Music for All Saints Sunday: November 4, 2023

All Saints celebrates the baptized people of God, living and dead, who are the body of Christ. As November heralds the dying of the landscape in many northern regions, the readings and liturgy call us to remember all who have died in Christ and whose baptism is complete. At the Lord's table we gather with the faithful of every time and place, trusting that the promises of God will be fulfilled and that all tears will be wiped away in the new Jerusalem. (From Sundays and Seasons)

OPENING VOLUNTARY Shall We Gather at the River

setting, Gordon Young

GATHERING HYMN For All the Saints (Sine nomine) ELW 422

Is it any wonder this hymn is practically REQUIRED for All Saints Day? Its images are quite in line with the vision in the first reading. (Interestingly, this a day when the first reading doesn't come from the Hebrew Scriptures, but from the book of Revelation.) The text gives us an image of the saints at rest, but also of their rising in glory - a reflection of the commendation in our funeral service.

Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive them into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of all the saints in light.

To put it succinctly, may they rest in peace and rise in glory.

HYMN OF THE DAY Sing with All the Saints in Glory (Hymn to Joy)

This hymn appears in ELW with a different tune. Today I elected to sing it with Hymn to Joy as it appears in the United Methodist hymnal.

white azaleas blooming at St. Mark's in 2021

MUSICAL OFFERING Blessed Paul Weber

The text is drawn from today's gospel reading. 
The term melisma describes a compositional device of singing several notes over a single syllable. In this case, Weber highlights the word "blessed" by creating a gently turning melody, evoking an ethereal quality that we often associate with heaven.

COMMUNION HYMN Behold the Host Arrayed in White
(Den store hvide flok) ELW 425

SENDING HYMN Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In ACS 950

This beloved spiritual has been part of the musical fabric of the American civil rights movement, funerals, and popular culture since the early twentieth century. It comes out of the oral tradition of African American song where tune, harmony, and text are shared an adapted from one community to another. The text presented here is one of many variants in widespread use, and the harmony is but one of numerous possibilities. (From Sundays and Seasons)

window at Christ Lutheran Church in Bexley, OH

Music for Reformation Sunday: October 29, 2023

INTRODUCTION TO THE DAY (From Sundays and Seasons)
Rooted in the past and growing into the future, the church must always be reformed in order to live out the love of Christ in an ever-changing world. We celebrate the good news of God's grace, that Jesus Christ sets us free every day to do this life-transforming work. Trusting in the freedom given to us in baptism, we pray for the church, that Christians will unite more fully in worship and mission.

OPENING VOLUNTARY Prelude and Chorale on "Nun bitten wir"

Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637 - 1707)

The text and tune can be found at ELW 743.

In our day it's quite easy to learn from somebody who is miles away. We can buy books, send emails, and even attend internet master classes. It was not so easy in the days of J. S. Bach. His desire to learn from the Danish master of his day, Dieterich Buxtehude, included a walking journey of about 250 miles! 

The young J. S. Bach asked his employer for a one month leave of absence, but instead spent something more like four months learning from Buxtehude and writing out copies of his music by hand.

The hymn grew out of a medieval form called the leise. Each of these hymns featured a single verse and ended with some form of a Kyrie eleison.  Experts believe the name leise came out of eleison. 

The first stanza dates from about the thirteenth century. Martin Luther added three stanzas and it has appeared in Lutheran hymnals ever since.

Each Sunday, the Holy Spirit gathers us as the people of God, so it's appropriate that our time together begins with a hymn that honors the Spirit's work.

GATHERING HYMN Making Their Way (Komt nu met zang) ACS 979

Delores Dufner, OSB

This beautiful text by Sister Delores Dufner makes it clear that everyone - from all times and places and all facets of society - is called to gather and hear God's word, offer thanks, and share in the eucharistic feast. Dufner, a prolific hymn writer, was born and raised on a farm in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and is now a member of St. Benedict's Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota. The text is set to a sturdy Dutch tune that many have learned in Evangelical Lutheran Worship with the text "What Is This Place?" (ELW 524). 

(From Sundays and Seasons)

HYMN OF THE DAY Built on a Rock (Kirken den er et gammelt hus) ELW 652

MUSICAL OFFERING Rise, Shine! arr. Dale Wood

The text and tune can be found at ELW 665.

Martin Luther gave us a great gift in his Small Catechism. In it we find Luther's answers to many questions that have guided generations of Lutherans whose faith has been formed by his words.

But the church's hymns are equally formational - and their metrical nature makes them easier to remember than the prose narratives many of us had to memorize to pass the examinations that led to confirmation.

That's why Ronald A. Klug's text, written with Epiphany in mind, encourages us to hurl our songs and prayers against the world's darkness and against our "old evil foe, sent to work us woe." Our arsenal is a rich one that we perhaps began using with "Jesus Loves Me." 

Pay attention to today's hymns and see what truths you can find that are worthy of hurling against the darkness. You might even want to jot them down on the "notes" page of your bulletin.

COMMUNION HYMN In the Midst of Earthly Life (Mitten wir im Leben sind) 

ACS 1026
Martin Luther was deeply aware of the brevity of human life. This hymn makes plain what

we so often work to deny: death is a part of life. Each stanza names this difficult truth, then makes a turn toward God in faith and praise, using a paraphrase of the Greek hymn Trisagion, or "thrice-holy." Luther modeled this hymn on an eleventh century antiphon, and it has been sung at countless deathbeds and gravesides, offering comfort to those yearning for the hope of God's eternal embrace. (From Sundays and Seasons)

This will be a new hymn to many singers at St. Mark's. The stanzas are longer than we are used to, but the stepwise motion of the melody will make its singing intuitive for many. 

A one-stanza version of this hymn appeared as "Even as we live each day" in Lutheran Book of Worship. All Creation Sings favors a new translation by Susan Palo Cherwien and adds two additional stanzas. It is among the first of the 36 or so hymns that Luther wrote.

SENDING HYMN A Mighty Fortress Is Our God (Ein fest Burg) ELW 503

This year we sing the rhythmic version, the one that Luther wrote!

A commonly mistold story is that the melody of this song originated in taverns as a popular song of the day.
This legend began when someone read that the tune was a bar song, meaning that it was written in bar form - a form of musical writing that was common in Luther's time. 

CLOSING VOLUNTARY A Mighty Fortress Is Our God Johann Pachelbel

Sources:
Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship
Sundays and Season (some texts, and the funeral clip art)

https://bachtrack.com/feature-at-home-guide-bach-buxtehude-lubeck-arnstadt-august-2017
Wikipedia
Delores Dufner photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_Delores_Dufner_300px.jpg#/media/File:S_Delores_Dufner_300px.jpg
Assembly Song Companion to All Creation Sings

Music for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 29): October 22, 2023

OPENING VOLUNTARY Mit Freuden zart setting, Benjamin M. Culli

Broadway musicals and operas open with an overture - a musical introduction that contains musical themes from the show to follow. Similarly, this piece previews the music that our Festival Choir will sing during the musical offering.

GATHERING HYMN God of Grace and God of Glory (Cwm Rhondda) ELW 705

It's an easy trap to trust in our earthy assets. Once we break that bond, we can readily "Give. . .to God the things that are God's." In stanza three we ask God to "shame our wanton, selfish gladness" in order to do just that.

But this hymn doesn't only have ties to our gospel reading, it relates to our world situation as the Abrahamic traditions war with each other in the Middle East. Last week's intercessory prayers included this petition: 

We pray for our Jewish, Christian, and Muslim siblings in the Middle East, for those who have died and for those who mourn. Bring an end to war and hatred so that all may live peaceful lives and be reconciled with their neighbors. 

We ended the prayer with "God of grace, hear our prayer," but we could also take a cue from this well-known hymn and say, "God of Grace and God of Glory, hear our prayer."

HYMN OF THE DAY O God of Every Nation (Llangloffan) ELW 713

MUSICAL OFFERING Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above

Mit Freuden zart is the tune for this hymn. It's slightly altered from the ELW version. The melody has some extra notes and it has a different metre - instead of dividing the larger beat into two equal parts, it's divided into three. (This means you can sway back and forth as you sing!)

When we render unto God what is God's, we can't forget to include all praise and glory!

COMMUNION HYMN Around You, O Lord Jesus (O Jesu, än de dina) ELW 468

SENDING HYMN You Servants of God (Lyons) ELW 825

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Jesus Shall Reign (Duke Street) setting, Gerhard Krapf

 

Music for the Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary) 28: October 15, 2023

OPENING VOLUNTARY Laudation Arnold Sherman

Today's gospel reading recounts events around a wedding. Is there any greater cause for celebration than a wedding? Today's "Laudation" is a celebratory piece that is rhythmically exciting with chords that double, then triple in size. The introspective middle section might even accompany a wedding procession.

GATHERING HYMN Now We Join in Celebration (Schmücke dich)

ELW 462

The celebratory theme continues. As the guests for the wedding in Matthew's gospel put on their wedding robes, so we come "dressed no more in spirit somber" but "clothed instead in joy and wonder."

The tune, with its alternation between long and short notes, feels like an elegant dance. Is there a better way to enter into worship than with singing and dancing?

HYMN OF THE DAY At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing (Sonne der Gerechtigkeit) ELW 362

Jan Hus preaching

The music for this hymn is deeply associated with reformers who predate Martin Luther! Jan Hus (1369-1415) was an important voice in the Bohemian Reformation. (The Moravians were spiritual descendants of the Bohemians.) This tune, fashioned from a 15th century folk song, comes from a Bohemian hymnal published in 1566. 

This is a hymn of praise to Christ. In the Prayer of the Day, we ask God to transform us into a people of righteousness and peace. We echo that prayer in the 7th stanza with the words "From sin's pow'r, Lord set us free, newborn souls in you to be."

MUSICAL OFFERING Jesus Calls Us K. Lee Scott

K. Lee Scott borrowed the text from a well-known hymn and paired it with a tune from from New Harp Columbia, a shape-note tune book that was published in Knoxville, TN in 1867. It's easy to hear the tune as a piece of Americana, but I could not determine if it was newly composed for this book or arranged from other sources.

COMMUNION HYMN Look Who Gathers at Christ's Table (Copeland) ACS 977

This hymn imagines the assembly gathered for worship, bringing their whole lives with them - their joy and their pain. The text was commissioned by the First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, Florida, to honor its pastor, Brant S. Copeland, and was first sung there in October, 2000. The tune was created specifically for this text. (From Sundays and Seasons)

SENDING HYMN Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart (Vineyard Haven) ELW 874

There are two uses of this hymn in ELW. The other one is on the facing page. Today we sing Vineyard Haven, a much more somber tone than Marion.
There is another difference between the two versions, one that changes the intention. Instead of a refrain of "Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice, give thanks and sing!" we find ourselves singing "Hosanna! Hosanna! Rejoice, give thanks and sing. "Hosanna!" is often translated as "Save us!" As we learn more of the unfolding drama in the Middle East, of atrocities and lives that have been lost, "Save us!" may be an important cry as we are sent into the world. 

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Partita on "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing" Kenneth T. Kosche

The postlude is two settings from Kosche's partita: Scherzo and Fanfare and Chorale

from a window at Christ Lutheran Church in Bexley, OH

Sources:
Wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hus_na_kazatelne.jpg#/media/File:Hus_na_kazatelne.jpg
Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship

Music for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 27), October 8, 2023

OPENING VOLUNTARY Prelude and Chorale on "Jesu, meines lebens leben"

Friederich Wilhelm Zachau (1663-1712), chorale from Das grosse Cantional, pub. Darmstadt, 1687

Today's prelude uses a peculiarly Lutheran device, using an ornamented piece of freely composed music based on the hymntune that it introduces. Usually the chorale prelude introduces the actual singing of the hymn.

GATHERING HYMN Lord Christ, When First You Came to Earth (Mit Freuden zart) ELW 727

HYMN OF THE DAY There in God's Garden (Shades Mountain) ELW 342

This crepe myrtle grows outside our choir room door.

MUSICAL OFFERING A Vineyard Grows K. Lee Scott

In a happy coincidence, the composer of our Hymn of the Day is also the composer of today's musical offering. The music is based on an English folk song. (Unfortunately, I was unable to learn which one.)

Scott's music is paired with a text by the Jaroslav J. Vajda, a Lutheran pastor and hymn writer. Vajda has six texts in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, including Go, My Children, with My Blessing.

COMMUNION HYMN My Song Is Love Unknown (Love Unknown) ELW 343

SENDING HYMN Thine the Amen (Thine) ELW 826

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Westminster Abbey with Fanfares ed. David Drinkwater

It took awhile for John Mason Neale's translation of a Latin hymn and the music of Henry Purcell to find each other, but they are a "match made in heaven." A mainstay of English hymnody, it was used at the wedding of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones in 1960, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diane Spencer in 1981, and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

The organ's trumpet chorus from the swell manual ( top keyboard) plays the fanfares while the great manual (middle keyboard) plays the hymn.

Music for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 25): September 24, 2023

OPENING VOLUNTARY Be Still My Soul (Finlandia)

setting, Franklin D. Ashdown

Few hymns have a more comforting text, or a gentler melody, than this beloved hymn by Catherina Amalia von Schlegel (1697 - 1768), with music by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957).

Be still my soul, the Lord is on your side. . .

The Holy Spirit gathers us for worship and does not bid us to leave our cares behind or to "give them to Jesus." Rather, we bring them with us knowing that

. . .in every change he faithful will remain.

The hymn does not appear in Lutheran Book of Worship or Evangelical Lutheran Worship. It can be found in Lutheran Service Book, the hymnal of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.

GATHERING HYMN As Saints of Old (Forest Green) ELW 695

HYMN OF THE DAY God's Work, Our Hands (Earth and All Stars) ACS 1000

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America held a contest inviting hymn writers to submit a new hymn for "God's Work. Our Hands" Sunday, September 13, 2019. Wayne Wold wrote the winning hymn, developing the denomination's tagline with other parts of the person God uses, listing concrete ways of manifesting God's presence for the world, confessing God's activity beyond the church's work, and inviting blessing on the church's work on behalf of the gospel. (From Sundays and Seasons)

MUSICAL OFFERING Gracious Spirit, Dwell with Me 

K. Lee Scott

COMMUNION HYMN God Be the Love to Search and Keep Me ACS 1084

Richard Bruxvoort Colligan wrote this hymn as a modern day lorica - a Celtic hymn/prayer for protection sung while putting on armor or clothing. Be Thou My Vision (ELW 793) is the best-known example of this form. The stanzas ask for Christ to be known in what animates life and faith, in the saints, in the elements, in physical space (as in another lorica I Bind Unto Myself This Day ELW 450), and in the people around the singer.
(From Sundays and Seasons)

SENDING HYMN Glorious Things of You Are Spoken (Blaenwern)  ELW 647

CLOSING VOLUNTARY What Is This Place 

setting, Wayne L. Wold  

Sources:

Wikipedia

Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns
Sundays and Seasons

Music for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 24): September 17, 2023

OPENING VOLUNTARY: Herzlich tut mich verlangen

setting, Jerry Westenkuehler

In many churches this tune goes by the name Passion Chorale worshipers will quickly recognize it as "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded." The harmonization is possibly one of J. S. Bach's best-loved works. It comes back later in the service as the Hymn of the Day, paired with Kevin Nichols' text "Our Father, we have wandered."

Nichols, who died in 2006, was a Roman Catholic priest who studied at Cambridge under C. S. Lewis.

The hymn alludes to one of Jesus' best-known parables - The Prodigal Son. It's not only a prayer for forgiveness, but one where we ask God to bring an end to our faithlessness. 

GATHERING HYMN Awake, O Sleeper, Rise from Death (Azmon) ELW 452

HYMN OF THE DAY Our Father, We Have Wandered (Herzlich tut mich verlangen) ELW 606

MUSICAL OFFERING There's a Wideness in God's Mercy

The author of the text, Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863) wrote 150 hymns, in imitation of the 150 psalms. Eight of his texts appear in Evangelical Lutheran Worship. 

The original tune and arrangement of this setting is by Jacksonville composer Bob Moore.

COMMUNION HYMN I Come with Joy (Dove of Peace) ELW 482

SENDING HYMN Go, My Children, With My Blessing (Ar hyd y nos) ELW 543

At the end of the Hymn of the Day, we asked for God's hand to be stretched out to us in blessing, specifically that we may have forgiveness and peace. In the second stanza of our sending hymn, we receive that blessing through these words: Go, my children, sins forgiven, at peace and pure.

This underscores the point that hymns in Christian worship are rarely selected because they are "favorites" or because they are "fun." Hymn are chosen to complement the lectionary readings and to support the themes of the day. The texts from the Hymn of the Day and the Sending Hymn complement each other really well!

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Now Thank We All Our God (Nun danket all Gott) 

setting, Robert A. Hobby

I chose a setting based on this tune to remind us of the psalm for the day - also based on this tune.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: BACH VESPERS RETURNS TO ST. MARK'S - CALLING ALL SINGERS!
Read more here:

Sources:
Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship
Evangelical Lutheran Worship