With our music this Reformation Sunday we celebrate with a service filled with music sung corporally, beginning with the German Singmesse and including the Offertory anthem, with verses 1 and 3 to be sung by all. So, today we are all members of the Choir- enjoy!

Today’s Choral Service Music: The German Singmessse or Liedmesse

In western Europe before the Reformation, cathedrals in cities and the larger churches in towns had choirs, often made up of schoolboys, that could sing the congregation’s parts of the Latin High Mass for the main services on Sunday and feasts.

But in small villages and the smaller churches in towns and cities, a choir was not always available. It became customary for the priest and the altar server to say all the parts of Low Mass quietly, in Latin, facing East away from the people, behind the rood screen, while the people did… whatever.

The people were still expected to attend Mass every Sunday. They could meditate, say prayers, or sing hymns while the priest said Mass, and if they could read and afford to buy them, Primers were popular books to aid individual devotions in some areas, such as England.

But in Germany, it became customary, as early as the 12th century, for the congregation to sing specific hymns that paraphrased, in German, the main unchanging songs of the Mass (Kyrie Eleison, Gloria in Excelsis, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) while the priest said them in Latin. This was the type of service that Dr. Luther was writing about in Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdeinsts (German Mass and Order of Divine Service) in 1526. This practice remained the custom even in Roman Catholic parishes in German-speaking countries even into the 20th century and is still influential in the worship of the Evangelical Church in Germany.

During the reformation era, Protestant pastors saw this as a quick way to transform the Mass into language that the ordinary people could understand, and if they had musical talent, as many did, composed German hymns in this genre. Several of these hymns can be found, translated into English, in Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

Kyrie (Lord have mercy) Hymn 409

Kyrie! God, Father in Heaven Above is set to the tune Kyrie Gott Vater in Ewigkeit, adapted from a 9th century Gregorian chant in the Latin Mass II Fons Bonitatis Pater Ingenite for solemn feasts. The German hymn was published in Wittenberg in 1541 and might be by Pastor Johann Spangenberg (1484-1550)

Gloria (Glory to God in the Highest) Hymn 410

All Glory be to God on High is set to the tune Allein Gott in der Höhe sei Ehr adapted from a 10th century Gregorian chant in Latin Mass I Lux et Origo for the Easter season. The German hymn was published in Brunswick in 1523 by Pastor Nikolaus Decius (1485-1550).

Credo (We believe in one God) Hymn 411

We All Believe in One True God is set to the tune Wir Glauben All an Einen Gott adapted by Dr. Luther. and his music publisher Johann Walter (1496-1570) in 1524 from a 14th century tune. It was later included in Deutsche Messe 1526.

Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) Hymn 868

Isaiah in a Vision is set to the tune Jesaiah dem Propheten adapted by Dr. Luther from an 11th century chant (Mass XVII for Sundays in Advent and Lent?) and published in Deutsche Messe 1526.

Lord’s Prayer Hymn 746

Our Father God in Heaven Above is set to the tune Vater Unser in Himmelreich. Dr. Luther wrote the words with a different tune in mind, but printer Valentin Schumann (1520-1559) published it with this tune in 1539. The hymnal version was shortened to four verses from nine. The longer version is Hymn 747.

Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) Hymn 357

Lamb of God, Pure and Sinless is set to the tune O Lamm Gottes, Unschuldig adapted by Pastor Nikolaus Decius from a 13th century chant in 1525.

— Tom VanPoole

Hymn of the Day: “Salvation unto Us Has Come” ELW 590
Text: Paul Speratus (1484-1551)
Tune: ES IST DAS HEIL, Etlich christlich Lieder, Wittenberg, 1524

This hymn by Paul Speratus was published in what is sometimes called the first hymnal of the Reformation, Etlich christlich Lieder (the "Achtliederbuch," 1524). One of the oldest "Lutheran" hymns, Speratus probably wrote it in 1523 when he was jailed at Olmütz for his evangelical preaching. In the "Achtliederbuch" it had fourteen stanzas and was headed "A hymn of law and faith, powerfully expounded by holy scripture." "Powerfully expounded by holy scripture" referred to two pages of smaller print that followed the hymn. There "reports from scripture" about how the hymn "was grounded on all sides" were given in sets of biblical references, one set for each of twelve of the fourteen stanzas. Brief comments formed a kind of study guide.

The hymn was one of the Lutheran Kernlieder- central "kernel" or "core" hymns-for more than a century after the Reformation, but there have been those, especially but not only among Rationalists and Pietists, who have regarded it as didactic rhymed doctrine and not a hymn at all. It certainly sets out the essence of things from the very outset. With its point of departure Romans 3:28, it says clearly that salvation has come to us by God's free grace and favor.

Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) printed stanzas 1, 3, 5, 10, and 13 from Speratus's original German. Evangelical Lutheran Worship prints one additional stanza and uses 1, 2, 6, 10, 13, and 14 from the original. Both translations make modifications, but they rely on The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), which relied on the Evangelical Lutheran Hymn Book (1912). It should be noted that stanza 13, now stanza 5 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship's numbering, begins with doxology. Hymnals, like Lutheran Book of Worship, have tended therefore to make it final, but its last three lines begin the Lord's Prayer. The hymn is thus incomplete without Speratus's final stanza, which is the rest of the Lord's Prayer in a metrical version. Evangelical Lutheran Worship wisely included Speratus's last two stanzas. They complete and contextualize what goes before them, and they modify criticism. Doxology and the Lord's Prayer cannot be construed as didactic rhymed doctrine. When they are present the rest of the hymn finds its focus in God and not in human systems.

Paul Speratus was born near Ellwangen in Württemberg, Germany. He probably is the person who in 1503 went to the University of Freiburg as "Paul Offer de Ellwangen." His name was either Offer (or Hoffer) before he Latinized it to Speratus. He also studied in Paris and Vienna, earning doctorates in philosophy, Jurisprudence, and theology. In 1506 he was ordained a priest and faithfully served for the next twelve years or so in Salzburg, Dinkelsbühl, and Würzburg. He even wrote a hymn text praising Johann Eck, who in 1518 opposed Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. Around 1519 Speratus began to adopt evangelical views. One of the first priests to break his vow of celibacy, he married Anna. Forced to leave Würzburg, he enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1520 and earned one of his degrees, Doctor of Divinity, there. On January 12 of 1522 at the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna he preached a sermon supporting marriage and justification by grace through faith. The faculty of the University of Vienna condemned him. He went to Moravia, where he continued to preach about justification. This time it got him imprisoned at Olmütz for three months on bread and water and almost burned at the stake. He went to Wittenberg in 1523, where he helped Luther with the "Achtliederbuch" and translated Luther's Formula Missae into German. In 1525 he became court preacher in East Prussia for Duke Albrecht, in 1526 helped formulate the Kirchenordnung (the liturgy and regulations) for East Prussia, and from 1530 to the end of his life was a devoted and faithful bishop in poverty-stricken Pomerania So far as is known, this is one of only five hymn texts he wrote.

This tune was one of four printed in the Etlich christlich Lieder (the "Achtliederbuch,"1524). It was paired with two texts there, Paul Speratus's hymn (ELW 590), for which it is named, and Martin Luther's (ELW 263) paraphrase of Psalm 22, "Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darin." Also in 1524 it was printed in Walter's Geistliche Gesangbüchlein and in the Erfurt Enchiridia. Its composer is unknown. It probably was in circulation by the fifteenth century and can be found in later Catholic hymnals with the text "Frue dich, du werte Christenheit."

This is a tune in bar form, with potent but graceful drive. Without alterations, as given in Zahn, Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder (1889-1893), it is Mixolydian. However, the G sharps and C sharps in Evangelical Lutheran Worship were inserted already in the sixteenth century. The version we sing today is a more original rhythmic version.

Offertory: “God Whose Giving Knows No Ending” David Cherwien (1957)

First of all, many thanks to Nathan Bastuscheck for sharing his music with us today!

C. Hubert H. Parry's RUSTINGTON was first published in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book (1897) as a setting for Benjamin Webb's "Praise the Rock of Our Salvation." The tune is named for the village in Sussex, England, where Parry lived for some years and where he died. This distinguished melody has been paired with at least 35 texts. “God Whose Giving Knows No Ending” by Robert L. Edwards (1915-2006) is probably the most popular pairing.

This celebratory anthem of praise is commissioned from David Cherwien, celebrating RELC’s 75th Anniversary and dedicated to the Choir and Roy Guenther, Organist/Choirmaster.

Opening Voluntary: Sonata op.65 No. 6, Chorale and Variations 1-3 on "Vater unser im Himmelreich," Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

The organ music of Felix Mendelssohn represents an approach gesturing not towards the future but towards the glorious past of German composition and the work of J.S. Bach in particular. (Liszt once called him “Bach reborn.”) The stark dissimilarity in compositional approach between Mendelssohn and Liszt was heralded by the coolness of their personal relationship, manifested for instance at a soirée when Mendelssohn drew a picture of Liszt playing the former’s music with five hammers, rather than fingers, on each hand. (This somewhat childish action is perhaps understandable given Liszt’s description of preceding events: “The truth of the matter is that I only played his Concerto in G minor from the manuscript, and as I found several of the passages rather simple and not broad enough…I changed them to suit my own ideas.”) Inherently conservative in character, Mendelssohn formed a profound aversion to the iconoclastic work of Liszt and kindred spirits such as Berlioz, of whose work Mendelssohn remarked: “one ought to wash one’s hands after handling one of his scores.” Mendelssohn was undoubtedly a Romantic composer, but his Romanticism was often of the Biedermeier kind; he was capable of composing dramatic and inventive works such as the Hebrides Overture, yet his individual musical poetry emerged perhaps most strongly in miniatures such as the Songs without Words for piano and in those works (e.g. the Quartet in F minor) wherein he recaptured the youthful genius that had burst forth so forcefully in the Octet and Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture.

Mendelssohn’s posthumous reputation in the country of his birth suffered from Wagner’s pen (this time through the faintest of praise rather than vitriol) and, in due course, the Nazi regime’s efforts to expunge his name from musical history. In England, where Mendelssohn had made a strong impression on musical life over the course of ten visits, his stock remained considerably higher. Mendelssohn enjoyed particular success with his organ recitals in the late 1830s and early 1840s, leading the publishers Coventry and Hollier to commission a set of six “voluntaries” from him in 1844. The planned voluntaries soon became Mendelssohn’s six Organ Sonatas Op 65, with the term sonata here implying the Bachian sense of the term—i.e. suites of varied pieces which are played instrumentally, as opposed to sung cantatas—rather than works exhibiting classical sonata form. The Organ Sonata No 6 in D minor (1845) demonstrates Mendelssohn’s consummate craftsmanship and mastery of organ texture in a set of variations upon the Lutheran Bach chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich (BWV416). Following a five-part harmonisation of the Chorale, which pervades the sonata as a whole, Mendelssohn presents four variations of increasing brilliance before a restatement of the Chorale. Today’s Closing Voluntary is the final variation. The sonata concludes with a substantial fugue and the finale in D major, whose quiet religiosity symbolises the completion of a journey from stern Lutheranism to an essentially English brand of sentiment. In this work and its companion sonatas, Mendelssohn revitalised the then-moribund European organ tradition, spurred English organ-builders to new heights, and, through his particular blend of chorale, counterpoint and domestic spirituality, substantially augmented the organ repertoire for the first time since Bach. Musing on his passion for structural innovation, Liszt once remarked that “new wine demands new bottles”; Mendelssohn here demonstrates the continued potency of an older brew.

Closing Voluntary: “Ein feste Berg,” David Cherwien (1957)

David Cherwien, artistic director of the National Lutheran Choir, is a nationally known conductor, composer, and organist. Recognized for his contributions to the field of church music and liturgy, he is in demand as a clinician and hymn festival leader across the country.

Hymn of the Day: “Sing Praise to God the Highest Good” (ELW 871)
Text: Johann J. Schütz, 1640-1690; tr. Francis E. Cox, 1812-1897, adapt.
Tune: LOBT GOTT DEN HERREN, IHR, Melchior Vulpius (1570-1615)

Johann J. Schütz wrote this hymn text in nine stanzas and published it in his Christliches Gedenckbüchlein, zur Beförderung eines anfang-endes neues Lebens (Frankfurt, 1675). Almost two centuries later Frances E. Cox (1812-1897) translated the first eight stanzas. They were published in Lyra Eucharistica (1864), which Orby Shipley edited. In her own Hymns from the German in the same year (1864), Cox left out the eighth stanza (and made a slight change at the beginning of stanza 5: “But through” to “Throughout”. Four years later the Church Book (1868) used her first, second, fourth, and seventh stanzas, altering one word: “my” to “me” in the third stanza. Evangelical Lutheran Worship uses her first, third, fourth, and eighth stanzas with substantial modifications, among them addressing God to avoid third-person male pronouns and using the third-person plural for humanity. Cox’s translation began “Sing praise to God Who reigns above” Catherine Winkworth (#241) also made a translation. It began “All praise and thanks to God most high” in Lyra Germanica, second series (1858) and her Chorale Book for England (1863). A composite version of nine stanzas, probably by August Crull (#323), began “To God the Father of all love” and was included in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymn Book (1889). The conflations and modifications have produced multiple first lines, making it not easy to find.

Johann Jacob Schütz was born in Germany at Frankfurt am Main. He studied law at Tübingen University and became a lawyer in his hometown. A learned man of piety, he was a friend of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705), the champion of Pietism. He suggested to Spener that he begin his prayer meetings, called “Collegia Pietatis.” Joachim Neander was part of the same circle. Like Neander, Schütz separated himself from Lutheran worship and stayed away from communion. Also like Neander in his “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”, Schütz in this hymn shows none of his separatism, but wrote a potent catholic hymn of praise. Five of his hymns were included in his Christliches Gedenckbüchlein, and he also wrote Christliche Lebensregeln (1677).

Frances E. Cox was born at Oxford, England, the daughter of George V. Cox. She became a skillful translator of German hymns. John Julian says forty-nine of her translations were published in her Sacred Hymns from the German (London, 1841) and the number increased to fifty-six (the number I also count) with revisions and notes in her Hymns from the German (1864). C. T. Aufdemberge says her translations number eighty.

LOBT GOTT DEN HERREN, IHR

This is one of the dance-like tunes by Melchior Vulpius. It gets its name from an Epiphany hymn of Joachim Sartorius (c. 1548-1600) that is based on Psalm 117 and for which Vulpius wrote it, “Lobt Gott den Herren, ihr Heiden all.”; Vulpius published it with that hymn in his Ein schön geistliche Gesangbuch (Jena, 1609).

A bar-form tune that swings along with a three-phrase group in the Aufgesang and leads nicely
to the repeated line “To God all praise and glory,” it is a most fitting match for this text. The
wedding of the two seems quite recent, however, possibly first in the Evangelical Lutheran
Hymn Book with Tunes (1912).

Offertory: “Cantate Domino,” Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)

Born at Nuremberg, Germany, he came from a family of famous musicians and received early education from his father. He then studied in Venice, Italy, with Andrea Gabrieli, uncle of Giovanni Gabrieli, his friend, with whom he composed a wedding motet. The uncle taught him to play the organ. He learned the polychoral style and took it back to Germany after Andrea Gabrieli’s death. He was a prolific composer but found his influence limited, as he was Protestant in a still heavily Catholic region. A Lutheran, he composed both for Roman Catholic liturgy and for Lutheran churches. He produced two volumes of motets, a famous collection of court songs, and a volume of simpler hymn settings. He published both secular and religious music, managing to compose much for the Catholic church that was also usable in Lutheran settings. Hassler was not only a composer, but also an active organist and a consultant to organ builders. Hassler stepped into the world of mechanical instrument construction and developed a clockwork organ that was later sold to Emperor Rudolf II. Hassler is considered to be one of the most important German composers of all time. His use of the innovative Italian techniques, coupled with traditional, conservative German techniques allowed his compositions to be fresh without the modern affective tone. His songs presented a combined vocal and instrumental literature that did not make use of the continuo, or only provided it as an option, and his sacred music introduced the Italian polychoral structures that would later influence many composers leading into the Baroque era.

Cantate Domino canticum novum; cantate Domino omnis terra
Cantate Domino, et benedicite nomini ejus; annuntiate de die in diem salutare ejus
Annuntiate inter gentes gloriam ejus; in omnibus populis mirabilia ejus
Quoniam magnus Dominus, et laudabilis nimis: terribilis est super omnes deos

Sing to the Lord a new song;
Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
Tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!

Opening Voluntary: “You Satisfy the Lonely Heart” Charles Callahan

Robert E. Kreutz (1922-1996) carefully crafted BICENTENNIAL for this text GIFT OF FINESTWHEAT in Denver, Colorado, in 1976. Kreutz received a bachelor’s degree from the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, and a master’s degree from the University of Colorado, Denver. He also studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg, Leo Sowerby, and Norman Lockwood. A resident of Golden, Colorado, Kreutz worked for many years for the Gates Rubber Company as a development engineer and also directed the choir at St. Bernadette Church in Lakewood, Colorado, for more than twenty-five years. He published some three hundred choral and instrumental compositions, including many psalm settings and other liturgical music.

Charles Callahan is a well-known composer, organist, choral conductor, pianist and teacher. He is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.

Closing Voluntary: “Gather Us In” John H. Behnke (1953)

The composer of the tune GATHER US IN, Marty Haugen (b. 1950) is perhaps the most prolific and influential composer of liturgical music of his generation. His hymns, psalm settings and paraphrases, services set to music, and anthems are widely used in both Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations around the world. “Gather Us In” (1982) represents Mr. Haugen’s skill both as a poet and composer. Mr. Haugen describes his inspiration for this hymn in an e-mail: “‘Gather Us In’ was written after I first heard the wonderful [former Jesuit Dutch theologian and poet Huub] Oosterhuis (b. 1933) text ‘What Is This Place?’ I wanted to craft something that might say a similar message to North American ears. I deliberately wrote it in second person to avoid gender issues and to more directly sing ‘to’ God rather than ‘about’ God. Ironically, that has been at times a problem for some, who would like God more carefully circumscribed and named.”

Dr. John A. Behnke enjoys composing and arranging having nearly 500 compositions in print with nineteen different publishers in the United States, Germany, and Taiwan. He is Emeritus Professor of Music at Concordia University, where he taught for 29 years. He was the organist and choir director at Historic Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church in downtown Milwaukee, from 1990 until 2019, and the director of the Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble and Music Editor of AGEHR Publishing – Handbell Musicians of America from 2003 until 2019.

Hymn of the Day: “Now We Join in Celebration” ELW 462
Text: Joel W. Lundeen (1918-1990)
Tune: SCHMÜCKE DICH, Johann Crüger (1598-1662)

This hymn text by Joel W. Lundeen was included in Contemporary Worship 4: Hymns for Baptism and Communion (1972). Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) made modifications in the second and third stanzas, and this version appears also here.

Joel Waldemar Lundeen was born in China, where his parents were missionar-is. He studied at Augsburg College and MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, Augustana Seminary in Rock Island, Union Seminary in New York, and the University of Chicago. A pastor and musician, he was the director of the library and church archivist at Augustana Seminary, director of the library at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and in 1967 became archivist for the Lutheran Church in America. Before that, from 1957 to 1962, he was the secretary of the Commission on Worship of the Augustana Church, and in 1986 his Index to Luther's Works was published.

Johann Crüger composed SCHMÜCKE DICH for Johann Franck's text, “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness”, and first published the tune as a setting for Franck's first stanza in Geistliche Kirchen-Melodien. The tune name is the incipit of the original German text. Johann S. Bach used this tune in his Cantata 180; he and many other composers have written organ preludes on the melody, including Sigfrid Karg-Elert, whose Chorale Improvisation setting we hear today.

Offertory Anthem: “Rejoice in the Lord,” K. Lee Scott (1950)

"Rejoice in the Lord Always" is almost a direct quotation of Philippians 4:4-7. The apostle Paul's encouragement to rejoice always, regardless of our circumstances, is an exhortation we sing cheerfully to each other in this song.

K. Lee Scott is widely considered one of America’s top composers of church music. His hymns appear in eight hymnals, and he has published more than three hundred compositions. His compositions include anthems, hymns, and works for solo voice, organ, and brass, plus major works including a Christmas Cantata and Te Deum. He has been published by more than a dozen publishers. In 1995, he was commissioned by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and Choristers Guild to compose a hymn setting for their convention in San Diego.

In addition to his compositional success, Scott is internationally known as a teacher, musician, and conductor. He has taught on the music faculties at the University of Alabama School of Music, the Samford University School of Performing Arts, and The University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Music. He is a frequent guest conductor and clinician in the United States, Canada, and Africa.
Scott received two degrees in choral music from the University of Alabama School of Music.

⁴Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. ⁵Make your forbearance known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. ⁶Have no anxiety about anything; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your prayers known unto God. ⁷And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Opening Voluntary: “Chorale Improvisation on ‘Schmucke Dich’” S. Karg-Elert (1877-1933)

The composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert is well-known to organists and flautists on account of his substantial contributions to these instruments' repertoires. His music is colorful and impressionistic, but he also drew on the established ways of writing music, including works for organ based on Lutheran chorales (hymn tunes).

Closing Voluntary:“Vineyard Haven” ("Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart”), Robert J. Powell (1932)

Today we can indulge ourselves when singing E. H. Plumptre’s text "Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart" to one of our great twentieth-century hymn tunes, VINYARD HAVEN, composed by Richard Dirksen in 1974 for this text as a processional choral anthem for the installation of Presiding Bishop John Maury Allin at the Washington (D.C.) Cathedral, also known as the National Cathedral. VINEYARD HAVEN was first published as a hymn tune in Ecumenical Praise. Dirksen wrote that the quality of rejoicing was intended to foreshadow the raising of "such 'Hosannas' forever in [God's] presence and with the company of heaven in the life eternal." The tune is named after the town on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where the Very Reverend Francis B. Sayre, Jr., who was then Dean of Washington Cathedral, had his permanent home.

Robert J. Powell earned his Bachelor of Music in Organ and Composition from Louisiana State University in 1954 and his Master of Sacred Music from Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, New York in 1958. He holds Certificates of Fellow (FAGO) and Choirmaster (ChM) from the American Guild of Organists and is a member of American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers( ASCAP). He has received the Standard Music Award from ASCAP for the last 35 years.

Hymn of the Day “Thine the Amen” ELW 826
Text: Herbert F. Brokering (1926)
Tune: THINE, Carl F. Schalk, (1929-2021)

Herbert Brokering wrote this hymn text at Holden Village, the retreat center for renewal in the Cascade Mountains near Chelan, Washington. It was the tenth hymn he wrote in as many days in the summer of 1981. Each morning Walter Bouman led a Bible study, and on the following morning it was reviewed through the singing of a hymn by Brokering, who said, "We sang each study the following morning. This hymn is on the great eucharistic theology in Revelation. It was to be a then to the now." The "Now" refers to Jaroslav Vajdas "Now the silence". The hymn comes to Evangelical Lutheran Worship through With One Voice (1995).

At this same Holden Village summer session in 1981, Carl Schalk was the composer for Brokering's hymns. He remembers the schedule like this. "After each morning's Bible study by Walter Bouman, Herb Brokering would fashion a new text, which he had to have finished by about noon that day. I had to write a tune and accompaniment by about three in the afternoon since I had to get it to the print shop, which closed at four in the afternoon, for duplication so we could use it the following morning. This pattern continued each day for two weeks.” One day Schalk mentioned to Brokering that since he (Schalk) had set a text by Jaroslav Vajda called “Now" that Brokering might write one called "Then." Within a day or so Brokering "had written a text in which almost each line began with 'Thine. Thus the idea of Then' became ‘Thine.' The tune was published with this text as an anthem in 1983 and in Christians, Awake! A Hymn Supplement (1989). It appeared in the same year in The Carl Schalk Hymnary (1989), where it was called THEN. The name was subsequently changed to THINE.

The life of Dr. Carl F. Schalk is certainly one of the clearest and longest proclamations of the Gospel ever heard in the world of Lutheran church music. He was a beloved husband, father, musician, writer, composer, and fervent advocate of the Lutheran Church. His music, his faith, and his song continue to live and remain with the Church. What a precious gift for people in the present and for generations to come!

The Choir Anthem is an arrangement of today’s Hymn of the Day.

Thine the amen thine the praise
alleluias angels raise
thine the everlasting head
thine the breaking of the bread
thine the glory thine the story
thine the harvest then the cup
thine the vineyard then the cup
is lifted up lifted up.

Thine the life eternally
thine the promise let there be
thine the vision thine the tree
all the earth on bended knee
gone the nailing gone the railing
gone the pleading gone the cry
gone the sighing gone the dying
what was loss lifted high.

Thine the truly thine the yes
thine the table we the guest
thine the mercy all from thee
thine the glory yet to be
then the ringing and the singing
then the end of all the war
thine the living thine the loving
evermore evermore.

Thine the kingdom thine the prize
thine the wonder full surprise
thine the banquet then the praise
then the justice of thy ways
thine the glory thine the story
then the welcome to the least
then the wonder all increasing
at thy feast at thy feast.

Thine the glory in the night
no more dying only light
thine the river thine the tree
then the Lamb eternally
then the holy holy holy
celebration jubilee
thine the splendor thine the brightness
only thee only thee.

Organ Voluntaries: IN DIR IST FREUDE, Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Paul Otto Manz was an American composer for choir and organ. As a performer, Manz was most famous for his celebrated hymn festivals. Instead of playing traditional organ recitals, Manz would generally lead a "festival" of hymns from the organ, in which he introduced each hymn with one of his famously creative organ improvisations based on the hymn tune in question. The congregation would then sing the hymn with his accompaniment. Many volumes of these neo-Baroque chorale prelude improvisations have been written out and published and are among his most famous organ works, played by church organists throughout the world. Today’s Voluntaries are two improvisations on IN DIR IST FREUDE.

The chorale tune, IN DIR IST FREUDE, was composed by Giovanni G. Gastoldi (1582-1609) who served as a deacon and singer in the chapel of the Gonzaga family in Mantua. Gastoldi composed a considerable body of court music, such as madrigals, and some church music, but he is best known for his Balletti, which influenced composers such as Monteverdi, Hassler, and Morley.