Chichester Psalms - Leonard Bernstein
My Shepherd Will Supply My Need - Mack Wilberg
Pastorale - Gerald Custer
Hymns: #191 Lux eoi, #645 St. Columba,
#478 Monk's Gate
This Sunday’s music is focused on the idea of God as the
“Good Shepherd.” Three of the four pieces are settings of the much loved 23rd
Psalm while the fourth is an arrangement of an early American hymn tune with
ties to the same style and mood of the day.
The prelude is the sixth of seven psalm settings for organ
by the organist and composer Gerhard Krapf (b. 1924.) Krapf was born in Germany
and drafted into the German army in 1942 and unaware that the war had ended was
captured by the Russians in 1945 and served three years in a labor camp. It was
during his time there that he turned to composition. Paper was not readily
available so he composed on empty cement bags. Upon his liberation he studied organ and
composition in Germany and later in the US, immigrating permanently to the US
in 1953. He held several university positions before being appointed head of
the organ department at the University of Iowa in 1961. Krapf is credited with
building the department at UI during his sixteen year tenure. He then went on to do the same at the
University of Alberta in 1977 where he taught until his retirement in 1987. This
quiet setting played on the flute stops of the organ sets the quiet tone of the
service right at the beginning. The music is both calm and delicate and
alternates between two manuals on slightly different registrations.
The gradual anthem is an excerpt from Leonard Bernstein’s
(1918-1990) Chichester Psalms which
the choir performed last year for the Celebration of the Arts. The excerpt is
taken from the second movement and is Bernstein’s take on Psalm 23. The work is
sung in Hebrew and alternates between a boy soprano (sung in this presentation
as a tenor solo) and the women of the choir. Bernstein’s instructions state
that the solo is not to be sung by a woman (probably because the soloist
represents David.) The piece opens with harp (organ this week) accompanying the
young king as he sings to his sheep in the field. The women of the choir enter
on the text “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”
before the soloist returns with the opening line of the psalm underscored by
the women humming. At this point the piece normally breaks into a terrifying
setting of Psalm 2 but we will forgo that and continue to the end with the Psalm
23 setting and end with the same chord that started the piece.
The communion anthem is Mack Wilberg’s (b. 1955) setting of
the American folk hymn, Resignation
paired with Isaac Watts’ (1674-1740) paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm, My Shepherd Will Supply My Need. Mack
Wilberg was educated at Brigham Young University and then went on to earn his
PhD at the University of Southern California. In 1999 Wilberg was named
assistant conductor to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and took over as director in
2008. In addition to his work as a conductor Wilberg is a well-respected
composer and arranger. His Requiem has been performed throughout the US and throughout
the world. This plaintive setting of My Shepherd Will Supply My Need features
the men and women each on their own verse before uniting in a lush final verse.
Above all of this soar the flute and oboe with gentle arpeggios from the piano.
The postlude is a Pastorale
from the pen of Gerald Custer, a well-known composer and conductor with
degrees from Michigan State and Westminster Choir College. This piece is based
on the American hymn tune Cleansing
Fountain which is often associated with the rather grisly text There is a Fountain. In this gentle
piece the organ functions as oboe and flute (very similar to the communion
anthem). This work seems a bit sedate for the postlude but given the events of
the recent week it seems appropriate to go forth with a peaceful work rather
than one replete with pomp and circumstance.
No comments:
Post a Comment