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.
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.