Hymn of the Day: “Now We Join in Celebration” ELW 462
Text: Joel W. Lundeen (1918-1990)
Tune: SCHMÜCKE DICH, Johann Crüger (1598-1662)
This hymn text by Joel W. Lundeen was included in Contemporary Worship 4: Hymns for Baptism and Communion (1972). Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) made modifications in the second and third stanzas, and this version appears also here.
Joel Waldemar Lundeen was born in China, where his parents were missionar-is. He studied at Augsburg College and MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, Augustana Seminary in Rock Island, Union Seminary in New York, and the University of Chicago. A pastor and musician, he was the director of the library and church archivist at Augustana Seminary, director of the library at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and in 1967 became archivist for the Lutheran Church in America. Before that, from 1957 to 1962, he was the secretary of the Commission on Worship of the Augustana Church, and in 1986 his Index to Luther's Works was published.
Johann Crüger composed SCHMÜCKE DICH for Johann Franck's text, “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness”, and first published the tune as a setting for Franck's first stanza in Geistliche Kirchen-Melodien. The tune name is the incipit of the original German text. Johann S. Bach used this tune in his Cantata 180; he and many other composers have written organ preludes on the melody, including Sigfrid Karg-Elert, whose Chorale Improvisation setting we hear today.
Offertory Anthem: “Rejoice in the Lord,” K. Lee Scott (1950)
"Rejoice in the Lord Always" is almost a direct quotation of Philippians 4:4-7. The apostle Paul's encouragement to rejoice always, regardless of our circumstances, is an exhortation we sing cheerfully to each other in this song.
K. Lee Scott is widely considered one of America’s top composers of church music. His hymns appear in eight hymnals, and he has published more than three hundred compositions. His compositions include anthems, hymns, and works for solo voice, organ, and brass, plus major works including a Christmas Cantata and Te Deum. He has been published by more than a dozen publishers. In 1995, he was commissioned by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and Choristers Guild to compose a hymn setting for their convention in San Diego.
In addition to his compositional success, Scott is internationally known as a teacher, musician, and conductor. He has taught on the music faculties at the University of Alabama School of Music, the Samford University School of Performing Arts, and The University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Music. He is a frequent guest conductor and clinician in the United States, Canada, and Africa.
Scott received two degrees in choral music from the University of Alabama School of Music.
4Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. 5Make your forbearance known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. 6Have no anxiety about anything; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your prayers known unto God. 7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Opening Voluntary: “Chorale Improvisation on ‘Schmucke Dich’” S. Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
The composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert is well-known to organists and flautists on account of his substantial contributions to these instruments' repertoires. His music is colorful and impressionistic, but he also drew on the established ways of writing music, including works for organ based on Lutheran chorales (hymn tunes).
Closing Voluntary:“Vineyard Haven” ("Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart”), Robert J. Powell (1932)
Today we can indulge ourselves when singing E. H. Plumptre’s text "Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart" to one of our great twentieth-century hymn tunes, VINYARD HAVEN, composed by Richard Dirksen in 1974 for this text as a processional choral anthem for the installation of Presiding Bishop John Maury Allin at the Washington (D.C.) Cathedral, also known as the National Cathedral. VINEYARD HAVEN was first published as a hymn tune in Ecumenical Praise. Dirksen wrote that the quality of rejoicing was intended to foreshadow the raising of "such 'Hosannas' forever in [God's] presence and with the company of heaven in the life eternal." The tune is named after the town on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where the Very Reverend Francis B. Sayre, Jr., who was then Dean of Washington Cathedral, had his permanent home.
Robert J. Powell earned his Bachelor of Music in Organ and Composition from Louisiana State University in 1954 and his Master of Sacred Music from Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, New York in 1958. He holds Certificates of Fellow (FAGO) and Choirmaster (ChM) from the American Guild of Organists and is a member of American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers( ASCAP). He has received the Standard Music Award from ASCAP for the last 35 years.