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.