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.