April 29, 2012 - Easter 4

Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us - arr. Diane Bish

When Some Kind Shepherd From His Fold

                                                                - arr. Alice Parker

Requiem: "The Lord Is My Shepherd" - John Leavitt

Pastorale and Toccata: "Pastorale" - David Conte

Hymns: #191 Lux Eoi, #645 St. Columba,

             #478 Monk's Gate

This week is “Shepherd Sunday.” That is the inspiration for the morning, it also worked out that all of the music was written and arranged by American composers. Two of the pieces are arrangements of familiar hymn tunes and the other two are newly composed tunes; one with a very familiar text.

The prelude is a quiet meditation on the hymn tune BRADBURY which is closely wedded to the text Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us. The tune takes its name from its composer, William B. Bradbury(1816-1868); a composer, and teacher. Bradbury was a member of Lowell Mason’s singing class and in 1836 Dr. Mason sent him to Maine to teach three large singing schools of his own. After a year and a half he returned to Boston to marry. He then went to New York City where he served as choir director and organist at Baptist Tabernacle. He started a singing class while at the church which led to the thousand-voice Juvenile Music Festival. In 1847 Bradbury journeyed to London and Leipzig where he studied the way that music was taught in the public and private schools of Europe. He returned to New York City in 1849 and devoted the rest of his life to teaching, conducting, and editing music books. This tune, like many of his hymn tunes, is characterized by a simple natural melody which is easy to sing and easy to remember. The arrangement by “The First Lady of the Organ,” Diane Bish (b. 1941) is simple and beautiful. It features a solo oboe alternating with solo flute. These two instruments are frequently called on to evoke images of shepherds sitting on a hillside playing a bagpipe or set of shepherd’s pipes while they watch their sheep. Diane Bish continues to be one of the most visible concert organists in the world. Her television series, The Joy of Music began broadcasting in the early 1980’s and continues to air new episodes.

The gradual anthem is an arrangement of the hymn tune, MOUNTAIN, an early American hymn tune. It is paired with the text When Some Kind Shepherd From His Fold by John Needham and published in the 1768 collection “Hymns Devotional and Moral on Various Subjects.” This arrangement, by noted composer and conductor Alice Parker, owes much of its inspiration to the Sacred Harp tradition. This early American folk music calls for full voiced, non legato singing with a steady and often lively pulse throughout.  The meter of the anthem fluctuates to accommodate the text, but the strong pulse never waivers. Alice Parker is a name known throughout the choral community for excellence in conducting and for her unique approach to interpreting music. She has arranged countless hymn tunes, folk songs, and spirituals both on her own and with her teacher, Robert Shaw. Parker’s arrangement takes the seemingly straight-forward hymn and adds little twists and turns that, though unexpected, are very much characteristic of the Sacred Harp style.

What would “Shepherd Sunday” be without a choral setting of the beloved 23^rd psalm? This setting is taken from a Requiem by the American composer, John Leavitt. Leavitt’s education and career have been primarily centered in Kansas. He is a highly sought after clinician and conductor and has received commissions for new choral works from numerous organizations. In the preface to his Requiem he writes that the work is “inspired by Brahms’ German Requiem” and that like that work, this is a work that draws on the psalms and other spiritual texts rather than the traditional Mass for the Dead to comfort the living rather than pray for those that have died. The piece opens with a beautiful arching melody in the accompaniment before the unison entry of the ladies. There is quite a lot of trading back and forth between the men and women’s voices as well as several “orchestral” interludes. Indeed, this is a piece with beautiful orchestral accompaniment, which I have done my best to reproduce at the organ through various forms of “registrational trickery.” The piece builds to a climax as the choir sings about “dwelling in the house of the Lord evermore” before the final “Amen” which underscores or is underscored by (depending on your perspective) the arching flute melody which opened the work.

The Pastorale from David Conte’s (b.1955) Pastorale and Toccata is a real tour de force of the organ’s color palette. The piece was commissioned in 1991by Eastman Professor David Higgs. David Conte has taught composition and directed the Conservatory Chorus at San Fransisco Conservatory since 1985. He is one of the last students of the famed French composer and teacher, Nadia Boulanger. The Pastorale evokes a quiet image at the beginning that despite its polytonality (being in more than one key at a time) is still very calm. In fact, once you get used to the piece’s expanded tonality and asymmetric rhythms it seems very gentle and playful. This piece is all about evoking images. The listener is invited to paint his/her own picture as various flutes at different pitches play sweeping gestures. The opening and closing chords of the swell strings played while the organist “thumbs down” the melody (Essentially the organist is playing on two keyboards at the same time with the same hand.) add a touch of mystery to the piece. The middle section with its dance like pedal line evokes images of frolicking sheep or grass and leaves dancing in the wind. The Pastorale, for me, never evokes the same image twice. Whenever I play it on a new instrument the different color palette paints a new and varied picture.