Hymn of the Day: “Lord of All Hopefulness” ELW 765
Text: Joyce Torrens-Graham (1901-1953)
Tune: SLANE
Joyce Torrens-Graham wrote many poems and essays under the pen name of Jan Struther (derived from her mother's maiden name, Eva Anstruther). She wrote this text at the request of Percy Dearmer, with whom she prepared the enlarged edition of Songs of Praise (1931). It was first published in that hymnal to the tune SLANE. According to Frank Colquhoun, the text "is a work with a warm human touch, a healthy spiritual tone, and well merits its popularity." It is one of the best examples of the "all-day" hymn texts (dealing with the whole day, from morning to evening).
The four stanzas begin by addressing God in terms of his attributes and then ask for specific blessings for morning, noon, evening, and night. Displaying a consistent literary structure, the text, according to Dearmer, "is indeed a lovely example of the fitting together of thought, words and music."
In addition to her pen name, Struther also had the married names of Mrs. Anthony Maxtone Graham and, from a second marriage, Mrs. Adolf Kurt Placzek. During World War II she moved with her children to New York City and remained there until her death. In England she is best known for her novel Mrs. Miniver (1940), which consists of sketches of British family life before World War II. Immensely popular, the book was later made into a movie. Struther also wrote comic and serious poetry, essays, and short stories, published in Betsinda Dances and Other Poems (1931), Try Anything Twice (1938), The Glass Blower (1941), and, posthumously, The Children's Bells (1957). Songs of Praise (1931) included twelve of her hymn texts.
SLANE is an old Irish folk tune associated with the ballad "With My Love on the Road" in Patrick W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). It became a hymn tune when it was arranged by David Evans and set to the Irish hymn "Be Thou My Vision" first published in the Church Hymnary (1927). SLANE is named for a hill in County Meath, Ireland, where St. Patrick's lighting of an Easter fire–an act of defiance against the pagan king Loegaire (fifth century)–led to his unlimited freedom to preach the gospel in Ireland.
Offertory: “Sicilienne” Gabriel Faure
In 1892 the manager of the Grand Théâtre, Paris, asked the composer Camille Saint-Saëns to write incidental music for a production of Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Saint-Saëns was too busy to accept the commission, and successfully recommended his friend and former pupil Fauré. The music, which included the first version of the Sicilienne, was nearly complete when the theatre went bankrupt in 1893. The production was abandoned and the music remained unperformed.
Five years later, Fauré arranged the work for cello and piano. The Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux writes that the transcription was made for the Dutch cellist Joseph Hollman. It was published in London and Paris in April 1898, with a dedication to the English cellist W. H. Squire.
At the same time, Fauré was working on incidental music for the first English production of Maurice Maeterlinck's play, Pelléas et Mélisande, which opened in June 1898. Needing a lighthearted piece for one of the few playful scenes in the drama, he included the Sicilienne along with the new music he wrote for the production. His former pupil Charles Koechlin orchestrated the score for the theatre orchestra of 16 players.
The final form of the Sicilienne is in the four-movement Pelléas et Mélisande suite for full orchestra, arranged by Fauré and published in 1909. Nectoux notes that the final orchestration differs from Fauré's original 1893 version, written for chamber-sized theatre orchestra: in particular, the main theme is given to the oboe in the original score and to the flute in the final version in the suite.
Opening Voluntary: “Psalm,” Gordon Young (1919-1998)
Gordon Young was an American organist and composer of both organ and choral works. He was born in McPherson, Kansas and educated at Southwestern College (Winfield, Kansas) and the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) where he was a student of Alexander McCurdy. After serving churches in Philadelphia and Kansas where he also worked as a radio organist and newspaper critic, Young became the music director at First Presbyterian Church in Detroit. There he was a visible and important presence in the American church music scene. He also taught organ on the faculty of Wayne State University. Young published voluminously, and his organ and choral works are in the catalogs of most major American publishers. Numerous works of his were also issued in the Netherlands, where his music has remained very popular. “Psalm” is part of his collection of Eleven Organ Pieces, published in 1962.
Closing Voluntary: “Darwall’s 148th” Barbara Harbach (1946)
Composed by John Darwall (1731-1789), DARWALL'S 148th was first published as a setting for Psalm 148 in Aaron William's New Universal Psalmodist (1770) with only soprano and bass parts. The harmonization dates from the nineteenth century.
The son of a pastor, Darwall attended Manchester Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford, England. He became the curate and later the vicar of St. Matthew's Parish Church in Walsall, where he remained until his death. Darwall was a poet and amateur musician. He composed a soprano tune and bass line for each of the 150 psalm versifications in the Tate and Brady New Version of the Psalms of David (l696). In an organ dedication speech in 1773 Darwall is known to have advocated singing the "Psalm tunes in quicker time than common [in order that] six verses might be sung in the same space of time that four generally are." The only Darwall tune still in common use, DARWALL'S 148th is marked by both its dramatic opening figure (outlining the tonic chord) and by the convincing ascent of the final line.
Dr. Barbara Harbach is a composer, harpsichordist, organist and teacher. Since 2004, she taught music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She founded Women in the Arts-St. Louis to highlight women's work and gain more performances for musicians and composers. In 1989, Harbach founded the small Vivace Press, to publish music by underrepresented composers. In 1993 she was a co-founder of the journal, Women of Note Quarterly, and continues as its editor.