Mary's Magnificat

 

In today’s gospel passage from Luke, we hear the familiar pre-Christmas story of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary. He tells her that she will conceive a child (a great surprise to her!) and that her baby will be the holy Son of God. It’s a familiar story that we hear every year at this time.

The part of the story we don’t get in this excerpt is Mary going to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who is also unexpectedly pregnant. During this visit, Mary delivers a monologue that has come to be known as “Mary’s Song of Praise” or simply by the Latin name “Magnificat.” The full text of Mary’s Magnificat is:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)

Our hymn today is a contemporary paraphrase of Mary’s Magnificat called “My Soul Cries Out With a Joyful Shout.” Carl Daw writes about this text, “From the very beginning it is evident that this is no tame paraphrase of the Song of Mary. It identifies with, and draws energy from, the deeply revolutionary implications of what it means for the mighty to be put down from their thrones and for the lowly to be lifted up.” Interestingly, the first three stanzas address God while the fourth stanza shifts its focus to address other people of faith. Here’s the text in full:

1 My soul cries out with a joyful shout
that the God of my heart is great,
and my spirit sings of the wondrous things
that you bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight,
and my weakness you did not spurn,
so from east to west shall my name be blest.
Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain:
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.

2 Though I am small, my God, my all,
you work great things in me,
and your mercy will last from the depths of the past
to the end of the age to be.
Your very name puts the proud to shame,
and to those who would for you yearn,
you will show your might, put the strong to flight,
for the world is about to turn. (Refrain)

3 From the halls of power to the fortress tower,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears
every tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more,
for the food they can never earn;
there are tables spread; every mouth be fed,
for the world is about to turn. (Refrain)

4 Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God’s mercy must deliver us
from the conqueror’s crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard
is the promise which holds us bound,
till the spear and rod can be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around. (Refrain)

For me, it’s a powerful re-rendering of Mary’s song with an ever-helpful social justice bent. The refrain especially foreshadows what we all know is about to happen (“the dawn draws near”) in the coming days of Christmas (“the world is about to turn”). Enjoy!

Advent -- Light and Dark

One of the paradoxes of Advent for me has always been the notion of light and dark. Each year, as we march our way through the season, we grow closer and closer to the winter solstice – the longest night of the year. Or, said another way, the day with the least amount of light. At the same time, week by week, we add more and more light to the Advent wreath. We decorate our homes and Christmas trees with lights. Many folks add candles to their window sills. As the world grows darker and darker, we work hard to make our lights brighter and brighter. All of this, of course, in anticipation for the coming of the Light of the World on Christmas.

 

This idea is further explored a bit in our hymn today, “In the Depth of Winter’s Darkness.” It was written almost exactly 30 years ago, on December 19, 1990, by PC-USA ruling elder Joy F. Patterson of Wisconsin. This was an unfamiliar text to me until this year, and we’ve chosen to pair Patterson’s text with the familiar tune of the Christmas carol, “Angels From the Realms of Glory.” For me, the dark/light imagery is even more prevalent with the contrast of this peppy tune. Here’s the full text:

 

In the depth of winter’s darkness, lost in gloomy shades of night,
all humanity stands watching, waiting for God’s promised Light.
Alleluia, alleluia, come, Lord Jesus, quickly come. 

Now the time of preparation—with repentance, hope resolve,
let us ready minds and spirits for the Christ who comes in love.
Alleluia, alleluia, come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

Once he came, and still he’s coming, mystery both new and old—
what the hour of his new Advent prophets and not known or told.
Alleluia, alleluia, come, Lord Jesus, quickly come. 

Doing justice, showing mercy, praying, praising, let us wait
so that we may greet his coming ready for the Daystar’s Light.
Alleluia, alleluia, come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

 

As our days grow shorter and shorter (and darker and darker), I hope this text helps illumine your Advent path. Enjoy!

"Prepare the way, O Zion"

 

Our Advent hymn today comes from the Scandinavian country of Sweden. “Prepare the Way, O Zion,” first published more in 200 years ago (1812) in Stockholm, is considered one of the great Advent hymns to emerge from the Church of Sweden – a former state church and the largest Lutheran denomination in Europe. It was originally seven stanzas in length but is now most often published in the 3-stanza version that we have in Glory to God.

 

For me, this is one of my earliest memories of a hymn specific to the Advent season. As an organ nerd, admittedly, it could well be the organ arrangement I remember that features the melody played in dissonant intervals meant to imitate the “honking” of a semi traversing the open road – a nod to an earlier version of the hymn’s title: Prepare the Royal Highway. However, I also appreciate the hymn’s rhyme scheme and multiple Biblical references.

 

The hymn’s author, Frans Mikael Franzén, employs the same rhyme scheme throughout each stanza of this hymn, each consisting of four lines – three for each individual verse and a common fourth line refrain that follows. The three verses published in our hymnal are:

 

Prepare the way, O Zion, your Christ is drawing near!
Let every hill and valley a level way appear.
Greet One who comes in glory, foretold in sacred story.
Refrain: O blest is Christ who came in God’s most holy name.

He brings God’s rule, O Zion; he comes from heaven above.
His rule is peace and freedom, and justice, truth, and love.
Lift high your praise resounding, for grace and joy abounding.
Refrain: O blest is Christ who came in God’s most holy name.

Fling wide your gates, O Zion; your Savior’s rule embrace,
and tidings of salvation proclaim in every place.
All lands will bow rejoicing, their adoration voicing.
Refrain: O blest is Christ who came in God’s most holy name.

 

You’ll notice in each stanza the first two lines rhyme with each other – near/ap-pear; a-bove/love; em-brace/place. Franzén then uses internal rhyme (meaning there’s a rhyme scheme within the same line) for the third line of each stanza as well as the fourth line (refrain) – came/name. In the case of the third line, he takes the rhyming a step further and uses a two-syllable internal rhyme each time – glory/story; re-sounding/a-bounding; re-joicing/voicing. In my opinion, this gives the text momentum as the stanzas move along.

 

Finally, the text’s Biblical references make this a perfect hymn for the Second Sunday of Advent and the readings from Isaiah and Mark. In the first stanza, we get a reference to the prophetic voice of Isaiah (“foretold in sacred story”) as well as allusions to the Old Testament reading, Isaiah 40:1-11: A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain...’ (vs. 3-4). This same sentiment is later expressed by John the Baptist and written about by Mark in today’s gospel reading, Mark 1:1-8: As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight...’” (vs. 2-3).

 

I hope singing this hymn today will help enliven your Advent journey a bit. If you listen closely, perhaps you’ll even hear a couple of those “semi honks” in the musical offering!

JS Bach's "Wachet Auf..."

 

One of my favorite organ pieces for the Season of Advent – J. S. Bach’s Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme – opens our service this week. The German title is often translated “Wake, Awake, a Voice is Calling.” After all, isn’t that sentiment partly why we live so fully into Advent? We are urged to be alert and prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ.

 

This chorale prelude of Bach’s comes from his collection known as the “Schübler Chorales,” so named for the engraver – Johann Georg Schübler – who published this set of six chorale preludes towards the end of Bach’s life (around 1747). None of the six pieces in this collection began their lives as organ pieces. Instead, they were movements from some of Bach’s many cantatas that he wrote during his tenure in Leipzig. Bach selected these six movements to be transcribed from their cantata (three musicians, often two instruments and a singer) to pieces for organ (one musician).

 

In Wachet auf..., you’ll notice a catchy, dance-like theme at the outset (played by the right hand) paired with a harmonic framework (played in the pedal). In the original cantata, this would have been high strings/violins and low strings/cello, respectively. The left hand remains unneeded until several measures into the piece and then only sporadically throughout. This is because the left hand is playing the part of the original cantata movement that would have been sung by a singer; in this case, a tenor, who would have sung the chorale melody phrase-by-phrase in the original cantata. So, when the chorale melody comes in, the left hand plays in the tenor register on a trumpet stop. No doubt Bach specified one of the loudest stops of the organ for this “voice” as a means of painting the text of the chorale: Wake up! A voice is calling!

 

I hope this piece helps you begin this season with a smile. I find it hard to listen to without doing so myself!

Christ the King Sunday

If you are an avid reader of this blog, you may recall a post here a few months ago describing the beginning of the Season of Pentecost. (See https://musicatpcd.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-season-of-pentecost.html) Well, here we are some 5+ months later at the conclusion of the season – in a liturgical day known as Christ the King Sunday. It only seems good and orderly to conclude the season in a similar way to which I began it here.

 

As the longest season of the liturgical year, Pentecost starts 50 days after Easter and ends the Sunday before Advent begins – a day also known as Christ the King Sunday. In some ways, CtK Sunday is the church’s New Year’s Eve because the new liturgical year begins next week on the First Sunday of Advent. The Episcopal Church’s online glossary describes CtK Sunday as “celebrating Christ’s messianic kingship and sovereign rule over all creation.” This denomination also offers a prayer on this day that God, “whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” will “Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule.”

 

But where did Christ the King Sunday come from? (After all, there’s no mention of this liturgical day in the Bible!) Believe it or not, Christians have only been celebrating Christ the King Sunday for just under a century. It was established as a Catholic feast day in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. David Ouzts explains:

In the aftermath of World War I, Pope Pius noted that, while hostilities had ceased, true peace had not been restored to the world and the different classes of society. His first encyclical (a papal letter sent to all bishops of the Roman Catholic Church) after the war was Ubi arcane Dei consillo (“On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ”) in December 1922. He deplored class divisions and overt nationalism, and he maintained that true peace may only be found under the Kingship of Christ as the “Prince of Peace.”

 

In 1925, the pope formally introduced and established the Feast of Christ the King in his encyclical Quas primas (“In the First”): “When we pay honor to the princely dignity of Christ, men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state; and that in fulfilling the task committed to her by God of teaching, ruling, and guiding to eternal bliss those who belong to the kingdom of Christ, she cannot be subject to any external power.”

 

I think you will find the service music this week that exemplifies this notion of Jesus Christ as King over all. I’m grateful to Casey Tibbles for her artistry and collaboration. May the music enrich your Christ the King Sunday, and... Happy New Year!

Fred Pratt Green

Our offertory this Sunday – “Harvest Hymn” – features a text by one of the last century’s most prolific hymn writers: Fred Pratt Green. (For an interesting discussion of this particular text, check out: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-for-the-fruit-of-this-creation.)

 

Fred Pratt Green’s life encompassed nearly the entirety of the 20^th century. Born in 1903 near Liverpool, he enjoyed a long career (44 years) as a Methodist minister before turning his attention to hymn writing. Nearly all of his 300 hymn texts were penned during the 70s-80s, after his retirement from the ministry. He died peacefully in Norwich, his retirement home, at the age of 97 in 2000.

 

Pratt Green’s interest in hymn writing during his retirement may have been a very logical hobby. After all, he had only recently completed some four decades of pastoral ministry and was well-versed in theology. He was also an amateur poet and playwright, so the two – creative writing and theology – seem to combine well into the creation of hymn texts. Because his background was in preaching and church administration, his hymn texts are relevant to the contemporary church and often fill a void of topics not often covered by other hymn writers of the past.

 

His “Harvest Hymn” – now usually referred to by its first line, “For the Fruits of This Creation” – is one of FPG’s hymns most often chosen by hymnal committees in the United States. Indeed, it is included in Glory to God. C. Michael Hawn explains: “...published as “Harvest Hymn” in the British Methodist Recorder in August 1970, this hymn combines our gratitude to God for the bounties of the earth with our responsibility to care for our neighbor through “the harvests we are sharing” (stanza 2). Green’s concern for justice and spreading a social gospel is almost always evident in his hymns.”

 

In our service this weekend, I’m joined by my friend, Zack Morris, in the offering of this text. It is set to a familiar Welsh tune, Ar Hyd Y Nos, which means “throughout the night.” Enjoy!

Felix Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words"

 Do you ever get bogged down and/or completely overwhelmed with the amount of information thrown your way? As folks living in the ‘digital age,’ it is nearly impossible to escape it: print news stories about the pandemic, reports on the radio about the election, friends’ anxiety-ridden social media posts, emails, text messages, a barrage of advertising everywhere, and the list can go on... Words, words, and more words.

 

If we rewind time by 200 years and go ‘across the pond’ to Germany, we’d find ourselves in Felix Mendelssohn’s world. Mendelssohn was a prolific composer who wrote in a variety of media, including choral, orchestral, chamber, and keyboard works. A staple of his compositions for piano are sets of pieces he called Lieder ohne Worte, or in English, Songs Without Words. In total, he wrote 48 of these Songs Without Words, and they are divided into eight books of six each. Two of the books were published posthumously. (The opus numbers of the eight books are: 19b, 30, 38, 53, 62, 67, 85, and 102.)

 

In a week, where we’ve again been inundated with words, messaging, reporting, etc., I thought we might do well to experience some music without any sort of subtext. In other words, music for music’s sake that frees the listener to interpret and think about whatever passes through their mind. Mendelssohn himself said of his Lieder ohne Worte:

If you ask me what I had in mind when I wrote it, I would say: just the song as it is. And if I happen to have certain words in mind for one or another of these songs, I would never want to tell them to anyone, because the same words never mean the same things to others. Only the song can say the same thing, can arouse the same feelings in one person as in another, a feeling that is not expressed, however, by the same words.

 

These pieces are some of my favorites of the entire piano repertoire – both for playing and for teaching. I’ve included two of these Songs Without Words as part of our service this weekend. I hope you enjoy them as well.

I Sing a Song of the Saints of God

 

For me when I think about All Saints’ Day, I am simultaneously flooded with two things: memories of those saints in our midst who have already died and scores of musical examples that beautifully address death, eternal life, grief, and the like. I could spend days browsing YouTube and relishing in choral music appropriate for this observance. When it comes to corporate worship, however, the two hymns that have been part of our worship here for many years are “For All the Saints” and “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”

 

While the two hymns both have British roots, they are pretty different in terms of style. “For All the Saints” comes from the high Anglican tradition and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ musical pen. The name of the tune, Sine Nomine (Latin for ‘without a name’), is thought to reference the many saints whose names are known only God. I’ve sung this hymn on All Saints’ Day for as long as I can remember, and I can only guess at how many memorial services I’ve played the hymn for. This All Saints’ Day is no different.

 

On the other hand, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” is newer to me. I first learned it when I was a church musician for an Episcopal church in Florida, and it will also open our service this year. It has a decidedly folk feel with a sing-song-y melodic line. Carl Daw explains some of this hymn’s origins: “As a mother with three small children, the author would frequently create hymns for them on various topics, usually at their request, such as ‘make a hymn for a picnic’ or ‘make a hymn for a foggy day.’ [This] hymn was written for All Saints’ Day in order to emphasize that many saints led seemingly ordinary lives and that there are still saints living among us today. And, most tellingly, each stanza ends with an affirmation of the singer’s intention to ‘be one too’.” Check out the three-stanza text in its entirety:

 

I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear, and God’s love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake, the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest, and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.

They lived not only in ages past; there are hundreds of thousands still;
the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.

 

Even beyond the distinctively British words and phrases (“one was a queen,” “a shepherdess on the green,” “meet them in lanes,” “or at tea,” etc.), the bit that always catches my attention the most is “one was slain by a fierce wild beast.”

 

What fierce wild beasts have slain the saints in your lives? Cancer? Dementia? Mental illness? An accident? I can certainly name special saints in my life that fall into each of those categories. My grandfather and my aunt are two of my saints that I think of each All Saints’ Day. Alcoholism and a stroke were the beasts that slayed them.

 

This year, however, we have a couple of other “beasts” that have taken many of our saints from this earthly life. The Coronavirus and the cruelty of racial violence are two elements of 2020 that will surely go down in the history books. I will certainly take a moment to remember the many thousands of people worldwide who have succumbed to these beasts this year, and I know you will too. Blessed be their memory.

Léon Boëllmann’s Suite Gothique

Organists frequently engage in concerts surrounding the secular holiday coming up at the end of this week – Halloween. I suppose there are a few reasons for this: the dynamic nature of the instrument (it can go from very loud to very soft in a split second; it can play very high and very low sounds simultaneously), the various sound combinations can make for a spooky atmosphere, etc. Halloween organ concerts are usually met with full audiences of adults and children alike. I fondly recall an entire auditorium full of students each Halloween during grad school when it felt like the entire university campus was in attendance. (One year I even played my portions of the event dressed as Ace Frehley from the ‘70s rock band KISS!) 

Among organists and organ circles, a few pieces from the repertoire have become notorious for finding a spot on Halloween concert programs. Léon Boëllmann’s Toccata from “Suite Gothique” is one such piece. The toccata is the final – and most famous – movement of the suite. Check it out:

The four-movement “Suite Gothique” also contains two lovely inner movements, both of which are offered as part of our worship service this week. The Menuet Gothique is a perpetual-motion piece modeled after the minuet dance (in triple time, with a strong downbeat at the beginning of each bar). Boëllmann’s minuet features full-bodied chords for the hands and feet as well as fast scalar passages between sections. It’s fun to play, and I hope you enjoy seeing both hands and feet at work on the YouTube video.

 

The much tamer third movement, Prière á Notre-Dame, is a musical prayer to the Virgin Mary. (Afterall, Boëllmann was a good Frenchman and Catholic, so music alluding to Catholic saints is commonplace.) In this piece, we hear the late-Romantic composer at work with rich sonorities on some of the softest stops of the organ. It is meditative and contemplative and serves as an effective complement to the more robust Menuet. Enjoy!

Children's Sabbath and "Jesus Loves Me"

This weekend, we celebrate “Children’s Sabbath” during our worship services. The Children’s Defense Fund, an American nonprofit organization focusing on research and advocacy for children, sponsors the annual observance. The ecumenical event is designed to look closely at the needs of children – local and worldwide – and pray for them. “Children’s Sabbath” began in 1991 and continues today in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, and Baha’i worshipping communities. 

In our Christian tradition, one of the first religious songs taught to toddlers is no doubt “Jesus Loves Me.” During a recent conversation among members of our Sanctuary Choir, members remarked “It’s simplicity touches me,” “Even now as an adult, I catch myself humming the melody nonchalantly as I go about my day,” and “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know this song.” Perhaps you have similar experiences and remembrances with “Jesus Loves Me.”

But did you know that the song began its life as part of a novel in 1860? Or that is has an association – albeit somewhat loose – with West Point Military Academy? The story and history behind this beloved children’s hymn is well-documented in various ways online. I think this blog post encapsulates it in a succinct way.

I’ll close with NBC’s famous public service announcement tagline, “The More You Know…”  😊

Bell Choir

It will come as no surprise that the performing arts are one sector of our cultural life that have been especially impacted by the current pandemic. For so many vocalists and instrumentalists, it is just not yet safe to produce music that requires breath (which thus emits droplets and aerosols that may contain virus particles). For musicians for which breath is not required to make a sound (such as keyboard, string, and percussion instruments), the challenge is finding a space where an audience is willing to gather. For all of us musicians, we are either ‘on pause’ or finding new and creative ways to make music through the wonders of technology. 

For us at The Presbyterian Church of Danville, our adult vocal choir is taking the pandemic as an opportunity for education, conversation, and fellowship. The bell choir, however, has worked together with the Covid-19 Taskforce to find ways to safely rehearse and prepare music for our worship services. It has been a much-needed creative outlet for many of our bell choir members!

Some of the precautions we’ve put into place you would expect: wearing masks at all times, keeping a social distance of 6-feet or more, limiting our time together to 60 minutes or less, etc. We also have broken the bell choir into two smaller groups of six ringers each, mostly as a means of limiting our contacts should anything alarming occur among our group. One group meets on Monday evenings, the other on Wednesday afternoons; both in the Fellowship Hall (another change) since it has a larger, more cavernous space than the 2^nd floor music room. With all of this in place, we feel we are being as safe and responsible as possible, and we are enjoying the opportunity to rekindle old friendships and music-making responsibilities.

Obviously, with the bell choir reduced from 14 to 6 members, the sound and range of octaves will be very different. Music written for bell sextets feature just a portion of the entire set of handbells. The music you’ll hear in the service today will feature roughly the top half of the bells we own. (Perhaps you’ll miss hearing some of the low, rich sounds from the bass bells.) The group in the video this morning is the Wednesday afternoon group; the Monday folks will be coming up on All Saints’ Sunday in just a few short weeks. Enjoy!

World Communion Sunday

Each year on the first Sunday of October, we celebrate World Communion Sunday. This year is no different, and here we are on October 4, 2020. The world is a different place than it was a year ago, but we can still continue to hold fast to some traditions like this one that help us pause and celebrate our unity together.

For me, World Communion Sunday has been something that has been acknowledged and celebrated for as long back as I can remember into my childhood. This week I set out to find some history about it. Here are my results:

• It began as a Presbyterian idea. Pastor Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr first celebrated World Communion Sunday at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh in 1933.

• Three years later (1936), the Presbyterian Church (US) adopted it as a denomination-wide practice. Four years after that (1940), the National Council of Churches promoted the practice to a number of churches around the world. It has since become widespread.

• Dr. Kerr’s son, Donald, also a Presbyterian pastor, notes the significance of the Second World War: “The concept spread very slowly at the start. People did not give it a whole lot of thought. It was during the Second World War that the spirit caught hold, because we were trying to hold the world together. World Wide Communion symbolized the effort to hold things together, in a spiritual sense. It emphasized that we are one in the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

• Today, many churches across the world and across denominational lines celebrate World Communion. Some acknowledge it through their liturgy, others through their musical offerings, and even others through a guest speaker from their global mission work.

In previous years, I have so enjoyed the self-imposed challenge of ensuring that every musical aspect of our service on this day come from a different tradition around the globe. Sometimes that is a big task as our 11:00 service can have upwards to 12-15 pieces of music. During these times of virtual and outdoor worship, we are a bit more limited, but today you experience music from:

• South Africa – an opening song, “Hallelujah! We Sing Your Praises” with piano, drum, and voice.

• America – a folk-style communion hymn, “One Brad, One Body” recorded by piano, guitar, and vocalists.

• Jamaica – an organ arrangement of the upbeat and syncopated communion hymn, “Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ.” and

• France – the song “Eat This Bread” from the Taizé Community, offered by a quartet of singers and enhanced by various instrumental sounds from our organ.

"Fairest Lord Jesus"

The hymn we sing in response to the proclamation of the Word today is the long-cherished “Fairest Lord Jesus.” Our Gospel lesson recounts a time in Jesus’ ministry when he is questioned by chief priests and elders. They challenged his authority and demanded to know where the command of his teaching and ministry came from. The hymn “Fairest Lord Jesus,” in response, boldly proclaims that Jesus is sovereign: Ruler of all nature. Ruler of the nations.

Both the text and the tune of this beloved hymn have a storied, if not complex, history. Hymnologist Carl Daw even calls it “a classic example of the persistence of erroneous information.” Our United Methodist friends enjoy a regular column on their Discipleship Ministries website called History of Hymns. Hannah Cruse recently detailed the origins of “Fairest Lord Jesus.” Her article is well-researched and clearly written. Take a look, and enjoy!

https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-fairest-lord-jesus

 

Edward MacDowell and his "Woodland Sketches"

Both of the piano pieces offered in today’s YouTube service are by late-Romantic composer Edward MacDowell (1860-1908). He was among a wave of American born musicians to cross the Atlantic and train in “the old world.” For MacDowell, at age 17, he began his European studies at the Paris Conservatory, but he spent nearly a decade in Germany, first as a student in Frankfurt, then as a composer, performer, and teacher in Darmstadt and Weisbaden. It was during this decade in Europe that the young MacDowell met the love of his life, a fellow American studying abroad – Marian Griswold Nevins. The two married and remained nearly inseparable until MacDowell’s death.

Back stateside after financial difficulty trying to “make it” as a composer in Germany, the MacDowell’s settled first in Boston where Edward became well-known as a concert pianist and teacher. However, he was recruited back to his hometown of New York to become the first music professor at Columbia University in 1896. In addition to his duties at the university, MacDowell engaged in a great deal of musical composition during this period as well. Much of his compositional inspiration came from Hillcrest Farm, where the MacDowell’s made their summer residence in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

The Woodland Sketches, opus 51, are no exception. They include 10 short pieces where MacDowell interprets and reflects on the natural beauty surrounding the Peterborough home. I’ve chosen two of these sketches to share in today’s worship service: In Autumn (with a nod to the autumnal equinox happening on Tuesday) and To a Wild Rose (because I always think of Thomas Moore’s poem “The Last Rose of Summer” when I hear it).

I like what pianist James Barbagallo says about In Autumn: “[it] vibrates with cheer and is brisk and snappy just like a fall day after summer's languor.” In terms of To a Wild Rose, legend has it that Mrs. MacDowell had a part in the naming of this ‘sketch.’ Barbagallo explains, “MacDowell wrote out a short melody every morning which he would later throwaway. In this way he felt he kept his technique of melodic composition finely honed. Upon hearing one of these cast-offs, Mrs. MacDowell remarked that it reminded her of some wild roses growing close to their cabin in Peterborough.” And the rest is history; this short piece is probably the most well-known of MacDowell’s piano pieces today. Enjoy!

hammer dulcimers

In our “Worship On the Grounds” service this week, our service was going to be bookended with music by “The Southwind Players,” a hammer dulcimer quartet consisting of Jim Moore, Victoria Scarborough, Alice Showalter, and Peggy Tudor. Mother Nature, however, had alternate plans, and the rainy conditions are making the service impossible. Through the wonders of technology, however, the music they had intended to offer live will be in the YouTube service.

The dulcimer group will play three pieces in the service, two familiar hymns – “Come, Christians, Join to Sing” and “Amazing Grace” – and a tradition canon, “Dona Nobis Pacem.” This canon is quite possibly familiar to many also. The Latin text of the canon translates to, “Grant us peace.” I certainly need these words streaming through my mind these days!

When I began to think about hammer dulcimers this week, I quickly realized I knew next to nothing about them. What are their origins? When were they first made? And where? How are the strings set-up on the instrument? Like a piano? Like a guitar? Why do they have the trapezoidal shape? I could go on . . .

Luckily, the online Smithsonian Institution answered many of my questions. Perhaps you will find this article interesting as well. Don’t miss the links on the side of the page. Enjoy!

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/hammered-dulcimer

music and geography

In the canon of western classical music, one can easily stumble upon pieces where music and geography intersect. That is, music depicting place – a landscape, nature alive with water and animal sounds, an idyllic reminiscence of childhood, vacation spot, or utopia. For me, this music is the type where one can close their eyes while listening to it and paint their own picture of the geography being explored. When I think of this subsection of classical music, four pieces come to mind right away:

• Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, more commonly known as The New World Symphony. A Czech composer, Dvořák came to America in 1892 to become director of the National Conservatory of Music in America. The New World Symphony is inspired, in part, by the prairies he encountered during his summer visit to the areas in and around Spillville, Iowa. He wrote often of the “wide open spaces” of America.
• Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. This is a piece for solo violin and orchestra often described as “the composer’s love song to the British countryside.” The solo violin plays the part of the lark, singing out the bird’s song in the dizzying heights of the lark’s flight into the sky.
• Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. In a similar vein as the Vaughan Williams piece described above, this theme and 14 variations also depicts the English countryside, specifically the Malvern hills where the composer spent much of his time. The most famous variation – “Nimrod” – is a perennial audience favorite and easily recognizable in pop culture.
• Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England. The three movements in this orchestral suite all portray a specific place in the Northeastern United States: Boston Common, Putnam’s Camp (Redding, Connecticut), and The Housatonic [River] at Stockbridge [Massachusetts].

The two solo piano pieces offered in today’s worship service follow in this tradition. They come from a collection, An American Portrait: The Pacific Northwest, by a composer from that region, Valerie Roth Roubos. In addition to this collection, she has three other books with The American Portrait title – Scenes from the Great Plains, The Oregon Trail, and Views of the West. I hope you will consider closing your eyes while they are played and picture the Lavender Fields of the Olympic Peninsula and the majestic Mt. Rainier – two examples of God’s stunning beauty on the earth entrusted to our care.

virtual choirs

To be sure, our collective cultural vocabulary has been enhanced with pandemic-related words and phrases over the past few months. Words that are now commonplace in our conversations would have sounded so foreign to us in the not-too-distant past. Think about it: Before circa March 15, 2020, how many times had you used the term social distancing? Or personal protective equipment (PPE)? Or aerosols? (I could go on with at least a dozen more...) Can you accurately define and explain the difference between self-isolation, self-quarantine, and shelter-in-place? On a lighter note, Don’t be a ‘covidiot’! and Y’all need to ‘quarantine and chill’! are two social media phrases that make me chuckle.

For musicians – especially singers and choral conductors – another such phrase is virtual choir. Perhaps you have seen such an “ensemble” on YouTube or Facebook or some other online platform. They are carefully produced videos where each member of the ensemble records their own part by themselves in their own space. A (faux) audio/video engineer then compiles and edits each contributor’s video into a collective whole or virtual choir. No doubt, this is a mind-numbing and time-absorbing task!

The term virtual choir is not necessarily a new phrase born out of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rather, it is the brainchild of composer Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), who coined the term about 11 years ago. CBS Sunday Morning recently aired a spot on this phenomenon a few weeks back. Check it out:

Lest you think singers and choral conductors have lost their zeal for forming and expressing bold opinions, suffice it to say that the reception to Whitacre back in 2009 was all over the map. It continues to be wide and varied even now. Purists among us say that at the heart of choral singing is the communal and corporate experience; they would argue that participants in a choir must be physically present in order to achieve true choral beauty in terms of blend, vowel unification, rhythmic precision, etc. On the other hand, experimentalists posit that we ought to allow the technology at our disposal to enhance our art as musicians; if we must forego some of the technicalities of ensemble music-making, we can make up for it in the symbolism of cohesion that a carefully produced virtual choir makes. From those two extremes, many points of view could be plotted along a purist-experimentalist spectrum.

You may recall a virtual choir being part of our worship experience a few weeks back on July 5. A quartet of singers offered the national hymn “This Is My Song,” set to Jean Seibelius’ famous Finlandia. In that instance, each singer received an audio file of the four-parts being played on the organ. While listening to that file with earbuds from one device (a phone or tablet), the singer recorded a video of themselves singing their part onto a second device. I then collected the four videos, lined them up to the exact millisecond so that each part is played at the exact same time, and worked to achieve a quality performance. Thanks (or not!) to modern technology, one could spend days messing with the details of such things. If one singer’s recording is softer than the others, you simply manipulate that track to the volume level you want or need. If one singer is sharp or flat on a chord, no problem! The software can adjust the pitch. If a word ends with a “dental consonant” (such as ‘t’ or ‘d’) but the consonant sounds in the four videos don’t match, not to worry! The engineer just erases the ones they don’t wish to hear. On July 5, my skills were very much in the early-elementary stage. I hadn’t yet figured out how to make the video match the audio. So, the audio was simply accompanied by still photos of the four singers.

This week, you’ll experience another virtual choir in our worship video – complete with three treble voices and piano, audio and video alike. So, where do you fall on the purist-experimentalist spectrum with virtual choirs? (Or virtual music-making in general.) I certainly long for the day where we can safely make music together in community again, but, for now, I am grateful for the resources and increasing ability to assemble fellow musicians in a virtual, safe, and beautiful way. For me, it is just one option in my “bag of tricks” to allow music to speak to our souls and enhance our worship.

"What is the World Like" -Tice/Morris

This week, I had the opportunity to explore yet another new-to-me text and tune in the Glory to God hymnal. I stumbled upon it because it is a text that, in part, alludes to our Gospel lesson for this Sunday: the familiar parable of the Mustard Seed. I quickly noticed that the hymn was co-written by Adam Tice (text) and Sally Ann Morris (music) – a team that I first experienced at the Montreat Conference in June 2019.

You may recall a few weeks back when I wrote on this blog about the season of Pentecost. I explained that the season is one where we recall the teachings of Jesus (as opposed to important life events of him celebrated in other times of the year). These teachings often come in the form of parables from the Gospel writers. Adam Tice’s text gives a nod to four such parables: the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13 / Mark 4 / Luke 13), the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), and the Ten Bridesmaids (Matthew 25). Both of the Matthew texts here are part of the lectionary readings for this year – the Mustard Seed this week, and the Ten Bridesmaids late in the season.

Tice’s text is in five stanzas and is re-printed in full below. He is no doubt a talented poet and theologian! As you read through his text, take note of these three elements:

• the overall sense of unity by allowing the first four stanzas to begin with the same question – What is the world like when God’s will is done? – and end with a This is how God... statement relating to the respective parable
• his predominant use of monosyllabic words, allowing for a feeling of simplicity, directness, honesty, and plainness
• the abab rhyme scheme which makes “done” a rhyme word in each and every stanza as he brilliantly flips the fifth stanza to answer the reiterated question that opens the first four

What is the world like when God’s will is done?
Mustard seeds grow more than we can conceive:
roots thread the soil; branches reach for the sun.
This is how God moves us each to believe. 

What is the world like when God’s will is done?
Witness the wandering child coming home;
watch as the parent breaks into a run.
This is how God longs for us when we roam. 

What is the world like when God’s will is done?
No more is neighbor just ally or friend;
peace thrives in places where once there was none.
This is how God works when rivalries end. 

What is the world like when God’s will is done?
Ready for feasting, we watch through the night,
tending our lamp’s till the new day’s begun.
This is how God readies us for the light. 

These are the stories that Jesus imparts,
filled with the Spirit who joins us as one.
Born through our voices, our hands, and our hearts,
This is a new world where God’s will is done.

Hymnologist Carl Daw has some further insight into this text. He writes, “Each of these [parables] is an indirect description of what Scripture calls ‘the kingdom of God’ or ‘the kingdom of heaven.’ In other words, these are narrative approximations of what it means to live under the sovereignty of God; as such, parables do not seek to define but to suggest, to awaken the imagination, to free us from our everyday assumptions about life. ... These [first] four stanzas are then summarized in the fifth stanza holding out the possibility that ‘through our voices, our hands, and our hearts’ we can be part of this reign of God on earth.”

I’m thankful for Catherine Hines, who graciously learned this piece with me this week. Now living and working in Lexington, Catherine is a 2019 Centre grad and a former music intern at The Presbyterian Church of Danville.