Vierne's 2nd symphony: "A mon ami Charles Mutin" (To my friend Charles Mutin).

CLOSING VOLUNTARY: Toccata: Grosser Gott. Matthew H. Corl (1965)

Matthew H. Corl is a graduate of Westminster Choir College, where he received the Bachelor of Music degree in Church Music in 1987. He also studied organ at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD, and served as director of music and organist at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Trenton, NJ.

Since 1987 Matthew has been organist and associate director of music at First United Methodist in Lakeland, FL, where he directs vocal and handbell ensembles for children and youth. Matthew has been a clinician for workshops and a published composer of works for organ, choir, handbells and instrumental ensembles.

GROSSER GOTT was set to the German versification in the Katholisches Gesangbuch. The German text is a paraphrase of the "Te Deum. ” Variants of the tune abound; the version found in the Psalter Hymnal came from Johann Schicht's Allgemeines Choralbuch (1819), and the harmonization came from Conrad Kocher's setting in his Zions Harfe (1855).

Music Notes for June 30, 2024

Hymn of the Day: We Come to You for Healing, Lord ELW 617
Text: Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr (1923-2007)
Tune: MARTYRDOM, John B. Dykes (1823-1876)

MARTYRDOM was originally an eighteenth-century Scottish folk melody used for the ballad "Helen of Kirkconnel." Hugh Wilson (1766-1824) adapted MARTYRDOM into a hymn tune in duple meter around 1800. A triple-meter version of the tune was first published by Robert A. Smith (1780-1829) in his Sacred Music (1825), a year after Wilson's death. A legal dispute concerning who was the actual composer of MARTYRDOM arose and was settled in favor of Wilson. However, Smith's triple-meter arrangement is the one chosen most often. The tune's title presumably refers to the martyred Scottish Covenanter James Fenwick, whose last name is also the name of the town where Wilson lived. Consequently, in Scotland this tune has always had melancholy associations.

Hugh Wilson learned the shoemaker trade from his father. He also studied music and mathematics and became proficient enough in various subjects to become a part-time teacher to the villagers. Around 1800 he moved to Pollokshaws to work in the cotton mills and later moved to Duntocher, where he became a draftsman in the local mill. He also made sundials and composed hymn tunes as a hobby. It is thought that he composed and adapted a number of psalm tunes, but only two have survived because he gave instructions shortly before his death that all his music manuscripts were to be destroyed.

Although largely self-taught, Robert Smith was an excellent musician. By the age of ten he played the violin, cello, and flute, and was a church chorister. From 1802 to 1817 he taught music in Paisley and was precentor at the Abbey; from 1823 until his death he was precentor and choirmaster in St. George's Church, Edinburgh. He enlarged the repertoire of tunes for psalm singing in Scotland, raised the precentor skills to a fine art, and greatly improved the singing of the church choirs he directed. Smith published his church music in Sacred Harmony (1820, 1825) and compiled a six-volume collection of Scottish songs, The Scottish Minstrel (1820-1824).

Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr. lived most of his life in Gettysburg, PA. He attended Hughesville public schools, and was a graduate of Susquehanna University and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. He received additional advanced degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York and a doctoral degree at Southern California School of Theology at Claremont. He served as President of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg.

Rev. Dr. Stuempfle was the author of several books and numerous articles and lectures on preaching, history, and theology. He was also among the most honored and respected hymn writers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

He began crafting hymns in his retirement. Himself suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease, he wrote “We come to you for healing, Lord”, a hymn that brings the stories of the Bible into our situations of pain. Many of this hymn’s words and phrases, especially the image of “touch,” connect with today’s gospel.

Offertory: How Good, Lord, to Be Here John Behnke

Robinson, Joseph Armitage, D.D., Dean of Westminster since 1902, of Christ College, Camb. (B.A. 1881, M.A. 1884, D.D. 1896), sometime Fellow of his College, Norrisian Prof, of Div., Camb., Rector of St. Marg., Westminster, and Canon of Westminster, is only slightly associated with hymnology. His hymn text, "'Tis good, Lord, to be here" (Transfiguration), was written c. 1890. It was included in the 1904 edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, and supplies a long-felt want with respect to hymns on the Transfiguration.

Opening Voluntary: UNION SEMINARY (“DRAW US IN THE SPIRIT’S TETHER”) James Biery (1956)

Harold Friedell (1905-1958), who wrote the hymn tune UNION SEMINARY, was an American organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer. At an early age, he served as organist at First Methodist Episcopal Church (Jamaica, Queens) and studied organ with Clement Gale and David McK. Williams. He later served as organist at Calvary Church (New York), organist and choirmaster at Saint John’s Church (Jersey City, N.J.), organist and choirmaster at Calvary Church (New York), and finally organist and master of the choir at Saint Bartholomew’s Church (New York). Friedell also taught on the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music (New York).

Named for the School of Sacred Music at Union Seminary in New York City, UNION SEMINARY is a gently robust congregational tune illustrating Romantic tendencies that managed to continue in the twentieth century. It began in an anthem by Harold Friedell, who wrote it in 1957 for Percy Dearmer’s (1867–1936) text. It was extracted as a hymn tune and published in 1970.

Dearmer’s text is a celebration of Christ’s presence among those who are tethered by the Spirit at the Lord’s table and who pray that as disciples they may make their meals and living “as sacraments” by caring, helping, and giving.”

James Biery is an American organist, composer and conductor who is Minister of Music at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where he directs the choirs, plays the 66-rank Klais organ and oversees the music program of the church.

Biery’s setting of UNION SEMINARY is in 3 parts, or ABA. The A sections are based on a melody that he constructed from the hymn tune. He has changed the rhythm slightly, and has built the melody on the inverted form of the original tune. The middle section, combining the tune in its original key and rhythm with the tune a fifth below and a half-note apart, creates a delightfully off-center canon. Enjoy!

Closing Voluntary. Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven, John Behnke

LAUDA ANIMA is the hymn tune upon which today’s Closing Voluntary is based. John Goss composed LAUDA ANIMA (Latin for the opening words of Psalm 103) in 1868. Along with his original harmonizations, intended to interpret the different stanzas of the text, the tune was also included in the appendix to Robert Brown- Borthwick's Supplemental Hymn and Tune Book (1869). LAUDA ANIMA is one of the finest tunes that arose out of the Victorian era.

John Behnke, the arranger of both today’s Offertory and Closing Voluntary, considers himself a "church musician." His contribution to hymn-based organ music has been significant. He began playing the organ in high school and is still playing years later. He loves conducting a bell or a vocal choir, composing and arranging.

Music Notes for June 23, 2024

Hymn of the Day: “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” ELW 756

In 1860 William Whiting, an Anglican layman who taught at a choristers’ school, wrote “Eternal Father, strong to save” for one of his students who was to sail from Britain to America. Popularly called the Navy Hymn, the stanzas pray for safety for travelers. We sing this trinitarian classic on Sunday not only for travelers, but for all of us who are always with the disciples on a boat during a storm. The tune was written for the text. For many Americans the hymn recalls the funerals of both Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, and thus singing the hymn brings death to mind. This is not a bad thing: every Sunday’s worship is readying us for death.

Offertory: Lyric Piece Edward Greig (1843-1907)

Edvard Grieg published his Lyric Pieces in ten volumes, starting in 1867 with Op. 12 and finishing in 1901 with Op. 71. The 10-book collection includes several of his best known pieces. Even though the original publishing was made in several volumes, some editors treat the Lyric Pieces as a single set of works, numbering the 66 pieces in all.

Opening Voluntary: Blessed are Ye, Faithful Souls, Op. 122 (#6 from Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ) Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Most listeners do not think of Johannes Brahms as a composer of organ music, for the works that first come to mind are the symphonies, concertos, piano pieces, songs, and chamber music - or perhaps the German Requiem. Yet, the very last compositions from the pen of Brahms were a set of 11 chorale preludes for organ, published posthumously in 1902. Curiously enough, his only previous compositions for this instrument originated much earlier.

In the 1850s, when Brahms was still a young pianist and composer, he mentioned his aspirations to become an "organ virtuoso". Although he found the complex instrument more difficult to master than he had anticipated, he began to compose for it in earnest. Among his first attempts were two preludes and fugues, a conscious emulation of a form developed in the Baroque era but filtered through Brahms's own harmonic language. He regarded both works as novice projects not worthy of publication and apparently thought that the manuscripts had been destroyed. They were discovered much later, however, and published in 1927, thirty years after his death.

After the 1850s Brahms abandoned composition for the organ, other than revision of older pieces for publication, but toward the end of his life and just before the impending death of his close friend Clara Schumann, Brahms once again turned his attention to the organ. The resulting Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, finished in May and June of 1896, are a high point in German Romantic organ literature. Most are rather short and similar in format to pieces in the Orgelbüchlein, J. S. Bach's cycle of 45 chorale preludes for the liturgical year; that is, the phrases of the chorale melody, plain or embellished, are not separated by long interludes.

Closing Voluntary Gloria Patri Johann Erasmus Kindermann (1615-1655)

Johann Erasmus Kindermann was the most important composer of the Nuremberg school in the first half of the 17th century. He was born in Nuremberg and studied music from an early age; at 15 he already had a job performing at Sunday afternoon concerts at the Frauenkirche (he sang bass and played violin). His main teacher was Johann Staden. In 1634/35 the city officials granted Kindermann permission and money to travel to Italy to study new music. Nothing is known about his stay in Italy; he may have visited Venice like several other Nuremberg composers (Hans Leo Hassler, Johann Philipp Krieger). In January 1636 the city council ordered Kindermann back to take the position of second organist of the Frauenkirche. In 1640 he was employed as organist at Schwäbisch-Hall, but quit the same year to become organist of the Egidienkirche, the third most important position of its kind in Nuremberg after St. Sebald and St. Lorenz.

Kindermann stayed in Nuremberg for the rest of his life, and became one of the most famous musicians of the city and its most acclaimed teacher. Pachelbel was among his pupils. Most of his surviving works are vocal pieces that reflect the transition from older forms to the more modern use of concertato techniques and basso continuo and explore a variety of techniques from motets for choir without instruments to concertos for solo voices

Music Notes for June 16, 2024

Hymn of the Day: "For the fruit of all creation" (ELW 679)
Text: Fred Pratt Green, 1903-2000
Tune: AR HYD Y NOS, Welsh traditional; arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872-1958

Originally called “Harvest Hymn,” this text is much more comprehensive than that title implies. It also deals with stewardship, thanksgiving, and God’s endless gifts that continue to astound us. It is set to a familiar Welsh tune whose name means “throughout the night.”

In England in the middle of the twentieth century, "God, who made the earth and heaven" was associated with the tune AR HYD Y NOS. In 1957 Francis Jackson wrote another tune for it, called EAST ACKLAM. Jackson's tune never caught on. John Wilson, a particularly able hymnologist who saw this lonely tune as a good one, suggested to Fred Pratt Green that he should write a text for it, "preferably on a harvest theme where new hymns were badly needed?" Green did as requested, and the hymn appeared in the Methodist Recorder in August 1970 as "HARVEST HYMN." Not surprisingly, since this is such an able text—about harvest, stewardship, thanksgiving, and the wonders of God that astound and confound us—it has since been included in many hymnals and sung widely. Ironically, however, it has been used more often with AR HYD Y NOS than with EAST ACKLAM. Lutheran Book of Worship (1978, #563) daringly joined it to SANTA BARBARA. Evangelical Lutheran Worship retains the same slightly modified text (Green's text originally began, “For the fruits of his creation) but joins it to this congregational tune in a very happy marriage.

Fred Pratt Green is perhaps best described as the twentieth-century hymn-writing version of Charles Wesley. He was born in a suburb of Liverpool, where his father ran a leather manufacturing business and was a Wesleyan Methodist and local preacher. His mother was an Anglican. As a child he worshiped in an Anglican Church. He wanted to become an architect but worked in his father's leather business for four years, developed an interest in writing, married Marjorie Dowsett, and became a Methodist minister and superintendent.

When he retired in 1969, he planned to spend his time doing pastels. That plan never materialized. He accepted an invitation to serve on the Working Party of the Methodist Conference in Great Britain to prepare a supplement to the Methodist Hymn-Book (which was published as Hymns and Songs). The committee asked him to write hymns for topics that seemed to be lacking, and hymn writing replaced water colors for most of the rest of his life. John Wilson and Erik Routley encouraged him.

Fred Pratt Green's poetic interests and abilities did not suddenly appear out of nowhere. When he came to the Finsbury Park Circuit in 1944, he made a pastoral call to Fallon Webb, the father of one of his Sunday school children. Webb, in spite of his arthritis, had an intense interest in poetry. When he discovered that Green had written some poems, he suggested that they each write a poem and criticize the other's work at their next encounter. They continued the practice weekly for the next twenty years, until Webb's death. Green was well prepared for hymn writing.

He produced a large number of hymns, many of which are included in denominational hymnals. He received an honorary doctorate from Emory University, served as vice president of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and was made a fellow of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada. In addition to being a faithful pastor and remarkable hymn writer, he was an unusually humble man with a twinkle in his eye and a song in his heart.

Music Notes for June 9, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Rise, shine, you people! Christ the Lord has entered ELW 665
Text: Ronald A. Klug, 1939, alt.
Tune: WOJTKIEWIECZ, Dale Wood, 1934-2003

Starting with this text from Isaiah 60:1: “Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you,” Ronald A. Klug wrote this text originally purposed for the Epiphany season. Thankfully it has come to embrace an even wider purpose to “hurl your songs and prayers against the darkness.”

In addition to consulting, conducting and writing articles, Dale Wood composed over 300 musical compositions, from hymn tunes to a music drama with orchestra. When he wrote the tune for Klug’s text he gave it his family name, Wojtkiewiecz, which was simplified when the family came to the United States.

Music Notes for June 2, 2024

Hymn of the Day: O Day of Rest and Gladness ELW 521
Text: Christopher Wordsworth, 1807–1885, alt.
Tune: German melody, 18th cent.; adapt. X. L. Hartig, Melodien zum Mainzer Gesangbuche, 1833

Christopher Wordsworth placed this as the first hymn in his Holy Year (1862) and titled it "Sunday." He had in mind Sunday in the Christian multilayered sense- first day of creation and therefore of light, "eighth" day of resurrection and new creation beyond history, and seventh day of rest and gladness when God rested. On this eucharistic little Easter when the church gathers around word and table to celebrate the wondrous mix of God’s graciousness, it sings “Holy, holy, holy,” which calls to mind the Sanctus.

ELLACOMBE is an anonymous tune that seems to come from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German Roman Catholics. In close to our current version, it is found in Xavier L. Hartig's Vollständige Sammlung der gewöhnlichen Melodien zum Mainzer Gesangbuche (Mainz, 1833), where it was used for the text "Der du im heil'gsten Sakrament." It may have an antecedent in the Württemberg Gesangbuch (Württemberg, 1784) where it may have been associated with the text for which it was named in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), AVE MARIA, KLARER UND LICHTER MORGENSTERN. The name ELLACOMBE "is evidently an English name given to this tune by an English editor, probably after a place or locality."

ELLACOMBE was the tune Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) used with this text, and it is the one The Hymnal 1982 (1985) and Voices United (1996) also used. LANCASHIRE is chosen in some other modern hymnals. ROTTERDAM was used in The Lutheran Hymnary (1918) and Service Book and Hymnal (1958). Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) used HERZLICH TUT MICH ERFREUEN. "The day of resurrection!" is obviously searching for a suitable modern tune! These all work, but none seems quite right. ELLACOMBE, LANCASHIRE, and ROTTERDAM are eighteenth- and post-eighteenth-century products. HERZLICH TUT MICH ERFREUEN is from the sixteenth century. Often matches of text and tune from across centuries like this work well. In this case they feel forced. The quite proper jubilance of the tunes obscures the more crucial and characteristic objectivity of the text. We await the skill of the composer who will create the appropriate tune.

Music Notes for May 26, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Come, Join the Dance of Trinity ELW 412
Text: Richard Leach, (1953)
Tune: KINGSFOLD, English folk tune

This hymn text by Richard Leach reflects the name of the church for which it was written, Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut. It was the winning entry in Trinity's 250th anniversary hymn search in 2002, coming to Evangelical Lutheran Worship through New Hymns and Songs (2003).

The church's trinitarian theological insights are expressed here with their historic and intrinsic graceful agility. Yes, they can be ponderous—and they should be as we seek to understand what is beyond our grasp, but they also dance. "Dancing," says Leach, "has a very long association with the Trinity, going back to eighth-century theologians who used the word perichoresis to speak of the interdependence of unity and Trinity. 'Dance around' is a literal translation of the word, but its sense is 'interweaving,' and I use that in the hymn." The images of incarnation in the second stanza reflect Leach's reading of Robert W. Jenson. Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance" and the traditional carol "Tomorrow shall be my dancing day" were "in the back of my mind as I wrote," says Leach. He thought of this as a carol for Trinity Sunday.
What we get here, then, is the church in motion with a winsome welcome by and to the God of its being—an invitation to dance the Trinity's interweaving dance that "began" before all worlds began, to see the Trinity's face in Christ's human flesh and bone, to speak aloud the Trinity's wind and flame that frees us to move, and then to shape the rising song in joy.

Richard Leach is a hymn writer whose hymns have appeared in hymnals of many denominations, set by many composers as anthems. In addition to hymns he has written three cantatas for which Curt Oliver has composed the music. Born in Maine, he studied at Bowdoin College (BA in religion, 1974) and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1978). In 1987, as a pastor in New England, after sitting in at Yale Divinity School on Jeffrey Rowthorn's course on worship, where hymn writing was a topic one week, he began to write hymns. Those written from 1987 until 2007 are collected in Tuned for Your Sake (2007). As a United Church of Christ pastor from 1978 to 1999, his hymns tended to relate to the three-year common lectionary. After that, as a lay member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a business manager of an information systems consulting company, and a homemaker and hymn poet, they have related more to commissions, requests, and specific projects.

Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs [sic: English County Songs], an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar's "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say".

Shaped in classic rounded bar form (AABA), KINGSFOLD has modal character and is both dignified and strong.

Offertory: Tongues of Fire and Hearts of Love Stephen Casurella (1973)

This is a newly composed setting of a familiar and well-loved hymn text by James Montgomery (1771-1854). The son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missions and the British Bible Society. He published eleven volumes of poetry, mainly his own, and at least four hundred hymns. Some critics judge his hymn texts to be equal in quality to those of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley .

Stephan Casurella was born in England, where he began studying piano, organ and music composition at an early age. After moving to the United States, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in both piano performance and music composition and in 2009 was awarded a doctor of musical arts degree in church music (organ emphasis) from the University of Kansas. Stephan is a published composer who has written for a wide range of media. His works have been performed by soloists and ensembles such as the choir of Chester Cathedral, England, the Thalia Symphony Orchestra, the Xavier University Concert Choir, and flutist James Hall.

O spirit of the Living God;
in all the fullness of your grace,
wherever human feet have trod,
descend upon our fallen race.

Give tongues of fire and hearts of love
to preach the reconciling word;
anoint with power from heaven above
when e'er the joyful sound is heard.

Let darkness turn to radiant light,
confusion vanish in your path;
souls without strength inspire with might;
bid mercy triumph over wrath.

O spirit of the Lord,
prepare the whole round earth its God to meet;
and breathe abroad like morning air,
till hearts of stone begin to beat.

Baptize the nations; far and wide
the triumphs of the cross record;
the name of Jesus glorify,
till every people call him Lord.

Opening Voluntary: “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” Rebecca Groom te Velde

Saint Patrick's Breastplate, a prayer of protection also known as The Deer's Cry, The Lorica of Saint Patrick or Saint Patrick's Hymn, is a lorica; in the Christian monastic tradition, a prayer recited for protection in which the petitioner invokes all the power of God as a safeguard against evil in its many forms. The Latin word lōrīca originally meant "armor" or "breastplate." Both meanings come together in the practice of placing verbal inscriptions on the shields or armorial trappings of knights, who might recite them before going into battle. The original Old Irish lyrics of this hymn were traditionally attributed to Saint Patrick during his Irish ministry in the 5th century. In 1889 it was adapted into the hymn I Bind Unto Myself Today.

Rebecca Groom Te Velde is a third-generation professional organist, following both parents and her grandfather. In 1991 she assumed her present position as organist of First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, OK. She is an active performer, composer, clinician, and adjunct instructor of music at Oklahoma State University.

Closing Voluntary: Prelude in E flat Major BWV 552 J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

While Bach was putting together his definitive Clavier-Übung III, a collection of compositions for organ, he may have had a brilliant idea. Rather then putting his tremendous 'Prelude and fugue in E-flat major in the middle as planned, what if he were to separate them to form the opening of the volume and a surprising finish?

In a volume that was essentially devoted to the Trinity, there could have been no clearer statement than this piece, with all its references to the number three. On paper, that is - as Bach and musicians well into the nineteenth century would have found it unusual or even unthinkable that his Clavier-Übung, including prelude and fugue, would ever be played consecutively in a concert.

Incidentally, we do not know for certain whether the prelude and fugue were actually created together, even though the similarities are almost too marked to ignore.

Music Notes for May 19, 2024

Hymn of the Day: O Spirit all-embracing and counselor all-wise, ACS 944
Text: Delores Dufner, OSB, (1939)
Tune: THAXED, Gustav Holst, 1874–1934

This hymn text by Benedictine sister Delores Dufner sings praise to the Holy Spirit, which enables prayer and discernment. The sweeping tune THAXED may be familiar from other hymn texts (ELW 710, 880). In this context it is particularly fitting for its ability to express reverence with humility, honesty, and clarity. The most obvious use of this hymn is at Pentecost, but it is appropriate to other seasons and occasions too. Whenever God’s people need passion, inspiration, and a ceaseless wind and undying flame to urge them forward, this hymn can prepare them for prayer and attentiveness to the Spirit’s movement.

Thaxted" is a hymn tune by the English composer Gustav Holst, 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 he lived much of his life. He adapted the theme in 1921 to fit the patriotic poem "I Vow to Thee, My Country" by Cecil Spring Rice but that was as a unison song with orchestra. It did not appear as a hymn-tune called "Thaxted" until his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams included it in Songs of Praise in 1926.

After THAXTED, was originally set to the text "I vow to thee, my country" it was then used for others. That it is a splendid melody is clear. Whether it is a congregational one is less clear. Like Parry's JERUSALEM is the melody more orchestral than congregational, with problems of length and range?

Offertory: Hark! Ten-thousand Harps and Voices Robert J Powell (1932)

This is an original tune to a well-known text by Thomas Kelly (1759-1865). The text was first published in Kelly’s Hymns, &c, 2nd edition, 1806, in 7 stanzas of 6 lines, and headed with the text "Let all the angels of God worship Him." In 1812 it was included in his Hymns adapted for Social Worship, No. 7, but subsequently it was restored to the original work (edition 1853, No. 42). Its use is mainly confined to America, where it is given in several collections, including Songs for the Sanctuary, 1865. In most cases it is abbreviated.

Robert J. Powell was born in Benoit, Mississippi. Since 1958 he has published over 300 compositions for organ, choir, handbells and instrumental ensembles with leading American and English church music publishers. Robert Powell grew up in sacred music, beginning his training in the 5th grade and starting to compose in 7th grade. By age 18, he was providing piano and organ music for worship services, something he continued through his years in college and as a chaplain’s assistant in the U.S. Army. Mr. Powell holds a Bachelor of Music in Organ and Composition from Louisiana State University (1954) and a Master of Sacred Music from Union Theological Seminary in New York (1958), where he studied under Alec Wyton.

Hark, ten thousand harps and voices
Sound the note of praise above!
Jesus reigns, and Heav’n rejoices,
Jesus reigns, the God of love;
See, He sits on yonder throne;
Jesus rules the world alone.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Amen!

Jesus, hail! Whose glory brightens
All above, and gives it worth;
Lord of life, Thy smile enlightens,
Cheers, and charms Thy saints on earth;
When we think of love like Thine,
Lord, we own it love divine.

King of glory, reign forever!
Thine an everlasting crown.
Nothing from Thy love shall sever
Those whom Thou hast made Thine own:
Happy objects of Thy grace,
Destined to behold Thy face.

Savior, hasten Thine appearing;
Bring, O bring the glorious day,
When, the awful summons bearing
Heaven and earth shall pass away;
Then with all the saints we’ll sing,
Glory, glory to our king!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Amen!

Organ Voluntaries
March Upon Handel’s “Lift Up Your Heads,” Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was a French organist and composer. A student of his father, then of Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, he became an organist and teacher in his place of birth. In 1871 he was appointed as organist of la Trinité church in Paris, a position that he held for 25 years. From then on he followed a career as a virtuoso; he gave concerts in Europe as well as in the USA.

Guilmant created the Schola Cantorum in 1894 with Charles Bordes and Vincent d'Indy. In 1896 he succeeded Charles-Marie Widor as organ teacher of Conservatoire de Paris. With André Pirro, he published a collection of scores, Archives des Maîtres de l'Orgue (archives of the masters of the organ), a compilation of the compositions of numerous classical French composers in ten volumes, from 1898 to 1914. He proceeded in the same manner for foreign masters of the organ, publishing l'Ecole classique de l'Orgue (Classical School of the Organ),

Guilmant was an accomplished composer, particularly for his own instrument, the organ. His organ repertoire includes his 18 collections of Pièces dans différents styles (Pieces in Differing Styles), of which today’s Voluntaries are a part.

Music Notes for May 12, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Crown Him with Many Crowns ELW 855
Text: Matthew Bridges, 1800-1894, sts. 1-3, 5; Godfrey Thring, 1823-1903, st. 4
Tune: DIADEMATA, George J. Elvey, 1816-1893

Crowns are more than decorative headwear reserved for royalty. They signify honor, power, and dominion. For the King of Kings, a single crown could never suffice to represent His infinite glory and authority. And so we “Crown Him with Many Crowns” as we lift our voices to praise the One exalted high above all others. This beloved hymn magnifies Jesus, the Lord over all creation deserving of every crown. The lyricists beautifully capture just some of the many facets of our Savior’s majesty that demand our worship. As we sing, we join the eternal chorus around God’s throne, proclaiming the wonder of who Christ is and what He has done. The rich imagery stirs our hearts to offer Him every crown, for no earthly treasure compares to the treasure we have in our risen, glorified Lord.

The hymn Crown Him with Many Crowns was written in 1851 by Matthew Bridges, an Anglican minister who later converted to the Roman Catholic Church. Bridges was born in Essex, England in 1800 and pursued literary interests in history and poetry. He was influenced by John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement, which aimed to reconnect the Anglican tradition with ancient Christian history and liturgy. This led Bridges to convert to Catholicism in 1848.

Bridges wrote the original six stanzas of the hymn after being inspired by the “exaltation and many crowns of Jesus” described in Revelation 19:12. The lyrics reflect on the different roles and honors of Christ, referring to Him as the “Lamb upon His throne” and “Son of God” who wears “many diadems.” Bridges used rich biblical imagery like “eyes are like a flame of fire” directly from Revelation to capture the majesty of Jesus.

In 1868, Anglican priest Godfrey Thring wrote additional verses while serving at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor castle. Born in 1823, Thring spent his life in dedication to the Church of England. As a Protestant minister, he brought a different theological perspective than Bridges’ Catholic lyrics. Thring’s new stanzas broadened the hymn’s vision by focusing on Jesus as the “Lord of life,” “Lord of love,” and “Lord of years” – bringing out more perspectives on Christ’s eternal nature and lordship.

Though the original hymn contained a total of 12 verses, 6 by Bridges and 6 by Thring, most modern hymnals today only include 4 selected verses. These 4 widely used verses – “Crown him with many crowns,” “Crown him the Lord of life,” “Crown him the Lord of love,” and “Crown Him the Lord of heav’n” – provide a condensed but still rich vision of Christ’s lordship and exaltation. The popularity of the hymn led to mixing and reduction of the original 12 verses down to these 4 accessible stanzas that continue to inspire worship and praise in churches today. Though not comprehensive, the shortened version retains the celebratory spirit and vital imagery of the full original work.

Composed for Bridges's text by George J. Elvey, DIADEMATA was first published in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern. Since that publication, the tune has retained its association with this text. The name DIADEMATA is derived from the Greek word for "crowns."

Offertory: O Lord Most High Eternal King Robert Benson (1942)

Robert Benson arranged this Canadian hymn, its tune by Percy C. Buck and text by St. Ambrose. Ambrose (340-397), one of the great Latin church fathers, is remembered best for his preaching, his struggle against the Arian heresy, and his introduction of metrical and antiphonal singing into the Western church. He was trained in legal studies and distinguished himself in a civic career, becoming a consul in Northern Italy. When the bishop of Milan, an Arian, died in 374, the people demanded that Ambrose, who was not ordained or even baptized, become the bishop. He was promptly baptized and ordained, and he remained bishop of Milan until his death. Percy C. Buck(1871-1947), director of music at the well-known British boys' academy Harrow School, wrote GONFALON ROYAL for “The royal banners forward go” (gonfalon is an ancient Anglo-Norman word meaning banner). Buck published the tune in 1913 in his Fourteen Hymn Tunes.

Organist, choral conductor and composer in the Cincinnati area, Robert Benson’s compositions for choir, organ and other instruments have been reviewed in a variety of journals and have been performed by the Cincinnati Camerata, the Miami University Men’s Glee Club and Collegiate Chorale as well as in churches. He is an active member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and Dean of the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

O Lord most high, eternal King,
By Thee redeemed Thy praise we sing;
The bonds of death are burst by Thee,
And grace has won the victory.

Ascending to the Father’s throne
Thou claim’st the kingdom as Thine own;
And angels wonder when they see
How changed is our humanity.

Be Thou our Joy, O mighty Lord,
As Thou wilt be our great Reward;
Let all our glory be in Thee
Both now and through eternity.`

O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
All praise to you let earth accord,
Who are, while endless ages run,
With Father and with Spirit One.
Alleluia!

Opening Voluntary: Miles Lane (All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name) Paul Leddington Wright (1951)

MILES LANE is one of three tunes that are closely associated with this well-known and beloved text; CORONATION and DIADEM are the other two.

MILES LANE was published anonymously in the November 1779 issue of the Gospel Magazine. The tune appeared in three parts with the melody in the middle part. Each "Crown him" was meant to be sung by a different part, first by the bass, then by the treble, and finally by the tenor. Thus MILES LANE was a fuguing tune. Stephen Addington identified Edward Perronet (1721-1792) as the author of the text in his Collection of Psalm Tunes (1780). The tune's title comes from the traditional English corruption of St. Michael's Lane, the London street where the Miles' Lane Meeting House was located, of which Addington was minister.

William Shrubsole (1760 -1806) composed MILES LANE when he was only nineteen. A chorister in Canterbury Cathedral from 1770 to 1777, Shrubsole was appointed organist at Bangor Cathedral in 1782. However, he was dismissed in 1783 for associating too closely with religious dissenters. In 1784 he became a music teacher in London and organist at Lady Huntingdon's Spa Fields Chapel, Clerkenwell, a position he retained until his death.

Shrubsole is the subject of a famous essay (1943) by Ralph Vaughan Williams: who called MILES LANE a "superb" tune and composed a concertato arrangement of it in 1938. Edward Elgar called it "the finest tune in English hymnody."

Paul Leddington Wright has been conducting orchestras and choirs since he was 15, at which age he held his first position as Organist and Choirmaster of the Maidenhead Methodist Church. His first organ recital tour abroad took place at the age of 17 where he played in New York, Boston, Hartford USA, as well as Montreal, Canada, and Jamaica. He was organ scholar at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge where he studied music with David Willcocks, Peter Hurford and Peter Le Huray. In order to pursue a busy free-lance career, working for the BBC and abroad, since 1995 he has held the part-time position of Associate Director of Music at Coventry Cathedral. He has been conductor of the cathedral’s choral society, Saint Michael’s Singers, since 1984. He is a busy arranger and composer, and his music is published in the UK and USA.

Closing Voluntary: Christ Arose (Diademata) Christopher Tambling (1964-2016)

Christopher Tambling was one of English sacred music’s most popular and productive composers. Speaking through a language that is rich in variety but none the less familiar, his seemingly inexhaustible creativity has made a lasting impression on performers and audiences alike.

Born in Clevedon, Somerset, Christopher Peter Tambling was educated at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham. From there, his musical talents took him first to Canterbury Cathedral and then St Peter’s College, Oxford, both with organ scholarships.

Music Notes for May 5, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Come Down, O Love Divine (ELW 804)
Text: Bianco da Siena (1350-1434)
Tune: DOWN AMPNEY, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Bianco da Siena was an Italian poet and wool worker who was born at Anciolina, in the Val d'Arno. In 1367 he entered the Order of Jesuates, consisting of unordained men who followed the rule of St. Augustine. This order was instituted in that year by one John Colombinus of Siena, and suppressed by Pope Clement IX, possibly because of fear of not being able to control their mystical fervor. Little is known of Bianco beyond the fact that he is said to have lived in Venice for some years, and died there in 1434. His hymns were published at Lucca, in 1851, and edited by T. Bini, under the title, Laudi spirituali del Bianco da Siena. One of these, “Discendi, amor santo,” is the basis for this English translation by Richard F. Littledale in The People's Hymnal in 1867. Littledale translated four of the original eight stanzas, but most hymnals omit his third (beginning “Let holy charity”) for a consistent three-stanza text.

The first stanza of this text addresses the Holy Spirit as “O Love divine” and “O Comforter,” asking for His presence in our lives. The middle stanzas ask the Holy Spirit to purge us of all pride and evil passion, and to purify our love and light our path. The final stanza anticipates the greater love for God that will ensue from such purification, and recognizes that, as Paul wrote, “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you”

This hymn is addressed to the Holy Spirit. Though the third Person of the Trinity is not specifically named until the very last line of the hymn, it is clear through the terms “O Love divine” and “O Comforter” that He is the one to whom this prayer is addressed.

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the tune DOWN AMPNEY for this text in the English Hymnal in 1906. It was named after his birthplace, and has been praised as one of the most beautiful hymn tunes ever written.

OFFERTORY Awake, My Soul Nikolaus Herman (1500-1561), S. Drummond Wolff, arr.

This is a paraphrase of Psalm 36.

From 1518 to 1560 Nikolaus Herman was schoolmaster, organist and Kantor in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, just over the mountains from Saxony. Johann Matthesius, Luther’s first biographer and headmaster of the Latin school there from 1532, was also, until 1565, minister of the church; Herman was associated with him both as a close friend and as a colleague, and thus came into contact with the Reformation from an early date. As early as 6 November 1524 Luther wrote to him as ‘viro pio et erudito’. Toward the end of his life he suffered greatly from gout, and had to resign even his post as Cantor a number of years before his death.  Nikolaus Herman’s importance lies in his hymns, which were published in several volumes. He wrote both text and music, but most melodies are used for several texts. His poems are rhymed syllabic verses with no fixed metre.

Awake, my soul, to joyful lays And sing thy great Redeemer’s praise.
He justly claims a song from me. His loving kindness, oh, how free!

When I was Satan’s easy prey And deep in debt and bondage lay,
He paid His life for my discharge, His loving kindness, on, how large!

Then shall I mount and soar away To the bright world of endless day
And sing with rapture and surprise His loving kindness in the skies.

Music Notes for April 28, 2024

Hymm of the Day: Earth is Full of Wit and Wisdom (ACS 1064)
Text: Adam M. L. Tice, (1979)
Tune: HOLY MANNA, W. Moore, Columbian Harmony, 1825; arr. hymnal version

Can you hear God laugh? This hymn challenges us to try. It might be easier for the young, or the young at heart, than for those of us more set in our ways. By the time we’ve sung through the myriad species in God’s creation, even the crabbiest one among us might at least muffle a chuckle or crack a smile. While this is a recently composed text, it is paired with an early American tune that helps it lilt along through the mouthful of God’s creatures.

Opening Voluntary: Wondrous Love Justin McCarthy

Although various sources have attributed this text to a number of different writers, it remains anonymous. "What Wondrous Love" was first published in both Stith Mead's hymnal for Methodists, A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1811), and in Starke Dupuy's hymnal for Baptists, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1811). The text is addressed to the soul.

Today’s Opening Voluntary is another selection from Piano Meditations, a collection of traditional hymn tunes, arranged by Justin McCarthy. Justin McCarthy has worked as a pianist & educator in the greater Boston area for over 20 years. A faculty member at Plymouth State University (NH) since 2009, Justin currently serves as Coordinator of Collaborative Piano in the Department of Music, Theatre, & Dance. He received his Bachelor & Master’s degrees from Rice University, and his Doctorate from Boston University. Justin also serves as pianist for the Nashua Choral Society and maintains an active teaching studio at the Manchester Community Music School. He lives in Southern NH with his wife and 3 children.

Offertory: Rise Heart Arlen Clarke (1954)

With a few modifications Arlen Clarke has set George Herbert’s beautiful poem, Easter, an exploration of how people are made right with God - justified - through Jesus’ death on the cross. George Herbert was a skilled pastor and teacher, as well as an accomplished musician, and this poem is a beautiful illustration of both. Easter was originally two separate poems, each containing 3 verses. But the call in the first verse, 'Rise heart; thy Lord is risen', and the musical images of verses two and three, find their fullest expression in the song of praise of the final three verses.

Conductor, composer, and singer Arlen Clarke currently lives in Greenville, SC and is the Director of Music at St. Mary's Catholic Church. In addition to composing, he maintains an active schedule as a conductor, singer and vocal coach, choral clinician, and adjudicator.

Closing Voluntary: St. John Damascene (Come Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain) Noel Rawsthorne (1929- 2019)

This tune, ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, written by Arthur Henry Brown (1830-1926) may not be familiar to many of us as it is found chiefly in English hymnals. It was named after our venerable Father John of Damascus (676 - 749) who was also known as John Damascene, Chrysorrhoas, "streaming with gold," (i.e., the golden speaker) and is known to have written the text “Come Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain” paired with this tune. John of Damascus was born and raised in Damascus, in all probability at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba), South East of Jerusalem. His feast day is December 4.

Organist for many years at Liverpool Cathedral, Noel Rawsthorne emerged as one of the finest organists of his generation, and maintained a non-stop global career as a top-flight concert artist. He proved no less adept as a composer: his numerous introits, carols, chants, anthems, hymn tunes, responses, and imaginative descants, often written for special occasions, have long retained their place in the repertoire.

Music Notes for April 21, 2024

Hymn of the Day: The King of Love My Shepherd Is (ELW 502)
Text: Henry W. Baker (1821–1877)
Tune: ST. COLUMBA, Irish tune

The Tune St. Columba is named for the Irish saint who took Irish Christianity to Scotland (and is reputed to have been the first to report a sighting of the Loch Ness monster in 546). The tune is an Irish melody collected by George Petrie (1789-1866) and which appeared in Charles Villers Stanford's Complete Collection of Irish Music as noted by George Petrie, in 1902.

The words of the hymn The King of Love my Shepherd Is, often sung to this tune, are by Henry W. Baker, who played a large part in the creation of the earliest edition of "Hymns Ancient and Modern". Baker was born in 1821, in London. He was awarded a BA in 1844 and an MA 3 years later by Trinity College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1844, he became vicar of Monkland in Herefordshire in 1851, a position he held until his death in 1877.

Offertory The Lord Is My Shepherd Thomas Matthews (1915-1999)

The Lord Is My Shepherd by Thomas Matthews, who sang in the Grace Church (Utica) Choir as a Chorister, He was a longtime organist, choirmaster and resident composer at Trinity Episcopal Church, Tulsa. His music is beloved by church choirs and congregations around the world.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever

Opening Voluntary “St. Columba” (The King of Love My Shepherd Is) Justin McCarthy

Some additional information about this tune and text: “The King of Love My Shepherd Is,” a text by Sir Henry William Baker, initially paired with the tune, DOMINUS REGIT ME. Because the compilers of the 1906 English Hymnal were denied permission to use this original tune, musical editor Ralph Vaughan Williams turned to a folk tune recently edited for a collection of Irish music. With some small but notable improvements, ST. COLUMBA has proven to be an equally satisfying pairing of text and tune.

Closing Voluntary: Jesus Lives (St. Albinus) Paul Bryan

The hymn tune ST. ALBINUS was composed by Henry J. Gauntlett (1805-1876). When he was nine years old, became organist at his father's church in Olney, Buckinghamshire. At his father's insistence he studied law, practicing it until 1844, after which he chose to devote the rest of his life to music. He was an organist in various churches in the London area and became an important figure in the history of British pipe organs. A designer of organs for William Hill's company, Gauntlett extended the organ pedal range and in 1851 took out a patent on electric action for organs. Felix Mendelssohn chose him to play the organ part at the first performance of Elijah in Birmingham, England, in 1846. Gauntlett is said to have composed some ten thousand hymn tunes, most of which have been forgotten. Also a supporter of the use of plainchant in the church, Gauntlett published the Gregorian Hymnal of Matins and Evensong (1844).

Music Notes for April 14, 2024

Hymn of the Day: With High Delight Let Us Unite, ELW 368
Text: Georg Vetter (1536-1599)
Tune: MIT FREUDEN ZART, medieval European tune

This hymn text by Georg Vetter was included in the Bohemian Brethren's Kirchengeseng (Ivancice, 1566). Martin H. Franzmann (1907-1976) translated it, and his translation was included in the Worship Supplement (1969). It has passed through Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) to Evangelical Lutheran Worship with little alteration.

This is a jubilant Easter hymn. It gives expression to the explosive song spawned by the freedom from and death of death obtained by Christ's death and resurrection. This expression is achieved by a complex but deliciously audible inner and outer rhyme scheme allied to the meter. Franzmann skillfully maintained it in the English translation.

Georg Vetter was a Bohemian Brethren pastor, born in Moravia, who studied at the University of Könisberg and the University of Tübingen. He was ordained in 1567 and served as a pastor at several churches, not without resistance to his authoritarianism. A leader among the Brethren, in 1587 he made a Czech version of the Genevan Psalms with Claude Goudimel's settings, and he played a leading part in the Kralice translation of the Bible, which, for the Czech world, was comparable to Martin Luther's translation for the German one.

Martin Franzmann was an eloquent Lutheran pastor, teacher, and hymn writer. Born into a pastor's family in Minnesota, he studied at Northwestern College in Watertown, Wisconsin (BA, 1928), Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Thiensille (graduated, 1936), and at the University of Chicago in classics for over twenty years (from 1929 to 1951). He was professor of New Testament at Northwestern College from 1936 to 1946, held the same post at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis from 1946,345 and moved to England in 1969 as tutor at Westfield House, Cambridge-the seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England. After having served the church as a beloved teacher and only sometimes a preacher (albeit a remarkable one), he was ordained in England there and then. Well before he went to England. in 1934 and 1935 he served as a pastoral assistant and teacher in the parish school with Pastor Arthur Klatt at St. Peter's Church, Shaker Heights, Ohio. At Klat's encouragement he began translating and writing hymns. His hymns, with four sermons, are collected in Leaver's Come to the Feast (1994). He was not a prolific hymn writer (Leaver's book gives twenty original hymns and nine translations) but a potent one.

Splendid music for a great text, this tune is one of the great hymn tunes of the Reformation. MIT FREUDEN ZART is a tune with breadth. It spans an octave and gives congregations a wonderful ride over its arch. It works very well with this text because its melodic pieces within its overall bar form match the text's metric structure and rhyme scheme.

Offertory: A Rose Touched by the Sun’s Warm Rays, Jean Berger (1909-2002)

Jean Berger, the German-Jewish composer born as Arthur Schlossberg, fled from Nazi Germany in 1933 and changed his name to Jean Berger. In 1962, while teaching at University of Colorado at Boulder, he was inspired to translate and compose a musical setting of this poem written by Maria Brubacher in 1825 into a bookplate which he discovered in a book about Pennsylvania German bookplates. This piece is a beautiful reflection of God's love and mercy.

A rose touched by the sun’s warm rays
All its petals gently does unfold.
So you when touched by God’s great mercy
Let joy and gladness win your soul.

Opening Voluntary: The Strife is O’er (Gelobt Sei Gott) Andrew Gant (1963)

Although the tune GELOBT SEI GOTT is most often associated with the text “Good Christians, All, Rejoice and Sing”, the title of this organ voluntary by Andrew Gant references the occasional pairing of this tune with an anonymous text which first appeared in the Jesuit collection, Symphonia Sirenum Selectarum in 1695. The text was translated by Francis Pott in 1859, and published in five stanzas. These stanzas appear in most modern hymnals. Each verse follows a similar pattern. We first proclaim some aspect of Christ’s victory over death, and then add our emotional response to this victory.

There is also something very profound and triumphant about the text. There is a sense of finality and the finality is the finality of newness. It is the realization that we are continually being made new, that Creation is continually being restored, and that every day we are called to life anew with Christ. Alleluia.

Andrew Gant is Director of Music in Chapel at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He also directs the Light Blues vocal ensemble and is Musical Director of the Thursford Christmas concerts. He has worked extensively as an arranger for both radio and television.

Closing Voluntary: All the Vault of Heaven Resounds (Lasst Uns Erfreuen), Mark Sedio (1954)

LASST UNS ERFREUEN derives its opening line and several other melodic ideas from GENEVAN 68. The tune was first published with the Easter text "Lasst uns erfreuen herzlich sehr" in the Jesuit hymnal Ausserlesene Catlwlische Geistliche Kirchengesänge (Cologne, 1623). LASST UNS ERFREUEN appeared in later hymnals with variations in the "alleluia" phrases.

Mark Sedio serves as Cantor at Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis. In addition he has held teaching positions both at Augsburg University and Luther Seminary. Sedio is an active recitalist, clinician, conductor and composer, having presented hymn festivals and workshops throughout North America and Europe. Over 125 of his compositions for organ, piano, choral and instrumental ensembles are available from a number of publishers. A number of his hymn tunes, texts and harmonization appear in various denominational hymnals and supplements. A love of foreign language acquisition and linguistics combined with interest in folk music and styles has led to a keen interest in global church music. In 2008, the faculty of Luther Seminary (St. Paul) granted him the title of Musician Emeritus for his service in various musical capacities from 1982 through 2008. He holds a B.A. in music from Augsburg University and an M.A. in choral music from the University of Iowa. He has studied in the M.Div. program at Luther Seminary and the liturgical studies program at St. John’s University. A charter member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, Sedio served on the organization’s founding board and as its first Director of Ecclesiastical Concerns. He chaired the worship committee for the 2008 national convention of the American Guild of Organists.

Music Notes for April 7, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain ELW 363
Text: John of Damascus, c. 696–c. 754; tr. John Mason Neale, 1818–1866
Tune: GAUDEAMUS PARITER, Johann Horn, 1490–1547

Eighth-century Greek poet John of Damascus 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
consisting of nine odes, each with six to nine stanzas.) His "Golden Canon" is the source of Easter hymns.
Written around 750 and inspired by the Song of Moses in Exodus 15, this text is John's first ode from the
canon for the Sunday after Easter.

John's father, a Christian, was an important official at the court of the Muslim caliph in Damascus. After
his father's death, John assumed that position and lived in wealth and honor. At about the age of forty,
however, he became dissatisfied with his life, gave away his possessions, freed his slaves, and entered the
monastery of St. Sabas in the desert near Jerusalem. One of the last of the Greek fathers, John became a
great theologian in the Eastern church. He defended the church's use of icons, codified the practices of
Byzantine chant, and wrote about science, philosophy, and theology.

All canons in the Greek church demonstrated how Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ's
resurrection. The first ode of each canon was based on the Passover event and on Exodus 15 as the
metaphor for Christ's delivery of his people from the slavery of sin and death. That metaphor lies behind
stanza 1. Stanza 2 uses images of spring and sunshine as metaphors for the new life and light of Christ.
Stanza 3 concludes the text with an Easter doxology.

John M. Neale translated the text in his article on Greek hymnology in the Christian Remembrancer
(April, 1859) and reprinted it in his Hymns of the Eastern Church in 1862.

Offertory: From Six Duets for Two Flutes: Presto #4, Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773)

Published in 1759, stylistically the six duets are elegant, light, and tender, and overall excellent examples
of Quantz’s intermediate position between the Baroque and Classical eras. As a composer Quantz
certainly cannot be classed among the great, but he does display a high level of craftsmanship through
clarity of phrasing, dynamic variety and briskness, qualities of much mid-18th-century music.

Opening Voluntary: Lux Eoi, Andrew Moore (1936)

This is a setting of Lux Eoi, a hymn tune by Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900), associated with
multiple texts and creatively arranged for organ by Andrew Moore, a Benedictine Monk at Downside
Abbey, near Bath.

Arthur Seymour Sullivan was born of an Italian mother and an Irish father who was an army bandmaster
and a professor of music. Sullivan embarked on his composing career with a series of ambitious works,
interspersed with hymns, parlor songs and other light pieces in a more commercial vein. His compositions
were not enough to support him financially, and between 1861 and 1872 he worked as a church organist,
which he enjoyed; as a music teacher, which he hated and gave up as soon as he could; and as an arranger
of vocal scores of popular operas. He is best known for writing the music for lyrics by William S. Gilbert,
which produced popular operettas such as H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), The
Mikado (1884), and Yeomen of the Guard (1888). These operettas satirized the court and everyday life in
Victorian times. Although he composed some anthems, in the area of church music Sullivan is best
remembered for his hymn tunes, written between 1867 and 1874 and published in The Hymnary (1872)
and Church Hymns (1874), both of which he edited. Sullivan steadfastly refused to grant permission to
those who wished to make hymn tunes from the popular melodies in his operettas.

Closing Voluntary: Gaudeamus Paritur, Robert Buckley Farlee

Set by Robert Buckley Farlee, this piece is based on the hymn tune GAUDEAMUS PARITUR by Johann
Roh (1487-1547) who used many pseudonyms. Johann Roh was a native of Bohemia. Roh was his name
in Bohemian, but when he wrote in Latin he called himself Cornu, and in German, Horn.

Robert Buckley Farlee, who has not altered or changed his name, is Associate Pastor and Director of
Music at Christ Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. He was deeply involved in the publication of
Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

Music Notes for March 31, 2024

During March, Women’s History Month, we are celebrating each week the contribution women have made to our worship either in our hymns, anthems, preludes or postludes, through musical compositions and/or texts rooted in this history and culture.

For this celebration of the Three Days and Easter Sunday our list includes the texts, “Cross of Glory” by Delores Dufner, and “There Is a Green Hill” by Cecil Frances Alexander and music by Evelyn Larter.

Hymn of the Day: Good Christian Friends, Rejoice and Sing, ELW 385
Text: Cyril A. Alington (1872-1955)
Tune: GELOBT SEI GOTT, Melchior Vulpius (c.1570-1615)

While Headmaster of Eton College, Cyril A. Alington wrote this text for Melchior Vulpius's tune GELOBT SEI GOTT. The hymn was published in Songs of Praise (1931). Stanley L. Osborn has written of Alington's stanzas, “They vibrate with excitement, they utter the encouragement of victory, and they stir the heart to praise and thanksgiving" (If Such Holy Song, 469). This text should not be mistaken for its Christmas counterpart "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice" (355); both texts originally began, "Good Christian men, rejoice."

A strong text for Easter, "Good Christian Friends" rings in the victory of Christ's resurrections so that "all the world" will know the news. Each stanza encourages us to tell the good news and praise the "Lord of life," and ends with an exciting three-fold "alleluia."

Educated at Trinity College, Oxford, England, Cyril A. Alington was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1901. He had a teaching career that included being headmaster at Shrewsbury School and Eton College. He was dean of Durham from 1933-1951 as well as chaplain to the king of England. His writings include literary works and Christianity in England, Good News (1945). Many of his hymns appeared in various twentieth-century editions of the famous British hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Born into a poor family named Fuchs, Melchior Vulpius had only limited educational opportunities and did not attend the university. He taught Latin in the school in Schleusingen, where he Latinized his surname, and from 1596 until his death served as a Lutheran cantor and teacher in Weimar. A distinguished composer, Vulpius wrote a St. Matthew Passion (1613), nearly two hundred motets in German and Latin, and over four hundred hymn tunes, many of which became popular in Lutheran churches, and some of which introduced the lively Italian balletto rhythms into the German hymn tunes. His music was published in Cantiones Sacrae (1602, 1604), Kirchengesangund Geistliche Lieder (1604, enlarged as Ein schon geistlich Gesanglmch, 1609), and posthumously in Cantionale Sacrum (1646).

Offertory Anthem: “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands” Ryan Kelly

Martin Luther’s celebrated Easter hymn, “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands,” receives an exuberant setting by Ryan Kelly for mixed voices and tambourine. An incorporation of the historic "Victimae paschali laudes" chant captures the mystery of Christ’s passion in contrast with spirited “alleluias” that respond to his victorious resurrection.

Opening Voluntary: “Easter Hymn” Phillip Moore (1943)

EASTER HYMN originally appeared in the John Walsh collection Lyra Davidica (1708) as a rather florid tune. Tempered to its present version by John Arnold in his Compleat Psalmodist (1749), EASTER HYMN is now one of the best and most joyous Easter tunes.

Philip Moore is a British composer who has written extensively for choirs and vocal ensembles. He has composed a wide range of sacred and secular music, including several large-scale works for choir and orchestra. Moore studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London under the tutelage of Alan Bush, and later at King's College, Cambridge. He served as the Master of Music at York Minster from 1983 to 2008, where he oversaw the music program and composed music for the choir. He has also held teaching positions at several institutions, including the Royal Academy of Music and the University of York. In 2019 he was commissioned to write the new carol for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast from King’s College, Cambridge.

Moore's music is marked by its lush harmonies and rich textures, and often draws inspiration from poetry and literature. His works have been performed by leading choirs and orchestras around the world, and he has received numerous commissions and awards for his compositions.

Closing Voluntary: “Final” (from Symphony for Organ, #1), op. 14, Louis Vierne

Composed over 1898 - 1899, Vierne's Symphony in D minor for organ is his first major work and an ambitious throw at continuing the lineage of large-scale serious works for organ advanced by his mentors : Franck (in his Grande Pièce symphonique), and Widor, in his brilliant series of ten symphonies. This powerful, bravura Final of virile assertiveness became vastly popular -- Vierne referred to it as "my Marseillaise" and arranged it for organ and orchestra in 1926. The symphony as a whole announced the startling emergence of a major compositional voice and set the pattern for the five organ symphonies to follow -- a suite-like succession of movements in which confessional moments of disconcerting intimacy are juxtaposed with manifestations of eerie fantasy and virtuoso movements of tremendous power.

Good Friday Anthems

“The Mild Mother” Robert Convery (1954)

This anonymous text is a reflection on the anguish felt by Mary at the crucifixion, her sorrow and grief emulated by the music.

Robert Convery is among the handful of composers today writing effectively for the voice. His music is expressed in a distinctly personal tone of lyricism, rhythmic vitality, a keen harmonic sense, and transparent textures. He holds degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music, Westminster Choir College and The Juilliard School where he received his doctorate. His teachers have been Ned Rorem, David Diamond, Richard Hundley, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Vincent Persichetti.

Jesus Christ’s mild mother stood,
and beheld her son against the cross,
that He was nailed on.

The Son hung, the mother stood,
and beheld her child’s blood,
how it of His wounds ran.

“There Is a Green Hill” Evelyn Larter (1953)

Many thanks to Carole Smith for her beautiful interpretation of the flute obbligato.

This expressive anthem combines Cecil Alexander's Lenten hymn with the haunting English folk melody The Turtle Dove. This lyrical music renders a portrait of Calvary's hill that allows the listener to deeply ponder the agony of Christ's suffering. The culminating verse on the text "O Jesus, dearly have You loved and we must love You, too" is rich with meaningful expression.

Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-95), an Anglo-Irish hymn writer and poet, is the composer of this extremely popular hymn, There Is a Green Hill Far Away. Amongst other works, she wrote “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and the Christmas carol “Once in Royal David’s City”.

It draws its inspiration from the Apostles Creed especially the line, ‘Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried”. It is believed to have been written at the bedside of a sick young person. The writer gives substance and answer to those who inquire why Jesus died. She talks about God’s forgiveness. She speaks of how man can reclaim his original close relationship with God and suggests the only possible response is the total giving of loving self. The event was for us.

Evelyn Larter was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. She won the prestigious Governor’s Recital Prize for piano, and graduated with honors in concert piano and music education. She performed with the Highlands Sinfonia, and on Scottish television. Since moving to the United States with her husband and family in 1988, Evelyn has been active in the Philadelphia area, collaborating with many well-known soloists and ensembles.

There is a green hill far away, outside a city wall, where our dear Lord was crucified who died to save us all.
We may not know, we cannot tell, what pains he had to bear, but we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there
He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good, that we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood.
O dearly, dearly have you loved! And we must love you too, and trust in your redeeming blood, and gladly follow you.

“Faithful Cross” Thomas Pavlechko

Thomas Pavlechko's compositions are always engaging and innovative, including this rich and expressive setting of the text “Cross of Glory” by Delores Dufner (1939).

Delores Dufner is a member of St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, with Master's Degrees in Liturgical Music and Liturgical Studies. Delores is a writer of liturgical, scripturally based hymn and song texts which have a broad ecumenical appeal and are contracted or licensed by 34 publishers in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and China. She has received more than 50 commissions to write texts for special occasions or needs and has published over 200 hymns, many of which have several different musical settings and appear in several publications.

Delores, the middle child of five, was born and raised on a farm in the Red River Valley of North Dakota. She attended a one-room country school in which she learned to read music and play the tonette, later studying piano and organ.

Before entering the monastery Delores was a school music teacher, private piano and organ instructor, and parish organist/choir director for twelve years.

Faithful cross, O tree of beauty, tree of Eden, tree divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us leaf and flower and fruit so fine.
Bearer, of our Savior’s body, tree of life, salvation’s sign!

Cross of pain, transformed to gladness, ever green and sheltering tree,
Symbol once of shame and bondage, now the sign that we are free!
Cross of splendor, cross of glory, cross of love’s great victory!

Christians, chant your grateful praises for the tree of triumph won, proof of overflowing mercy and redemption in the Son. To the cross of Christ give glory while the endless ages run!

“Paschal Lamb, Who Suffered for Us” Carl Schalk (1929-2021)

Musician, composer, and professor of music emeritus, Dr. Carl F. Schalk taught various music classes at his alma mater, Concordia University Chicago, for more than four decades. During his years as a professor, Dr. Schalk joyfully served as a mentor to future generations of church musicians and encouraged his students to remain true to the doctrine set forth by the Scriptures. Barry L. Bobb, director of the Center for Church Music at Concordia University Chicago, said these words about Dr. Schalk: “He has bequeathed to this generation and those to come an extraordinary model, one which will serve well all those who aspire to a life of significant service in the Church.”

Paschal Lamb who suggested for us, Sheepgate guarding all your sheep,
Let us hear your voice which summons Each of us, God’s will to keep.
Dead to sing through your great mercy, By your wounds we are made whole;
You have gathered us from straying, Safe may pass from death to life.

Guide and guard us through our sufferings, Let us hear you call our name,
Knowing you as our Messiah Who, for us, bore cross and shame.
In your victory make us sharers; Lead us new through sin and strife
That we all who share one Baptism Safe may pass from death to life.

Music Notes for March 24, 2024

Hymn of the Day: My Song Is Love Unknown ELW #343
Text: Samuel Crossman (1624-1683)
Tune: LOVE UNKNOWN, John Ireland (1879-1962)

John Ireland composed LOVE UNKNOWN in 1918 for the text "My song is love unknown"; the tune was first published in The Public School Hymn Book of 1919. A letter in the London Daily Telegraph of April 5, 1950, claims that Ireland wrote LOVE UNKNOWN within fifteen minutes on a scrap of paper upon receiving the request to compose it from Geoffrey Shaw, one of the editors of that 1919 hymnal. LOVE UNKNOWN has since appeared in many hymnals as a setting for a number of different texts.

Trained at the Royal College of Music, Ireland served as organist at St. Luke's, Chelsea (1904-1926), and taught at the Royal College of Music from 1923 to 1939. He became known as one of the best composers and teachers of his era, but his personal life was often troubled. Although his piano works, chamber music, and smaller orchestral works remain popular, Ireland is mainly remembered for his song cycles of poetry by Shakespeare, Blake, Hardy, and other English poets. His songs often have carefully wrought accompaniments—as is certainly the case for LOVE UNKNOWN.

Offertory: “Surely He Has Borne Our Griefs” Brian Cockburn (1963)

Thoughts from the composer: “Despite the current interpretation, “Hosanna” originally meant “save us” or “deliver us”. The people outside of Jerusalem shouting “Hosanna, in the highest heaven” were excited that God, at long last had sent a King to deliver them. Jesus, the one coming "in the name of the Lord", knew that this deliverance would not be the expected triumphant liberation, but one of pain, isolation, and death. This work reframes the “Hosannas" of Palm Sunday within the redemptive drama of the crucifixion, bringing them together in a unique way.”

Brian Cockburn dabbles in all things musical and particularly vocal. In addition to conducting choirs in Texas, New York, Arizona, Virginia, and Austria, his compositions have been performed throughout the U.S. and in Europe. As a tenor and countertenor, he has sung professionally with Arizona Opera, O.P.E.R.A., Young Audiences Programs, Austin Lyric and concerts around the U.S. His directorial debut was in 1987 with Arizona Opera’s production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and continued with a recent production at the Shenandoah Bach Festival directing and conducting The Village Singer by Stephen Paulus. He teaches courses in Vocal Arranging, Instrumental Arranging, Graduate Research, Graduate Choral Lit., Intro to Music Technology, Arts 101, and Jesus and Music as well as creating and administering JMU’s New Music for Young Musicians Composition Competition.

Surely the Lord hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Closing Voluntary: Chorale Prelude on O Holy Jesus, Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

Sigfrid Karg-Elert was a German composer who enjoyed considerable fame in the early 20th century. He is best known for his compositions for organ and harmonium.

The chromaticism in Karg-Elert’s compositions displays his profound knowledge of music theory which allowed him to stretch the limits of traditional harmony without losing tonal coherence. Listen for the intricate 3-part imitation of the tune, beginning with the first note in the pedal and continuing in the uppermost and finally middle voices.

Notable composers who influenced Karg-Elert’s work include Johann Sebastian Bach, Edvard Grieg (a personal friend and mentor), Claude Debussy, Alexander Scriabin and Arnold Schoenberg.

Music Notes for March 17, 2024

For this Sunday our list includes the texts of the Sending and Communion hymns. To catch up with last Sunday, our list included the text of the Gathering Hymn and the Communion hymn tune.

Hymn of the Day: "Now the Green Blade Rises" ELW 379
Text: John Macleod Campbell Crum (1872- 1958)
Tune: NOËL NOUVELET,

Though clearly an “Easter hymn”, these are words that may encourage fruitful reflection at other times also. John Macleod Campbell Crum, an Anglican cleric who served as rector of Farnham and Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, wrote these words specifically for the tune “NOËL NOUVELET”, derived from a fifteenth-century French tune and sometimes called “FRENCH CAROL.” The carol was first published in the Oxford Book of Carols in 1928. You may recognize it from its use in the Christmas carol, “Sing We Now of Christmas.” While the composer is unknown, the tune is known to have come from France in the mid-15th century.

As we leave today’s service, the Closing Voluntary also recalls NOËL NOUVOLET in a setting by Richard Hudson. Professor emeritus of musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles Richard Hudson has degrees from California Institute of Technology, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Syracuse University, and UCLA.

Offertory: “Now” Braeden Ayers

“Now the silence” (1968) is one of Jaroslav J Vajda’s (1919-2008) signature hymn texts. First appearing in the Lutheran publication, This Day, in May 1988, this text is unusual in its construction, the entire text containing fourteen lines and with no punctuation. The author notes, “If there was one hymn text that proved a catalyst for my hymn writing, it was ‘Now the silence.’”

The incessant use of the word “Now” (sixteen times!) places the mystery of the Eucharist into the center of the singer’s consciousness. Furthermore, the descriptive language in the hymn is empirical – drawing us into a sensory experience, the essence of the embodiment of the Incarnation. The Lord’s Supper is no longer relegated to the past as a memorial event, but is a reality “Now” as we see “the vessel brimmed for pouring” and participate in “the joyful celebration.” Communion for Vajda is a manifestation of “the Son’s epiphany” through which we receive “the Father’s blessing.”

Braeden Ayres is a composer, conductor, and music educator who believes that music and singing are for all people. As an artist, teacher, and conductor, his mission is to empower people, explore the human experience, and celebrate the human voice as a tool for self-expression. As a composer, his works vary widely in style, with pieces written especially for changing voices, high school choirs, and collegiate, community, and professional ensembles.

Now the silence Now the peace
Now the empty hands uplifted
Now the kneeling Now the plea
Now the Father's arms in welcome
Now the hearing Now the power
Now the vessel brimmed for pouring
Now the body Now the blood
Now the joyful celebration
Now the wedding Now the songs
Now the heart forgiven leaping
Now the Spirit's visitation
Now the Son's epiphany
Now the Father's blessing
Now Now Now

Opening Voluntary: Chorale Prelude on KUORTANE, Robert Below (1934-2020)

NYLAND, named for a province in Finland, is a folk melody from Kuortane, South Ostrobothnia, Finland. In fact, the tune is also known as KUORTANE and was first published with a hymn text in an appendix to the 1909 edition of the Finnish Suomen Evankelis Luterilaisen Kirken Koraalikirja. It gained popularity in the English-speaking world after David Evans's use of it in the British Church Hymnary of 1927.

In concerto, recital, chamber music, or accompanying, Robert Below exhibited a depth of interpretive insight, command of the instrument, and the beauty of sound which delighted devoted audiences. He was productive as a composer, adding a personal and prolific expression to the literature for voice, chorus, chamber music, keyboard, strings, and symphony orchestra.

Closing Voluntary: “Noël Nouvelet” Richard Hudson (1924)

See Hymn of the Day

Music Notes for March 10, 2024

Hymn of the Day: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” (ELW 803)
Text: Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Tune: HAMBURG, Lowell Mason, (1792-1872)

One Sunday afternoon the young Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was complaining about the deplorable hymns that were sung at church. At that time, metered renditions of the Psalms were intoned by a cantor and then repeated (none too fervently, Watts would add) by the congregation. His father, the pastor of the church, rebuked him with "I'd like to see you write something better!" As legend has it, Isaac retired to his room and appeared several hours later with his first hymn, and it was enthusiastically received at the Sunday evening service the same night. Although the tale probably is more legend than fact, it does illustrate the point that the songs of the church need constant infusion of new life, of new generation's praises. Though "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" was intended originally as a communion hymn, it gives us plenty to contemplate during Lent as our focus is on the cross Christ.

Lowell Mason was an American music director and banker who was a leading figure in 19th-century American church music. Lowell composed over 1,600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His best-known work includes an arrangement of “Joy to the World” and the tune Bethany, which sets the hymn text "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Mason also set music to "Mary Had a Little Lamb." He is largely credited with introducing music into American public schools, and is considered the first important U.S. music educator. He has also been criticized for helping to largely eliminate the robust tradition of participatory sacred music that flourished in North America before his time. Lowell Mason composed HAMBURG (named after the German city) in 1824. The tune was published in the 1825 edition of Mason's Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Mason indicated that the tune was based on a chant in the first Gregorian tone.

HAMBURG is a very simple tune with only five tones; its simplicity allows us to focus entirely on the text.

Offertory: “The Serpent" Thomas Pavlechko

Born into a Slovak-Ukrainian family of organists, pianists, vocalists, accordionists and folk dancers, Thomas Pavlechko was dancing to the music of family polka bands at the age of 4, on the piano bench by age 6, playing tuba in the school band by 11, sneaking onto the church organ bench by 12, and earning five dollars a Sunday as a self-taught church organist by 15, a post once held by three of the eight relatives who are organists, including his mother. The family’s combined service as organists has topped a century and a half. He also began arranging music for small instrumental ensembles with the hopes of someday becoming a band director.

Pavlechko’s first hymn tune was sketched at a picnic table after a summer worship meeting in 1982. Two of his hymn tunes were published in 1994. Now 73 of his 107 hymn tunes are in print in denominational hymnals and hymn collections across four continents.

In 2002, the Churchwide Offices of the ELC in America appointed him to serve on the Liturgical Music Editorial Team to assist in choosing and editing the liturgical music for ELW, which also includes his own liturgical music settings and hymns.

So today we slither and hiss through Thomas Pavlechko‘s setting of text by Richard Leach.

Richard Leach is a leading contemporary writer of words for hymns. Using traditional forms, he creates striking new texts with biblical and theological integrity. His work is included in hymnals and hymnal supplements from a wide spectrum of denominations. Leach describes his writing in this way: "I often write in response to particular Bible passages. I try to tell familiar stories in new ways, or listen to less familiar passages for what they might say to us. I want my hymns to enliven those who sing, to give singers something new which they can make their own."

“What do you ssee?” the sserpent ssaid. The woman answered “Death.” “It is not death,” the sserpent ssaid, “It surely is not death.”  “I see what God told us to see,” The woman quickly said. “Ssee what I ssay,” the sserpent ssaid. “Ssee what I ssay,” it ssaid.  “What do you ssee?” the tempter ssaid, The Savior answered, “Stone.” “Must it be sstone?” the tempter ssaid, “It surely could be bread.”  “Let it be stone,” the Savior said, “For life is more than bread. See what the scripture says,” he said, “See what the scripture says.”  We see what we are told to see Whom shall we listen to? Give us the grace, O God, to see What we are told by you.

Opening Voluntary: “Stockton,” Noel Rawsthorne (1929-2019)

The tune “Stockton,” by Thomas Wright, is most often found paired with the text “O For a Heart to Praise My God” and sometimes with “In Christ there is no East or West.”

Christopher Noel Rawsthorne was a British liturgical and concert organist and composer of music for his own instrument, as well as choral music. At the age of eight he became a chorister at Liverpool Parish Church which started his interest in the pipe organ. Two years later, he became a chorister at Liverpool Cathedral and started organ lessons under Caleb Jarvis.

In six years time he later pursued organ studies under Harold Dawber after receiving a coveted exhibition. In 1949, he later became the Assistant Organist of the cathedral, and also received Associateship of the Royal College of Organists (ARCO) and was later elected a fellow (FRCO) in 1953.

He also studied in Italy with Fernando Germani and later in Paris with Marcel Dupré. He became Organist of Liverpool Cathedral in 1955, succeeding Harry Goss-Custard, and served in this capacity until 1980. Until 1993, Rawsthorne was Senior Lecturer in Music at St Katharine's College, Liverpool.

Closing Voluntary: “Crucifer” Ronald Arnatt (1930-2018)

Ronald Arnatt was born and educated in England but emigrated to the United States. He was an organist, choir master, composer, teacher, mentor and music editor who served as music director at Christ Church Cathedral in St.Louis, MO for a quarter-century.

Music Notes for March 3, 2024

For this Sunday our list includes the Opening Voluntary, the text of the Gathering Hymn and the Communion hymn tune.

Hymn of the Day: “Lord Christ, When First You Came to Earth” ELW 727
Text: W. Russell Bowie, (1882- 1969)
Tune: MIT FREUDEN ZART, medieval European tune

Though Percy Dearmer does not mention this when he discusses this hymn, 159 other hymnal companions say that F. W. Dwelly, dean of Liverpool Cathedral, requested it as "an Advent hymn in the Dies Irae mood" when he was serving as a consultant for Songs of Praise (London, 1931), where it first appeared. Russell Bowie, its author, said "it is an effort to express both the solemnity and inspiration of the thought of Christ coming into our modern world in judgment." Erik Routley and Paul Richardson title it "Dies Irae" and call it a "masterpiece" that tries "to say to this age what the Dies Irae said to former generations." It is one of the few remains of judgment in our hymnody. Even Hymns Selected and Original in 1828 had a metrical version of the Dies irae, though by the 1852 edition the stanza that began "Horrors, past imagination" had disappeared. It is probably not all bad that the Dies irae only finds a place among us in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century settings of the Requiem or where the fire of its theme needs on occasion to be invoked, but the absence among us of a sense of Rex tremendae majestatis for God who for us tends to be a perpetual celestial plaything leaves us bereft not only of God but of ourselves. This "masterpiece" fills some of the need. The version in Evangelical Lutheran Worship is from Lutheran Book of Worship (1978). It retains all four of Bowie's stanzas and updates the language for inclusivity and the vernacular in place of Elizabethan English.

Walter Russell Bowie was born in Richmond, Virginia, actually the fourth of his family to have the same name, and with family relationships among the First Families of Virginia. Nonetheless, he studied at Harvard University and as an undergraduate was co-editor of The Harvard Crimson with Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Bowie became known as a preacher as well as author and hymnist. Particularly in the 1920s, he advocated for what later become known as the Social Gospel: supporting the League of Nations, advocating US immigration reform, and opposing the Ku Klux Klan and Fundamentalism. From 1939 until 1950 he taught practical theology at Union Seminary in New York City and was dean of students there from 1946 until 1950. From 1950 until his retirement in 1955 he taught homiletics at Virginia Theological Seminary. He lectured widely, edited the Southern Churchman, was on the Commission of Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches, and was a member of the committee that prepared the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. He was considered by many the most important and influential preacher of the Episcopal Church in the twentieth century.

MIT FREUDEN ZART has some similarities to the French chanson "Une pastourelle gentille" (published by Pierre Attaingnant in 1529) and to GENEVAN 138. The tune was published in the Bohemian Brethren hymnal Kirchengesänge (1566) with Vetter's text "Mit Freuden zart su dieser Fahrt."

Splendid music for a great text, this tune is one of the great hymn tunes of the Reformation.

Offertory: “Order My Steps”, Glenn Burleigh (1949-2007) ( 1991, 2001, Burleigh Inspirations Music, Inc., permission to stream granted by Lavonne Burleigh)

Glenn Burleigh was born into a family of ministers. He was a renowned pianist, conductor, composer and clinician. Burleigh’s music has been performed in churches and on the classical concert stage, also making an appearance in the movie remake of “The Preacher’s Wife” starring Denzel Washington. Burleigh was best known for his ability to take disparate musical styles and weave them together.

“Order My Steps” is pure "black gospel.” One of the best-known titles in the genre, it is an ardent prayer for guidance filled with passion, energy, and rich sonorities.

Order my steps in Your Word, Dear Lord
Lead me, guide me every day
Send Your anointing, Father, I pray
Order my steps in Your Word.

Humbly I ask Thee, teach me Thy will
While You are working, help me be still
Satan is busy, God is real
Order my steps in Your Word.

I want to walk worthy
My calling to fulfill
Please order my steps Lord
And I'll do Your blessed will
The world is ever changing
But You are still the same
If You order my steps
I'll praise Your name.

Order my steps in Your word
Order my tongue in Your word
Guide my feet in Your word
Wash my heart in Your word
Show me how to walk in Your word
Show me how to talk in Your word
When I need a brand new song to sing
Show me how to let Your praises ring
In Your word.

Please order my steps in Your word.

Opening Voluntary: “Prelude and Canon on ‘O Gott du frommer Gott’” Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)

British composer Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was a composer, conductor, author, and Suffragette. Raised during the Victorian age, Smyth fought against societal restrictions that said a woman should not have a profession. She insisted on an education, she insisted on performances of her works, and she insisted on having her works published. Today Smyth should be heralded as a champion of women’s rights and a pioneer for women in the classical music world, but she is still relatively unknown.

Between 1880 and 1930, she published two sets of lieder, several songs for voice and piano or chamber ensemble, numerous chamber pieces, two symphonic works, six operas, a mass, and a choral symphony. Today we also know of her unpublished works for solo piano, organ, and various chamber ensembles. In addition to composing, Smyth was also a devoted letter-writer, and she turned to writing memoirs and essays later in her life, publishing ten volumes of prose between 1919 and 1940.

During her lengthy career in which she frequently traveled between England, Germany, and Italy, Smyth came to know Brahms, Clara Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Bruno Walter, and more. She informally performed for Queen Victoria, and she was friends with the ex-Empress Eugenie of France and the Princesse de Polignac, Winnaretta Singer. In the last decades of her life she formed strong friendships with Edith Somerville and Virginia Woolf.

Although Smyth became known for her proclivity for relationships, she maintained an independent life. Recognizing that the 19th-century idea of marriage was not compatible with a career or her personal inclinations, she wrote in a letter to her mother that “even if I were to fall desperately in love with BRAHMS and he were to propose to me, I should say no!” At the time she claimed that it would end any chances of a career, and later she argued that she was too independent. Both reasons are probably true, but Smyth could never be with only one person. She was unabashedly attracted to women while also maintaining a long-term, long-distance relationship with Henry Bennet Brewster (1850-1908) that lasted from 1884 until his death.

Closing Voluntary: “Cwm Rhondda”, J. Bert Carlson (1937-2017)

CWM RHONDDA, taken from the Welsh name for the Rhondda Valley, is a popular hymn tune written by John Hughes. It is usually sung in English as a setting for William Williams' text Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer or, in some traditions, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah. The tune and hymn are often called Bread of Heaven because of a line in the English translation.

Pastor J. Bert Carlson ministered to many congregations for over 50 years in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana. He was also an accomplished musician and published composer.

Music Notes for February 25, 2024

During February, Black History Month, we are celebrating each week the contribution African Americans have made to our worship either in our hymns, anthems, preludes or postludes, through musical compositions and/or texts rooted in this history and culture.

For this final Sunday our music list includes the Hymn of the Day and Communion hymns.

Hymn of the Day: “We’ve Come This Far By Faith” (ELW 633)
Text: Albert A. Goodson, 1933-2003
Tune: THIS FAR BY FAITH, Albert A. Goodson

In the mid-twentieth century, Chicago was a major hub of African American gospel music with the presence of composer and publisher of African American gospel music Kenneth Morris and gospel performers Sallie Martin (1896-1988), Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), Roberta Martin (1907-1969), Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland (1931-1991), and others. Albert A. Goodson was one of the gospel artists that established Los Angeles as a center of gospel music in the African American tradition.

The first publication of the song was as a choral octavo in 1956. The first album released by Voices of Hope in 1960 included Goodson’s “We’ve Come This Far by Faith” under the direction of Thurston G. Frazier. Though Frazier is listed as the arranger of the music as found in Songs of Zion, one will recognize his influence only on the choral parts.

African American gospel music scholar Horace Clarence Boyer indicates the significance of this hymn in African American worship by observing that many congregations in this era began worship with “We’ve Come This Far by Faith” as the processional and concluded worship with Thomas A. Dorsey’s “God Be with You”. The song was composed during the brief time after Goodson moved from Los Angeles to Chicago: “I was living in Chicago, alone. I was never married, and I didn’t have a relative or a close friend in that city. I became very discouraged. One day, during a depressed state, I sat down at the piano in a friend’s home and began to play a melody running through my mind. As I played the Lord seemed to speak to me saying, ‘We’ve come this far by faith. . .’”

A composer of other songs, Goodson was surprised at the song’s success: “I never thought my song would be a hit, because it sounded like a Sunday School song to me. But it just seemed to take immediately. People started singing it everywhere. I just couldn’t believe it. . . . And I’ve written other songs but they have never done what that song has done.

Finally, the song has had “crossover” appeal with white congregations in a gospel quartet version. Earlier, this hymn appeared only in African American hymnals. It now is included in recent mainline hymnals such as Chalice Hymnal (1995), Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), Glory to God (2013), and the bilingual hymnal Santo, Santo, Santo / Holy, Holy, Holy (2019).

Organ Voluntaries: “Aberystwyth”
Opening: Gerald Near (1942)
Closing: Healey Willan (1880–1968)

Aberystwyth" is a hymn tune composed by Joseph Parry, written in 1876 and first published in 1879 in Edward Stephen's Ail Lyfr Tonau ac Emynau. Parry was at the time the first professor and head of the new department of music at the recently founded University College Wales, Aberystwyth, now called Aberystwyth University. “ABERYSTWYTH”, most often set to “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” is used in over 300 hymnals world wide.

Gerald Near, one of the foremost composers of church music writing today, first studied theory and composition with Leslie Bassett, organ with Robert Glasgow, and conducting with Elizabeth Green at the University of Michigan. He later returned for graduate study in composition with Dominick Argento and conducting with Thomas Lancaster at the University of Minnesota. In 1982 Near was one of the first recipients of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship. That year also saw the performance of two commissioned works for the AGO National Convention in Washington, DC. The following year he moved to Dallas, where he was appointed organist/choirmaster, and subsequently, Canon Precentor of St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

James Healey Willan was an Anglo-Canadian organist and composer. Willan composed some 800 musical pieces, the majority sacred works for choir such as anthems, hymns and mass settings. He is best known for his church music.

Willan’ s works show evidence of his love for plainsong and Renaissance music. For example, many of his liturgical compositions employ western church modes from a thousand years ago and the modality and harmony of late nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox music. His lines are significantly more melismatic, more contrapuntal and rhythmically much freer than was the case in the liturgical music of his contemporaries. His is an individual and original voice within a basically traditional English style.

When the Order of Canada was established in 1967, it named Willan a Companion. In Britain, it was customary for the Archbishop of Canterbury to occasionally grant very distinguished English cathedral musicians the Lambeth Doctorate, Mus. D Cantuar; in 1956 Willan, "the Dean of Canadian composers" became the first non-English church musician to be so honored; subsequently, many Canadian universities followed suit. Willan was one of the first Canadian musicians to appear on a Canadian postage stamp. It was not lost on young Canadian musicians that Willan was able to make his livelihood as a composer, and that being a composer was something to which they might realistically aspire. Willan would describe his provenance "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption”.

There are 99 published chorale preludes by Healey Willan, however most of them are not Lutheran in origin.

Offertory: “Let Nothing Ever Grieve Thee” Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Brahms's “Sacred Song” (Geistliches Lied) Op. 30 was composed in 1856 and takes the form of a double canon setting a text by Paul Fleming (1609–1640), starting with the line 'Let nothing ever grieve thee'. The English translation is by Walter E. Buszin who notes that there is much similarity between this work and the composer's German Requiem.

Let nothing ever grieve thee, distress thee, nor fret thee; heed God's good will, my soul, be still, compose thee.
Why brood all day in sorrow? tomorrow will bring thee God's help benign and grace sublime in mercy.
Be true in all endeavor, and ever do bravely; what God decrees brings joy and peace, He'll stay thee.
Amen.

Music Notes for February 18, 2024

Today our music list includes the Opening Voluntary, Hymn of the Day and Communion hymns.

HYMN OF THE DAY: “I WANT JESUS TO WALK WITH ME”, ELW 325
TEXT: African American Spiritual
TUNE: SOJOURNER

The tune, called Sojourner, is named for Isabella Baumfree, a New York slave who escaped and then began to preach, sing, and advocate for women’s rights. She took the name Sojourner Truth. Also known as I Want Jesus to Walk with Me, the spiritual is a communal lament whose author and composer are unknown. Some think this may be one of the “white spirituals” which thrived for more than two hundred years in the rural Appalachian culture.

OFFERTORY: "According to Thy Gracious Word" Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mark Schweizer, arr. (1956-2019)

A wonderful motet/anthem arranged by Mark Schweizer from Mozart with a text by James Montgomery.

A native of Florida, Mark Schweizer received music degrees from Stetson University in Deland, Florida and the University of Arizona including a doctoral degree in vocal performance. He returned to teach at Stetson University from 1982 to 1985 followed by eight years on the music faculty of Louisiana College. Mark lived in North Carolina where he served as editor of St. James Music Press. He is the author of fifteen “Liturgical Mystery” novels, as well as other books, and several opera and musical librettos. His published musical compositions can be found in the catalogs of Concordia Publishing House, H.T. Fitzsimmons, Lorenz, Selah Publishing, Musik Fabrik, and St. James Music Press.

According to Thy gracious word, In deep humility
This will I do, my loving Lord, I will remember Thee.
Thy body broken for my sake, My bread from heaven shall be;
The cup, Thy precious blood I take, And thus remember Thee.

When to the cross I turn mine eyes, And rest on Calvary,
O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee;
And when these failing lips grow dumb, And mind and memory flee,
When Thou shalt in Thy kingdom come, Jesus, remember me.

OPENING VOLUNTARY "Liebster Jesu" from Three Pieces for Organ, George Walker (1922-2018)

George Walker, a Pulitzer Prize winning composer, began to study composition seriously after graduating from Oberlin College. After having been accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia to study piano with Rudolf Serkin, he was accepted into the composition class of Sosario Scalero, teacher of Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti. He completed his first string quartet before embarking on a career as a concert pianist. In 1956 he became the first black recipient of the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Eastman School of Music. Although his degree was in piano (he never studied composition at the Eastman School), he composed his Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, Second Piano Sonata, and Sonata for Cello and Piano while residing in Rochester, New York. In 1957, as a Fulbright Fellow in piano, he continued to compose under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Returning to the United States in 1958, he began to amass a catalog of more than 70 published works that have been performed by renowned ensembles and conductors throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Three Pieces for Organ were composed in the early sixties for use in traditional church services - the slow, aspiring lines of the “Elevation” for communion, the chorale, “Liebster Jesu, wir Sind Hier” as an offertory and the “Invokation” as a prelude to the service. The Lutheran chorale, representing the Protestant tradition of the chorale prelude, is characterized by contrapuntal lines and a canonic treatment of one of the phrases of the chorale melody.

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Southwell, J. Bert Carlson (1937-2017)

The tune, SOUTHWELL is found in many hymnals and most often paired with the text “Lord Jesus, think on me,” by Synesius of Cyrene, Bishop of Ptolemais. The tune was composed by William Daman (1540-1591), a foreign composer resident in England. There are a few conflicting reports on his origins, but contemporary London records describe him as an Italian from Lucca, Italy who arrived in England circa 1566 as a servant of Sir Thomas Sackville. In 1576 he became a recorder player at the Court of Elizabeth I.

Pastor Carlson ministered to many congregations for over 50 years in NJ, PA and IN. He was also an accomplished musician and published composer.

Our SERVICE MUSIC has changed, and for Lent we sing an assortment chosen from the ELW and ACS hymns in addition to music from Setting Five.

Holy, Holy, Holy (ELW 190)

The Deutsche Messe stems from a tradition of low masses, settings of religious texts in vernacular languages in Austria and southern Germany. Schubert’s Deutsche Messe (German Mass), D 872, is a hymn-cycle written in 1827. Schubert intended it for usage in Catholic church service. Initially, censorship prevented this from taking place; it was not approved for liturgical use. The work has since gained popularity, and has been translated into other languages. Richard Proulx arranged this version in English.

Lamb of God (ACS 960)

Petri Laaksonen's (1962) is a freelance singer and composer from Turku, Finland, who has had several albums published from the 1990s to the present. His career started as a composer writing for other artists and his first ever released song was Finland's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1985. Among his compositions there is gospel music as well as pop and schlager albums. He has also continued to write songs for other artists.

You might also find this interesting about the Communion hymn:

“I’m Going on a Journey” ELW 446
TEXT: Kenneth D. Larkin (1929-2011)
TUNE: WET SAINTS, Edward Valentine Bonnemère, (1921-1996)

The text of this hymn, written by Kenneth D. Larkin, gives us a narrative sketch of the Christian life to which baptism leads—a journey begun with Christ's wet mark, on the individual, in community, forgiven, God going before, with the community's support and nurture. The hymn and its tune were written for the consecration of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Manhattan on the second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 1978. The author and composer wrote them "not [to] be a dedication of bricks and mortar, but rather a rededication of the people," which is why the baptismal theme is there and why the tune is called WET SAINTS. Larkin says that "as the hymn was being sung, a water pipe to the baptismal font broke and there were, indeed, some wet saints as the people tiptoed through the water."

Kenneth Larkin is a retired pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Edward Valentine Bonnemère, known professionally as Eddie Bonnemère, was an African-American jazz pianist as well as a Catholic church musician and composer. His "Missa Hodierna" became in 1965 the first Jazz Mass ever used in a Catholic church in the United States.

Music Notes for February 11, 2024

Today we hear and sing the tune “McKee,” for the Opening Voluntary and Gathering Hymn: the first, a quiet and delicate meditation for piano solo by Justin McCarthy and the second a setting of the African American spiritual adapted as a hymn by Harry T. Burleigh. Let’s raise the roof!

Hymn of the Day: “How Good, Lord, to Be Here!” (ELW 315)
Text: Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858-1933)
Tune: POTSDAM, W. Mercer (1811-1873) The Church Psalter and Hymn Book

Dean of Westminster since 1902, graduate of Christ College, Cambridge, Fellow of his College, Norrisian Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, Rector of St. Margaret, Westminster, and Canon of Westminster, J. Armitage Robinson was an English scholar who wrote extensively about the New Testament, the early church and the cathedral at Wells. He is only slightly associated with hymnology. His hymn, "'Tis good, Lord, to be here” was written c. 1890. It was included in the 1904 edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern, and supplies a long felt want with respect to hymns on the Transfiguration.

The tune, POTSDAM, first appeared in William Mercer's The Church Psalter and Hymn Book (Sheffield, 1854). It was derived in a novel way—by adapting the fugue subject of J. S. Bach's (#310) Fugue IX from Volume II of The Well-tempered Clavier (BWV870-893) and repeating it four times: beginning on the tonic for the first phrase, repeating it a fifth higher for the second, beginning on the third for the third phrase, and repeating it again on the tonic for the fourth. The only changes are in the third phrase where starting on the third modifies the intervals and where the meter requires two more syllables than the other phrases. There G sharp and A were added at the end of the phrase, emphasizing the dominant and making the singers long for the tonic's return as if the tune actually had gone somewhere. These two notes may also be attributable to Bach who did the very same thing in measures 26 to 27 of the fugue. The name POTSDAM comes from the city Bach visited in 1747 where, at the bidding of Frederick the Great, he improvised on a theme the king gave him and then went home and turned it into what became The Musical Offering. (Though the tune is ingenious and congregational, there is no little irony here. The theme and complexity of The Musical Offering, which stand behind the name of the tune, bear no relation to the tune itself.) Except for the two notes added to the third phrase, the tune in its overly simple and undeveloped character bears no relation to the musical interest Bach developed in the fugue from which it is derived in The Well-Tempered Clavier.

The usual assumption is that William Mercer adapted Bach's fugue subject and created the tune. He was born in northeastern England in Durham and went to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1840 he became the incumbent at St. George's, Sheffield, and served the church faithfully for the next thirty-three years until his death. His church was full, and he led it to set up both day and Sunday schools. With John Goss's (#318) musical assistance he edited The Church Psalter and Hymn Book, where this tune appeared. This book was first published in 1854 and included the Psalms and Canticles, four hundred metrical psalms with chants and tunes, "for congregations and families." It went through multiple versions with additions in twenty-two different forms from 1854 until 1872. Of it John Julian says this: "For many years this collection was at the head of all the hymn-books in the Church of England, both in circulation and influence. Its large admixture of Wesleyan hymns, and of translations from the German gave it a distinct character of its own, and its grave and solemn music was at one time exceedingly popular." By 1864 it had sold one hundred thousand copies. Hymns Ancient and Modern took its place.

It could be asked if John Goss, the assisting musician of The Church Psalter and Hymn Book, was the one who constructed POTSDAM. He surely knew the Bach fugue, how to use repetition, and how to move to the dominant in a congregational tune. The melody nonetheless seems a bit too simple for a sensitive musician like Goss, who composed one of the Victorian gems, PRAISE, MY SOUL (#318). Furthermore, according to the preface of The Church Psalter and Hymn Book Goss's role was to harmonize the tunes that Mercer chose (and which, Mercer notes, Goss approved). Mercer knew what he was doing (as an editor, not necessarily as a hymn writer), and he appreciated Bach. He may well have constructed this tune, possibly with his "able Organist, Mr. Phillips, whose skill on his instrument is only equalled by his exact taste" and whom Mercer thanked "for his kindness in rendering me assistance, whenever required.”

Offertory: "Arise, Shine" Alan Lewis

A native both of the Episcopal Church and of Southern California, Alan holds degrees in organ performance and music history from Oberlin College & Conservatory of Music in Ohio. He returned to California for graduate work as a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley; his doctoral research into the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance resulted in a dissertation on the motets of Nicolas Gombert, one of the prominent Flemish composers of the mid-sixteenth century. While completing his doctoral studies, Dr. Lewis joined the faculty of the (Episcopal) Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California, lecturing in Church Music and directing the Chapel Music for six years. He also served as the Music Director for Episcopal congregations. He is a passionate advocate for excellence in the Church's musical offerings, old and new. He currently serves as Director of Music, Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, PA. In addition to his work at Calvary, Alan is the choral music reviewer for the Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, and serves as Sub-dean of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.
For behold, darkness covers the land,
deep gloom shrouds the peoples.
But over you the Lord will rise,
and his glory will appear upon you.
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and your God will be your glory.
Arise, shine!

Opening Voluntary: “McKee” Justin McCarthy

MC KEE has an interesting history. According to a letter from Charles V. Stanford to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (who arranged the tune for piano in his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, 1905), MC KEE was originally an Irish tune taken to the United States and adapted by African American slaves. It became associated with the spiritual "I Know the Angels Done Changed My Name," which appeared in J. B. T. Marsh's The Story of the Jubilee Singers with their Songs (1876). Harry T. Burleigh arranged the tune to fit the text by John Oxenham (aka William Arthur Dunkerley) in 1939. As a setting for that text, the tune was published in The Hymnal 1940. Burleigh named the tune after Elmer M. Mc Kee, rector of St. George's Episcopal Church, New York, where Burleigh was the baritone soloist from 1894-1946.

Burleigh began his musical career as a choirboy in St. Paul's Cathedral, Erie, Pennsylvania. He also studied at the National Conservatory of Music, New York City, where he was befriended by Anton Dvorak and, according to tradition, provided Dvorak with some African American musical themes that became part of Dvorak's New World Symphony. Burleigh composed at least two hundred works but is most remembered for his vocal solo arrangements of African American spirituals. In 1944 Burleigh Was honored as a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

Closing Voluntary: "Trumpet Tune in C” David N Johnson (1922-1987)

"Trumpet Tune in C” Is an energetic piece written in baroque style. this melody sounds centuries old, but is completely original.

David Nathaniel Johnson was a composer, organist, and college lecturer, who studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and held positions at Syracuse University, St. Olaf College, and Arizona State University. His most famous piece is “Trumpet Tune in D Major”, however, the majestic “Trumpet Tune in C” which is slightly lesser known is a wonderful composition also. Johnson is also known for his hymn tune Earth and All Stars.

Music Notes for February 4, 2024

Today’s Opening Voluntary is an organ work by Florence Price.

Hymn of the Day: “God, Whose Almighty Word” ELW 673
Text: John Marriott (1780-1825)
Tune: ITALIAN HYMN, MOSCOW, Felice Giardini (1716-1796)

John Marriott was educated at Rugby, and Christ Church, Oxford. He was the second of two who obtained honors in the schools in 1802, the first year in which there was a public examination for honors at Oxford. He was also Student of Christ Church, and for about two years a private tutor in the family of the Duke of Buccleuch. The Duke presented him to the Rectory of Church Lawford, Warwickshire. This he retained to his death, although his wife's health compelled him to reside in Devonshire, where he was successively curate of St. Lawrence and other parishes in Exeter, and of Broadclyst, near Exeter, where he died March 31, 1825. His published works include a volume of Sermons which he issued in 1818, and a posthumous volume of Sermons, published by his sons in 1838. His hymns were never published by himself, nor in book form by any one. A few appeared in print during his lifetime, but without his permission.

The hymn, “Thou Whose almighty word”, or "Thou Whose eternal word," was quoted by the Rev. Thomas Mortimer, M.A., Lecturer of St. Olave's, Southwark, and afternoon Lecturer at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, at the meeting of the London Missionary Society in Great Queen Street Chapel, London, and was printed with a digest of the speech in the Evangelical Magazine in 1825. It was probably copied from the Magazine into the Friendly Visitor of July, 1825, where it bore the title "Missionary Hymn," without signature.

Felice Giardini was born in Italy. When young, he studied singing, harpsichord and violin. By age 12 he was playing in theatre orchestras. In a famous incident about this time, Giardini, who was serving as assistant concertmaster during an opera, decided to show off his skills by improvising several bravura variations that the composer, Nicolò Jommelli, had not written. Although the audience applauded loudly, Jommelli, who happened to be there, went up and slapped Giardini in the face. Giardini, years later, remarked: "It was the most instructive lesson I ever received from a great artist." He became a composer and violin virtuoso. He toured Europe as a violinist, considered one of the greatest musical artists of his time. He served as orchestra leader and director of the Italian Opera in London, giving concerts. He tried to run a theatre in Naples, but encountered adversity. He went to Russia, but had little fortune there, where he died.

Giardini was a prolific composer, writing for virtually every genre which then existed. His two main areas, however, were opera and chamber music. Virtually all of his music is out of print with the exception of a few songs and works of chamber music. Giardini is known among Christian churches for his "Italian Hymn" or "Moscow", which often accompanies the text to the hymn "Come, Thou Almighty King" and also John Marriott's hymn "Thou whose almighty word".

Offertory: “Christ Is the World’s True Light” William Stanton (1891-1978)

The text, Christ is the World’s True Light, was penned in 1931 by George Wallace Briggs, a Canon of Worchester Cathedral. He wrote this text as a "missionary hymn" to emphasize one of the concepts of modern missions: “In Christ all races meet.” It was published in the Advent section of Oxford's Songs of Praise (1931) and in Briggs's Songs of Faith (1945), in which it was entitled "The Light of the World." The text begins by affirming Christ's own saying, "I am the Light of the world" (John 8: 12). Christ is the light and daystar who brings his people salvation from the darkness of sin. Borrowing one of Paul's memorable teachings in Galatians 3:28 and Jesus' prayer for unity in John 17, the text confesses the essential unity of all humanity and especially the oneness of the family of God. Only when the nations and all peoples submit to Christ's reign will our "groaning" world experience true peace and redemption.

Walter Kendall Stanton was educated at Choristers' School, Salisbury before undertaking an Organ Scholarship at Lancing College and was then at Merton College, Oxford, between 1909 and 1913. He was Director of Music at St. Edward's School, Oxford, from 1915-1924, and later at Wellington College, Berkshire from 1924-1937, and Reading University from 1927-1937. He was also Director of Music for the Midlands Region of the BBC from 1937-1945. He was Professor of Music at the University of Bristol from 1947 until 1958.From 1956 to 1958, he served as City Organist for the City of Bristol. From 1958 until 1960, he was Conductor of the Bristol Choral Society. Professor Stanton was active in a number of musical societies, and was President of the Incorporated Society of Musicians in 1953, as well as its treasurer from 1959 until 1971. He also served as President of the Union of Graduates in Music from 1953-1957. Professor Stanton was also examiner in Music for the Universities of Oxford, Durham and Edinburgh and the University of Wales. He was on the Management Board of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and served as its chairman from 1967-1968. As well as his numerous commitments to musical societies, he was Editor-in-Chief of the BBC Hymn Book.

Christ is the world's true light,
its Captain of salvation,
the Daystar clear and bright
of every land and nation;
new life, new hope awakes,
for all who own its sway:
freedom her bondage breaks,
and night is turned to day.

In Christ all races meet,
their ancient feuds forgetting,
the whole round world complete,
from sunrise to its setting:
when Christ is throned as Lord,
all shall forsake their fear,
to plough-share beat the sword,
to pruning hook the spear.

One Lord, in one great name
unite us all who own thee;
cast out our pride and shame
that hinder to enthrone thee;
the world has waited long,
has travailed long in pain;
to heal its ancient wrong,
come, Prince of Peace, and reign.

Opening Voluntary: “Adoration” Florence B. Price (1887-1953)

In 2009 a dusty treasure was uncovered during the renovation of a dilapidated home in St. Anne, Illinois. Workers discovered boxes containing music by Florence B. Price previously considered lost, including two violin concertos and her fourth symphony. Although the quality of her compositions was recognized during her lifetime, her works were not widely heard. Writing to Serge Koussevitzky, the conductor of the Boston Symphony, she plainly addressed the prejudice that stunted her career, “I have two handicaps – those of sex and race. I am a woman; and I have some Negro blood in my veins.” Now, 70 years later, the labor of activists, scholars, and performers has changed the musical landscape of the United States, and Price’s music is frequently heard in orchestra halls across the nation.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price studied organ and piano at the New England Conservatory of Music, one of the only music institutions of the time that admitted Black students. She taught music at Black-serving institutions in the South after graduating. In 1912 she married and moved back to Little Rock. However, her hometown was not safe, and threats of racial violence compelled the family to flee to Chicago in 1927. Inspired by the culturally rich Black community in Chicago, Price renewed her study of music at the American Conservatory and the Chicago Musical College.

In 1932, she won the Wanamaker competition with her Symphony in E Minor, thus gaining national recognition. She is best known as a song composer, however, including her arrangement of the spiritual “My Soul’s been Anchored in de Lord” and a setting of Langston Hughes’ poem “Songs to the Dark Virgin.” Marian Anderson frequently sang her works and adopted Price’s arrangement of “My Soul’s been Anchored in de Lord” as a personal signature, often ending recitals with that spiritual. Price’s compositions combine a romantic vocabulary with African and African American musical traditions such as call and response and Juba dance rhythm patterns.

Published in 1951, Adoration was initially written as a short piece for organ in ABA form intended for use in church. It has proven attractive for arrangers, including Jim Gray, who has orchestrated it for solo violin and string orchestra.

Closing Voluntary: St. Denio (Immortal, Invisible) J. Bert. Carlson

“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise" is a Christian hymn with words by the Free Church of Scotland minister, Walter Chalmers Smith, usually sung to the tune, "St. Denio", originally a Welsh ballad tune, which became a hymn. ST. DENIO is based on "Can mlynedd i nawr" ("A Hundred Years from Now"), a traditional Welsh ballad popular in the early nineteenth century.

Pastor J. Bert Carlson ministered to many congregations for over 50 years in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana. He was also an accomplished musician and published composer.

Music Notes for January 28, 2024

Hymn of the Day: “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise” ELW 310
Text: Christopher Wordsworth, 1807–1885, alt.
Tune: SALZBURG, Jakob Hintze, 1622–1702; arr. Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685–1750

Christopher Wordsworth, nephew of the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth, wrote this hymn in five stanzas. It was published in his Holy Year (1862) John 3:13-17 with the heading "Sixth Sunday after Epiphany." Wordsworth described the text as follows:

"[It is a] recapitulation of the successive manifestations of Christ, which have already been presented in the services of the former weeks throughout the season of Epiphany; and anticipation of that future great and glorious Epiphany, at which Christ will be manifest to all, when he will appear again to judge the world."

The didactic text teaches the meaning of Epiphany–the manifestation of Christ in his birth (st. 1), baptism, miracle at Cana (st. 2), healing of the sick, power over evil, and coming as judge (st. 3). Originally the refrain line was "Anthems be to thee addressed, God in man made manifest." The revised refrain borrows Peter's confession, "You are the Christ!" (Mark 8:29), and makes that our corporate confession as we acknowledge the 'Word become flesh" who lived among us.

Wordsworth was a prolific author and the most renowned Greek scholar of his day. Included in his works are Memoirs of William Wordsworth (1851), Commentary on the Mole Bible (1856-1870), Church History (1881-1883), innumerable sermons and pamphlets, and The Holy Year (1862), which contained 117 of his original hymns as well as 82 others written for all the Sundays and Christian holy days according to the Book of Common Prayer. Wordsworth was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, England, where he distinguished himself as a brilliant student. He later taught at Trinity College and was headmaster of Harrow School (1836-1844). Ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1835, he was canon of Westminster in 1844, a country priest in Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berkshire (1850-1869), and then Bishop of Lincoln (1869-1885).

The tune SALZBURG, named after the Austrian city made famous by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was first published anonymously in the nineteenth edition of Praxis Pietatis Melica (1678); in that hymnbook's twenty-fourth edition (1690) the tune was attributed to Jakob Hintze. Partly as a result of the Thirty Years' War and partly to further his musical education, Hintze traveled widely as a youth, including trips to Sweden and Lithuania. In 1659 he settled in Berlin, where he served as court musician to the Elector of Brandenburg from 1666 to 1695. Hintze is known mainly for his editing of the later editions of Johann Crüger's Praxis Pietatis Melica, to which he contributed some sixty-five of his original tunes.

Offertory: “Laudate Nomen Domini” Christopher Tye (1505-1572)

The musical source for this well-known piece is Tye’s 1553 publication The Actes of the Apostles, a rendering of that New Testament book in metrical verse together with a musical setting for each chapter. The music for ‘Laudate nomen’ is the setting for Chapter 4 in Tye’s version; however, the Latin text with which the music is now generally associated is a later anonymous contrafactum, or substitute text, being a paraphrase of the first verse of Psalm 112; an English translation of this, beginning ‘O come, ye servants of the Lord’, is also frequently encountered.

Laudate nomen Domini, vos servi Domini;
ab ortu solis usque ad occasum ejus.
Decreta Dei justa sunt, et cor exhilarant:
laudate Deum principes et omnes populi.

Translation:

Praise the name of the Lord, you servants of the Lord;
from the rising of the sun until the same setting.
The decrees of the Lord are just, and [their] heart is glad:
Praise the Lord you princes and all you people.

Opening Voluntary: “In dir ist Freude” Theodore Beck (1929-2003)

The chorale tune, IN DIR IST FREUDE, was composed by Giovanni G. Gastoldi (1582-1609) who served as a deacon and singer in the chapel of the Gonzaga family in Mantua. Gastoldi composed a considerable body of court music, such as madrigals, and some church music, but he is best known for his Balletti, which influenced composers such as Monteverdi, Hassler, and Morley.

The earliest record of this text is found in Johannes Lindemann’s 1594 collection of 20 Christmas carols appearing as the German sacred text replacing Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi’s Italian secular text from a collection of vocal dance songs. No wonder this chorale invites one to dance!

Theodore A. “Ted” Beck taught and composed music for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod for more than 50 years and is remembered as a quiet and humble man who had a wry sense of humor and was a demanding but kind teacher. He taught music at Concordia Teachers College (which became Concordia University in 1998) in Seward, Nebraska, from 1953 until his full retirement in 2001. He also composed many pieces for organ as well as for church choirs. He taught at Concordia Teachers College (now Concordia University-Chicago) in River Forest, Ill., from 1950-1953.

Closing Voluntary: “Hyfrydol” Ralph Vaughn Williams

The tune "Hyfrydol", which means "cheerful" in Welsh, was first published in 1830 by Rowland H. Prichard. He was a Welsh composer born in 1811 just outside of Bala, North Wales; Graenyn, North Wales to be exact. The tune is often set to Charles Wesley's hymn text, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling", Ralph Vaughn Williams' "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus", and William C. Dix's "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus".

The tune HYFRYDOL, which means "cheerful" in Welsh, was first published in 1830 by Rowland H. Prichard. He was a Welsh composer born in 1811 just outside of Bala, North Wales, where he lived for most of his life serving as a loom tender's assistant in Holywell, North Wales where he eventually would pass away in 1887. It wasn't until 1844 that Prichard published his only known work Cyfaill Y Cantorion (The Singer's Friend). His most famous tune was HYFRYDOL, which is most commonly used with "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus." The best known arrangement came from none other than English Composer Ralph Vaughn Williams. Vaughn Williams was known for his adaptations on several original hymn tunes, creating new arrangements for wind bands and for brass bands all across England.

In 1954, the 82-year old Ralph Vaughan Williams was taken to hear The International Staff Band. He was suitably impressed and agreed to write something which the Salvation Army could publish. The result was Prelude on Three Welsh Hymn Tunes, for which he re-worked and expanded material that had originally been published as two organ preludes – Calfaria and Hyfrydol. The setting of Ebenezer at the start was new and sets the tone for a work which despite its brevity, is characteristically expansive and festive.

Music Notes for January 21, 2024

Hymn of the Day: Go to the World! ACS 991
Text: Sylvia G. Dunstan, 1955–1993
Tune: SINE NOMINE, Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872–1958

Sylvia Dunstan was a hymnwriter and a United Church of Canada pastor who died tragically of liver cancer at age thirty-eight. Alan Barthel, her mentor and collaborator, with less than a week’s notice commissioned a text built on the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20) for the 1985 Emmanuel College (Toronto) Convocation. Written to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s expansive SINE NOMINE (“For all the saints”), it gives this beloved tune an alternate text pairing.

Offertory: “Grant Us Thy Peace” Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

The original text for Mendelssohn’s beautiful motet was Martin Luther’s prayer for peace, "Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich" ("Da nobis pacem, Domine"; also known as "Grant Us Thy Peace"). This composition has been published also as "Gebet nach Lutherschen Worten für Chor und Orchester" (librettist, Martin Luther). Mendelssohn originally scored the piece for SATB chorus, orchestra and Organ.

Grant us your peace, O loving Lord,
our Rock and firm foundation.
Our faith is in your excellent word,
speaking to every nation.
Your promise of sure salvation.

Opening Voluntary: “Let Us Ever Walk With Jesus”, Thomas Geischen (1931- 2006)

Thomas Geischen earned a B.S. in Education from Concordia Teachers College and a master’s and doctorate in music from Northwestern University.

Dr. Gieschen was a professor of music for 40 years at Concordia University in River Forest, where he served as department chair and head of the Music Department. He retired in 1993.

As Kapelle Choir director, he performed for President Lyndon Johnson at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, on a world tour for the King of Thailand, and at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.

As founder of OrganArt, he created designs for church organs throughout the Midwest. He was also a published composer, arranger and organ recitalist, and a member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and the American Guild of Organists.
In his spare time, he was an amateur locksmith and harpsichord builder. He also designed and built his island summer home in Door County, Wis.

Closing Voluntary: "Morning Star” Wayne L. Wold (1954)

"Brightest and Best" (occasionally rendered by its first line, "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning") is a Christian hymn text written in 1811 by the Anglican bishop Reginald Heber to be sung at the feast of Epiphany. It appeared in Heber's widow's compilation of hymns entitled Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Service of the Church Year in 1827. It can be sung to a number of tunes, including "Liebster Immanuel", "Morning Star" by James P. Harding, "Epiphany" by Joseph Thrupp, and "Star in the East" by William Walker. It appears in many hymnals across different Christian traditions. The Kentucky traditional singer Jean Ritchie often sang this and told of her childhood memory of her grandmother sitting by the fire and singing it quietly to herself on Twelfth Night; the Library of Congress collected it from her in 1951.

Wayne L. Wold taught at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, from 1990 to 2020 where he taught organ, harpsichord, composition, music theory, form and analysis, and humanities topics in the graduate school. Wold has performed widely on organ and harpsichord, with solo recitals across the United States and in Europe, and he has performed in ensembles including the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Symphony Orchestra, Bach in Baltimore Orchestra and Hood Chamber Players. He is also in demand as a hymn festival leader featuring his own improvisations. Wold has been a church musician since the age of sixteen, serving churches in Minnesota, Ohio, and Maryland, including seventeen years as director of chapel music at Camp David, the presidential retreat.

Music Notes for January 14, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “Will You Come and Follow Me?” ELW 798
Text: John Lamberton Bell (1949)
Tune: KELVINGROVE, traditional Scottish melody

Though he is not certain of it, John Bell is "fairly confident" that this text was written “for the sending out of one our youth volunteers. This was a scheme sponsored by the lona Community whereby young people gave a year or two to live in impoverished parts of Scotland, on the dole, and work out their discipleship in hard places. When they finished, my colleague and I would often write a song for their farewell ceremony always held in the house where they had been working. The words of this song therefore reflect the experience of the volunteer concerned. But we only wrote it for one-off use. It probably goes back to around 1986-87.” Bell then adds, "If I had kept a record of people who have spoken of how a particular line in this affected their life, I could have published a book of very moving testimonies by now, but I'm glad I didn't."

John Lamberton Bell is a Scottish hymn-writer and Church of Scotland minister. He is a member of the Iona Community, a broadcaster, and former student activist. He works throughout the world, lecturing in theological colleges in the UK, Canada and the United States, but is primarily concerned with the renewal of congregational worship at the grass roots level.

Kelvingrove is a place in Glasgow, Scotland, perhaps best known for the museum with that name. The tune that bears the name KELVINGROVE is a traditional Scottish one linked with a text by Thomas Lyle (1792-1859), "Let us haste to Kelvin Grove, bonnie lassie, O," published in The Scottish Minstrel (1811) as KELVIN WATER. Before that in the eighteenth century it was paired with "Bonnie Lassie-O (The Shearing's Nae for You)," which is about a young woman being raped. The tune, darkly, paradoxically, works very well with this text by John Bell, and one has to believe that the irony of such a tune for a story of rape was not lost on those who sang it in the eighteenth century.

Offertory: “Consecration” Frederick Chatfield

This is a lovely, compelling setting of Frances Havergal's hymn-text "Take my life and let it be." Here is how author Frances Havergal describes the events that inspired the writing of this hymn: “I went for a little visit of five days. There were ten persons in the house, some unconverted and long prayed for; some converted, but not rejoicing Christians. He gave me the prayer: ‘Lord, give me all in this house.’ And He just DID! Before I left the house everyone had got a blessing. The last night of my visit, after I had retired, the governess asked me to go to the two daughters. They were crying, etc. Then and there both of them trusted and rejoiced. It was nearly midnight. I was too happy to sleep, and passed most of the night in praise and renewal of my own consecration; and these little couplets formed themselves and chimed in my heart one after another till they finished with ‘ever, only, all for Thee.’”

Frederick Chatfield has served as Director of Music and Organist of Christ United Methodist Church in Kettering, Ohio, a position he held for thirty years. Mr. Chatfield holds a Bachelor of Music in Organ from New England Conservatory in Boston and a Master of Arts in Religion (Music and Worship) cum laude from Yale University where he was named the 1985 Hugh Porter Scholar. One of his great enjoyments is his 1982 BMW R100RS motorcycle which he restored in the spring of 2006.

Take my life, and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move
at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing
always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be
filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use
every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own;
it shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.

Opening Voluntary: “Prelude on MUNICH” Aaron David Miller

Aaron David Miller is noted for his highly imaginative and creative style, found in his performances, improvisations and compositions. Prize winner of several prestigious competitions, including the top prize at the AGO National Improvisation Competition, and the Bach and Improvisation prizes at the Calgary International Organ Festival Competition, he is also noted for his fine performances of repertoire spanning all periods. He has also received rave reviews when accompanying silent films. His recital performances have taken him across the country performing in concert halls, churches, and collaborating with ensembles of all sizes. Aaron serves as the Director of Music and Organist at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and maintains an active recital schedule. He is a forensic musicologist for Donato Music in Scarsdale, NY.

Closing Voluntary: “Voluntary #4” Arlen Clarke (1954)

This is one of a group of 10 Voluntaries written during the COVID quarantine. Conductor, composer, and singer, Arlen Clarke was born in upstate New York. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from Belhaven College in Jackson, MS. After a year of graduate study with Lloyd Pfautsch at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, he went on to receive his Masters Degree in Vocal Performance from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX. Upon completion of six years of active duty as an officer in the US Army he was a singer and later, the composer-in-residence during the1989-90 season at Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Kansas City, MO. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed to the post of Director of Choral Activities at his alma mater, Belhaven College. He currently lives in Greenville, SC and is the Director of Music at St. Mary's Catholic Church. In addition to composing, he maintains an active schedule as a conductor, singer and vocal coach, choral clinician, and adjudicator.

Music Notes for January 7, 2024

Hymn of the Day: "When Jesus Came to Jordan" ELW 305
Text: Fred Pratt Green, 1903-2000
Tune: KING’S LYNN, English folk tune

The name of the Rev. F. Pratt Green is one of the best-known of the contemporary school of hymnwriters in the British Isles. His name and writings appear in practically every new hymnal and "hymn supplement" wherever English is spoken and sung. And now they are appearing in American hymnals, poetry magazines, and anthologies.

Mr. Green was ordained in the British Methodist ministry, and was pastor and district superintendent in Brighton and York, and then served in Norwich. There he continued to write new hymns "that fill the gap between the hymns of the first part of this century and the 'far-out' compositions that have crowded into some churches in the last decade or more."

Offertory: “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” Richard Shephard (1949-2021)

This is a wonderful arrangement of the traditional English carol usually attributed as "traditional.” Its first written appearance is in William B. Sandys' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern of 1833. However, it is almost certainly of a much earlier date; Studwell places it in the 16th century. Cahill based on the phrase "to see the legend of my play" speculates that the text may be based on an earlier version associated with a mystery play of the late medieval period. Numerous composers have made original settings of it or arranged the traditional tune, including Gustav Holst, John Gardner, Igor Stravinsky, David Willcocks, John Rutter, Philip Lawson, James Burton, Ronald Corp, Philip Stopford, Andrew Carter, Jamie W. Hall and Jack Gibbons. The verses of the hymn progress through the story of Jesus told in his own voice. An innovative feature of the telling is that Jesus' life is repeatedly characterized as a dance. This device was later used in the modern hymn "Lord of the Dance".

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day,
I would my true love did so chance
to see the legend of my play,
to call my true love to my dance;

Chorus
Sing O my love,
This have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance.
Thus was I knit to man's nature,
to call my true love to the dance.

In a manger laid and wrapped I was,
So very poor; this was my chance,
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass,
to call my true love to my dance.

Then afterwards baptized I was;
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father’s voice heard from above,
to call my true love to my dance.

Opening and Closing Voluntaries: “Prelude and Postlude from Sixty Short Pieces” Flor Peeters (1903-1986)

The Sixty Short Pieces for Organ were composed in 1957 using Flor Peeters recognizable style of Renaissance polyphony combined with 20th century influences.

A renowned Flemish organist, composer, and music pedagogue, he was known for his exceptional skills as an organist and performed extensively throughout Europe and the United States, showcasing his virtuosity and musicality and promoting the organ as a solo instrument through his concerts and recordings.

Peeters’ compositions encompass a wide range of styles and genres, from solo pieces to large-scale symphonic works, showcasing his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic language, and innovative use of registration on the organ. Many of his organ pieces have become staples in the repertoire.

As a teacher at the Lemmens Institute in Belgium for over four decades, Peeters's impact extended beyond his performance career and compositions, influencing generations of young musicians who went on to become accomplished performers.

And here are some brief notes to catch up on last week’s organ pieces.

Opening Voluntary for 31 December: “With Peace and Joy I Now Depart” JS Bach

This is a chorale prelude from Bach’s Orgelbûchlein - German for “Little Organ Book.” “With Peace and Joy I Now Depart” is the chorale whose text is associated with the feast of the Presentation in the Temple, part of the Gospel reading.

As Johann Gotthielf Ziegler reported, "When playing chorales, my teacher, Kapellmeister Bach, who was still alive, taught me to never play chorales as is, but with the sentiment conveyed by the words." Since the congregation would have known the words of the chorale by heart (and not just the first verse), Bach was able to use this music in a highly suggestive manner. He would thus masterfully employ those hymns most likely to capture the congregation's imagination and move them. Every word, every interval, every interpretive choice was linked to key words, to a specific relationship between biblical and musical writing. In this way, the chorales became both the instrument used to convey the message and the means by which listeners, by actively participating in it, made that message their own.

Closing Voluntary: Prelude and Fugue on Tempus Adest Floridum” Richard Shephard

We don’t sing this carol much anymore, but the tune, better known as “Good King Wenceslas” is well known and easily recognizable.

Music Notes for December 17, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “O Lord, How Shall I Meet You?” ELW 241
Text: Paul Gerhart (1607-1676) tr. composite
Tune: WIE SOLL ICH DICH EMPFANGEN, Johann Cruger (1598-1662)

Paul Gerhardt, famous author of Lutheran evangelical hymns, wrote this German text in ten stanzas. The Psalter Hymnal contains three of those original ten stanzas inspired by Matthew 21:1-9, the Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent in the old Lutheran lectionary. Like so many of the psalms that use the first-person pronoun ("I"), this text moves from the personal welcome of the Savior (st. 1), to a confession of the reason for Christ's incarnation (st. 2), to the church's expectation of Christ's return (st. 3).

Gerhardt studied theology and hymnody at the University of Wittenberg and then was a tutor in Berlin, where he became friends with Johann Cruger. He experienced much suffering in his life; he and his parishioners lived in the era of the Thirty Years' War, and his family experienced incredible tragedy: four of his five children died young, and his wife died after a prolonged illness. In the history of hymnody Gerhardt is considered a transitional figure. He wrote at a time when hymns were changing from a more objective, confessional, and corporate focus to a pietistic, devotional, and personal one. Like other German hymns, Gerhardt's were lengthy and intended for use throughout a service, a group of stanzas at a time.

John Wesley and Catherine Winkworth both made famous English translations of Gerhardt's texts. As Paul Gerhardt was one of the chief German Lutheran hymn text writers, so Catherine Winkworth was the premier nineteenth-century English translator of German chorales. In 1855 and 1858 she prepared translations in two series called Lyra Germanica. In the second of these, she added a note to the preface in which she promised to respond to "inquiries... for tunes adapted to these hymns.” That led in 1863 to The Chorale Book for England, in which she made the translations fit the German meters and included the German tunes so they could be sung with the English texts. In 1869 she provided a substantial history of German hymns and poetry in Christian Singers of Germany.

Winkworth was educated privately while living with her father and sister in Manchester, England. An early champion of women's rights and the education of women, she was governor of the Red Maids' School in Bristol and supporter of the Clifton School for Girls.

Johann Crüger composed WIE SOLL ICH DICH EMPFANGEN for this text and published the tune in 1653; the tune name is the German incipit of Gerhardt's text. Enhancing a sense of personal and communal meditation, the tune gives the text reflective support. It is in isorhythmic form (all equal rhythms) as well as rounded bar form (AABA).

Offertory: “E’en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come” Paul Manz

E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come" is a 1953 motet composed by Paul Manz with lyrics adapted by Ruth Manz. The piece is adapted from text found in the Book of Revelation. It is known as Paul Manz's most notable composition and has been frequently performed by numerous ensembles and choral groups. Paul and Ruth Manz wrote "E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come" in 1953 during a time when their three-year-old son was critically ill. Reflecting on the time, Ruth Manz reported, "I think we'd reached the point where we felt that time was certainly running out so we committed it to the Lord and said, 'Lord Jesus quickly come'". During this time, she had prepared some text for Paul for a composition based on the Book of Revelation. While at his son's bedside, Paul Manz began drafting the composition, which later became the current piece. Their son did recover, which the couple attributed to the power of prayer.

Peace be to you and grace from him
Who freed us from our sins
Who loved us all and shed his blood
That we might saved be
Sing Holy, Holy to our Lord
The Lord, Almighty God
Who was, and is, and is to come
Sing Holy, Holy Lord
Rejoice in heaven, all ye that dwell within
Rejoice on earth, ye saints below
For Christ is coming, is coming soon
For Christ is coming soon
E′en so Lord Jesus, quickly come
And night shall be no more
They need no light nor lamp nor sun
For Christ will be their All!

Opening Voluntary: “Burleigh” (My Lord, What a Morning) Richard Billingham (1934)

William Farley Smith (1941–1997), arranger of most of the spirituals in The United Methodist Hymnal, ascribed the tune name BURLEIGH to this spiritual after Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949) whose concert versions of African American spirituals helped bring the genre into mainstream performances (Young, 1993, 490). Most recent hymnals use this tune name.

Richard Billingham worked for many years as Associate Professor of Music at the University of Illinois and Organist at the First Methodist Church, Chicago. BURLEIGH is a fairly old hymn tune, originating as an African-American spiritual written during the time of slavery in the Untied States. It is currently published in 22 hymnals.

Closing Voluntary: “Prepare the Royal Highway” Paul Manz

Paul Otto Manz was an American choir and organ composer. Also a performer, Manz was most famous for his celebrated hymn festivals. Instead of playing traditional organ recitals, Manz would generally lead a "festival" of hymns from the organ, in which he introduced each hymn with one of his famously creative organ improvisations based on the hymn tune in question. The congregation would then sing the hymn with his accompaniment. Many volumes of these neo-Baroque chorale prelude improvisations have been written out and published and are among his most famous organ works, played by church organists throughout the world. Today’s Voluntary is one of those improvisations.

Music Notes for December 10, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “Comfort, Comfort Now My People” ELW 256
Text: Johann G. Olearius(1631-1711) tr. Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878)
Tune: FREU DICH SEHR

The text for the Hymn of the Day is a versification of Isaiah 40:1-5, the passage that opens the final large group of prophecies in Isaiah 40-66. Many of these prophecies express consolation and hope that Judah's exile in Babylon is almost over. That is certainly the tone of 40: 1-5-words of comfort forecasting a new reign but also words that call for proper preparation–that is, repentance.

The original German hymn text was written by Johannes Olearius in 1671 for St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24. He published it in his huge collection of hymns, Geistliche Singe-Kunst. The collection contained more than twelve hundred hymns in its first edition and it is considered one of the largest and most important German hymn-books of the 17th century. The hymns may best be described as useful, being for times and seasons previously overlooked and filling up many gaps in the various sections of the German hymn-books. They are mostly short, many of only two verses, simple and easy to comprehend, often happy in expression and catching, and embodying in a concise form the leading ideas of the season or subject. Many were speedily adopted into German hymn-books, and a considerable number are still in use.

The tune associated with this hymn text has two names: GENEVAN 42 and FREU DICH SEHR. The title that is used depends on the church tradition through which a particular hymnal acquired the tune. Those from a Reformed background call it GENEVAN 42, because it was used for Psalm 42 in the French Genevan Psalter. It is likely that Louis Bourgeois (1510-1559) either composed or adapted this tune for the Genevan Psalter. Lutherans call the tune FREU DICH SEHR because those are the opening words of a funeral hymn that this tune was paired with in Rhamba's Harmoniae sacrae (1613).

Catherine Winkworth translated the text into English in 1863. Winkworth is well known for her English translations of German hymns; her translations were polished and yet remained close to the original. Educated initially by her mother, she lived with relatives in Dresden, Germany, in 1845, where she acquired her knowledge of German and interest in German hymnody. A pioneer in promoting women's rights, Winkworth put much of her energy into the encouragement of higher education for women.

Offertory: “Come Quickly, Lord Jesus” Mark Schweizer (1956-2019)

A native of Florida, Mark Schweizer received music degrees from Stetson University in Deland, Florida and the University of Arizona including a doctoral degree in vocal performance. He returned to teach at Stetson University from 1982 to 1985 followed by eight years on the music faculty of Louisiana College. Mark lived in North Carolina where he served as editor of St. James Music Press. He is the author of fifteen “Liturgical Mystery” novels, as well as other books, and several opera and musical librettos. His musical compositions can be found in the catalogs of many publishers.

The text is by the composer, referencing the "O Antiphons."

O come now Lord Jesus, our Dayspring, our Cheer,
And lift up our spirits by your Advent here.
The herald is calling, his cry we obey,
In deserts and valleys, “Prepare God a way.”

O come, Root of Jesse, O come now and free
Your people, Your children, from death’s tyranny.
The poor and the needy who suffer great wrong
Give strength and give justice and bid them be strong.

O come Key of David, our hearts open wide.
Our path, guard with safety and lead us on high.
Make straight what was crooked and rough places plain,
Make hard hearts be humble for God’s holy reign.

Come quickly Lord Jesus, as dawn follows night,
Creator, Redeemer, the people’s true light,
Let all things on earth and in heaven adore,
And own you as Savior and King evermore.

Opening Voluntary: “Once He Came in Blessing” (Gottes Sohn ist kommen) John Leavitt (1956)

Michael Weiss, a pastor among the Bohemian Brethren and a contemporary with Luther composed the tune GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN (Once He Came in Blessing) and also wrote the text. A well-known hymn tune, GOTTES SOHN IST KOMMEN is set above a lilting counter melody based on “Of the Father’s Love” The repetitive motives and ornamental figures are a recognizable element of John Leavitt’s compositional style.

A composer, performer, and clinician for church and school music literature, John Leavitt continues to teach, lecture, and guest conduct numerous workshops, festivals, and symposia.

Closing Voluntary: "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (Savior of the Nations, Come), Paul Siefert (1586-1666)

"Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” is first documented as a Roman Catholic Latin hymn based upon Gregorian chant in manuscript form. This setting is one of a set of variations by Paul Siefert, who was a German composer, organist and music theorist. He was a prolific composer, who was always quarreling with the Kapellmeisters for not doing justice to the performance of his works.

Music Notes for December 3, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” ELW 435
Text: Charles Wesley, 1707–1788, alt.
Music: HELMSLEY, Thomas Olivers, 1725–1799

“Lo! He comes with clouds descending" is a Christian hymn by Charles Wesley, based on an earlier hymn, "Lo! He cometh, countless Trumpets" by John Cennick (1718–1755). Most commonly sung at Advent, the hymn derives its theological content from the Book of Revelation relating imagery of the Day of Judgment. Considered one of the "Great Four Anglican Hymns" in the 19th century, it is most commonly sung to the tune HELMSLEY, first published in 1763.

The tune HELMSLEY is usually attributed to Thomas Olivers, a Welsh Methodist preacher and hymn-writer. Anecdotal stories about the tune's composition suggest Olivers heard the tune whistled in the street and derived his melody from that; the most likely source is an Irish concert song "Guardian angels, now protect me". George Arthur Crawford, in A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1900), discusses the origin:

This tune claims a notice on account of the various opinions that have been expressed respecting its origin. The story runs that Thomas Olivers, the friend of John Wesley, was attracted by a tune which he heard whistled in the street, and that from it he formed the melody to which were adapted the words of Cennick and Wesley's Advent hymn...The source from whence 'Olivers' was derived seems to have been a concert-room song commencing 'Guardian angels, now protect me,' the music of which probably originated in Dublin.

Offertory: “Savior of the Nations, Come” Georgiann Toole (1958)

The tune, NUN KOMM DER HEIDEN HEILAND, is a chorale derived from a chant. Among the simplest of the Lutheran repertoire, it is framed by identical lines l and 4. Ambrose, its original Latin author, strongly promoted the practice of singing the hymn with antiphonal groups and this is duplicated in this choral setting.

The tune dates from a twelfth- or thirteenth-century Einsiedeln manuscript. Presumably by Johann Walther, the adaptation of the tune was published in the 1524 Erfurt Enchiridia. Johann S. Bach used the tune for preludes in the Clavierübung and Orgelbüchlein and in his cantatas 36 and 62.

Georgiann Hinchcliffe Toole is a West Virginia native who currently resides in Sharpsburg, Maryland. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from Shepherd College (Shepherdstown, WV), a Master of Music in Conducting from the Shenandoah Conservatory (Winchester, VA), and a Ph.D. in Music Education from The University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She has taught choral and general music in public and private schools, and music education courses at Shepherd, Shenandoah, and UNCG. A strong proponent of the value of musical performance activities for people of all ages and ability levels, she has served as singer or conductor for many church music programs and community and professional theater groups. She has served as clinician, adjudicator, conductor, and/or composer for county and regional honors choruses in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Currently, Dr. Toole is on the education faculty at Shepherd University, and is the founder and artistic director of the Antietam Women’s Ensemble.

Savior of the nations, come;
Virgin’s Son, make Earth your home,
Marvel now, O heaven and earth,
That the Lord chose such a birth.

From the Godhead forth you came
And return unto the same,
Captive leading death and hell
High the song of triumph swell!

You, the chosen Holy One,
Have o'er death the victory won.
Boundless shall your kingdom be;
When shall we its glories see?

Brightly does your manger shine,
Glorious is its light divine.
Let not hate o’ercloud this light;
Ever be our faith so bright.

Opening Voluntary: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” George Lachenauer (1950)

VENI IMMANUEL was originally music for a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional. Thomas Helmore (1811-1890) adapted this chant tune and published it in Part II of his The Hymnal Noted (1854).

George Lauchenauer studied at Muhlenberg College and Union Theological Seminary and is currently choir director at First Presbyterian Church in Roselle, New Jersey. Melody is from a Fifteenth Century French Processional.

Closing Voluntary: “On Jordan’s Bank” Charles Callahan (1951)

This piece is part of a collection of Advent hymn settings by Charles Callahan, well-known as an award-winning composer, organist, choral conductor, pianist, and teacher. He is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. He presently resides in Vermont, and is the Director of the Vermont Conservatory of Music.

John the Baptist's announcement "Prepare the way for the Lord" is the primary basis for this Advent hymn. Stanzas 1 and 2 apply that message to people today; stanza 3 is a confession by God's people of their need for salvation; stanza 4 is a prayer for healing and love; stanza 5 is a doxology. This much-loved Advent text is laced with various scriptural phrases.

Charles Coffin (1676-1749) wrote this text in Latin (“Jordanis oras praevia”) for the Paris Breviary (1736), a famous Roman Catholic liturgical collection of psalms, hymns, and prayers. Coffin was partially responsible for the compilation of that hymnbook. Latin remained the language of scholarship and of the Roman Catholic liturgy in the eighteenth century. Working in that tradition, Coffin was an accomplished Latin scholar and writer of Latin poems and hymns.

The English translation is a composite work based on a translation by John Chandler who published it in Hymns of the Primitive Church (1837). (Chandler thought it was a medieval text!) Since 1837, various hymnal editors have revised the text in attempts to bring the translation closer to Coffin's original.

Music Notes for November 26, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” ELW 634
Text: Edward Perronet, (1726-1792), sts. 1-4; J. Rippon, A Selection of Hymns, 1787, sts. 5-6
Music: CORONATION, Oliver Holden, 1765-1844

The first stanza of this hymn was printed anonymously in the Gospel Magazine (November 1779). Six months later the Gospel Magazine (April 1780) printed it again, this time with seven more stanzas by Edward Perronet (1726-1792) and the title "On the Resurrection, the Lord is King." The hymn appeared once more in A Selection of Hymns (London, 1787) by John Rippon (1751-1836). Many argue that the hymn has experienced continued popularity due to the hymn tune MILES LANE which appeared with it in Gospel Magazine and the tunes CORONATION and DIADEM which have accompanied the text since that time. The use of this hymn in various forms and many languages is very extensive. A rendering in Latin, "Salve, nomen potestatis," is given in Bingham's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871. In the number of hymnbooks in which it is found in one form or another, it ranks with the first ten in the English language.

Like MILES LANE, CORONATION was written for this text. Oliver Holden composed the tune in four parts with a duet in the third phrase. The tune, whose title comes from the theme of Perronet's text, was published in Holden's Union Harmony (1793). It is the one eighteenth-century American tune that has enjoyed uninterrupted popularity–from the singing schools of that era to today's congregational worship.

CORONATION is a vigorous marching tune with many repeated tones that delighted Holden's contemporaries. The tune requires the jubilant repetition of the last couplet of text for each stanza.

Holden was reared in a small rural community and had only a minimal formal education–a few months in a "common school" in Groton, Massachusetts. He worked as a carpenter and was involved in community service in Charlestown, holding posts in the Anti-Slavery Society and serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In addition he worked very profitably as a merchant and real estate dealer, and served as a Puritan lay preacher. Very interested in music, Holden became a composer and singing-school teacher in the tradition of William Billings. He was involved in publishing various tune books, including The American Harmony (1792), The Massachusetts Compiler (1795), Plain Psalmody (1800), and The Charlestown Collection of Sacred Songs (1803).

Offertory: "How Can I Keep From Singing" Sarah Quartel

How Can I Keep From Singing?" (also known by its first line "My Life Flows On in Endless Song") is an American folksong originating as a Christian hymn. The author of the lyrics was known only as 'Pauline T', and the original tune was composed by American Baptist minister Robert Lowry. The song is frequently, though erroneously, cited as a traditional Quaker or Shaker hymn and the song has often been attributed to "early" Quakers, but Quakers did not permit congregational singing in worship until after the American Civil War (and many still do not have music regularly). But learning it in social activist circles of the fifties and hearing Pete Seeger's (erroneous) attribution endeared the song to many contemporary Quakers, who have adopted it as a sort of anthem. It was published in the Quaker songbook Songs of the Spirit, and the original words, were included in the much more ambitious Quaker hymnal project, Worship in Song: A Friends Hymnal in 1996.

Canadian composer and educator Sarah Quartel is known for her fresh and exciting approach to choral music. Deeply inspired by the life-changing relationships that can occur while making choral music, Sarah writes in a way that connects singer to singer, ensemble to conductor, and performer to audience. Her works are performed by choirs across the world, and she has been commissioned by groups including the American Choral Directors Association, the National Children's Chorus of the United States of America, and New Dublin Voices. Since 2018 she has been exclusively published by Oxford University Press, and she continues to work as a clinician and conductor at music education and choral events at home and abroad.

Opening Voluntary: “Chorale Prelude on Liebster Jesu, Wir Sind Hier,” Gerald Near (1942)

Gerald Near, an alumnus of the University of Michigan, has an extensive catalog of well-crafted, published, choral and organ music. His early position as choirmaster at Calvary Church, (an Anglo-Catholic parish) Rochester, Minnesota, afforded him the opportunity to hone his craftsmanship for the special choral requirements of that unique community of worshippers. Later, he was appointed a lay Canon Precentor (Director of Music and Organist) of St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Dallas, Texas, before becoming composer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John, Denver, CO. Currently he is a freelance composer, and Choral Director and Cantor at Holy Faith Episcopal Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This beautiful, lyrical setting of “Liebster Jesu wir Sind hier” is one of my favorites. A Lutheran hymn with text by Tobias Clausnitzer in 1663, it is a prayer for illumination, regularly found in Protestant and Catholic hymnals, with German and English translations. The tune was composed by Johann Rudolph Ahle (1625 –1673), a German composer, organist, theorist, and Protestant church musician.

Closing Voluntary: Chorale Prelude on “Nun danket alle Gott” op. 65, no. 59, Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

Of his 66 Chorale Improvisations, this exultant march is one of Karg-Elert's most cherished works for the organ. It refers to the 17th-century text written by Lutheran hymnist Martin Rinkart, which in English is "Now thank we all our God," and it is widely used at this time of year. We also celebrated Karg-Elert's birthday this past Tuesday: November 21, 1877!

Music Notes for November 19, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “Voices Raised to You” #845
Text: Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr. (1923-2007)
Tune: SONG OF PRAISE, Caroline Jennings (1936)

This hymn was commissioned by the ALCM for its tenth anniversary and first sung on Reformation Sunday in the fall of 1996.

Rev. Dr. Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr. lived most of his life in Gettysburg, PA. He served as President of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg and was the author of several books and numerous articles and lectures on preaching, history, and theology. He was also among the most honored and respected hymn writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Rev. Dr. Stuempfle was known for his leadership in community and civic projects. Always taking an active stance on social issues, he participated in the creation of day care centers, served on the Gettysburg interchurch social action committee, helped create and support prison ministries and a homeless shelter, and tutored young people in the after school program of Christ Lutheran Church, where he was a long time member.

Carolyn Jennings is a Professor Emerita of Music at St. Olaf College where she taught for many years and also served in administrative roles, including Chair of the Music Department and Associate Dean for the Fine Arts. She also served as a church musician for over thirty years, at St. John's Lutheran Church in Northfield, Minnesota.

Over many years she has been active in promoting the use of inclusive language in texts for singing, and has worked to heighten awareness of how language shapes as well as expresses thought.

Her compositions and arrangements include works for voices, orchestra, and piano. She particularly enjoys composing for voices.

Offertory: Song of Thanksgiving,” Malcom Archer (1952)

With a text by John Milton, paraphrasing Psalm 136, today’s anthem is rhythmic and joyful with fun syncopations.

Malcolm Archer is much in demand internationally as a conductor, composer and organist, and has given many recitals in the USA as well as conducting concerts and directing leading choral courses there. His career has taken him to several English Cathedrals as Director of Music, including Wells and St. Paul’s, and for eleven years he was Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. He has over 250 published works, which include organ and choral works, a one act opera, instrumental and orchestral pieces and two musicals.

Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord, for he is kind;
For his mercies ay endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.

Let us blaze his name abroad,
For of gods he is the Lord,
For his mercies ay endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.

He the warm and golden sun
Causes in its course to run,
And the moon to shine at night,
mid her starry sisters bright.

All things living he doth feed,
his full hand supplies their need.
For his mercies ay endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.

Opening Voluntary: Schmucke dich (Deck Thyself, My Soul) J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Johann Cruger composed the hymn tune specifically for the text. Johann S. Bach used this tune in his Cantata 180; he and many other composers have written organ preludes on the melody.

Closing Voluntary: Fanfare from Five Pieces for Organ, Healey Willan (1880-1968)

James Healey Willan was born on October 12, 1880, in Balham, Surrey, England. He had a wide experience as a composer of a full-length opera, a symphonic work, countless organ and choral works, as a music educator, a choral director, and a church musician. He played his first service at the age of eleven in 1891 and his last service on Christmas Eve, 1967, just two months before he died on February 16, 1968.

Having served churches in England, Willan left for Canada in 1913 to serve as organist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Toronto as well as head of the Theory Department at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. In 1921, he accepted the position of organist-choirmaster at St. Mary Magdalene Church, an Anglo-Catholic parish in Toronto, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. During his tenure there, Willan also accepted in 1938 the position of Professor in the Music Faculty at the University of Toronto.

Most of his hymn-based motets and organ preludes came into existence after his retirement from the University of Toronto in 1950, the most prolific compositional period of his life. Willan is probably best known for his sacred and liturgical music, especially that written for St. Mary Magdalene Church. His anthems, hymns, motets, mass settings, and carol settings contributed to his reputation as the “dean of Canadian composers.”

Written in 1959 for the dedication of a new organ in St. Matthew's Church, Ottawa, this festive piece recalls the joy of a congregation rejoicing in the sound of their new instrument.

Music Notes for November 12, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers” ELW 244
Text: Laurentius Laurenti (1660-1722) tr. Sarah B. Findlater (1823-1907)
Tune: HAF TRONES LAMPA FARDIG, Swedish Folk Tune

Considered to be one of the finest hymn writers of the Pietistic period, Laurentius Laurenti wrote the text for this hymn based on the parable of the wise and foolish maidens (Matt. 25: 1-13). Stanzas 1 and 2 focus on the expected coming of the bridegroom; stanza 3 is a prayer for Christ's return to complete the work of redemption and to set his people free. Born Lorenz Lorenzen (1660-1722) in Schleswig, Laurenti studied at the University of Rostock and in Kiel. In 1684 he moved to Bremen, where he was appointed music director and cantor in the Lutheran Cathedral Church. He is a well known writer of German hymns in the Pietist tradition, and based most of his hymn texts on the gospel lessons for the church year. They were published in Evangelia Melodica (1700).

Sarah Borthwick Findlater translated the text into English and published it in Hymns from the Land of Luther (1854), a collection of 122 hymns translated by her (53 hymns) and her sister Jane. Findlater was a fine linguist, and as a translator of German chorales, she is considered second only to Catherine Winkworth. As an author, Sarah wrote fiction, juvenile works, music scores, anthems, and musical parts.

There are quite a number of different tunes published in combination with this text. In the ELW we find the setting, HAF TRONES LAMPA FÄRDIG, a Swedish Folk tune. It is one of the 3 most used.

Offertory: Awake My Heart and Render, Jane Marshall (1924- 2019)
Text: Paulus Gerhardt, Translation: Winfred Douglas

This marvelous anthem won the American Guild of Organists prize in 1958. It was and has continued to be a stalwart anthem of the church. The effect for morning, evening worship and any festive worship day is as thrilling as ever.

In the early 1950s, Jane Marshall was a young homemaker and Methodist church choir member, albeit one with an unusually strong music background. She decided to write an anthem. The grand slam result was “My Eternal King,” published in 1954 by Carl Fischer Music. It became one of that venerable sheet music company’s all-time bestselling anthems and remains popular with choirs across denominations.

Marshall would go on to write more than 200 anthems, hymns and other sacred music works. A revered figure among fellow United Methodist musicians as well as the broader church music world, she was one of the most sensitive and text-oriented hymn tune composers of the late 20th century.

Awake, my heart, and render
to God - thy sure defender,
thy maker, thy preserver
A song of love and fervor.

Confirm my deeds and guide me:
my day, with thee beside me -
beginning, middle, ending -
will all be upward tending.

My heart shall be thy dwelling,
with joy and gladness swelling;
thy word, my nurture;
given to bring me on toward heaven.

Opening Voluntary: Schmucke dich (Deck Thyself, My Soul) J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Johann Cruger composed the hymn tune specifically for the text. Johann S. Bach used this tune in his Cantata 180; he and many other composers have written organ preludes on the melody.

Closing Voluntary: Fanfare from Five Pieces for Organ, Healey Willan (1880-1968)

Written in 1959 for the dedication of a new organ in St. Matthew's Church, Ottawa, this festive piece recalls the joy of a congregation rejoicing in the sound of their new instrument.

Music Notes for November 5, 2023

Hymn of the Day: “Jerusalem My Happy Home” ELW 422
Text: F. B. P., 16th cent.
Tune: LAND OF REST, North American traditional; arr. hymnal version

This hymn is five stanzas - #11, 2, 17, 21 and 6 - taken from a twenty-six stanza English hymn found in a manuscript in the British Museum, c. 1616, where it is headed “A Song Mad [sic] by F:B:P. To the tune of Diana." Behind it lies the medieval Latin Liber Mediationum (which also lies behind "Ah, holy Jesus”). In Julian’s Dictionary William T. Brooke discusses this hymn at length. He gives the Latin, all twenty-six stanzas by F. B. P., points to a corrupted nineteen-stanza version from The Song of Mary the Mother of Christ (1601), and suggests a prior common but now unknown source. He gives another version of the hymn from The Glass of vain-glorie (1585). It has forty-four stanzas, most of which relate to the new Jerusalem, F. B. P., and the Liber Meditationum, but some of which paraphrase the Song of Solomon (which prompted "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds"). The best guess about the initials F. B. P. is that they may denote a Roman Catholic priest, and the "tune of Diana" is equally unclear.

This "originally pentatonic tune" was paired with "O land of rest, for thee I sigh!" in the 1836 Appendix of Samuel Wakefield's shape-note tune book called The Christian Harp (Pittsburgh, 1832). As we have it, the tune is hexatonic but only slightly so: the fourth degree of the scale is used twice, once as a passing tone at measure 5 and once in a more accented fashion four notes from the end. The seventh degree is not present (E in this key that is otherwise F major), which gives the tune an open, rustic flavor. Herbranson linked his hymn with John Dahle's tune LUTHER SEMINARY, found in the Service Book and Hymnal (1958). In Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) it was paired with a more pensive tune by Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) called PERRY, for which Kevin Norris wrote a chorale concertato. In Evangelical Lutheran Worship it gets a third tune. More than the first two, LAND OF REST highlights the motion and physicality of the text. If one finds such things significant, it also has a compound background beat whose three can be seen as reflecting or underscoring the trinitarian Three in whose name the church baptizes.

Offertory Anthem: “And We’ll All Sing Hallelujah” Harold Stover

“O what are all my sufferings here compared to life above?" This Charles Wesley text is set to a sturdy tune by William Walker, compiler of shape-note books such as Southern Harmony. It celebrates our joining with the saints and finding eternal rest. The music has rhythmic drive and a real sense of jubilation.

And let this feeble body fail,
And let it faint or die;
My soul shall leave the realms of earth,
And soar to worlds on high;

Refrain:
And I’ll sing hallelujah and you’ll sing hallelujah,
and we’ll sing hallelujah when we arrive at home.

I’ll join the disembodied saints,
And find my long sought rest,
The happiness for which I long
And life among the blest. Refrain

O what are all my sufferings here,
Compared to life above,
With all the glorious heavenly host
To live with God in love? Refrain
Give joy or grief, give ease or pain,
Take life or friends away,
But let me find them all again
In that eternal day. Refrain

Communion Anthem: “O Quam Gloriosum” Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Tomás Luis de Victoria was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. His surviving works, unlike that of his colleagues, are almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. “O quam gloriosum” is an All Saints Antiphon to the Magnificat, Second Vespers, published in 1572.

O quam gloriosum est regnum,
in quo cum Christo gaudent omnes Sancti!
Amicti stolis albis, sequuntur Agnum,
quocumque ierit.

O how glorious is the kingdom
in which all the saints rejoice with Christ!
Clothed in white robes, they follow the Lamb,
wherever He goes.

Opening Voluntary: Land of Rest” Richard Proulx (1937 - 2010)

Richard Proulx was one of the most important composers of liturgical music in the twentieth century. Modern Liturgy Magazine called him the "most significant liturgical composer of the last twenty years." He has more than 300 published works, including congregational music in every form, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, two operas, and instrumental and organ music.

Closing Voluntary: Sine Nomine, Arthur Hutchings (1906–1989)

Arthur James Bramwell Hutchings was an English musicologist, composer, and professor of music successively at the University of Durham and the University of Exeter. He wrote extensively on topics as varied as nineteenth-century English liturgical composition, Schubert, Purcell, Edmund Rubbra, and baroque concertos; but his most famous book was the Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos, published in 1948 and often reissued since. Among his other books are The Invention and Composition of Music and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century. His compositions include the Seasonal Preludes for organ, the overture Oriana Triumphans, the opera Marriage à la Mode, and the operetta The Plumber's Arms. Among his choral works are Hosanna to the Son of David, God is Gone Up, Grant Them Rest, and the Communion Service on Russian Themes. Hutchings served for many years as a director of the English Hymnal Company and three of his tunes were included in the 1986 New English Hymnal.