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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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)

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

With our music this Reformation Sunday we celebrate with a service filled with music sung corporally, beginning with the German Singmesse and including the Offertory anthem, with verses 1 and 3 to be sung by all. So, today we are all members of the Choir- enjoy!

Today’s Choral Service Music: The German Singmessse or Liedmesse

In western Europe before the Reformation, cathedrals in cities and the larger churches in towns had choirs, often made up of schoolboys, that could sing the congregation’s parts of the Latin High Mass for the main services on Sunday and feasts.

But in small villages and the smaller churches in towns and cities, a choir was not always available. It became customary for the priest and the altar server to say all the parts of Low Mass quietly, in Latin, facing East away from the people, behind the rood screen, while the people did… whatever.

The people were still expected to attend Mass every Sunday. They could meditate, say prayers, or sing hymns while the priest said Mass, and if they could read and afford to buy them, Primers were popular books to aid individual devotions in some areas, such as England.

But in Germany, it became customary, as early as the 12th century, for the congregation to sing specific hymns that paraphrased, in German, the main unchanging songs of the Mass (Kyrie Eleison, Gloria in Excelsis, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) while the priest said them in Latin. This was the type of service that Dr. Luther was writing about in Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdeinsts (German Mass and Order of Divine Service) in 1526. This practice remained the custom even in Roman Catholic parishes in German-speaking countries even into the 20th century and is still influential in the worship of the Evangelical Church in Germany.

During the reformation era, Protestant pastors saw this as a quick way to transform the Mass into language that the ordinary people could understand, and if they had musical talent, as many did, composed German hymns in this genre. Several of these hymns can be found, translated into English, in Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

Kyrie (Lord have mercy) Hymn 409

Kyrie! God, Father in Heaven Above is set to the tune Kyrie Gott Vater in Ewigkeit, adapted from a 9th century Gregorian chant in the Latin Mass II Fons Bonitatis Pater Ingenite for solemn feasts. The German hymn was published in Wittenberg in 1541 and might be by Pastor Johann Spangenberg (1484-1550)

Gloria (Glory to God in the Highest) Hymn 410

All Glory be to God on High is set to the tune Allein Gott in der Höhe sei Ehr adapted from a 10th century Gregorian chant in Latin Mass I Lux et Origo for the Easter season. The German hymn was published in Brunswick in 1523 by Pastor Nikolaus Decius (1485-1550).

Credo (We believe in one God) Hymn 411

We All Believe in One True God is set to the tune Wir Glauben All an Einen Gott adapted by Dr. Luther. and his music publisher Johann Walter (1496-1570) in 1524 from a 14th century tune. It was later included in Deutsche Messe 1526.

Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) Hymn 868

Isaiah in a Vision is set to the tune Jesaiah dem Propheten adapted by Dr. Luther from an 11th century chant (Mass XVII for Sundays in Advent and Lent?) and published in Deutsche Messe 1526.

Lord’s Prayer Hymn 746

Our Father God in Heaven Above is set to the tune Vater Unser in Himmelreich. Dr. Luther wrote the words with a different tune in mind, but printer Valentin Schumann (1520-1559) published it with this tune in 1539. The hymnal version was shortened to four verses from nine. The longer version is Hymn 747.

Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) Hymn 357

Lamb of God, Pure and Sinless is set to the tune O Lamm Gottes, Unschuldig adapted by Pastor Nikolaus Decius from a 13th century chant in 1525.

— Tom VanPoole

Hymn of the Day: “Salvation unto Us Has Come” ELW 590
Text: Paul Speratus (1484-1551)
Tune: ES IST DAS HEIL, Etlich christlich Lieder, Wittenberg, 1524

This hymn by Paul Speratus was published in what is sometimes called the first hymnal of the Reformation, Etlich christlich Lieder (the "Achtliederbuch," 1524). One of the oldest "Lutheran" hymns, Speratus probably wrote it in 1523 when he was jailed at Olmütz for his evangelical preaching. In the "Achtliederbuch" it had fourteen stanzas and was headed "A hymn of law and faith, powerfully expounded by holy scripture." "Powerfully expounded by holy scripture" referred to two pages of smaller print that followed the hymn. There "reports from scripture" about how the hymn "was grounded on all sides" were given in sets of biblical references, one set for each of twelve of the fourteen stanzas. Brief comments formed a kind of study guide.

The hymn was one of the Lutheran Kernlieder- central "kernel" or "core" hymns-for more than a century after the Reformation, but there have been those, especially but not only among Rationalists and Pietists, who have regarded it as didactic rhymed doctrine and not a hymn at all. It certainly sets out the essence of things from the very outset. With its point of departure Romans 3:28, it says clearly that salvation has come to us by God's free grace and favor.

Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) printed stanzas 1, 3, 5, 10, and 13 from Speratus's original German. Evangelical Lutheran Worship prints one additional stanza and uses 1, 2, 6, 10, 13, and 14 from the original. Both translations make modifications, but they rely on The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), which relied on the Evangelical Lutheran Hymn Book (1912). It should be noted that stanza 13, now stanza 5 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship's numbering, begins with doxology. Hymnals, like Lutheran Book of Worship, have tended therefore to make it final, but its last three lines begin the Lord's Prayer. The hymn is thus incomplete without Speratus's final stanza, which is the rest of the Lord's Prayer in a metrical version. Evangelical Lutheran Worship wisely included Speratus's last two stanzas. They complete and contextualize what goes before them, and they modify criticism. Doxology and the Lord's Prayer cannot be construed as didactic rhymed doctrine. When they are present the rest of the hymn finds its focus in God and not in human systems.

Paul Speratus was born near Ellwangen in Württemberg, Germany. He probably is the person who in 1503 went to the University of Freiburg as "Paul Offer de Ellwangen." His name was either Offer (or Hoffer) before he Latinized it to Speratus. He also studied in Paris and Vienna, earning doctorates in philosophy, Jurisprudence, and theology. In 1506 he was ordained a priest and faithfully served for the next twelve years or so in Salzburg, Dinkelsbühl, and Würzburg. He even wrote a hymn text praising Johann Eck, who in 1518 opposed Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. Around 1519 Speratus began to adopt evangelical views. One of the first priests to break his vow of celibacy, he married Anna. Forced to leave Würzburg, he enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1520 and earned one of his degrees, Doctor of Divinity, there. On January 12 of 1522 at the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna he preached a sermon supporting marriage and justification by grace through faith. The faculty of the University of Vienna condemned him. He went to Moravia, where he continued to preach about justification. This time it got him imprisoned at Olmütz for three months on bread and water and almost burned at the stake. He went to Wittenberg in 1523, where he helped Luther with the "Achtliederbuch" and translated Luther's Formula Missae into German. In 1525 he became court preacher in East Prussia for Duke Albrecht, in 1526 helped formulate the Kirchenordnung (the liturgy and regulations) for East Prussia, and from 1530 to the end of his life was a devoted and faithful bishop in poverty-stricken Pomerania So far as is known, this is one of only five hymn texts he wrote.

This tune was one of four printed in the Etlich christlich Lieder (the "Achtliederbuch,"1524). It was paired with two texts there, Paul Speratus's hymn (ELW 590), for which it is named, and Martin Luther's (ELW 263) paraphrase of Psalm 22, "Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darin." Also in 1524 it was printed in Walter's Geistliche Gesangbüchlein and in the Erfurt Enchiridia. Its composer is unknown. It probably was in circulation by the fifteenth century and can be found in later Catholic hymnals with the text "Frue dich, du werte Christenheit."

This is a tune in bar form, with potent but graceful drive. Without alterations, as given in Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder (1889-1893), it is Mixolydian. However, the G sharps and C sharps in Evangelical Lutheran Worship were inserted already in the sixteenth century. The version we sing today is a more original rhythmic version.

Offertory: “God Whose Giving Knows No Ending” David Cherwien (1957)

First of all, many thanks to Nathan Bastuscheck for sharing his music with us today!

C. Hubert H. Parry's RUSTINGTON was first published in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book (1897) as a setting for Benjamin Webb's "Praise the Rock of Our Salvation." The tune is named for the village in Sussex, England, where Parry lived for some years and where he died. This distinguished melody has been paired with at least 35 texts. “God Whose Giving Knows No Ending” by Robert L. Edwards (1915-2006) is probably the most popular pairing.

This celebratory anthem of praise is commissioned from David Cherwien, celebrating RELC’s 75th Anniversary and dedicated to the Choir and Roy Guenther, Organist/Choirmaster.

Opening Voluntary: Sonata op.65 No. 6, Chorale and Variations 1-3 on "Vater unser im Himmelreich," 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.

Closing Voluntary: “Ein feste Berg,” David Cherwien (1957)

David Cherwien, artistic director of the National Lutheran Choir, is a nationally known conductor, composer, and organist. Recognized for his contributions to the field of church music and liturgy, he is in demand as a clinician and hymn festival leader across the country.

Hymn of the Day: “Sing Praise to God the Highest Good” (ELW 871)
Text: Johann J. Schütz, 1640-1690; tr. Francis E. Cox, 1812-1897, adapt.
Tune: LOBT GOTT DEN HERREN, IHR, Melchior Vulpius (1570-1615)

Johann J. Schütz wrote this hymn text in nine stanzas and published it in his Christliches Gedenckbüchlein, zur Beförderung eines anfang-endes neues Lebens (Frankfurt, 1675). Almost two centuries later Frances E. Cox (1812-1897) translated the first eight stanzas. They were published in Lyra Eucharistica (1864), which Orby Shipley edited. In her own Hymns from the German in the same year (1864), Cox left out the eighth stanza (and made a slight change at the beginning of stanza 5: “But through” to “Throughout”. Four years later the Church Book (1868) used her first, second, fourth, and seventh stanzas, altering one word: “my” to “me” in the third stanza. Evangelical Lutheran Worship uses her first, third, fourth, and eighth stanzas with substantial modifications, among them addressing God to avoid third-person male pronouns and using the third-person plural for humanity. Cox’s translation began “Sing praise to God Who reigns above” Catherine Winkworth (#241) also made a translation. It began “All praise and thanks to God most high” in Lyra Germanica, second series (1858) and her Chorale Book for England (1863). A composite version of nine stanzas, probably by August Crull (#323), began “To God the Father of all love” and was included in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymn Book (1889). The conflations and modifications have produced multiple first lines, making it not easy to find.

Johann Jacob Schütz was born in Germany at Frankfurt am Main. He studied law at Tübingen University and became a lawyer in his hometown. A learned man of piety, he was a friend of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705), the champion of Pietism. He suggested to Spener that he begin his prayer meetings, called “Collegia Pietatis.” Joachim Neander was part of the same circle. Like Neander, Schütz separated himself from Lutheran worship and stayed away from communion. Also like Neander in his “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”, Schütz in this hymn shows none of his separatism, but wrote a potent catholic hymn of praise. Five of his hymns were included in his Christliches Gedenckbüchlein, and he also wrote Christliche Lebensregeln (1677).

Frances E. Cox was born at Oxford, England, the daughter of George V. Cox. She became a skillful translator of German hymns. John Julian says forty-nine of her translations were published in her Sacred Hymns from the German (London, 1841) and the number increased to fifty-six (the number I also count) with revisions and notes in her Hymns from the German (1864). C. T. Aufdemberge says her translations number eighty.

LOBT GOTT DEN HERREN, IHR

This is one of the dance-like tunes by Melchior Vulpius. It gets its name from an Epiphany hymn of Joachim Sartorius (c. 1548-1600) that is based on Psalm 117 and for which Vulpius wrote it, “Lobt Gott den Herren, ihr Heiden all.”; Vulpius published it with that hymn in his Ein schön geistliche Gesangbuch (Jena, 1609).

A bar-form tune that swings along with a three-phrase group in the Aufgesang and leads nicely
to the repeated line “To God all praise and glory,” it is a most fitting match for this text. The
wedding of the two seems quite recent, however, possibly first in the Evangelical Lutheran
Hymn Book with Tunes (1912).

Offertory: “Cantate Domino,” Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)

Born at Nuremberg, Germany, he came from a family of famous musicians and received early education from his father. He then studied in Venice, Italy, with Andrea Gabrieli, uncle of Giovanni Gabrieli, his friend, with whom he composed a wedding motet. The uncle taught him to play the organ. He learned the polychoral style and took it back to Germany after Andrea Gabrieli’s death. He was a prolific composer but found his influence limited, as he was Protestant in a still heavily Catholic region. A Lutheran, he composed both for Roman Catholic liturgy and for Lutheran churches. He produced two volumes of motets, a famous collection of court songs, and a volume of simpler hymn settings. He published both secular and religious music, managing to compose much for the Catholic church that was also usable in Lutheran settings. Hassler was not only a composer, but also an active organist and a consultant to organ builders. Hassler stepped into the world of mechanical instrument construction and developed a clockwork organ that was later sold to Emperor Rudolf II. Hassler is considered to be one of the most important German composers of all time. His use of the innovative Italian techniques, coupled with traditional, conservative German techniques allowed his compositions to be fresh without the modern affective tone. His songs presented a combined vocal and instrumental literature that did not make use of the continuo, or only provided it as an option, and his sacred music introduced the Italian polychoral structures that would later influence many composers leading into the Baroque era.

Cantate Domino canticum novum; cantate Domino omnis terra
Cantate Domino, et benedicite nomini ejus; annuntiate de die in diem salutare ejus
Annuntiate inter gentes gloriam ejus; in omnibus populis mirabilia ejus
Quoniam magnus Dominus, et laudabilis nimis: terribilis est super omnes deos

Sing to the Lord a new song;
Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
Tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!

Opening Voluntary: “You Satisfy the Lonely Heart” Charles Callahan

Robert E. Kreutz (1922-1996) carefully crafted BICENTENNIAL for this text GIFT OF FINESTWHEAT in Denver, Colorado, in 1976. Kreutz received a bachelor’s degree from the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, and a master’s degree from the University of Colorado, Denver. He also studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg, Leo Sowerby, and Norman Lockwood. A resident of Golden, Colorado, Kreutz worked for many years for the Gates Rubber Company as a development engineer and also directed the choir at St. Bernadette Church in Lakewood, Colorado, for more than twenty-five years. He published some three hundred choral and instrumental compositions, including many psalm settings and other liturgical music.

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.

Closing Voluntary: “Gather Us In” John H. Behnke (1953)

The composer of the tune GATHER US IN, Marty Haugen (b. 1950) is perhaps the most prolific and influential composer of liturgical music of his generation. His hymns, psalm settings and paraphrases, services set to music, and anthems are widely used in both Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations around the world. “Gather Us In” (1982) represents Mr. Haugen’s skill both as a poet and composer. Mr. Haugen describes his inspiration for this hymn in an e-mail: “‘Gather Us In’ was written after I first heard the wonderful [former Jesuit Dutch theologian and poet Huub] Oosterhuis (b. 1933) text ‘What Is This Place?’ I wanted to craft something that might say a similar message to North American ears. I deliberately wrote it in second person to avoid gender issues and to more directly sing ‘to’ God rather than ‘about’ God. Ironically, that has been at times a problem for some, who would like God more carefully circumscribed and named.”

Dr. John A. Behnke enjoys composing and arranging having nearly 500 compositions in print with nineteen different publishers in the United States, Germany, and Taiwan. He is Emeritus Professor of Music at Concordia University, where he taught for 29 years. He was the organist and choir director at Historic Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church in downtown Milwaukee, from 1990 until 2019, and the director of the Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble and Music Editor of AGEHR Publishing – Handbell Musicians of America from 2003 until 2019.

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.

Hymn of the Day “Thine the Amen” ELW 826
Text: Herbert F. Brokering (1926)
Tune: THINE, Carl F. Schalk, (1929-2021)

Herbert Brokering wrote this hymn text at Holden Village, the retreat center for renewal in the Cascade Mountains near Chelan, Washington. It was the tenth hymn he wrote in as many days in the summer of 1981. Each morning Walter Bouman led a Bible study, and on the following morning it was reviewed through the singing of a hymn by Brokering, who said, "We sang each study the following morning. This hymn is on the great eucharistic theology in Revelation. It was to be a then to the now." The "Now" refers to Jaroslav Vajdas "Now the silence". The hymn comes to Evangelical Lutheran Worship through With One Voice (1995).

At this same Holden Village summer session in 1981, Carl Schalk was the composer for Brokering's hymns. He remembers the schedule like this. "After each morning's Bible study by Walter Bouman, Herb Brokering would fashion a new text, which he had to have finished by about noon that day. I had to write a tune and accompaniment by about three in the afternoon since I had to get it to the print shop, which closed at four in the afternoon, for duplication so we could use it the following morning. This pattern continued each day for two weeks.” One day Schalk mentioned to Brokering that since he (Schalk) had set a text by Jaroslav Vajda called “Now" that Brokering might write one called "Then." Within a day or so Brokering "had written a text in which almost each line began with 'Thine. Thus the idea of Then' became ‘Thine.' The tune was published with this text as an anthem in 1983 and in Christians, Awake! A Hymn Supplement (1989). It appeared in the same year in The Carl Schalk Hymnary (1989), where it was called THEN. The name was subsequently changed to THINE.

The life of Dr. Carl F. Schalk is certainly one of the clearest and longest proclamations of the Gospel ever heard in the world of Lutheran church music. He was a beloved husband, father, musician, writer, composer, and fervent advocate of the Lutheran Church. His music, his faith, and his song continue to live and remain with the Church. What a precious gift for people in the present and for generations to come!

The Choir Anthem is an arrangement of today’s Hymn of the Day.

Thine the amen thine the praise
alleluias angels raise
thine the everlasting head
thine the breaking of the bread
thine the glory thine the story
thine the harvest then the cup
thine the vineyard then the cup
is lifted up lifted up.

Thine the life eternally
thine the promise let there be
thine the vision thine the tree
all the earth on bended knee
gone the nailing gone the railing
gone the pleading gone the cry
gone the sighing gone the dying
what was loss lifted high.

Thine the truly thine the yes
thine the table we the guest
thine the mercy all from thee
thine the glory yet to be
then the ringing and the singing
then the end of all the war
thine the living thine the loving
evermore evermore.

Thine the kingdom thine the prize
thine the wonder full surprise
thine the banquet then the praise
then the justice of thy ways
thine the glory thine the story
then the welcome to the least
then the wonder all increasing
at thy feast at thy feast.

Thine the glory in the night
no more dying only light
thine the river thine the tree
then the Lamb eternally
then the holy holy holy
celebration jubilee
thine the splendor thine the brightness
only thee only thee.

Organ Voluntaries: IN DIR IST FREUDE, Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Paul Otto Manz was an American composer for choir and organ. As 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 Voluntaries are two improvisations on IN DIR IST FREUDE.

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.

Hymn of the Day: “Oh, That the Lord Would Guide My Ways” ELW 772
Text:
Tune: EVAN (Havergal)

This is part of Psalm 119 as metricized by Isaac Watts, from his Psalms of David (1719). It is a good illustration of how Watts conceived his task, especially with this lengthy psalm of 176 verses. Let Watts speak for himself.

“Psalm CXIX. I have collected and disposed the most usefull Verses of the Psalm under eighteen different Heads, and form'd a Divine Song upon each of them. But the Verses are much transposed to attain some degree of Connexion. In some places among the Words, Law, Commands, Judgments, Testimonies, I have used Gospel, Word, Grace, Truth, Promises, &c. as more agreeable to the New Testament, and the Common Language of Christians, and equally answers the Design of the Psalmist, which was to recommend Holy Scripture.”

This is the "Eleventh Part," which Watts calls "Breathing after Holiness.” He wrote six stanzas. As Lutheran hymnals have tended to do since the Church Book (1868), Evangelical Lutheran Worship prints four stanzas.

William H. Havergal wrote this tune. It was included in his Old Church Psalmody (London, 1847) with Robert Burns's poem "O thou dread power, who reign'st above." Lowell Mason called it EVA in New Carmina Sacra (1850), where, in an altered version as it appears in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, it was the setting for "In mercy, Lord, remember me." In Cantica Laudis (1850) Mason called it EVAN. In Havergal's Psalmody and Century of Chants from Old Church Psalmody (1871) the tune is given at #54 as EVAN I (CM) in a 4/2, not a 3/2 version. A note on page xix indicates it is the first two and last two phrases of Havergal's original melody. The full original is given at #77 as EVAN II (CMD). In the note Havergal says, "'EVAN,' framed by Dr. Lowell Mason of New York ... comprises only part of the original melody. As the American arrangement was a sad estrangement, I have reconstructed the tune after a more correct form. Why it was called 'EVAN' I know not. Still I do not approve of the tune.”

Offertory Anthem: “I Will Bow” Frederick Chatfield (1950)

This is a lovely little gem - simple and as graceful as the Shaker text.

Frederick Chatfield served as Director of Music and Organist of Christ United Methodist Church in Kettering, Ohio, a position he held for thirty years (1986-2016). Mr. Chatfield holds a Bachelor of Music in Organ from New England Conservatory in Boston (1972) and a Master of Arts in Religion (Music and Worship) cum laude from Yale University (1985) where he was named the 1985 Hugh Porter Scholar. His principle organ teachers have included Frank Mulheron, Charles Krigbaum, Miréille Lagacé and Thomas Murray. Mr. Chatfield was a faculty member of the Organ Academy of the American Guild of Organists, Dayton chapter and is a published composer. One of his great enjoyments is his 1982 BMW R100RS motorcycle which he restored in the spring of 2006.

I will bow and be simple, I will bow and be free,
I will bow and be humble, yea, bow like the willow tree.

I will bow, this is the token, I will wear the easy yoke,
I will bow and be broken, yea, I'll fall upon the rock.

Opening Voluntary: “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” Lani Smith

Anthony J. Showalter received letters from two friends who had lost their wives about the same time. He wrote back to express his sympathy, and included a verse of Scripture: “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27 KJV). As he thought about that text, he wrote the music and refrain to this hymn. He asked Elisha Hoffman to write the stanzas. The hymn was first published in 1887 in The Glad Evangel for Revival, Camp, and Evangelistic Meetings, for which Showalter was an editor.

Elisha Hoffman (1839-1929) after graduating from Union Seminary in Pennsylvania was ordained in 1868. As a minister he was appointed to the circuit in Napoleon, Ohio in 1872. He worked with the Evangelical Association's publishing arm in Cleveland for eleven years. He served in many chapels and churches in Cleveland and in Grafton in the 1880s, among them Bethel Home for Sailors and Seamen, Chestnut Ridge Union Chapel, Grace Congregational Church and Rockport Congregational Church. In his lifetime he wrote more than 2,000 gospel songs including"Leaning on the everlasting arms" (1894).

Closing Voluntary: “Jubilate” Roy Douglas (1907-2015)

This is an original work for organ which is, as the title suggests, jubilant!

Richard Roy Douglas, better known as Roy Douglas, was an English composer, pianist and arranger. He worked as musical assistant to Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, and Richard Addinsell, made well-known orchestrations of works such as Les Sylphides (the ballet, music based on piano pieces by Chopin) and Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto, and wrote a quantity of original music.

Hymn of the Day: “Lord of All Hopefulness” ELW 765
Text: Joyce Torrens-Graham (1901-1953)
Tune: SLANE

Joyce Torrens-Graham wrote many poems and essays under the pen name of Jan Struther (derived from her mother's maiden name, Eva Anstruther). She wrote this text at the request of Percy Dearmer, with whom she prepared the enlarged edition of Songs of Praise (1931). It was first published in that hymnal to the tune SLANE. According to Frank Colquhoun, the text "is a work with a warm human touch, a healthy spiritual tone, and well merits its popularity." It is one of the best examples of the "all-day" hymn texts (dealing with the whole day, from morning to evening).

The four stanzas begin by addressing God in terms of his attributes and then ask for specific blessings for morning, noon, evening, and night. Displaying a consistent literary structure, the text, according to Dearmer, "is indeed a lovely example of the fitting together of thought, words and music."

In addition to her pen name, Struther also had the married names of Mrs. Anthony Maxtone Graham and, from a second marriage, Mrs. Adolf Kurt Placzek. During World War II she moved with her children to New York City and remained there until her death. In England she is best known for her novel Mrs. Miniver (1940), which consists of sketches of British family life before World War II. Immensely popular, the book was later made into a movie. Struther also wrote comic and serious poetry, essays, and short stories, published in Betsinda Dances and Other Poems (1931), Try Anything Twice (1938), The Glass Blower (1941), and, posthumously, The Children's Bells (1957). Songs of Praise (1931) included twelve of her hymn texts.

SLANE is an old Irish folk tune associated with the ballad "With My Love on the Road" in Patrick W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). It became a hymn tune when it was arranged by David Evans and set to the Irish hymn "Be Thou My Vision" first published in the Church Hymnary (1927). SLANE is named for a hill in County Meath, Ireland, where St. Patrick's lighting of an Easter fire–an act of defiance against the pagan king Loegaire (fifth century)–led to his unlimited freedom to preach the gospel in Ireland.

Offertory: “Sicilienne” Gabriel Faure

In 1892 the manager of the Grand Théâtre, Paris, asked the composer Camille Saint-Saëns to write incidental music for a production of Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Saint-Saëns was too busy to accept the commission, and successfully recommended his friend and former pupil Fauré. The music, which included the first version of the Sicilienne, was nearly complete when the theatre went bankrupt in 1893. The production was abandoned and the music remained unperformed.

Five years later, Fauré arranged the work for cello and piano. The Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux writes that the transcription was made for the Dutch cellist Joseph Hollman. It was published in London and Paris in April 1898, with a dedication to the English cellist W. H. Squire.

At the same time, Fauré was working on incidental music for the first English production of Maurice Maeterlinck's play, Pelléas et Mélisande, which opened in June 1898. Needing a lighthearted piece for one of the few playful scenes in the drama, he included the Sicilienne along with the new music he wrote for the production. His former pupil Charles Koechlin orchestrated the score for the theatre orchestra of 16 players.

The final form of the Sicilienne is in the four-movement Pelléas et Mélisande suite for full orchestra, arranged by Fauré and published in 1909. Nectoux notes that the final orchestration differs from Fauré's original 1893 version, written for chamber-sized theatre orchestra: in particular, the main theme is given to the oboe in the original score and to the flute in the final version in the suite.

Opening Voluntary: “Psalm,” Gordon Young (1919-1998)

Gordon Young was an American organist and composer of both organ and choral works. He was born in McPherson, Kansas and educated at Southwestern College (Winfield, Kansas) and the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) where he was a student of Alexander McCurdy. After serving churches in Philadelphia and Kansas where he also worked as a radio organist and newspaper critic, Young became the music director at First Presbyterian Church in Detroit. There he was a visible and important presence in the American church music scene. He also taught organ on the faculty of Wayne State University. Young published voluminously, and his organ and choral works are in the catalogs of most major American publishers. Numerous works of his were also issued in the Netherlands, where his music has remained very popular. “Psalm” is part of his collection of Eleven Organ Pieces, published in 1962.

Closing Voluntary: “Darwall’s 148th” Barbara Harbach (1946)

Composed by John Darwall (1731-1789), DARWALL'S 148th was first published as a setting for Psalm 148 in Aaron William's New Universal Psalmodist (1770) with only soprano and bass parts. The harmonization dates from the nineteenth century.

The son of a pastor, Darwall attended Manchester Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford, England. He became the curate and later the vicar of St. Matthew's Parish Church in Walsall, where he remained until his death. Darwall was a poet and amateur musician. He composed a soprano tune and bass line for each of the 150 psalm versifications in the Tate and Brady New Version of the Psalms of David (l696). In an organ dedication speech in 1773 Darwall is known to have advocated singing the "Psalm tunes in quicker time than common [in order that] six verses might be sung in the same space of time that four generally are." The only Darwall tune still in common use, DARWALL'S 148th is marked by both its dramatic opening figure (outlining the tonic chord) and by the convincing ascent of the final line.

Dr. Barbara Harbach is a composer, harpsichordist, organist and teacher. Since 2004, she taught music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She founded Women in the Arts-St. Louis to highlight women's work and gain more performances for musicians and composers. In 1989, Harbach founded the small Vivace Press, to publish music by underrepresented composers. In 1993 she was a co-founder of the journal, Women of Note Quarterly, and continues as its editor.

Hymn of the Day: “Where Charity and Love Prevail” ELW 359
Text: Latin hymn, 9th cent.; tr. Omer Westendorf, 1916–1997, alt.
Tune: TWENTY-FORTH, attr. Lucius Chapin, 1760–1842

The hymn “Where charity and love prevail” is appropriate for this day. Especially stanzas 4-5 fit well with the day’s emphasis on communal forgiveness. The hymn derives from the ninth-century chant “Ubi caritas,” and many Christians sing it during the foot washing on Maundy Thursday. This translation of the classic text was crafted by Omer Westendorf, a Roman Catholic musician.

In its first publication, in A Collection of Tunes, 1812, under the name TWENTY-FORTH, it is attributed to Lucius Chapin, but Lucius attributes it (under the name ORANGE) to his brother Amzi in an 1812 letter to Andrew Law.

Offertory Anthem: “With A Voice of Singing” Martin Shaw (1875-1958)

The text is Isaiah 48:20 and Psalm 66:1. These verses are used together as an Introit in the mass. Shaw’s works number more than three hundred published pieces, of which this church anthem, originally published 100 years ago, is an enduring favorite. It is scored with a quotation from Vaughan Williams’ “For All the Saints”. Composer, conductor and producer, Martin Shaw was of the Holst and Vaughan Williams generation of composers who was key in reviving public interest in the work of Purcell. He was also a co-founder of the Royal School of Church Music. He once toured Europe as conductor to dancer Isadora Duncan and was briefly engaged to the daughter of theatrical star Ellen Terry.

With a voice of singing declare ye this, and let it be heard, Alleluia!
Utter it even unto the ends of the earth. The Lord hath delivered His people, Alleluia!
O be joyful in God, all ye lands.
O sing praises to the honor of His name, make His praise to be glorious.
With a voice of singing, declare ye this, and let it be heard, Alleluia!

Opening Voluntary: “Listen, God Is Calling” Anne Krenz Organ (1960)

Anne Krentz Organ is a composer and church musician serving as the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL.

Anne is the primary composer of Setting 12, a musical setting of the liturgy found in All Creation Sings, the recently published hymnal supplement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Additional liturgical compositions are included in Evangelical Lutheran Worship and the three volumes of Music Sourcebooks: Lent and the Three Days; Advent through Transfiguration; and Life Passages.

Hymn of the Day: Lead Me, Guide Me, ELW 768
Text: Doris Akers, 1922-1995
Tune: LEAD ME, GUIDE ME, Doris Akers

LEAD ME is representative of the first generation of African American gospel music, a generation that began with Thomas Dorsey and includes gospel artists such as Roberta Martin, Lucie Campbell, Kenneth Morris, Theodore Frye, and Doris M. Akers. The core of this style is improvisation. Thus the printed notes are intended only as guides to the creativity of singers and accompanists.

Doris M. Akers wrote both text and tune of this African American gospel hymn in 1953 in Oakland, California. The text is an earnest plea for an intimate walk with God, who is asked to lead, guide, and protect the believer. The deeply personal stanzas emphasize that divine guidance is essential because of our lack of strength, our blindness, and Satan's temptations. Only God can lead us on the narrow path and through all the complexities and challenges of earthly life. Like many of the psalms, this text pours out the yearning of the individual Christian, a prayer that reminds us of the words of Psalm 4.

Doris Akers was a biracial African-American gospel music composer, arranger and singer and is considered to be "one of the most underrated gospel composers” of the 20th century. She had an active career as singer, choir director, and songwriter. She wrote her first song at age ten and after that time composed more than five hundred gospel songs and hymns. Known for her work with the Sky Pilot Choir, she was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001.

Offertory Anthem: “How Lovely Are the Messengers” Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

“How Lovely Are the Messengers,” by Felix Mendelssohn, is from Saint Paul, the first of Mendelssohn's oratorios. It refers to Paul and Barnabas as ambassadors of the Christian Church. The composer oversaw versions and performances in both German and English within months of completing the music in early 1836. The libretto "after words of holy scripture" was begun in 1832. The composer with pastor Julius Schubring, a childhood friend, compiled passages from the New Testament, chiefly the Acts of the Apostles, and the Old, as well as the texts of chorales and hymns, in a polyglot manner after Bach's model. Composition of the music started in 1834 and was complete in early 1836. During Mendelssohn's lifetime, St. Paul was a popular and frequently performed work. Today it is regularly performed in Germany and well disseminated in both of its original languages through an array of complete recordings.

How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace.
To all the nations is gone forth the sound of their words,
Throughout all the lands their glad tidings.

Opening Voluntary: “Now Let Us All Loudly” Healey Willan (1880-1968)

This is a very exuberant setting of the hymn tune “Now Let Us All Loudly” (Nun preiset alle), text and music by Matthäus Apelles von Löwenstern. Löwenstern’s hymns, thirty in all, are of very varied worth, many being written in imitation of antique verse forms, and on the mottoes of the princes under whom he had served. In the original editions they were accompanied with self-composed melodies. When or where they were first published (cir. 1644) is not clear.

Long-lived composer Healey Willan is best known for his liturgical music, though his output of more than 800 works includes most genres: opera, symphony, chamber, organ, piano, band, incidental scores, song, folk-song arrangements, and much else. More than half of those 800 efforts were sacred works for choir and organ, used for Anglican church services. Stylistically, Willan was a conservative whose music divulged the influence of Wagner and post-Romanticism in general. Born in England, he migrated to Canada and there became probably the most influential composer of liturgical music of his time. His influence spread across North America, spilling over into the musical traditions of most major denominations. Although Willan's compositions are not commonly encountered in the concert hall, renewed interest in his liturgical music since the 1990s offers hope to his admirers that even his concert music may enjoy rediscovery.

Closing Voluntary: Allegro assai vivace from Organ Sonata #1 in F Minor, Op. 65, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Felix Mendelssohn’s six Organ Sonatas, Opus 65, were published in 1845. Mendelssohn was well known and respected for his diversified improvisations and a seemingly endless varieties of new ideas, and it added new dimensions to what one normally heard played on the organ at the time. These qualities are evident in the organ sonatas, which were commissioned in1844 as a set of voluntaries, or preludes, and published in 1845. In fact, all of the music in these Sonatas was composed between August,1844, and January, 1845, so it is not surprising to find certain general characteristics appearing, almost like a recurring theme, throughout all six sonatas, which unifies the whole collection.

Hymn of the Day: “Lord of All Nations, Grant Me Grace” (ELW 716)
Text: Olive Wise Spannaus, 1916-2018, alt.
Tune: BEATUS VIR, Šamotulský Kancionál, 1561.

With Philippians 2:1-18 as its basis, Olive Wise Spannaus wrote this hymn in 1960. She was living in Elmhurst, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago that, like many cities at that time, was experiencing racial tensions. She says that “the first stanza practically wrote itself. The lines came to me in the midst of ironing, and I quickly picked up a pencil to write them down. The rest of the hymn was done by snatches, and before too long I knew I was writing the hymn for the Lutheran Human Relations Association, a group which my husband and I actively supported. I sent it to them with a note that I hoped they would have some use for it. If not, then I at least shall have had the fun of writing it.”

The Lutheran Human Relations Association did have a use for it. They sang it at their Eleventh Annual Institute at Valparaiso University, 1960. In the same year it appeared in Christians, Awake, the record of their proceedings. In 1965 Edgar Reinke of Valparaiso University brought the hymn to the attention of the Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod (LCMS), and in October 1967 it was published in the supplement to This Day magazine called A New Song and then in the Worship Supplement (1969) to The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). The original language was updated for inclusivity in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), but Elizabethan English was retained. Evangelical Lutheran Worship duplicates that version. Three things might be noted. 1) It expresses the always radically-new message of Christian behavior with archaic English that sounds new. 2) The word "erred" in stanza 3 is not a slant rhyme. It actually rhymes with "word." 3) The author has resisted requests to change singular constructions to plural ones on the ground that "personal relations are and ought to be personal and therefore an individual concern and responsibility."

The hymn was published in This Day magazine with the tune BEATUS VIR. Jaro-slav Vajda was the editor of This Day. One has to assume that, with his knowledge of the Slovak repertoire, he made this match. The tune comes from the Samotulsky Kancionál (1561), where it went with "O blahoslaveny dovek." Psalm 1 was the basis for the original text, so the editors of the Worship Supplement named it with the Latin of Psalm 1, "Beatus vir." In the Duchovna Citara (1933), the tune is attributed to Matthias Kunwaldsky (1442 or 1460-1500). Matthias Kunwaldsky was a Bohemian Brethren bishop. Four of his hymns are in the first known Bohemian Brethren hymnal of 1501 and five more in the Samotulksy Kancionál of 1561.

Offertory Anthem: “O Bread of Life from Heaven” David Ashley White

This text was from the Latin hymn O Esca Viatorum from the Maintzich Gesangbuch which was published in 1661. It was translated to English by Philip Schaff (1819-1893).

This composition by David Ashley White incorporates a 17th-century Latin hymn and has a plainsong feeling.

O Bread of Life from heaven,
To saints and angels given;
O Manna from above!
The souls that hunger feed thou,
The hearts that seek thee, lead thou,
With thy sweet, tender love.

Opening Voluntary “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart” Joe Utterback (1944).

This tune, MORECAMBE, was written in 1870 by Frederick C. Atkinson. The jazz musician, Joe Utterback beautifully captures this serene hymn tune with his jazz-inspired harmonies. He has published nearly 400 works for piano, choir and organ.

Closing Voluntary “Lead Us, Heavenly Father” Robert J Powell (1932)

Robert J. Powell is an American composer, organist, and choir director. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Louisiana State University with a focus on organ and composition. He studied with Alec Wyton at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and he was also Wyton's assistant at The Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Powell's conservative, neo-Romantic style stems from his practical approach to composition. According to Powell himself, he writes for "choirs of twenty-five because that's what most choirs are. When you come right down to it, most choirs are not of cathedral ability or size. My pieces are all practical things and useful for specific occasions." His publications appear in The Hymnal 1982 as well as in the catalogs of most of the significant American publishers of church music. Powell is a composer whose output bridges denominational boundaries and who is able to serve the larger Church. He has made ecumenical sharing a reality–-and always with a genteel touch.

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.

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 either.

Offertory: “Meditation on ‘RUSTINGTON’” Hugh S Livingston, Jr. (1945-2014)

C. Hubert H. Parry's RUSTINGTON was first published in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book (1897) as a setting for Benjamin Webb's "Praise the Rock of Our Salvation." The tune is named for the village in Sussex, England, where Parry lived for some years and where he died.

Hugh S Livingston, Jr. served in music ministries in Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio, providing his talents as a choral director, pianist, organist, and trumpeter. Even in his retirement, Hugh remained active as a church musician, and shared his musical gifts with hundreds of people in assisted living and nursing homes.

Opening Voluntary: “Bridegroom” James Biery (1956)

Peter Cutts (1937) wrote this melody for "As the bridegroom to his chosen." It was first published in 100 Hymns for Today (London, 1969). He was born in Birmingham, England. He sang in the Birmingham Cathedral Choir, and later earned diplomas in Music and Theology.

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. Prior to this appointment Biery was music director for Cathedrals in St. Paul, Minnesota and Hartford, Connecticut.

Closing Voluntary: “Processional from Partita on ‘Crucifer’, Charles Callahan (1951)

Paired perfectly with our Sending hymn, today’s Closing Voluntary is the first movement of a partita based on the hymn tune, CRUCIFER, composed by Sydney H. Nicholson (1875-1947), who wrote this tune for the text with which it appeared in the 1916 Hymns Ancient and Modern supplement. It is a processional tune that appropriately accompanies the cross borne by the crucifer, for whom it is named.

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. Callahan compositions are performed frequently in church and concert; his writing style has been described by The Washington Post as gentle, confident lyricism.

Hymn of the Day: “The Church’s One Foundation” ELW 654
Text: S. J. Stone (1839-1900)
Tune: AURELIA, Samuel S. Wesley (1810-1876)

In the mid-nineteenth century, Bishop John William Colenso of Natal raised a ruckus in the Catholic Church when he challenged the historicity and authority of many of the Old Testament books. Bishop Gray of Capetown wrote a stirring response of defense, which, in 1866, inspired Samuel Stone, to write this beloved hymn, basing his text on Article 9 of the Apostle’s Creed: “The Holy Catholic (Universal) Church; the Communion of Saints; He is the Head of this Body.” Now an affirmation of Christ as the foundation of our faith, we sing this hymn with those who have gone before us and with Christians around the world, declaring that beyond any theological differences, cultural divides, and variances in practice, we are all part of the same body, the body of Christ.

The actual words have not changed much from Stone’s original text, though there are differences in what verses are sung. Stone’s hymn originally consisted of seven stanzas, to which he added three more, and today most hymnals include the original 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, though not every hymnal contains all five. In the first two verses, we proclaim our unity as the Church in Christ, through baptism, the Word, and Communion. In stanza 3 and 4, we pray that divisions might cease and we would fully experience that unity, and in verse 5, we acknowledge the unity greater than the sum of individual people, our fellowship with God, the Three in One.

Stone attended schools at Charterhouse and Pembroke College in Oxford, England. Ordained in the Church of England in 1862, he became curate of Windsor, a position he held until he joined his father in ministry at St. Paul's in Haggerston, London, in 1870. He succeeded his father as vicar at Haggerston in 1874, staying until 1890. From 1890 until his death he served All-Hallow-on-the-Wall in London, which he turned into a haven for working girls and women. In addition to his collection of hymns, Stone's publications include Sonnets of the Christian Year (1875), Hymns (1886), and Iona (1898). He served as a member of the committee that prepared Hymns Ancient and Modern (1909). His Collected Hymns and Poems were published posthumously.

The tune that most often accompanies this text is AURELIA, composed in 1864 by Samuel S. Wesley and first published as a setting for “Jerusalem the Golden.” It was paired with Stone’s text shortly after, to the chagrin of some: Dr. Henry Gauntlett was apparently very annoyed by this match-up, as he thought Wesley’s tune was “inartistic, secular twaddle.” Dr. Gauntlett was not to have the last word however, and the tune has stuck.

Offertory: “Trentham” Philip Moore (1943)

Robert Jackson (1842-1914) originally composed TRENTHAM as a setting for Henry W. Baker's "O Perfect Life of Love". Named for a village in Staffordshire, England, close to the town in which Jackson was born, the tune was published with the Baker text in Fifty Sacred Leaflets (1888).

Philip Moore was educated at the Royal College of Music in London. Here he won the Walford Davies Prize for Organ Playing and the Limpus, Turpin, and Read Prizes in the Royal College of Organists’ exams. He holds a BMus degree from the University of Durham, and more recently was awarded Honorary Fellowships by the Royal School of Church Music, the Guild of Church Musicians, and the Academy of St Cecilia for his services to Church Music. In 2008, the Archbishop of York awarded him the Order of St William, and in 2016 the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded him the Cranmer Award for Worship “for his contribution to the English choral tradition as a composer, arranger, and performer”.

Opening Voluntary: “Spirit of the Living God” Malcolm Archer

Daniel Iverson (1890-1977) wrote the first stanza and tune of this hymn after hearing a sermon on the Holy Spirit during an evangelism crusade by the George Stephens Evangelistic Team in Orlando, Florida, 1926. The hymn was sung at the crusade and then printed in leaflets for use at other services. Published anonymously in Robert H. Coleman's Revival Songs (1929) with alterations in the tune, this short hymn gained much popularity by the middle of the century. Since the 1960s it has again been properly credited to Iverson.

Malcolm Archer has had a distinguished career in church music which has taken him to the posts of Organist and Director of Music at three English Cathedrals: Bristol, Wells and St Paul’s, and for eleven years, Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. He holds Fellowships from the Royal College of Organists, the Royal School of Church Music and the Guild of Church Musicians, the latter two awarded for his many years of service to the church as a choir trainer and composer.

Closing Voluntary: “Shipston (Fugitives on the Run)” Paul Leddington Wright (1951)

SHIPSTON is English traditional melody collected by Lucy Broadwood (1858-1929). It was originally harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), first appearing in The English Hymnal (1906) where it accompanied two hymns: “Firmly I believe and truly” and “Jesu, tender Shepherd, hear me”.

PAUL LEDDINGTON WRIGHT held his first two appointments as Organist and Choirmaster of the Maidenhead Methodist Church, and also the Maidenhead Schools' Orchestra at the age of 15. At 17, he made his first organ recital tour of the USA, Canada and Jamaica.

A graduate of Cambridge University, he was organ scholar of St. Catharine's College, graduating with a Masters degree in music, studying with Sir David Willcocks and Peter Hurford.

Hymn of the Day: “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” ELW 588
Text: Frederick W. Faber, 1814–1863, alt.
Tune: LORD, REVIVE US, North American, 19th cent.

Frederick Faber, born in Yorkshire, England, was one of a number of English clergy who converted from the Anglican Church to Roman Catholicism in the Romantic era of hymnody in the 19th century.

Faber was born an Anglican and reared a strict Calvinist. After attending Oxford, he took orders as an Anglican priest and began his ministry as a rector. Influenced by his friend John Henry Newman who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, Faber also converted to Catholicism that same year.

Both Newman and Faber were influenced by the rituals and tradition of Rome. Faber formed a community in Birmingham called “Brothers of the Will of God.” Newman joined the Oratory, an order of secular priests established in 1564 by St. Philip Neri in Rome, and Faber eventually followed him there. Hymnologist Albert Bailey noted, “Father Faber was the moving and guiding spirit [of the Oratory] as long as he lived, a great preacher and a man of charming personality.”

Drawing inspiration from the hymns of John Newton, William Cowper and the Wesleys during his Anglican youth, he recognized that Roman Catholics lacked a tradition of more recent metrical hymnody in English. He took it upon himself to remedy this. By the time he died, he had contributed 150 hymns, all composed after his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” originally had eight stanzas and appeared under the title “Come to Jesus” in Faber’s Oratory Hymns (1854). In a later collection, the hymn expanded to 13 stanzas, beginning with “Souls of men, why will ye scatter/ Like a crowd of frightened sheep?” That version was included in a posthumous collection, Hymns Selected from F. W. Faber (1867).

LORD, REVIVE US is an anonymous nineteenth-century American tune first used with John Newton's hymn "Savior, visit thy plantation" at #51 in Joseph Hillman's The Revivalist: A Collection of Choice Revival Hymns and Tunes, Original and Selected (New York, 1868). The last line of Newton's fifth and last stanza (in Olney Hymns, #51) was "To revive thy work afresh." It was printed as stanza 4 in The Revivalist. The last line of Newton's second stanza was "Help can only come from thee." Though it was not printed in The Revivalist, somebody seems to have known it and put the two lines together to construct the refrain, "Lord, revive us, All our help must come from thee." The name of the tune was born. The tune seems to be related to HOLY MANNA though it is not pentatonic.

Offertory: Prelude on “Open My Eyes” Charles Callahan (1951)

Charles Callahan is a well-known composer of music best described as exhibiting a gentle, confident lyricism. He is an organist, choral conductor, pianist and teacher, a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.

The tune, “Open My Eyes,” was composed by Clara Harriett Fiske Jones Scott (1841-1897). She was the first woman to publish a volume of anthems, 'The Royal anthem book’ in 1882. This hymn first appeared in Best Hymns No. 2, by Elisha A. Hoffman & Harold F. Sayles (Chicago, Illinois: Evangelical Publishing Company, 1895). Some hymnals show the author incorrectly as "Charles" Scott.

Opening Voluntary: “Elevation,” Léon Boëllmann (1862-1897)

Léon Boëllmann was a Romantic French organist and composer who wrote over 160 works in his short lifetime of only 35 years. His best-known composition is Suite Gothique, which is a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its concluding Toccata. Had he lived longer, Boëllmann would likely be regarded today as one of the great Romantic French organist-composers, in a line that included Franck, Widor, and Vierne.

Closing Voluntary: “Invention #1 Joseph Callaerts (1830-1901)

Joseph Callaerts was born in 1830 in Antwerp, and spent nearly all of his life in that city. He started learning music when he was a boy, singing in Antwerp's choir of the Cathedral of Our Lady. As a young man, he studied the organ with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (whose “Fanfare” I played last month) at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire, and he won the first prize in organ at that institution in 1856. Starting in 1850, Callaerts served as the organist at the Jesuit College in Antwerp. In 1855 he became the organist at Antwerp Cathedral and in 1863 he became carillonneur of the city of Antwerp. From 1867 on, he taught organ and harmony at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, which had its name changed to the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in 1898. He also gave expert advice in the building of several organs. Callaerts has a traditionalist composer profile. Unlike his contemporaries, he did not search for innovative forms and did not aspire to convey a political or social message with his music. His compositions were widely appreciated during his lifetime, but their popularity decreased from the first decades of the twentieth century onwards.

Hymn of the Day: “Eternal Father Strong to Save” ELW 756
Text: William Whiting (1825-1878)
Tune: MELITA John B. Dykes (1823-1876)

William Whiting wrote this hymn in 1860 for one of his students who was about to sail to America. It was revised and included in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) "for those at sea." The first stanza originally began, "O Thou who bidd'st the ocean deep" and has sometimes been found with "Almighty Father" rather than "Eternal Father." Evangelical Lutheran Worship uses the same altered versions of Whiting's four stanzas that Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) used. This hymn has found wide usage in English-speaking countries as the sailor's hymn and has been allied to the state almost as much as to the church. In the United States it is inscribed over the chancel of the Naval Academy chapel at Annapolis, was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's favorite hymn, was sung at his funeral in 1945, and was played by the Navy Band as John F. Kennedy's body was carried up the steps of the Capitol building to lie in state in 1963.

William Whiting was born in Kensington, England, the son of a grocer, and moved with his family to Clapham, where he went to school. In 1841 he enrolled at the Winchester Training Institute, and in 1842 he became master of the Winchester College Choristers' School, serving there until he died. He was an active participant in civic and church life and became honorary secretary to the Winchester-Hursley branch of the English Church Union, which supported the Catholic cause in the Church of England. Besides hymns, he wrote two books of verse: Rural Thoughts (1851) and Edgar Thorpe, or the Warfare of Life (1867).

The tune, MELITA, is named after the island where Paul was shipwrecked (Acts 28:1 KJV; modern Bible translations have “Malta”). It is a fitting name for a tune associated with a text about safety on the seas. MELITA was composed by John B. Dykes especially for this text in 1861, and they were published together in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Offertory: “Aria” Georg Böem (1661-1733)

The son of an organist-schoolmaster, Georg Böhm went to study at the University of Jena in 1684 and left probably in 1690. In 1698 he became organist at the Church of St. Johannis in Lüneburg, where he remained for the rest of his life and where the young J.S. Bach doubtless heard him play. Although Böhm wrote numerous cantatas and sacred songs, he is chiefly remembered for his keyboard works, in which he deploys differing styles for harpsichord and organ. His harpsichord suites are in the manner of J.J. Froberger, but his organ works are more important. Some of his toccatas, preludes, fugues, and postludes for organ are brilliant, and his treatment of chorale melodies in organ partitas was truly original and exercised a strong influence on Bach.

Opening Voluntary: “Pleading Savior,” Emma Lou Diemer (1927)

A beautiful old American hymn tune, PLEADING SAVIOR is the setting for a half-dozen lyrics by Protestants and Catholics and even Orthodox. The tune was written by Joshua Leavitt and first published by Deodatus Dutton in The Christian Lyre in 1833, then again in The Plymouth Collection in 1855 where the words "There the Savior stands a-pleading" were the first words of the lyric. The English editors called it SALTASH after a town in Cornwall.

Emma Lou Diemer played the piano and composed at a very early age and became organist in her church at age 13. Her great interest in composing music continued through College High School in Warrensburg, MO, and she majored in composition at the Yale Music School (BM, 1949; MM, 1950) and at the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D, 1960). She studied in Brussels, Belgium on a Fulbright Scholarship and spent two summers of composition study at the Berkshire Music Center. She taught in several colleges and was organist at several churches in the Kansas City area during the 1950s. From 1959-61 she was composer-in-residence in the Arlington, VA schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project, and composed many choral and instrumental works for the schools. She was consultant for the MENC Contemporary Music Project before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland where she taught composition and theory from 1965-70. In 1971 she moved from the East Coast to teach composition and theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At UCSB she was instrumental in founding the electronic/computer music program. In 1991 she became Professor Emeritus at UCSB. She is an active keyboard performer (piano, organ, harpsichord, synthesizer), and has given concerts of her own music at Washington National Cathedral, St. Mary's Cathedral and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

Closing Voluntary: “Fanfare,” R. Mark Otterstad

“Fanfare” was written by Mr. Otterstad in 1963, while he was a student at St. Olaf College.

Hymn of the Day: "Break Now the Bread of Life" (ELW 515)
Text: Mary A. Lathbury (1841-1913)
Tune: BREAD OF LIFE, William F. Sherwin (1826-1888)

Mary A. Lathbury is known primarily for two hymns: this one (originally "Break Thou the Bread of Life") and "Day Is Dying in the West." She wrote both at the request of Bishop John H. Vincent for use in the services of the Chautauqua Assembly, well-known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a conference center that offered a rich fare of Bible study, Sunday school teaching methods, concerts, and plays. Vincent, the secretary of the Methodist Sunday School Union, founded the Chautauqua Institution on Chautauqua Lake in upper New York State in an effort to educate Sunday school teachers. An assistant to Vincent at the camp, Lathbury was also a well-known writer, editor, and illustrator of children's books. Her literary skills earned her the nickname "Poet Laureate of Chautauqua."

Lathbury wrote stanzas 1 and 2 in 1877; they were first published in Chautauqua Carols (1878). Alexander Groves (1842-1909) added stanzas 3 and 4 later, and they were first published in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (London, Sept. 1913). Groves's career included being a grocer and accountant as well as a trustee, auditor, and actuary for the Henley Savings Bank. He served as organist of the Henley Wesleyan Chapel but later in life became a member of the Anglican Church in Henley.

Some expressions in "Break Now the Bread of Life" may not satisfy everyone in the Reformed community, but these verses were not written to define doctrine in sharp detail. They were intended to be used as a simple prayer for illumination for Bible study groups and in the meetings of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Tradition also calls for the hymn's use during Sunday-evening vespers at the Lake Chautauqua' assembly grounds.

The hymn text draws on biblical images to depict Scripture's role in our lives. Stanzas 1 and 2 recall the breaking and the blessing of the bread at Jesus' feeding of the five thousand. Stanza 3 confesses Christ as the bread of life.

This hymn has served as both a comfort and inspiration to many people since its first publication. Before every mid-week service, the great English preacher G. Campbell Morgan would read the words to this hymn to help him focus on his message. The primary focus of this hymn is centered upon Bible study and the desire to glean truth from God’s word.

The tune most commonly sung for this hymn is BREAD OF LIFE, specifically written for the text by William F. Sherwin in 1877. He composed BREAD OF LIFE in 1877 for the stanzas by Lathbury when he was the music director for the Chautauqua Institution. The notes are both gentle and reassuring, complimenting Mary Lathbury’s lyrics, and allowing the singer to focus on each word of the hymn. It is a slow, flowing tune, but uplifting nonetheless.

William F. Sherwin, an American Baptist, was born at Buckland, Massachusetts. His educational opportunities, so far as schools were concerned, were few, but he made excellent use of his time and surroundings. At fifteen he went to Boston and studied music under Dr. Mason. In due course he became a teacher of vocal music, and held several important appointments in Massachusetts; in Hudson and Albany, New York County, and then in New York City. Taking special interest in Sunday Schools, he composed carols and hymn-tunes largely for their use, and was associated with the Rev. R. Lowry and others in preparing Bright Jewels, and other popular Sunday School hymn and tune books.

Hymn of the Day: “Jesus, priceless treasure” ELW 775
Text: Johann Franck, 1618-1677; tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1827-1878, alt.
Tune: JESU MEINE FREUDE, Johann Crüger, 1598-1662

A most appropriate hymn for the day is “Jesus, priceless treasure” (ELW 775). Using some of the imagery of today’s gospel, such as a treasure that is priceless, the author Johann Franck adds his own image of the merciful domain of God: God is lover, for whom we are thirsting, in whose arm we rest. Such erotic religious imagery was more common in its time, 1653, than it is for some Christians in the present time. Any suggestions why?

— Gail Ramshaw

Johann Crüger composed JESU, MEINE FREUDE, a bar form tune (AAB) written for this text. Crüger was one of the most distinguished musicians of his time. He was editor of Praxis pietatis melica, considered one of the most important collections of German hymnody in the seventeenth century. Of his hymn tunes, which are generally noble and simple in style, some 20 are still in use, the best known probably being "NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT."

Opening Voluntary: Liturgical Prelude #2, George Oldroyd (1886-1951)

George Oldroyd was an English organist, composer and teacher of Anglican church music. He composed numerous settings of the mass, but is best remembered for his Mass of the Quiet Hour composed in 1928. It is still part of the repertoire of many English cathedrals and parish churches. Other works include the part song, “Lute book lullaby”, organ works including the Liturgical Prelude played today and pieces for piano and for violin. Oldroyd was an authority on counterpoint, and published The Technique And Spirit Of Fugue: An Historical Study.

Offertory: In Communion Dennis Eliot (1941)

Today’s Offertory is a setting of the hymn tune TRUST IN JESUS, with a text written by Louisa M. R. Stead (1850-1917). The accounts vary widely on the details and drama surrounding the writing of this hymn. What is known is that, in 1880, Louisa Stead’s husband drowned, and that this hymn was published in Songs of Triumph two years later. It is widely believed that she wrote this hymn in response to the peace she found in trusting Jesus despite her sorrow. Mrs. Stead went on to serve for many years as a missionary in Africa.

This hymn is always sung to the tune TRUST IN JESUS, which was written for this text by William Kirkpatrick (1838-1921) in 1882 and appeared in the first publication of this text.

Closing Voluntary: Fanfare Jacques Lemmens (1823-1881)

When Jacques Nicolas Lemmens first published his organ method book, the Ecole d'orgue. his aim was twofold: to help organists develop the technical ability to play great organ literature, and to provide a body of repertoire especially suited to the Catholic church. Although the compositions in the Ecole are rarely performed today, the exercises that Lemmens developed to improve the technique of organists have had a profound influence on organ pedagogy for over one hundred years.

Jacques-Nicholas Lemmens was an eminent Belgian organist, recitalist, composer, and educator. His first organ training was with his father, then he studied at the Royal Brussels Conservatoire, where he was appointed organ professor at age 26. His distinguished students included Alexander Guilmant and Charles-Marie Widor. During 1852 he presented numerous stunning organ recitals in Paris. His astonishing pedal technique was mostly due to his studies of Bach’s organ works, which were not well-known in France at the time.

Fanfare is Lemmens’ most famous composition, which was very popular when he performed it in recitals, and is probably his most famous work today.