Summer

Today marks the beginning of ‘Summer Choir,’ which is really the year-round choir with one big exception – we rehearse ONLY on Sunday mornings, at 10:30, in the Choir Room. This is the perfect opportunity for those interested in finding out what musical leadership is like to come and dip in that first, cautious toe…

New and Old; Quiet and Loud; Fire and Balm

This morning we celebrate the musical gifts of the Spirit… …gifts that manifest themselves in extremes.

New

Modulation

It is unofficially traditional for an outgoing Choir President, in this case Jo Helland, to have me program a favorite anthem, in grateful thanksgiving for their leadership of the previous year… …and so, this morning, Jo has asked us to sing Gilbert Martin’s ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.’

It occurred to me that since the change of officers is a kind of modulation, and that the most striking feature of this anthem is its several kinds of musical modulation, that a discussion of same might be in order…

Modulation

It is unofficially traditional for an outgoing Choir President, in this case Jo Helland, to have me program a favorite anthem, in grateful thanksgiving for their leadership of the previous year… …and so, this morning, Jo has asked us to sing Gilbert Martin’s ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.’

It occurred to me that since the change of officers is a kind of modulation, and that the most striking feature of this anthem is its several kinds of musical modulation, that a discussion of same might be in order…

Brahms

This morning’s music is built around the Anthem selection: a movement from the monumental choral orchestral work of Johannes Brahms – ‘A German Requiem’ – written, almost certainly, as a tribute to his Mother. We offer the fifth movement, for soprano solo and chorus – setting passages from John, Ecclesiastes and Isaiah which liken the care of God to the care of a Mother. The work is sacred, but non-liturgical – unlike most Requiem settings – with movements that cannot be used as music for the ‘ordinary’ segments of the Roman Catholic Mass. This piece uses various scriptures in a German translation – hence the title… ‘Ein Deutches Requiem’

Rutter

John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger and record producer whose career is an interesting case study in the Sacred Music ‘style wars’ of the late 20th century. His success – he is the only sacred composer alive to have made a genuine fortune from his work – is the result of having perched himself right in the middle of the ‘classical – pop’ spectrum and having never wavered too far in either direction.

MUSIC NOTES

Mostly American…

Jean-François Dandrieu (1682-1738) was a Parisian composer, harpsichordist and organist who developed a prodigious childhood gift [he played for Louis VIV at the age of 5…] into a distinguished life-long career, ending up as one of the organists of the Chapel Royal of France. His music combines typical French baroque flair with a certain Germanic clarity of counterpoint.

‘HALLELUJAH!’

George Friedrich Handel’s rousing chorus from his oratorio, MESSIAH, occupies a unique place in the literature and in performance practice. The only piece of choral music that can be said to be known by EVERONE, is of such sturdy construction that people have been trying to match its musical solidity with sheer volume, sometimes on absurd scales, since its premiere in 1742.

‘Requiem Quilt – 2009…’

This morning, we are offering the third of our now-famous ‘Requiem Quilts,’ services with one superb and vivid movement from each of five larger works, woven together in an effort to highlight the intense drama of Palm Sunday and the outlines of the Passion narrative. This year: Grimmett, Poulenc, Beethoven, Duruflé and Scarlatti…

Contributions of Women

Fanny Cäcilie Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847) was the older sister of the celebrated composer Felix Mendelssohn. Because of the prevailing attitudes towards women, Fanny had little support in her musical endeavors and at times had her work published under her brothers’ name…! We offer two of her works today – first, a ‘song without words,’ a lyrical, tuneful piano piece meant to suggest a text that is not there; and second, a classic German Lied, a setting of a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857) underscoring the glories of nature.

INTROIT – Ubi Caritas

This morning, the Children of St. Philip lead us in a congregational Introit using music from the Monastery in rural Taizé, France. Jacques Berthier, one of the Brothers, wrote many simple chants for use in their services, which are attended by as many as 10,000 people from all over the world, mostly teenagers… Because of the number of native tongues spoken by their congregation, the monks chose a “dead” language, Latin, as common ground.

To begin: things British – including Sebastian Wesley’s choral gem ‘Thou Wilt Keep Him…,’ a fragment from a larger ‘verse anthem.’ The grandson of Charles Wesley, Sebastian had a notable career in the Church of England, serving at the Chapel Royal, at Exeter, Winchester and Gloucester Cathedrals as well as the Leeds Parish Church. His music, of which this is a prime example, is marked by clear counterpoint wrapped up in a well-paced and sumptuous harmonic structure. The ‘voicing’ here is SATTB, the extra tenor part adding substantial warmth.

We welcome Eleanor Grant as guest conductor this morning… I am in Austin, TX, today worshipping at the University Presbyterian Church along with the assembled conferees at the ‘Professionals Gathering’ of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. Thanks, Eleanor, for stepping in! Many of you may not know that she is a former Choir Director of this church and a veteran of Texas public school music, much loved and respected by her hundreds and hundreds of former students…

“Spirituals, arranged…”

The folk music now known as ‘Spirituals’ were the expression of the enslaved African workforce of the American Colonies and States in the 18th and 19th centuries – brought about, curiously, by the efforts of their oppressors to de-Africanize them and simultaneously instill them with what we might now call a ‘Liberation Theology’ of Christianity. The stoic, sturdy, long-suffering and noble sentiments of the words, coupled with the equally hardy and forthright tunes that developed around them have been fodder for the immense hunger of 20th and now 21st century American audiences for some connection to an ‘authentic’ American music. Arrangements of these songs abound, in all styles, all genres.

Georg PhilippTelemann was a German Baroque composer of great quality and quantity who spent the last portion of his career in Hamburg where, in 1721, he was given musical oversight of five of the largest churches in the city. Moreover, in 1722, he was appointed Music Director of the Hamburg Opera and composed for them, by his own reckoning, 35 operas in 16 years. Can you imagine the public stature of such an individual? Imagine if you can, one person being made the Director of Music at First, Memorial Drive, Grace, Central and St. Philip Presbyterian churches all at once, while also being in charge downtown at the opera house… …and what a commanding figure he or she would have to be…!

Gerhard Krapf (1924-2008) died in July of this past year. He was born in Messenheim, Germany and survived four military conscriptions to emigrate to the United States and finally to Canada, all the while writing book after book of extremely useful church music, all of it in the Germanic, spare, rhythmic, Lutheran vein.

ALL-AMERICAN

Matthew begins this morning’s ‘all-American’ celebration with a set of variations by Virgil Thompson (1896-1989), which like their author are: spare, acidic, finely crafted, intellectual and a little bit ‘off.’ […in this example, the oddity is manifest by each variation being in a completely different key….] Born in Kansas City, Thompson walked the ‘A-list’ path of mid-20th century composers [first Harvard, then study in France with Nadia Boulanger, then New York City – for incubation and development…], and in addition to his work as a composer was a distinguished mentor and critic, shepherding several generations of gifted men and women into what is now known as ‘the 20th century American Classical’ sound.

ADVENT IV

This morning we explore the extreme duality of late Advent: the poise of introspection and the thrill of expectation side by side, the quiet and the quickening pulse – like an eager child’s silent glee...

Louis-Claude Daquin, Jewish by birth, lived and worked in Paris in the mid-18th century. ‘Etranger’ means ‘stranger,’ or ‘foreigner,’ and simply refers to a non-native musical tune. The texture, though, is pure, French Baroque flair…

ADVENT III – Bach Day

The first sentence of the entry on Johann Sebastian Bach in Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians, written by the late Nicolas Slonimsky with his entertaining tone of breezy, articulate accuracy, pretty much says it all:

“…Bach, Johann Sebastian, supreme arbiter and lawgiver of music, a master comparable in greatness of stature with Aristotle in philosophy and Leonardo da Vinci in art…”

ADVENT II

We welcome this morning the ‘natural’ trumpeter Nate Mayfield…! Nate is playing a precursor of the modern trumpet, one without valves – the delicate, sweet and bright timbre of which early composers had in mind….

ADVENT I

Quietness; examination; expectation; perspective… These are for me the four watchwords of Advent, a season whose silent, reflective core is all too easily missed.

You have to listen in order to hear…

Christ the King

For the punctuation of the 2007-2008 liturgical year, I have chosen a musical exclamation point – the Vaughan Williams ‘Antiphon’ – to frame our worship today.

The last of the ‘Five Mystical Songs,’ originally for big, big chorus and orchestra, the title ‘Antiphon’ refers to a statement, usually sung between sets of verses of a Psalm in order to clarify and delineate the message…

Contributions of Women

This morning is one of our “special focus” liturgies, dedicated to the ‘contributions of women…’

Strictly speaking, gender [just like race and age and sexual orientation] is an inadequate musical descriptor:

· What does female music sound like?
· Can you identify music composed by a gay man?
· How does a piece reflect age? Maturity?

There are, of course, no answers to these patently rhetorical questions. But on a day like today, when the focus is on gender, there are, happily, virtually unlimited choices – and excellent ones at that…

At every point in history, there have been good pieces and bad pieces [and everything in between…] written by men and women. The musical

This morning, Matthew Dirst offers a sonata from his recent recital tour: the E-Flat Trio of Johann Ludwig Kerbs (1713-1780), the student of J.S. Bach who, despite never having held a significant post […he was desperate enough at one point to take a job which paid in food…!], never being a ‘court’ composer, and having never been commissioned for a single piece, composed an excellent body of work – much admired today.

All Saints

Trumpets seem appropriate for today…

As does quiet reflection…

The celebration of our brothers and sisters who have gone on into the hereafter naturally combines these disparate emotional states – triumph and wonder – into one rich, life-enhancing perspective. And so, this morning, we oscillate back and forth between the two…

The 4th or 5th century Christian Hymn, Te Deum Laudamus [We Praise Thee, O God…], is so verbose that most musical settings of it qualify for the teasing moniker – ‘Tee-Dium…’

The greatness of Purcell’s music lies in his ability to reveal the songlike subtleties of the English language through his setting of it, as well as in his mastery of instrumental form and balance and texture…

Americana

Our All-American musical offerings today start with a movement by Margaret Sandresky, who, like any good Southern lady, has kept information with respect to her date of birth a closely guarded secret… A celebrated teacher of Music Theory and Composition, she is Professor Emerita of Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC – also her alma mater. ‘L’homme armé is the name of a French secular song from the Renaissance – about an ‘armed man’ – and was then as well known as, say, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ is today. A tune with an interesting structure and topography, it has been used by composers as the basis for contrapuntal treatment in every age since.

There’s more than one way to choose appropriate music for World Communion Sunday, and today we’re combining two: Place and Practice; Geography and Creed…