Strengthen For Service - Richard Proulx
Unto Thee, O Lord - Virgil T. Ford
God Be In My Head - H. Walford Davies
Hymns: Ash Grove, Land of Rest, Dona Nobis
St. Augustine is credited with saying: “When you sing, you
pray twice.” The music this Sunday is a set of four prayers, set to music. It
is our first Sunday with choir and as they trickle back after summer vacation
these prayers came to mind as texts to focus us for our ministry this season.
We also needed everything to be a cappella as our season starts with an outdoor
service and picnic. The music for this week spans 500 years and crosses
cultures and countries. Rather than skipping the prelude and postlude they have
been replaced by a choral introit and benediction.
Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) was one of the most highly
respected and talented German organists of the Late Renaissance. He was born
into a musical family and his first and only teacher as a child was his father
Isaac, the town musician and organist of Nuremberg. In 1584 Hassler became the
first German composer to visit Venice where he studied with Andrea Gabrieli. He
returned to Germany a year later to be the private organist to Count Ottavianus
Fugger of Augsburg where he stayed until 1600. He then became the organist of
the Frauenkirche and the director of the Nuremberg town band. In 1608 he
accepted a position as the organist to the Electoral College. Late in his life
ill health forced him to stop composing. He died in 1612 of consumption. Cantate Domino is a setting of the
traditional Catholic introit for the fourth Sunday after Easter and is taken
from Psalm 96. The motet was first published in Sacri concentus in
1601, the collection which also featured the melody which would come to be
known as the Passion Chorale, or O Sacred Head Now Wounded. The piece is
well suited for this opening Sunday as well as the beautiful outdoor setting.
The piece opens with the choir stating that the whole world needs to sing a new
song to God. As is typical of a piece from this time period we then move to a
dance-like section in triple meter before a final, more forceful statement to
close the piece. This celebratory motet is a piece which, strictly speaking is
not a prayer but rather a song of praise.
The gradual anthem was written by the church
composer and organist, Richard Proulx (1937-2010). Proulx spent much of his
career at the Cathedral of the Holy Name in Chicago, IL where he ran the
concert series, Music for a Grand Space, and also oversaw the installation of
two new organs. Prior to serving here he spent many years working in Seattle,
WA. His more than 300 compositions include sacred and secular choral music,
song cycles, operas, instrumental music and music for congregational singing –
some of which is included in The Hymnal 1982. The anthem Strengthen
for Service is a setting of text from the Syriac Liturgy of Malabar by
Ephraim of Syria (306-373). Ephraim was born to wealthy parents and after a wrongful
imprisonment as a child decided on a monastic life, retreating to the mountains
to later become assistant to St. James of Nisibis. The text is from the Liturgy
of Malabar, a community in Kerala, India made up of people which are culturally
Hindu, but their religion is Christianity. This musical setting by Proulx
accentuates the poetry of the text. His careful melodic lines and delicate but
unstable harmonies highlight every word of Ephraim’s prayer. This is another
piece that seems an appropriate invocation for the new year.
Unto Thee, O Lord is Virgil T. Ford’s haunting
setting of Psalm 25. This setting by Ford, through the use of quiet harmonies
and careful unisons depicts the longing that the text implies. The anthem opens
with repeated chords over a descending bass line. After this the rest of the
lower parts act as support for the soprano melody which is answered by the
tenors. The piece pushes and pulls both harmonically and in dynamics before the
restatement of the first line in octaves by the sopranos and tenors. The piece
ends with a final statement of “I trust in Thee” cadencing in B major.
H. Walford Davies(1869-1941) was also born
into a family of musicians. He started his training as a chorister at St.
George’s Chapel, Windsor and in 1890 enrolled in the Royal College of Music
where he studied with Parry and Stanford. In 1895 he was appointed teacher of
counterpoint at the Royal College. He held numerous church and academic
positions, most importantly the position as music director at Temple Church
where Leopold Stowkowski was his assistant. Most of Davies compositional output
was sacred but perhaps his greatest contributions were his radio broadcasts on
music. This setting of God Be In My Head from the Sarum Primer is
perhaps the quintessential setting of this text. The simple harmonies and
sensitive chord structure make it a joy for the singer and listener. Davies
speech rhythm method of singing the Psalms comes into play here as well with
the freedom and fluidity of rhythm that is necessary for the performance of
this prayer.
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