Barbara Verdile
I was Director of Music and Organist at Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, Purcellville, Virginia for almost 20 years until moving to Washington, DC. I have Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore and while an undergraduate at Douglass College, Rutgers University I studied organ with University Organist, David Drinkwater. But I consider myself mostly a student of my father, as I was his regular page-turner for the postlude each Sunday.
I’ve had a varied career teaching and performing in addition to my work in the area of church music ministry. While working in all combinations of church organist and choir director for the past 40 years, I have also been on the faculties of Northern Virginia Community College and Shenandoah Conservatory of Music along with teaching in my private studio. I founded a chamber music series in Purcellville and a community chorus, which grew into what is now the Loudoun Chorale. In addition to working as pianist and flutist with the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra and the Loudoun Wind Symphony I have performed in solo and chamber music recitals and accompanied a wide range of instrumentalists and vocalists, given organ recitals in Italy and served as organist for week-long residencies at the cathedrals of Canterbury, York and elsewhere in Great Britain and Ireland.
The Italian language and choral singing are my avocations. I thoroughly enjoy trying to speak Italian and discovering Italian literature, and as a choral singer (much simpler and easier than the language thing!) have continually been a member of choral groups ranging from chamber to symphonic in size. An exceptional result of my choral activity was that of meeting the man who became my husband. Bob and I met in our college chapel choir and we will soon celebrate our 49th wedding anniversary.
Currently I am Rehearsal Pianist for the Choir and Festival Chorus at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, and Rehearsal Assistant for the Thomas Circle Singers in Washington, DC. Bob and I both sing with this group. Maybe we can convince you to come to a concert!
We live in Foxhall Village in DC with our dachshund, Piccola and have two daughters, a son-in-law and a grandson soon to be four years old. All live close by in Virginia.
During the current upset created by COVID-19 I feel quite fortunate to be able to offer my part in combination with many others at RELC to provide comfort and hope during this pandemic. With all of you I look forward to the time when it will be safe to resume meeting together for services on Sundays, to continue getting to know you and make music together with you and the choir here at RELC!
With a voice of singing, Barbara
Hymn of the Day: “Ah, Holy Jesus” ELW 349
Text: Johann Heermann, 1585–1647; tr. Robert Bridges, 1844-1930
Tune: HERZLIEBSTER JESU, Johann Crüger, 1598–1662
Like "My song is love unknown", this hymn locates the guilt at our feet: "it was denied thee; I crucified thee." Then it turns to adoration for God's graciousness in spite of our "treason." Also like "My song is love unknown," one poet has stimulated another. Here, however, the interplay has more players and reaches between languages and cultures. It starts with the Latin Liber Meditationum, often ascribed to Augustine (354-430) but possibly by Jean de Fécamp (d. 1078). It was the basis for a German hymn of fifteen stanzas in sapphic poetic meter (11 11 115) by Johann Heermann. He attributed the Latin original to Augustine. Robert Bridges kept Heermann's meter, but instead of a translation wrote an English paraphrase in five stanzas, including it in his Yattendon Hymnal (1899). He attributed the Latin version to Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109). The precise attribution of the original Latin is not as telling as the relation or perceived relation of these writers to the text and the influence from the Latin to the German to the English. Evangelical Lutheran Worship follows Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) in using Bridges's five stanzas and keeping the Elizabethan English. The version here also makes slight modifications for inclusivity.
Johann Herman was a fine hymn writer, overshadowed in his time only by Paul Gerhardt. Both cxperienced the Thirty Years' War and suffering. Heermann was born to a poor furrier and his wife in the little Polish town of Rauder near Wolau in Lower Silesia, the only one of five children to survive. On Ascension Day in 1611 he began to work as a deacon at the church in Köben near Fraustadt, and on St. Martin's Day of the same year he was appointed the pastor there. The nearby town of Fraustadt is where the plague struck in 1613. Then trouble followed trouble: Heermann lost almost everything he owned and was almost killed, but in these times this hymn and forty-eight others by him were published in Devoti Musica Cordis. He intended them, as his title said, for "house and heart," not for public worship. His hymn publications continued in 1636 with hymns on the gospel readings for Sundays and festivals. In 1656, nine years after his death, his poetical works were published.
Robert Bridges was born in England, studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He became a doctor in London, planning to retire at the age of forty and to spend the rest of his life writing poetry. Lung disease forced him to retire in 1881, a little earlier than he had anticipated. When he married Mary Monica Waterhouse, they moved to Yattendon. There with his wife and his friend Harry Ellis Wooldridge, he edited the Yattendon Hymnal. In 1913 he was made poet laureate.
The Yattendon Hymnal is an extraordinarily fine compilation of one hundred hymns, of which just over forty are by Bridges. We know the book today primarily for its fine texts, but his first concern (stated in the preface) was as a precentor (director), providing the best possible music for his village church choir. Having found fine tunes, he discovered there were no words for them. So he wrote the words, about which he cared deeply. The book was large, printed elegantly, cleanly, and with much white space. Each hymn was in four parts and took up two pages. Several people could gather around it and read it easily. It was a book for choirs, not congregations.
His work was part of the same thing we and every age grapple with: whether hymn singing and church music are about something more significant than trivial pursuits.
HERZLIEBSTER JESU, named for this text, first appeared in Johann Crüger's Newes vollkömliches Gesangbuch Augsburgischer Confession (1640). Here, as for the text, the influences were broad. The tune seems to have its roots in a melody from the Genevan Psalter for Psalm 23 and in another melody by Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630), who was one of the cantors in Leipzig at the St. Thomas Church prior to J. S. Bach. The melodic explosion up an octave in the last two measures --Mary Oyer calls it a "desperate cry”-emphasizes all the five-syllable final lines. The three middle ones are the most critical: "I crucified thee," "God interceded," and "for my salvation." The tune is typical of its time, a seventeenth-century smoothing out of the more rugged edges of sixteenth-century chorale tunes. It parallels the more introspective texts of authors like Heermann and Gerhardt in this period.
Offertory Anthem: “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.
Closing Voluntary: “Meditation on ‘Were You There’” Charles Callahan (1951)
An African American spiritual that probably predates the Civil War, "Were You There" was first published in William Barton's Old Plantation Hymns (1899). The spiritual's earlier roots include a white spiritual known in Tennessee as "Have you heard how they crucified my Lord?" Additional stanzas are available from oral and written tradition.
The melody is a slow and sustained mournful moan in a major key. Charles Callahan’s organ setting sends us out today in a contemplative mood as we anticipate the Three Days.
Charles Callahan is an American composer, organist, and teacher. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his graduate degrees are from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
Hymn of the Day: “To Christ Belong, in Christ Behold” ACS 958
Text: Susan R. Briehl, b. 1952
Tune: WONDERS, Robert Buckley Farlee (1950)
Christ Church Lutheran, Minneapolis, commissioned this text from Pastor Susan Briehl for its one-hundredth anniversary. This centennial is reflected in the text itself: “To Christ belong, in Christ behold God’s wonders still unfold,” and “fruit one hundredfold.” The desire was for a text that proclaimed the paschal mystery of baptism without alleluias so that it could be sung during Lent. The music was crafted by Pastor Robert Farlee, a prominent composer and former editor at Augsburg Fortress, but also cantor at Christ Church. This hymn represents an exemplary collaboration between poet and composer.
Offertory Anthem: Wondrous Love, Carson Cooman (1982)
Carson Cooman has composed a setting of this well known tune from Southern Harmony which is at the same time rustic with a hint of the Celtic influence that's prevalent in the hills of Appalachia.
Carson Cooman is an American composer with a catalogue of works in many forms ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. He is in continual demand for new commissions, and his music has been performed on all six inhabited continents. Over 130 new works have been composed for him by composers from around the world, and his performances of the work of contemporary composers can be heard on a number of CD recordings. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for a number of international publications. He serves as an active consultant on music business matters to composers and performing organizations.
What wondrous love is this,
O my soul! O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse,
for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul.
When I was sinking down,
sinking down, sinking down;
when I was sinking down, sinking down;
when I was sinking down,
beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown
for my soul, for my soul.
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul.
to God and to the Lamb,
I will sing, I will sing.
to God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
to God and to the Lamb,
who is the great I AM,
while millions join the theme,
I will sing, I will sing.
While millions join the theme,
I will sing!
Opening and Closing Voluntaries: Martyrdom, Emma Lou Diemer (1927) and Robert Buckley Farlee (1950)
Both the Opening and Closing Voluntaries are based on the hymn tune MARTYRDOM, which 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 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 Covenantor 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.
Emma Lou Diemer is a native of Kansas City, MO. She received her composition degrees from Yale and Eastman. Her music has been published since 1957 and ranges from hymns and songs to large chamber and orchestral works.
Robert Buckley Farlee is Associate Pastor and Director of Music at Christ Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
Hymn of the Day: “Amazing Grace” ELW 779
Text: John Newton (1725–1807)
Tune: NEW BRITAIN, W. Walker, Southern Harmony (1835); Edwin O. Excell (1851-1921)
Making his way through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in Book I of Olney Hymns (1779), John Newton got to hymn #41, titled it "Faith's Review and Expectation," and cited 1 Chronicles 17:16-17: "Then King David went in and Sat before the LORD, and said, 'Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my houe that you have brought me thus far? And even this was a small thing in your sight O God; you have also spoken of your servant's house for a great while to come You regard me as someone of high rank, O LORD God! " That evoked "Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound!)." Here again is Newton's "sweet sound" as in "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds", but even more the astonishment at grace: "You regard me as someone of high rank, O Lord." That astonishment accounts in part for the many translations, adaptations, and the widely ubiquitous spread of this hymn, but, paradoxically, the spread has made it so commonplace and so related to a general miasma of niceness that the shock of Newton's awareness is often lost, Our nervousness about Newton's word "wretch" points to the loss and to our attempts to shield ourselves from the shock, though a look at Newton's biography or plumbing the depths of one's own being or just encountering the daily news makes "wretch" the right word. The meaning is deeper, however. The issue is the "wretched" human state that Paul is wrestling with in Romans 7:24, where the law of sin and death requires rescue. Paul's "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord" is Newton's "amazing grace," and the distance from wretch to high rank expresses the incredulity.
Newton wrote six stanzas. Evangelical Lutheran Worship, like most hymnals prints the first four. The fifth stanza, though often joined to this hymn, is not by Newton. It is an anonymous "traveling refrain" that was first appended as stanza 10 to nine stanzas of "Jerusalem, my happy home." By the end of the ninetend century it seems to have been used as the final stanza for "Amazing grace."
Sometimes called AMAZING GRACE because of its close association now with this hymn, the tune, NEW BRITAIN (which is also known by many other names), is a hardy pentatonic shape-note tune. It was first joined to "Amazing grace" in William Walker’s The Southern Harmony (New Haven, 1835), but the tune appeared earlier with different names and different texts in other books, the earliest in slightly different versions as ST. MARY'S and GALLAHER. Edwin O. Excel in his Coronation Hymns (1910) standardized the tune to the form we now have in Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
Edwin Othello Excell was born in Ohio, the son of a German Reformed pastor.
He worked as a bricklayer and construction worker, loved to sing, began to conduct singing schools, and in the 1870s was converted in a Methodist revival where he was leading the music. He studied at normal schools-nineteenth-century teacher training institutions. After moving to Chicago in 1883, Excell became a Sunday school leader, helped found the International Sunday School Lessons, began his own publishing company, wrote over two thousand tunes, and edited almost ninety hymn collections.
Offertory Anthem: Flocks in Pastures Green Abiding, J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Flocks in Pastures Green Abiding is a melody (also known as Sheep May Safely Graze) from Bach's Hunting Cantata BWV 208, written in 1713 and later arranged by Stanley Roper for organ and choir. Today the flutes add a delightful dimension. Many thanks to Carole Smith and Suzanne Tsitsibellis for their flute playing!
Flocks in pastures green abiding, safely with their shepherd rest. Cooled by waters gently gliding.
With the food of life he feeds them, to the fold He gently leads them, there to dwell forever blest.
Opening Voluntary: Aus de Tiefe (Forty Days and Forty Nights), June Dixon
The melody, AUS DE TIEFE (also called HEINLEIN) was published as a setting for Christoph Schwamlein's text based on Psalm 130, "Aus der Tiefe rufe ich" ("Out of the Depths I Cry"). In that songbook the tune was attributed to "M. H.," initials that are generally accepted to refer to Martin Herbst (1654-1681). Herbst was educated in theology and philosophy at the universities of Altdorf and Jena. In 1680 he became rector of the gymnasium (high school) and pastor of St. Andrew Church in Eisleben. The following year he died of the plague
June Dixon is an Australian church organist, composer and teacher.
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.
Hymn of the Day: “As the Deer Runs to the River” ELW 331
Text: Herman G. Stuempfle Jr. (1923- 2007)
Music: JULION, David Hurd, (1950)
This is one of the fine hymns that Lutheran pastor, seminary professor, and finally seminary president Herman Stuempfle wrote during his retirement. The hymn sets us next to the woman at the well, thirsting for living water, and the second stanza celebrates today’s first reading from Exodus 17. The reference in the fourth stanza to desert places is particularly appropriate for Lenten song.
— Gail Ramshaw
David Hurd was a boy soprano at St. Gabriel's Church in Hollis, Long Island, New York. Educated at Oberlin College and the University of North Carolina, he has been professor of church music and organist at General Theological Seminary in New York since 1976. In 1985 he also became director of music for All Saints Episcopal Church, New York. Hurd is an outstanding recitalist and improvisor and a composer of organ, choral, and instrumental music.
Offertory Anthem: “Hide Not Thou Thy Face From Us” Richard Farrant (1530- 1580)
Richard Farrant, English composer, choirmaster, and theatrical producer, who established the original Blackfriars Theatre, home to the outstanding children’s companies of the Elizabethan era. Farrant was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal until 1564, when he was appointed organist and choirmaster to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. This post entailed the annual presentation of a play before the queen, which led to the creation of the Children of Windsor, a boys' theatrical company formed from members of the choir. Farrant’s skill at directing the Children of Windsor led to his appointment in 1576 as deputy of William Hunnis, director of the Children of the Chapel. From that point until his death in 1580, Farrant directed productions for both companies, sometimes combining the two. Eager to offer performances outside the court, Farrant leased a portion of the defunct Blackfriars priory and converted it into the Blackfriars Theatre in 1576. In addition to his theatrical successes, Farrant was a respected musician and composer. He served as the queen’s organist and wrote music for the plays, as well as anthems and a service.
Hide not thou thy face from us, O Lord,
and cast not off thy servant in thy displeasure;
for we confess our sins unto thee
and hide not our unrighteousness.
For thy mercy's sake,
deliver us from all our sins.
Opening Voluntary: “Sarabande on ‘Rockingham’” Rosalie Bonighton (1946-2011)
Bonighton's music was influenced by plainchant, British and Celtic folk song, but she was equally interested in the extended harmonic tensions of late German Romanticism, multi-rhythms, jazz harmonies and syncopated effects. When composing music, the functional requirements of a piece of music heavily influenced Bonighton's choice of style, compositional techniques, structure, performing resources and level of performance difficulty. Bonighton also experimented frequently with the use of jazz elements for the performance medium of pipe organ. In addition to her activity as a composer, Bonighton worked as a school organist, a parish organist/music director, and a piano accompanist.
Closing Voluntary: “Allegro Pomposo,” Thomas Roseingrave (1688-1766)
Irish organist and composer who began his musical studies under the tutelage of his father, Daniel Roseingrave, organist of Gloucester, Winchester, Salisbury, St. Patrick's and Christ Church cathedrals. He studied in Italy, where he knew both Scarlattis. After settling in London in 1717, he popularized Domenico Scarlatti's music in England and later made a famous edition (1739) of 42 of his sonatas. Among Roseingrave’s compositions were extra numbers for Domenico Scarlatti's opera Narciso.
Hymn of the Day: “This Is the Spirit’s Entry Now” ELW 448
Text: Thomas E. Herbranson (1933-2009)
Tune: LAND OF REST, North American traditional
In 1970 Thomas E. Herbranson wrote a master's thesis at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, titled "Christ and the Sacraments in the Hymnal Authorized by the Lutheran Churches Cooperating in the Commission on the Liturgy and Hymnal." From ten years' experience as a parish pastor he had become convinced of the importance of the hymnal for parishioners. He proposed to study "only the words" in the Service Book and Hymnal (1958). He divided his study into three parts- baptism, communion, and the person and work of Christ. At the end of the part on baptism he appended this hymn. His attempt was to “bring together in a hymn the biblical themes of baptism: The Spirit, the physical element and the Word of institution in stanza one; new birth and the Redemption theme in stanza two; the life-long growth theme in stanza three; and praise to God for the Spirit's washing throughout our lives as well as the specific event at which the hymn is sung.”
The hymn was published in Contemporary Worship 4: Hymns for Baptism and Communion (1972) and then in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), #195, with alterations Herbranson approved. Evangelical Lutheran Worship made other modifications, but left it essentially as Lutheran Book of Worship had it.
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. In Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) it was paired with a more pensive tune by Leo Sowerby called PERRY. 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: "You God Are My Light" Scott Perkins
Connecticut native Scott Perkins enjoys a multifaceted career as an international prize-winning composer of vocal music, an award-winning scholar, and a dynamic educator. His “beautifully crafted” (American Record Guide) and “tightly composed” (Choral Journal) compositions have been called “dramatic” and “colorful” (The Washington Post), and “perfectly orchestrated” and “haunting” (The Washington Times). He has been commissioned by organizations ranging from the Washington National Opera to the American Guild of Organists, and his work has been performed throughout North America and Europe. He has been an invited guest lecturer on his music and research at Harvard University, The Hartt School, Boston University, and the University of the Pacific. Scott’s recent and current projects have been extended works that support and illuminate the words of living authors on themes of social justice, environmentalism, and mental health.
You, God, are my light and my salvation; who shall I fear?
You are the strength of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?
One thing I ask of you, O God: that I may dwell in your house all the days of my life to behold your beauty, and to seek you in your temple.
Teach me your way, O God. Hear me when I cry unto you: have mercy upon me and answer me.
For in the time of trouble you will hide m in your dwelling; you will lift me high upon a rock.
Opening Voluntary: “At the Rivers of Babylon” (from Sixty-Six Chorale Improvisations) Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
The German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert's real name was Karg, the 'Elert' having been added early in his career at the suggestion of his concert-agent. He studied at Leipzig Conservatoire, served for a time as professor at Magdeburg Conservatoire, and was appointed in 1919 to Leipzig Conservatoire, where he taught piano, theory and composition. Though his earliest ambitions lay in the direction of composition, his chief distinction during his student days, and for some years after, was as a pianist of unusual brilliance. Some meetings with Grieg turned his ambitions once more towards composition, and the result has been a very large output in a great variety of forms - over 100 songs, sonatas for violin, pianoforte, etc., many sets of pieces for pianoforte, a symphony, string quartet, and much music for organ, etc. He was one of the principal German composers for organ of his generation.
His early works reflect the influence of composers such as Claude Debussy, Aleksandr Scriabin, and Arnold Schoenberg, but he later developed an original style that melded chromaticism and expanded harmonies with Renaissance and Baroque polyphony. Among his best-known works are the 33 stylistic studies for harmonium, based on works of composers ranging from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina to Schoenberg; for the organ he wrote the Sixty-Six Chorale Improvisations (1908–10) and 20 Chorale Preludes and Postludes (1912). A virtuoso organist, Karg-Elert also performed on the Kunstharmonium (a type of harmonium—larger than the standard size—that was popular in Germany in the early 20th century).
Closing Voluntary: “Allegro molto from Sonata #6 in D Minor,” Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The organ music of Felix Mendelssohn represents an approach gesturing not towards the future but towards the glorious past of German composition and the work of J.S. Bach in particular. (Liszt once called him “Bach reborn.”) The stark dissimilarity in compositional approach between Mendelssohn and Liszt was heralded by the coolness of their personal relationship, manifested for instance at a soirée when Mendelssohn drew a picture of Liszt playing the former’s music with five hammers, rather than fingers, on each hand. (This somewhat childish action is perhaps understandable given Liszt’s description of preceding events: “The truth of the matter is that I only played his Concerto in G minor from the manuscript, and as I found several of the passages rather simple and not broad enough…I changed them to suit my own ideas.”) Inherently conservative in character, Mendelssohn formed a profound aversion to the iconoclastic work of Liszt and kindred spirits such as Berlioz, of whose work Mendelssohn remarked: “one ought to wash one’s hands after handling one of his scores.” Mendelssohn was undoubtedly a Romantic composer, but his Romanticism was often of the Biedermeier kind; he was capable of composing dramatic and inventive works such as the Hebrides Overture, yet his individual musical poetry emerged perhaps most strongly in miniatures such as the Songs without Words for piano and in those works (e.g. the Quartet in F minor) wherein he recaptured the youthful genius that had burst forth so forcefully in the Octet and Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture.
Mendelssohn’s posthumous reputation in the country of his birth suffered from Wagner’s pen (this time through the faintest of praise rather than vitriol) and, in due course, the Nazi regime’s efforts to expunge his name from musical history. In England, where Mendelssohn had made a strong impression on musical life over the course of ten visits, his stock remained considerably higher. Mendelssohn enjoyed particular success with his organ recitals in the late 1830s and early 1840s, leading the publishers Coventry and Hollier to commission a set of six “voluntaries” from him in 1844. The planned voluntaries soon became Mendelssohn’s six Organ Sonatas Op 65, with the term sonata here implying the Bachian sense of the term—i.e. suites of varied pieces which are played instrumentally, as opposed to sung cantatas—rather than works exhibiting classical sonata form. The Organ Sonata No 6 in D minor (1845) demonstrates Mendelssohn’s consummate craftsmanship and mastery of organ texture in a set of variations upon the Lutheran Bach chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich (BWV416). Following a five-part harmonisation of the Chorale, which pervades the sonata as a whole, Mendelssohn presents four variations of increasing brilliance before a restatement of the Chorale. Today’s Closing Voluntary is the final variation. The sonata concludes with a substantial fugue and the finale in D major, whose quiet religiosity symbolises the completion of a journey from stern Lutheranism to an essentially English brand of sentiment. In this work and its companion sonatas, Mendelssohn revitalised the then-moribund European organ tradition, spurred English organ-builders to new heights, and, through his particular blend of chorale, counterpoint and domestic spirituality, substantially augmented the organ repertoire for the first time since Bach. Musing on his passion for structural innovation, Liszt once remarked that “new wine demands new bottles”; Mendelssohn here demonstrates the continued potency of an older brew.
Hymn of the Day: “When We Are Tested” ACS 922
Text: Ruth Duck (1947)
Tune: SLANE, Irish traditional
A prayer based on the temptation of Christ, this text set to a traditional Irish tune calls to mind whole Bible stories with single words or short phrases: “wrestle” in Genesis 32, “bread” and “stone” in Matthew 7, “food that sustains” in Exodus 16, and “by night and by day” in Exodus 13, thereby situating the struggle to be faithful within the biblical narrative. From that struggle the hymn calls upon God who nourishes, lifts, teaches, and holds us.
Ruth Duck is a United Church of Christ pastor, professor, feminist, practical theologian, and hymn writer.
Offertory Anthem: “I’m So Glad” R. Nathaniel Dett (1882- 1943), BBV arr.
Robert Nathaniel Dett was a Black Canadian-American composer, organist, pianist, choral director, and music professor. Born and raised in Canada until the age of 11, he moved to the United States with his family and had most of his professional education and career there. During his lifetime he was a leading Black composer, known for his use of African-American folk songs and spirituals as the basis for choral and piano compositions in the 19th century Romantic style of Classical music. “I’m So Glad” is one of these choral compositions, originally part of his collection for the Hampton Singers.
Dett's most important work began in 1913 at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. He trained the choir at that traditionally African-American school to a new level of musical excellence. His 40-voice Hampton Singers performed at Carnegie Hall in January 1914. Dett rose to the position of director of the Music Department at Hampton in 1926, the first black to hold that job. That same year, Oberlin Conservatory awarded Dett an honorary Doctor of Music degree, another first for an African American. On December 17, 1926, the 80-voice Hampton Choir assumed national prominence as it performed by invitation at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The unaccompanied program contained Dett's trademark mix of repertoire--early English music, works from the Russian liturgy, Christmas carols, and arrangements of spirituals.
In 1930 the choir achieved another milestone as it embarked on a European tour under the auspices of George Foster Peabody, a philanthropic patron of the arts and Hampton Institute trustee. En route to New York, the group sang for President Herbert Hoover on the White House lawn. The choir of 40 select voices went on to impress audiences during its six-week tour of seven countries.
After earning his master's degree in 1932, Dett resigned from Hampton and moved to Rochester, New York. He died in 1943 while serving as choral advisor for the United Services Organization and touring with a women's choir in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1973 his piano works were collected and published as a volume.
Dett's most enduring musical legacy survives in his numerous arrangements of folksongs and spirituals, most written for the Hampton Choir.
I'm so glad trouble don't last alway.
[Refrain:] Oh, my Lord, oh, my Lord, what shall I do?
Make more room, Lord in my heart for Thee. [Refrain]
Opening Voluntary: “Troubled Water” Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)
Margaret Bonds was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher. One of the first Black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her popular arrangements of African-American spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes. As a composer well acquainted with the greats of the Harlem Renaissance and schooled in Western composition at Juilliard, Margaret Bonds binds these elements of her background in Troubled Water (1967). The piece takes its cue from the Classical sonata form and uses the spiritual ‘Wade in the Water’ for the primary theme.
Closing Voluntary: “Toccata on GREAT DAY” Adolphus Hailstork (1941)
Adolphus Hailstork (actually Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III) has always been aware of what he calls his dual cultural heritage: born in Rochester, NY, and raised in Albany, the son of a chef, he received his primary musical education in the Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints and was introduced to the classical tradition, including of course, his fellow Episcopalian Samuel Barber, and other contemporary Americans. As he says below, he was insulated from the developing civil rights movement in his earlier education. His B.A. in music, from Howard University (1963) and his initial postgraduate study at the Manhattan School (1964–1966, where he was taught by David Diamond, one of the leading lights of the mid-century American symphonists, and Vittorio Giannini, who remained a tonality-based composer in an academic world heavily dominated by serialism and other non-tonal compositional processes) and a nine-week study course with Nadia Boulanger in France, sound idyllic, in a way, shelters from the storm and stress of American Culture.
But a reckoning came, as he says, when he got out of the army (he served in West Germany) in 1968. And while the story of that development is fascinating, the richness and breadth of the musical influences make Hailstork’s music exciting. There are the mid-century symphonists and the eventful, forward push of that style, devoid of excessive rhetoric, but also Episcopalian music, spirituals, stories from black history, references to iconic musicians like Still, and more. Hailstork’s eminence and the quality of his music deserve more time on America’s and the world’s concert stages.
Hymn of the Day: “Dazzling Presence on the Mountain” ACS 917
Text: Paul E. Hoffman (1956)
Tune: WAVERLY, Karen E. Black (1960)
The text and music of this hymn were written for a Transfiguration hymn festival at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, in 2014. The text gives us an expanded understanding of Christ’s mountaintop experience for believers in our own day. Becoming dwellings for justice, mercy, and compassion in the world can bring transfiguration to the earth and all living creatures. The stately melody written by Karen Black, professor of music and college organist at Wartburg, musically draws us up and down the mountain.
Offertory Anthem: "You God Are My Light" Scott Perkins
Connecticut native Scott Perkins enjoys a multifaceted career as an international prize-winning composer of vocal music, an award-winning scholar, and a dynamic educator. His “beautifully crafted” (American Record Guide) and “tightly composed” (Choral Journal) compositions have been called “dramatic” and “colorful” (The Washington Post), and “perfectly orchestrated” and “haunting” (The Washington Times). He has been commissioned by organizations ranging from the Washington National Opera to the American Guild of Organists, and his work has been performed throughout North America and Europe. He has been an invited guest lecturer on his music and research at Harvard University, The Hartt School, Boston University, and the University of the Pacific. Scott’s recent and current projects have been extended works that support and illuminate the words of living authors on themes of social justice, environmentalism, and mental health.
You, God, are my light and my salvation; who shall I fear?
You are the strength of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?
One thing I ask of you, O God: that I may dwell in your house all the days of my life to behold your beauty, and to seek you in your temple.
Teach me your way, O God. Hear me when I cry unto you: have mercy upon me and answer me.
For in the time of trouble you will hide m in your dwelling; you will lift me high upon a rock.
Opening Voluntary: “Many and Great, O God, Are Your Works” Robert Buckley Farlee
The Voluntary today is Robert Buckley Farlee’s setting of the Native American melody, DAKOTA. This song, which is also known as the “Dakota Hymn,” was sung by thirty-eight Dakota prisoners of war as they were led to execution at Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26, 1862. This song was first published in the Dakota Indian Hymnal (1916).
Closing Voluntary: “Christ Is the World’s Light” J. Bert Carlson
This hymn tune, CHRISTE SANCTORUM, with an unusual meter, comes from the Paris Antiphoner (1681), a collection of music for Latin hymns. It’s accompanying text, “Christ is the world’s light,” was written at the request of the hymnal committee for a text to accompany the tune CHRISTE SANCTORUM for the British Methodist hymnal, Hymns and Songs.
This setting is by Pastor J. Bert Carlson, who ministered to many congregations for over 50 years in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana. He was also an accomplished musician and published composer.
Hymn of the Day: “Oh, That the Lord Would Guide My Ways” ELW 772
Text: Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, alt.
Music: EVAN, William H. Havergal, 1793-1870
“Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways” (ELW 772) is most appropriate for the day. The hymn 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
Offertory Anthem: “The People Who Walk in Darkness,” Pepper Choplin (1957)
Pepper Choplin is a full-time composer, conductor and humorist. He has gained a reputation as one of the most creative writers in church music today. With a diverse musical background, Choplin incorporates varied styles such as folk, Gospel, classical, and jazz.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; now lift up your eyes, see the glory of the Lord, and all flesh shall see it together. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness - on them, a light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2)
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 “Tango for Organ on DOWN AMPNEY,” Mark Sedio (1954)
DOWN AMPNEY is the tune name for the hymn "Come Down, O Love Divine". It is named for the English birthplace of the tune's composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Minneapolis organist and composer, Mark Sedio, gives it a subtle tango inflection in his arrangement for the organ. He currently serves as Cantor at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis where his responsibilities are varied: organist, choirmaster, resident composer, worship planner and educator. He is also on the music staff of Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Sedio has served as a clinician and lecturer in the areas of worship, liturgy, adult and children's choirs, hymnody and psalmody, and cross-culture music.
Hymn of the Day: “There Is a Longing in Our Hearts” (ACS 1078)
Text: Anne Quigley (1955)
Music: LONGING, Anne Quigley
This hymn illustrates two sides of human longing for God: it yearns for God’s reign of healing, wholeness, justice, and freedom as it calls for God’s presence within suffering. The musical setting has a steady forward motion, as if to encourage its singers to have confidence in a God who hears and answers prayer. “There is a longing in our hearts” may function as a call to prayer or as the prayers of the worshiping assembly; it can also gather the assembly to worship or call it to confession.
Anne Quigley is a respected composer and liturgist whose music has been featured in the Decani Choral Music Series in England. She manages to balance her work in music composition and liturgy with her work as a full-time homemaker. Anne is a member of the St. Thomas More Group of composers.
Choir Anthem: “Siyahamba, We are marching for the Lord is our light” Thomas Vozzella, arr. (1963)
The South African song Siyahamba, We are marching for the Lord is our light, was sung by Black South Africans at marches protesting the apartheid years with a firm religious conviction that God would set them free. This faith was very much a part of their fervent singing. By telling this story, we honor the soul of a culture who cherishes personal and religious freedom.
Thomas R. Vozzella, is the newly appointed Director of Music-Organist at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri, a member of the Creator Magazine Editorial Board; of late, Dean of the Blackhills Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and served as the South Dakota Choral Directors Association R&S Chair for Community Choirs; Music and Worship.
Siyahamba kuklanyeni kwenkhos
We are marching for the Lord is our light.
Opening and Closing Voluntaries
Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BVW 533, J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
This piece originates from the time when Bach was still in his twenties. He had just begun his first real job in Arnstadt. This position as a highly paid organist had fallen into his lap in 1703, after a brilliant performance when testing the new organ. But a couple of years later, it was actually criticism of his organ playing that was given as one of the reasons for letting him go. He was supposed to have used too many curious variations and strange notes in his chorale preludes. The church council believed that this confused the congregation.
In this concise Prelude and Fugue, we hear both sides of the coin. In the Prelude, there are short pedal solos, shaking tremolos for both hands, and series of full chords for keyboard and pedal simultaneously – all exciting musical elements which can also be used, if necessary, to test an organ’s sound and speed of response.
These elements return in the Fugue, which opens with a moving theme – first modestly and almost hesitantly, but later with increasing assurance. Towards the end, there is a passage where Bach makes the left hand stand out rather dissonantly against the right hand, in opposition to the rules of composition. This is precisely the sort of “frembde Thone” (strange notes) to which people later objected in Arnstadt. Here, we see a youthful and rather impetuous Bach. On the one hand, an excellent job application, and on the other a reason for dismissal.
Hymn of the Day: “Let Streams of Living Justice” ELW 710
Text: William Whitla (1934)
Tune: THAXTED, Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
William Whitla (b. 1934) wrote this hymn 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?
Offertory Anthem: “Create a Pure Heart in Me,” Susan Matsui
Susan Matsui began composing as a child. She plays fiddle, French horn, piano, and organ, and many medieval and folk instruments, both string and wind. She studied composition at Williams College with Dan Gutwein and at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Cesar Bresgan. She is the organist and music director at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and a member of the American Guild of Organists. She is also a public school music teacher and a member of Woodbinde Medieval Band. She is continually composing and arranging music, often for use in her church, for both the adult and junior choirs. Her music is influenced by her nearly twenty years in Japan, as well as by medieval music, and by her formative years in an Episcopal church with an outstanding music program (Grace Episcopal Church in Nyack, NY). She has published 39 children’s books in Japan, among which are three songbooks, as well as scores of children's songs for children's magazines. She continues to write and publish for the Japanese children's book market.
The text is a paraphrase of Psalm 51.
Create a pure heart in me, O Lord.
Grant me a new and steadfast spirit.
Do not drive me away from thy presence,
or take thy Spirit from me.
Revive in me the joy of deliverance,
Grant me a steady soul to uphold me.
Open thou my lips, everlasting Lord,
that my mouth may sing thy praises.
Thou takest no delight in sacrifice,
nor hast thou any wish for whole offering.
My sacrifice, Lord, is a broken soul,
my offering, a contrite heart.
Opening Voluntary: “THAXTED” (Let Streams of Living Justice), Robert Buckley Farlee (1950)
As was noted above, “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. It was 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 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.
Robert Buckley Farlee is a graduate of Christ Seminary-Seminex, St. Louis, Missouri. He also serves on the worship editorial staff at Augsburg Fortress Publishers, and was deeply involved in the recent publication of Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
Closing Voluntary: “Now”, Michael Helman (1956)
Michael Helman is currently Director of Music/Organist at Faith Presbyterian Church in Cape Coral, Florida. He is an active composer of handbell, organ, and choral music with numerous pieces pieces in print.
Today’s Closing Voluntary uses the hymn tune, “Now” by Carl F. Schalk (1929 - 2021) He was professor of music at Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois, where he taught church music since 1965. Honored as a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada in 1992, Schalk was editor of the Church Music journal (1966-1980), a member of the committee that prepared the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), and a widely published composer of church music.
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Hymn of the Day: “Light Shone in Darkness” ELW 307
Text: Delores Dufner (1939)
Tune: LUX IN TENEBRIS, Mark Sedio (1954)
Here are two complementary views of this hymn. Its author, Delores Dufner, OSB had in mind a hymn of hope for morning prayer or other times. John 1:25, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it," stands behind the text, with the truth that "the world often looks darkest just before light breaks through.” The writer of the tune, Mark Sedio, says he "was taken by the rather declamatory character of the first two stanzas of Delores Dufner's fine text- -the first focusing on creation, the second on salvation, and the third morphing into a more eschatological forward-looking sense, all three ending curtly with the phrase ‘praise (prays) for the light. Amen!’” Sedio's view graciously carries forward Dufner's intent in ways Dufner herself may not have articulated and illustrates how a hymn moves outside its author.
Delores Dufner was born in North Dakota, attended a one-room country school, studied at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota (BA in music, 1960), became a Benedictine sister, continued her studies at DePaul University in Chicago (MA in liturgical music, 1973), and completed another degree at Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana (MA in liturgical studies, 1990). After teaching elementary school, piano, and organ, and serving as a church organist and choir director, she became liturgical coordinator for St. Benedict's Monastery in St. Joseph, director of the Office for Worship of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, liturgical music consultant for the Diocese of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia, and a member of the executive committee of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Her longest lasting legacy, however, will probably be the fine hymns she has written. In 1994 Sing a New Church, a collection of forty-eight of her hymns, was published by OCP Publications, and in 2003 an anthology of seventy-nine more was published as The Glimmer of Glory in Song by GIA Publications. Nathan Mitchell, an unusually perceptive critic, suggests that "perhaps the greatest skill [Dufner] brings to her work is a sensitive ear for natural, unselfconscious speech that is also memorable. Her style is a vigorous modern English whose music and rhythms never seem forced, contrived, or cute."
Mark Sedio wrote the tune at the request of the Evangelical Lutheran Church America’s Renewing Worship hymnody editorial team. The text suggested to him “a style reminiscent of a Gaelic sea shanty with a dynamic climax on the downbeat of the fifth measure ('all, sings, longs'), ending with the snapping whip of the final phrase." Mark Sedio was born in Minnesota and graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis (BA in music, 1976) and the University of Iowa (MA in choral literature and conducting, 1979). He also attended St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he played the organ for chapel services for twenty-five years. He was cantor at Mount Olive Lutheran Church and now is director of music at Central Lutheran Church, both in Minneapolis. A charter member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and an active member of the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, he is a fine improviser, service player, and clinician who has written hymn tunes, service music, anthems, and organ pieces, as well as articles about church music.
It is worth noting that Dufner and Sedio work and live not far from one another in Minnesota, but it is perhaps even more worthy of note that they come from different traditions (Roman Catholic and Lutheran) that have often been marked by separation from one another. The partnership here may serve as a reminder that, as virtually every hymnal in every one of the church's traditions demonstrates, in the hymnody and music of the church the distances that separate us very often disappear.
Offertory Anthem: “Rise, Shine,” Dale Wood (1934-2003)
Based on the hymn tune WOJTKIEWIECZ, which has become a standard in many congregations and is also today’s Sending Hymn. Dale began playing the organ in church at age 14. His hymns and canticles are found in the Lutheran Book of Worship, Worship II (a Roman Catholic hymnal), Seventh Day Adventist Hymnal, The Presbyterian Hymnal, The United Methodist Hymnal, the Agape Hymnal Supplement, the Moravian Book of Worship, the Chalice Hymnal, and several hymnal supplements.
Wood's musical activities were not limited to sacred music. While still a college student, he entertained as organist at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and appeared on television shows produced in Hollywood. In 1975 he was employed by the Royal Viking Line to entertain passengers on a 70-day cruise of the South Pacific and Orient.
For many years Dale maintained his home and studio at The Sea Ranch, California, 115 miles north of San Francisco. It was here, amidst acres of redwood trees and gentle meadows on the rural and spectacular coastline of Northern California, that he composed most of his organ works, using a three-manual electronic theatre organ. Dale had a strong theatrical streak in him, and he maintained close ties with the American Theatre Organ Society. In his later years he collaborated with his partner, Ivan de la Garza, in designing the ATOS website.
In 1977 Dale and jazz pianist George Shearing created a volume of organ settings of early American folk hymns entitled Sacred Sounds from George Shearing. Over a period of 11 weeks Shearing had recorded a series of improvisations at the piano. After the tapes were transcribed to paper, Shearing visited Dale in his studio at The Sea Ranch. Dale spent hours at the organ making suggestions of registrations and textures, while Shearing with his critical ear listened for accuracy.
In recent years, Dale composed at the computer and was able to hear his work played back via MIDI, obviating the need for tedious proofreading. Most of his pieces were conceived with a three-manual organ in mind but are readily adaptable to smaller instruments. He gave general suggestions for registrations, but he always trusted in the performer's own imagination ("The printed music is just a blueprint, and it is the performer's job to complete the project," he liked to say). He used unusual techniques in several pieces, such as wedges in keys for pedal points. His hymn arrangements were not all easy. Many require a significant amount of finger substitution; several involve "bridging" (playing on two manuals simultaneously with one hand); and his pedal lines sometimes go to the top of the pedalboard.
Rise, shine, you people! Christ the Lord has entered
our human story; God in him is centered.
He comes to us, by death and sin surrounded,
with grace unbounded.
See how he sends the pow'rs of evil reeling;
he brings us freedom, light and life and healing.
All men and women, who by guilt are driven,
now are forgiven.
Come, celebrate; your banners high unfurling,
your songs and prayers against the darkness hurling.
To all the world go out and tell the story
of Jesus' glory.
Tell how the Father sent the Son to save us.
Tell of the Son, who life and freedom gave us.
Tell how the Spirit calls from ev'ry nation
God's new creation.
-Ronald A. Klug
Opening Voluntary: “Dix” (As With Gladness) Wayne L. Wold
Dix, as the son of poet John Ross Dix and named after Thomas Chatterton, would regularly write Christian poetry in his spare time. Dix wrote "As with Gladness Men of Old" on 6 January 1859 during a months-long recovery from an extended illness, unable to attend that morning's Epiphany service at church. As he read the Gospel of Matthew's account of Epiphany in The Bible, he was inspired and started to reflect on the text. He then started to write about his thoughts and did so for the whole day with the eventual result being "As with Gladness Men of Old”. Dix kept the text private until a year later when it was published in Hymns for Public Worship and Private Devotion, which was written for St Raphael's Church in Dix's hometown of Bristol. It was also added to the trial version of Hymns Ancient and Modern before being included in the original publication of that hymnal in 1861. Most hymn writers in the Church of England at the time were clergymen, so Dix, a layman and marine insurance agent living in Glasgow, Scotland, was delighted that his carol was included.[4] It was also self-published by Dix in his own Hymns of Joy and Love hymnal.
The editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern, William Henry Monk, adapted a tune by Stuttgart organist Conrad Kocher as the music for "As with Gladness Men of Old". Dix personally did not like the tune, which was ironic as it was later titled "Dix" as a tribute to him. Despite Dix's opinion of it, the tune became popular and is used for the majority of performances of the hymn. The same melody is also used in the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth", an example of what is often considered to be a seasonal hymn melody given to a more general hymn text for use in Ordinary Time.
Closing Voluntary: “Prelude #5 on an Old Irish Church Melody” Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
Sir Charles Stanford has been called the most important single factor in the renaissance of English music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; indeed, even if one were to overlook Stanford's own vast catalog of compositions, it would be impossible to ignore the pronounced effect Stanford's nearly 40-year teaching career had on several generations of British composers. And Stanford was a prolific composer, completing seven symphonies, eight string quartets, nine operas, more than 300 songs, 30 large scale choral works and a large body of chamber music. He also composed a substantial number of works for the organ, as well as anthems and settings of the canticles for the Anglican Church. He wrote extensively on music including three volumes of memoirs and a popular text on composition. Today he is largely remembered for his songs and religious music as well as his influence on several generations of composition students at the Royal College of Music. These included Sir Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Rebecca Clarke, Ivor Gurney, Gustav Holst, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood.
Hymn of the Day: “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” ELW 311
This is James Montgomery's best psalm rendering. It is based on Psalm 72 and was written in eight stanzas for, and included in, a Christmas Ode which was sung at one of the Moravian settlements in the United Kingdom, Christmas, 1821. It was published in the following year in the Evangelical Magazine and entitled "Imitation of the 72d psalm (Tune: Culmstock)."
Psalm 72 is a well-known prophecy of the coming Messiah – foretelling the reign of the King and what the Kingdom of that Messiah will be like. But perhaps more than a prophecy, Psalm 72 is a prayer. In these verses the psalmist calls upon God to give justice and righteousness to the King, perhaps the newly crowned earthly king of Israel, but also the heavenly king. It is a cry for the deliverance of a broken people, for the realization of peace and light. James Montgomery’s hymn text from 1821 beautifully captures the essence of that prayer. Albert Bailey says, “His poem is more prayer than prophecy, or shall we say it is prophecy in large part unfulfilled but still capable of inspiring the Church to work for its fulfillment!” (Bailey, Gospel in Hymns). As we sing this beautiful hymn, we both declare our hope and our longing for the Kingdom of God, and for the coming of the one who will turn darkness to light, and whose “name to us is Love.”
Offertory Anthem: “Never Night Again,” Samuel Walter (1916-1987)
American organist and composer Samuel Walter studied at Boston University, Union Theological Seminary with Seth Bingham, and in France with Nadia Boulanger. He was music director at Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in New York City and taught on the faculty of Douglas College-Rutgers University, Boston University, and Union Theological Seminary.
The soft light from a stable door
Lies on the midnight lands.
The wiseman’s star burns ever more
Over all desert sands.
Unto all peoples of the earth
A little Child brought light,
And never in the darkest place
Can it be utter night.
No flickering torch, nor wavering fire,
But Light, the Life of all.
What ever clouds may veil the sky,
Never is night again.
Opening Voluntary: “Repton” (He Comes to Us), Robert J. Powell (1932)
Robert J. Powell is a prolific composer of organ and choral music, a celebrated church organist, and an accomplished choir director who used Parry’s hymn tune, Repton, in this organ prelude setting. Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) is well known for the choral song, “Jerusalem.” Parry originally wrote the music for what became Repton as a contralto aria, 'Long since in Egypt's plenteous land' from his oratorio Judith. In 1924 George Gilbert Stocks, director of music at Repton School, set it to the text 'Dear Lord and Father of mankind' in a supplement of tunes for use in the school chapel. In the Lutheran hymnal we find this tune paired with the text “He Comes to Us as One Unknown” written by Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926), an English hymn writer and retired bishop of the Church of England.
Closing Voluntary: “Helft Min Gott’s Gute Preisen” (Come, let Us All with Fervor) J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Bach’s Chorale Prelude “Helft Min Gott’s Gute Preisen” is cast in the atmosphere of joyous praise with a suggestion here and there of the sadness caused by the passing of the old year. The latter is marked by the use of chromatic color. The melody soars over all while we hear the other voices taking turns imitating the opening notes of the choral melody.
Hymn of the Day: “Down Galilee’s Slow Roadways” ACS 916
Tune: MERE’S TUNE, Hal H. Hopson, b. 1933
Text: Sylvia G. Dunstan, 1955–1993
A text by the late Sylvia Dunstan, a minister in the United Church of Canada, is combined with a tune by Hal Hopson, a prolific composer of church music. This hymn relates the story of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River, an event to which he came with the unassuming throngs of ordinary people (soldiers, scribes, and slaves) but which revealed him as the Son of God through a voice from heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit like a dove. Because we are joined to Jesus through our own baptism, God claims us also as beloved children.
Offertory Anthem: “Down to the River to Pray” Robert E. Lee, arr. (1951)
“Down to the River to Pray" is a traditional American song variously described as a Christian folk hymn, an African-American spiritual, an Appalachian song, and a Southern gospel song. The exact origin of the song is unknown. It was made famous in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Robert is an Alabama native and has been a church organist from age 16. With a BMusEd in organ performance from Samford University and a MEd in history from Mississippi College, Mr. Lee has worked as a choral director and history teacher. He has been active with college and professional musical theater groups and is currently the assistant organist at St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church in Louisville, KY.
As I went down to the river to pray,
Studyin' about that good old way,
And who shall wear the starry crown,
Good Lord, show me the way,
O sisters, let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sisters, let's go down,
Down to the river to pray.
As I went down to the river to pray,
Studyin' about that good old way,
And who shall wear the robe and crown,
Good Lord, show me the way,
O brothers, let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O brothers, let's go down,
Down to the river to pray.
As I went down to the river to pray,
Studyin' about that good old way,
And who shall wear the robe and crown,
Good Lord, show me the way,
O fathers, let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O fathers, let's go down,
Down to the river to pray.
As I went down to the river to pray,
Studyin' about that good old way,
And who shall wear the robe and crown,
Good Lord, show me the way,
O mothers, let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O mothers, let's go down,
Down to the river to pray.
As I went down to the river to pray,
Studyin' about that good old way,
And who shall wear the starry crown,
Good Lord, show me the way,
O sinners, let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sinners, let's go down,
Down to the river to pray.
Opening Voluntary: “Caravan of the Three Kings” (We Three Kings) Richard Purvis (1913-1994)
Richard Purvis was an American organist, composer, conductor and teacher. He is especially remembered for his expressive recordings of the organ classics and his own lighter compositions for the instrument. After early studies in the piano and the organ he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. During World War II, while serving as a bandmaster with the 28th Infantry Division, Richard Purvis was captured and held as a prisoner of war for six months. After the war an appointment to St Mark’s Lutheran Church took him back to his native city, and in 1947 he was appointed to Grace Cathedral, where he helped to form a cathedral school for boys, thus continuing the all-male choir tradition. Purvis’s long and distinguished career was marked by elegant service playing, conducting and composition. After his retirement in 1971 he continued to perform and compose.
Of his pieces today’s Voluntary is one of my favorites. It is easy to imagine the procession moving along, and the harmonic treatment of the familiar melody is full of character.
Closing Voluntary: “How Brightly Shines the Morning Star,” Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
The hymn text and tune name of the popular Epiphany hymn “How Brightly Shines the Morning Star” that Philipp Nicolai penned in 1597 and published two years later with his adaptation of a preexisting tune. To say it was a hit in Lutheran circles is an understatement! Nicolai’s original arrangement is still found, but the J.S. Bach version is much more popular today. Immediately, Nicolai’s version took off with German composers in cantatas and other vocal forms, notably Dietrich Buxtehude, Praetorius and Pachelbel. Johann Pachelbel was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers.
Hymn of the Day: “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” ELW 620
Text: John Newton (1725-1807)
Text: ST. PETER, Alexander R. Reinagle (1799-1877)
John Newton wrote this hymn and published it in his Olney Hymns in 1779 under the title “The Name of Christ.” It was included in the first book of that collection, which was titled “On Select Texts of Scripture.” Song of Solomon 1:3 was the text on which this hymn in seven stanzas was based.
Two of the original seven stanzas are always included: the first (“How sweet the name…”) and the original fifth (“Jesus! My Shepherd, …”). The original fourth stanza (“By thee my prayers…”) is nearly always omitted in modern hymnals, except when all seven stanzas are included. Hymnals vary as to which of the remaining four stanzas are omitted.
The opening line of the original fifth stanza has been a problem for hymnal editors because of Newton's use of the word “Husband” (the original version was “Jesus! My Shepherd, Husband, Friend”). His word choice makes sense if viewed in light of the long tradition of reading Song of Solomon as an allegory for the love between Christ and the Church, His Bride. However, hymnal editors have generally found it awkward for congregational use, and have found a substitute word for “husband.” Common choices are “guardian” or “brother.”
The first stanzas of the hymn focus on the soothing power of the name of Jesus. The stanza beginning “Jesus, my shepherd, guardian, friend” is a list of some of Christ's other names. The remaining stanzas speak of the relationship between Christ and the Christian.
Alexander R. Reinagle, not to be confused with his uncle Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809) also a composer, was organist at the Church of St. Peter's in the East in London from 1822 to 1853. His tune ST. PETER was named for that church and was first published in Reinagle's Psalm Tunes for Voice and Piano Forte in 1830. He later harmonized it for Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861.