December 30, 2012 - Christmas 1

Hymn at the Cradle
The First Christmas - Celius Dougherty
Partita on In Dulci Jubilo - Kevin Hildebrand

Hymns: #105 God Rest Ye Merry, #110 Venite Adoramus,
              #115 Greensleeves, #107 In Dulci Jubilo

This week’s music is our one chance to get in all of the Christmas carols that we didn’t catch on Christmas Eve. It is also one of the few times during the church year that the choir gets a Sunday off. For the prelude I will be improvising a medley of cradle hymns. I have not completely worked out what I am doing but you can plan on strains of Infant Holy, Infant Lowly mixing with two settings of Away in a Manger (Mueller and Cradle Song) as well as snippets of other random carols and perhaps a little Brahms…

The First Christmas by Celius Dougherty (1902-1986). Dougherty received his earliest musical training at home from his mother, the valedictorian of her college, a music education supervisor, church organist, choir and band director and piano teacher. Dougherty later studied at the University of Minnesota and later Julliard where he met several prominent singers and made a successful living as an accompanist and later he and Vincenz Ruzicka toured as a piano duo. Dougherty was known as a composer for whom the text was of the utmost importance. He is best remembered for his art songs which draw on the texts of many famous American poets but also include settings of Chinese poems and entries from the dictionary and newspapers. This setting of the The First Christmas by Elizabeth Fleming is a gentle lullaby. The melodic line is evocative of the beloved carol Stille Nacht while the accompaniment goes from throbbing chords to tolling bells and then to a lovely duet with the soloist. It is easy to see that Dougherty had interest in collaborative piano; the accompaniment is almost as interesting as the vocal line.

The postlude is the Sinfonia from Kevin Hildebrand’s (b. 1973) Partita on “In dulci Jubilo.” Hildebarnd is the Associate Kantor at Concordia Theological Seminary where he studied as an undergraduate. He then went on to study at the University of Michigan with Marilyn Mason to whom the piece is dedicated. This 14^th century German melody may have started its life as a dance tune. This carol became associated with the text Good Christian Men Rejoice, is a paraphrase of the original macronic (mixed language) text by the English hymn writer and translator John M. Neale. The setting by Hildebrand is subtitled: With homage to Dietrich Buxtehude on the 300^th anniversary of his death. Buxtehude was known for his chorale based fantasias and partitas which took well known hymns and transformed them into highly decorated pieces of organ music. This Sinfonia exploits the different divisions of the organ by moving from the Great to the Positive division and for today’s piece I am contrasting the real pipes with the digital to further contrast the difference between divisions.

December 23, 2012 - Advent 4

Die Marianischen Antiphone: "Alma redemptoris mater"
                                                            - Hermann Schroeder
The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation - Henry Purcell
He Shall Feed His Flock - John Ness Beck
Magnificat on the III Toni - Heinrich Scheidemann

Hymns: #60 Conditor Alme Siderum, #266 Nova, Nova,
              #56 Veni, Veni

The theme for today’s musical selections is Mary. With the exception of the communion anthem, the other three pieces all offer different composer’s take on the story of Mary. This coupled with the canticle and the scripture readings offers a holistic approach to the wide array of emotions that must have been going through her mind.

The communion anthem is a setting of Isaiah 40:11 by John Ness Beck (1930-1987). John Ness Beck made his career as an arranger, composer, and clinician. In 1972 he joined with John Tatgenhorst to form Beckenhorst Press, a publishing company that focused on publishing high quality, accessible church music. Just before his death Beck established the John Ness Beck Foundation to recognize outstanding acheivements in traditional church music. This foundation was started in memory of Joseph Clokey and Randall Thompson. This anthem offers a beautiful alternative to the traditional setting from Messiah.

As for the music on Mary, the prelude is the third of four settings from Die Marianischen Antiphone by Hermann Schroeder (1904-1984). Schroeder’s compositional style is similar to Hindemith. He spent the majority of his career in Cologne. This setting of Alma redemptoris mater (Loving Mother of the Redeemer) places the chorale tune in the pedal on a soft four foot flute. The manuals are a different story, the left hand plays rising sevenths while the right hand plays a winding pattern which rises and falls in a serpentine pattern. This illustrates the line of text: “assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again.”  This highly chromatic line against the very simple statement of the chorale shows the interesting contrast between the peaceful image of the Virgin Mother and the great responsibility that she bears.

Submitted by our Soprano soloist, Anne Shelly:

The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation is one piece in the set, Harmonia Sacra, published by Henry Purcell in 1693.  The text is a poem by Nahum Tate, written as a dramatic representation of Luke 2:42 describing a time that Mary couldn't find Jesus because he had stayed behind at the temple to talk to the Elders.  Although this is not a traditional Advent text, I come back to it regularly at this time of year because I can imagine Mary working through this tangle of emotions in anticipation of Jesus’ birth.  I am moved by the interplay between her fear of the unknown and her confidence based on heritage and faith.    There is a wonderful tension as the music shifts from minor to major back to minor keys as Mary weighs that which sustains her against the challenges she faces.   At the musical climax, Mary moves beyond worrying about her son into the struggle of how to manage her fears.   And we are left with no answers.   I find it a compelling and complex image to ponder at Advent.

The postlude is a setting of the Magnificat by Heinrich Scheidemann (ca. 1595 – 1663). This setting of the Song of Mary is an exciting illustration of the joyful side of Mary’s story. The writing is reminiscent of the keyboard writings of Sweelinck and the influence of Scheidemann can clearly be seen in the later writing of Buxtehude and even Bach. The registration that I have chosen pits the bright stops of the Positive division with the weightier stops of the Great. The middle section is just fun, each beat changes manuals (an illustration of the baby leaping in the womb when Mary and Elizabeth meet?) This combined with the presentation of the tune in whole notes in the pedal illustrates his mastery of counterpoint.

December 24, 2012 - Christmas Eve

Fantasia on Christmas Carols - Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ceremony of Carols: "Balulalow" - Benjamin Britten
Pastorale on "Forest Green" - Richard I. Purvis
A Rush of Wings - Gilbert M. Martin
Messiah: "Every Valley" - G.F. Handel
Mass in c minor: "Laudamus Te" - W.A. Mozart
Christmas: "Finale" - Gaston Dethier

Hymns: #83 Adeste Fidelis, #109 The First Nowell,
              #87 Mendelssohn

The music for the Christmas Eve service draws from a number of traditions and time periods. The choir’s selections are firmly entrenched in Traditional 20^th century choral literature. The postlude is a flashy finale to the service based on the opening hymn and the prelude(s) range from traditional arias to lesser known organ works based on familiar carols.

My background is not in liturgical music. I was raised in a Pentecostal church where I never heard of Advent and we rarely (usually only the Sunday before Christmas) sang carols. Then I took jobs in Methodist and Baptist churches and had to learn about this “Advent” business. In the churches that I served it basically amounted to spending an extra few minutes lighting a candle and singing some Christmas carols. This notion of waiting to sing and play carols until Christmas Eve is foreign to me and I will say that the waiting really makes me want to get as many in as I can.

During the prelude I will play Richard I. Purvis’s (1913-1994) setting of Forest Green. Purvis served as the Organist/Choirmaster at Grace Cathedral from 1947-1971. After studying at the Curtis Institute Purvis enlisted in the army as a Bandmaster. He was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp. He is primarily remembered for his colorful, light compositions and arrangements of familiar tunes.

I will again play variations from John McCreary’s Canonic Variations on “Divinum Mysterium” (See posting for Advent 1 for notes on this piece.) as well as Gilbert M. Martin’s (b.1941) setting of Regent Square entitled A Rush of Wings. Martin is a composer and arranger. A graduate of Westminster Choir College, he has received several awards for his compositions and travels around the country as a clinician and conductor.

In addition to the organ offerings during the prelude we will hear Every Valley from Messiah. This prophecy foretelling the coming of the Christ child has always held a disconnect between the text and the tune for me. The dark, angular, minor overture gives way to the gentle, bright Comfort Ye which breaks joyfully into this aria. It seems like the events that the tenor is singing about would be difficult and painful, violent even but they are presented with great joy. Laudamus te is taken from the W.A. Mozart (1756-1791) Grand Mass in c minor K. 427, which remained unfinished (most likely due to events in Mozart’s life surrounding the death of a child and his departure from Salzburg. The mass was written for his wife Constanze and received its first performance in 1783. This performance probably featured a version which included borrowings from his other mass settings to complete the piece. It’s message is simple, praise. Just praise.

The postlude is the last portion of Christmas by Gaston Dethier (1875-1958). Dethier was a Belgian born American organist. He served on the faculty of Julliard from 1907-1945. This setting of Adeste Fideles features the melody played in large chords in the manuals over quick scalar passages in the pedal. The piece ends with a pedal cadenza finishing with a whole lot of “a” played on full organ.

As I said as the outset, the choir’s selections are thoroughly British. The communion anthem is the haunting lullaby Balulalow from Benjamin Britten’s (1913-1976) Op. 28 Ceremony of Carols. This work was composed in 1942 while Britten and longtime friend Peter Pears were crossing the Atlantic on a trip from the US back to England. Britten had brought along two technical manuals on the harp to read as research for a harp concerto that he planned to write so it is likely that this explains his choice of the harp as accompaniment for the work. The piece was originally scored for three part treble voices and (perhaps at the urging of his publisher) was rescored for four part adult voices. The text is based on an English translation of the Martin Luther hymn Vom Himmel Hoch. This translation was published in the 1567 collection Ane Compendious Booke of Godly and Spirituall Songs collected out of sundrie partes of the Scripture, with sundrie of other Ballates changed out of prophaine sanges, for avoyding of sinne and harlotrie, with augmentation of sundrie gude and godlie Ballates not contenit in the first editioun. The brothers Wedderburn (James[1495-1553] John[1505-1556] and Robert[1510-1555-60]) were all charged with heresy and spent a period of time in exile. This setting of Balulalow (a Scottish word which means lullaby) features a gentle rocking accompaniment supporting the opening soprano solo. The full choir comes in for the second verse before the soprano soloist reenters on the last line with the choir trading off the rocking figure of the accompaniment with alternating major and minor figures.

Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was first performed in 1912 as part of the Three Choirs Festival. Vaughan Williams wrote a great deal of music, all of which sounds very British. He was very interested in the folk tunes of his homeland. Many of the tunes that he collected became the basis for his compositions. This work opens with a setting of “The truth sent from above,” an anonymous folk carol collected by Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) in the Herefordshire region of England. The work opens with a solo cello followed by the baritone soloist underscored by the choir humming. The tonality changes from minor to major with the entrance of the choir on “Come all you worthy gentlemen” passed back and forth between the men and women of the choir. The next section features the baritone soloist and the sopranos of the choir trading lines on the hymn “On Christmas Night.” The piece continues with snippets of “The First Noel,” “There is a Fountain,” “The Virgin Unspotted,” and “The Wassail Bough” all scattered throughout, some appearing only briefly in the accompaniment. The work takes the listener from the creation story to the virgin birth and hope for the future. This is not the final time Vaughan Williams looked to the Christmas season for inspiration. His cantata Hodie was written in 1954 and dedicated to Herbert Howells. The Fantasia is still frequently performed and is a chance to showcase the beautiful English folk tunes that are set in this work.

December 16, 2012 - Advent 3

Cry Out, Zion - Carl Nygard Jr.
Advent Canticle - Mark Shepperd
Toccata on "Veni Emmanuel" - Page C. Long

Hymns: #69 St. Mark's Berkeley, #679 Thomas Merton

All of the music that is being presented this week is by living composers. These composers are primarily known for their contribution to church music but have also found success in other veins of composition.

The gradual anthem, Cry Out, Zion has a text adapted from Isaiah 40:9 “O Zion, You who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!’” the same verse which we hear more commonly as “O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings” from Messiah. This setting by Carl Nygard Jr. (b 1947) has an accompaniment which drives the anthem forward. The syncopation makes it feel as though the whole thing is in mixed meter but it is Nygard’s uneven rhythmic groupings that give the piece its rhythmic vitality.  Nygard has spent his career in Pennsylvania, first as a student at West Chester University and later as a music educator in the Fleetwood Area School District. The melodic motif which Nygard has woven throughout acts as a sort of “trumpet call” alerting the listener to “Cry out.” The text is not one of gloom and doom but focuses on a God of love and strength. There is urgency to the piece, perpetuated by the rhythmically punctuated accompaniment. This piece is sure to wake Zion and the people in the pews.

The communion anthem and postlude are both based on the hymn tune Veni Emmanuel. The tune was originally written for a 15^th century Requiem mass. Thomas Helmore (1811-1890) published the tune in the 1854 collection The Hymnal Noted (Part II). Among Helmore’s major contributions was a revival of plainchant in the Anglican Church. The text is a collection of antiphons used for Vespers in the 7 days leading up to Christmas Eve. These antiphons date back to the 9^th century, thus predating the tune by 600 years. According to Michael Martin, the initial word of the Latin antiphons form a reverse acrostic: ERO CRAS, which means “I will be there tomorrow.”

The anthem setting, Advent Canticle, by Mark Shepperd received first place in the John Ness Beck Foundation competition in 2003 (more on Beck next week). The piece is for SATB choir and four soloists accompanied by flute and oboe. The arrangement has a stark, haunting quality to it which is further reinforced by the placement of soloists in the room. Shepperd preserves the feeling of plainchant by allowing the text to dictate the ever changing meter. Shepperd currently serves as Minister of Music at Woodbury Lutheran Church, Minnesota and received his training at Augsburg College and the University of Minnesota.

The postlude, Toccata on “Veni Emmanuel” is another setting of the well-known Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. This time the setting is by Page C. Long. Dr. Long has written for organ, choir, recorder consort, and handbells. He holds degrees the Universities of Iowa and Arizona. In addition to his work as a composer, Dr. Long spent over 30 years as Minister of Music at First Congregational Church in Saginaw, Michigan. This toccata is from a collection of toccatas on familiar carols. The toccata is a form that is frequently associated with the organ and can range in style from the dark and free Toccata in d minor by J.S. Bach to the flashy perpetual movement of Charles-Marie Widor’s Toccata from Symphonie V. This toccata has two sections which alternate, the opening section with its rapid fire sixteenth notes and long pedal points with the tune presented in the left hand, playing in the tenor register; and a louder, thicker, and more dissonant section. This “B section” is then carried to the swell division (a softer division of the organ named for the box with louvered shutters on it which open and close to allow the sound to “swell”) before returning to the opening figure and finally the crashing climax.

December 9, 2012 - Advent 2

Obbligato for Flutes on an Advent Melody
                                                                  - Clarence Mader
Messiah: "But Who May Abide"  - G. F. Handel
Hark! a Herald Voice is Sounding - Mark Shephard
Messiah: "Overture" - G. F. Handel

Hymns: #76 Winchester New, #75 Ascension,
              #65 Bereden Vag for Herran

As I said last week, during Advent we are exploring the connection between the ancient and the modern. Two of the pieces come from American church composers of the twentieth century, while the other two are excerpted from that Christmas classic Messiah, by G. F. Handel (1685-1759).

Handel went to England to write opera but during the season of Lent opera is forbidden so the public turns to oratorio for a more devout form of entertainment. These oratorios are basically operas without the staging and costumes that are written on Biblical texts. Despite the fact that Messiah is one of the most often performed pieces of music in the classical canon. It has come to be connected with the Christmas season because the first (and most familiar part) of this work is the birth of Christ. The oratorio tells the story of the life of Christ in three parts. The first is the prophecy leading up to the birth of Christ, the second the prophecy and the crucifixion, and the third the resurrection and ascension.

The aria But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming, like many of the movements of Messiah exists in a few different versions. The aria was originally written for bass and included only the first (Larghetto) section of the aria. The presto section was added in 1750 for the castrato, Gaetano Guadagni (1728-1792). Guadagni was known for his impressive technique and the quality of his low notes. Handel rewrote arias in several other oratorios with him in mind and created the role of Didymus in Theodora for him. This aria comes early in part one, Leonard Van Camp in his book A Practical Guide for Performing, Teaching, and Singing Messiah places this aria in “Scene two: The Purifying Messiah is Prophesied.” This text fits into the idea of preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ. The aria asks the question who is worthy to stand when Christ comes for He is like a refiner’s fire. The subsequent chorus answers this question. “And he shall purify the sons of Levi that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” This aria serves as a reminder that we should view Advent as a time to burn out the dross that is in our hearts and lives and to examine the more base parts of our existence.

For the postlude I am playing a transcription of the Overture to Messiah. The piece is in two parts. The opening is written in the traditional French Overture style with angular dotted rhythms. This gives way to an energetic fugue which, in the orchestral version, opens with the subject played by the violins. This is a unique feature that is repeated in the closing fugue, usually referred to as The Great Amen. Many of Handel’s oratorios have overtures and all were performed with some sort of instrumental prelude. It was not uncommon for the composer to improvise an organ concerto at the beginning of an oratorio performance. This Sinfony as it is labeled in the autograph score is dated August 22, 1741 and is therefore the first piece of music written for the work. It’s dismal key of e minor has been said to evoke “a mood without hope.” The subsequent aria is in E major and offers a substantial brightness in contrast to the dark opening.

The prelude is a lovely little piece that I discovered in a pile of organ music that I “inherited” from a retired organist. It is a beautiful piece called Obbligato for Flutes on an Advent Melody by Clarence Mader (1904-1971). The melody is sited as being a 17^th century melody taken from “Sacred Melodies” by J.W. Franck but, try as I might I could not find the melody that the piece is based on. Clarence Mader was an organist and teacher that spent his career in California. He began his journey in church music at age eleven, serving as organist of his father’s church. In 1926 he studied with the famed concert organist Lynnwood Farnam in New York City. Three years later he took the position of organist at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles where he served for thirty-seven years. Mader’s compositions tested the boundaries of composition and proved that church music could continue to have relevance in the scope of the larger musical world. His career was brought to an untimely end when he and his wife Ruth (also an organist) were killed in a car accident. Mader’s legacy continues to live on through his music and writings as well as scholarships and competitions in his memory.

The communion anthem is a setting of the 6^th century Latin hymn Vox clara ecce intonate used for Lauds during Advent. The English translation by Edward Caswall has become an Advent favorite because of the various interpretations of the coming of Christ which the verses encompass. The text makes allusions to both the first and second comings of Christ. This setting’s tune is by the contemporary church composer Mark Shephard. Shephard started as a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral and later studied with Sir David Willcocks and Hugh MacDonald. His compositional oeuvre includes operas, musical, orchestral music.