Hymn of the Day: Go to the World! ACS 991
Text: Sylvia G. Dunstan, 1955–1993
Tune: SINE NOMINE, Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872–1958
Sylvia Dunstan was a hymnwriter and a United Church of Canada pastor who died tragically of liver cancer at age thirty-eight. Alan Barthel, her mentor and collaborator, with less than a week’s notice commissioned a text built on the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20) for the 1985 Emmanuel College (Toronto) Convocation. Written to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s expansive SINE NOMINE (“For all the saints”), it gives this beloved tune an alternate text pairing.
Offertory: “Grant Us Thy Peace” Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The original text for Mendelssohn’s beautiful motet was Martin Luther’s prayer for peace, "Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich" ("Da nobis pacem, Domine"; also known as "Grant Us Thy Peace"). This composition has been published also as "Gebet nach Lutherschen Worten für Chor und Orchester" (librettist, Martin Luther). Mendelssohn originally scored the piece for SATB chorus, orchestra and Organ.
Grant us your peace, O loving Lord,
our Rock and firm foundation.
Our faith is in your excellent word,
speaking to every nation.
Your promise of sure salvation.
Opening Voluntary: “Let Us Ever Walk With Jesus”, Thomas Geischen (1931- 2006)
Thomas Geischen earned a B.S. in Education from Concordia Teachers College and a master’s and doctorate in music from Northwestern University.
Dr. Gieschen was a professor of music for 40 years at Concordia University in River Forest, where he served as department chair and head of the Music Department. He retired in 1993.
As Kapelle Choir director, he performed for President Lyndon Johnson at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, on a world tour for the King of Thailand, and at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.
As founder of OrganArt, he created designs for church organs throughout the Midwest. He was also a published composer, arranger and organ recitalist, and a member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and the American Guild of Organists.
In his spare time, he was an amateur locksmith and harpsichord builder. He also designed and built his island summer home in Door County, Wis.
Closing Voluntary: "Morning Star” Wayne L. Wold (1954)
"Brightest and Best" (occasionally rendered by its first line, "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning") is a Christian hymn text written in 1811 by the Anglican bishop Reginald Heber to be sung at the feast of Epiphany. It appeared in Heber's widow's compilation of hymns entitled Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Service of the Church Year in 1827. It can be sung to a number of tunes, including "Liebster Immanuel", "Morning Star" by James P. Harding, "Epiphany" by Joseph Thrupp, and "Star in the East" by William Walker. It appears in many hymnals across different Christian traditions. The Kentucky traditional singer Jean Ritchie often sang this and told of her childhood memory of her grandmother sitting by the fire and singing it quietly to herself on Twelfth Night; the Library of Congress collected it from her in 1951.
Wayne L. Wold taught at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, from 1990 to 2020 where he taught organ, harpsichord, composition, music theory, form and analysis, and humanities topics in the graduate school. Wold has performed widely on organ and harpsichord, with solo recitals across the United States and in Europe, and he has performed in ensembles including the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Symphony Orchestra, Bach in Baltimore Orchestra and Hood Chamber Players. He is also in demand as a hymn festival leader featuring his own improvisations. Wold has been a church musician since the age of sixteen, serving churches in Minnesota, Ohio, and Maryland, including seventeen years as director of chapel music at Camp David, the presidential retreat.