Music for the 15th Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 23): September 10, 2023

The Festival Choir of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church
Always looking for new singers!

OPENING VOLUNTARY Four Variations on "Salvation unto Us Has Come"
 Jacob B. Weber

There are two reasons I chose this piece to begin today's worship service:
1. It's one of my favorite tunes.
2. It jumped into my mind when I read in today's second reading "For salvation is nearer to us now. . ."

The first variation, which has a fanfare feel to it, calls for a "Fagott" stop. We don't have one, so I'm using the Petite Trompette which is a pipe stop from when the organ was first built in 1984.

The second variation is a bicinium - or a piece with two separate voices.

Variation 3 brings the Petite Trompette back with an interlude that plays between ornamented phrases of the tune.

The fourth variation is a chorale treatment with slightly altered harmonies.

LITURGY: Holy Communion Setting Nine

We aren't at an official season change, but the Time after Pentecost can be thought of has having some divisions: summer, autumn and November. It's our custom to change settings at the beginning of Autumn, or close to when the academic year starts.

The composer of Setting Nine is Joel Martinson, Director of Music Ministries and Organist at The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, Texas. This 

GATHERING HYMN Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether (Union Seminary) ELW 470

PSALM Psalm 119:33-40

The musical setting, by Thomas Pavlechko, is from the St. Martin Psalter. The tone is based on two phrases of the hymntune Nun danket alle Gott (Now Thank We All Our God).

HYMN OF THE DAY Come Now, O Prince of Peace (Ososŏ) ELW 247

This hymn was written for a 1988 world conference of peace for the reunification of the Korean peninsula. Its texture is thin and innocent of complicated harmonies that might give us the feeling that the unity we pray and long for is not yet achieved.

The quarter note pulsing in the accompaniment (and the free introduction by Jeremy Bankson) may be symbolic of our constant prayer.

MUSICAL OFFERING O Bread of Life from Heaven David Ashely White

COMMUNION HYMN In All Our Grief (Fredericktown) ELW 615

Today's gospel reading shows that even in the church we will have interpersonal conflicts. Sylvia Dunstan's hymn give us a sung prayer that amounts to confession and asks God to help us repent. Its refrain at the end of each stanza borrows language from the liturgy: first "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy (from the Kyrie), then "grant us peace" (from the Agnus Dei).

SENDING HYMN Salvation unto Us Has Come (Es ist das heil) ELW 590

How the hymn appeared
in its early printing

This hymn has been with us since the early days of Luther's Reformation. It was written, from prison, by Paul Speratus who had been jailed for his "evangelical preaching." Speratus wrote 14 stanzas and the hymn, first printed in 1524, came with a list of scriptural supports that the singer could use as a sort of study guide.

Wikipedia tells the story that Speratus was to be executed by fire, but was released due to the work of his friends.

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Trumpet Tune in D David N. Johnson

Come back to St. Mark's on Sunday night for another world-class concert by the San Marco Chamber Music Society! It's free and all are welcome!

Sources:
Hymnal Companion: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
Wikipedia
Image of "Es ist das heil" By Martin Luther und andere - Scan vom Reprint Spyer, 2008, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8932987