Barbara Verdile
I was Director of Music and Organist at Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, Purcellville, Virginia for almost 20 years until moving to Washington, DC. I have Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore and while an undergraduate at Douglass College, Rutgers University I studied organ with University Organist, David Drinkwater. But I consider myself mostly a student of my father, as I was his regular page-turner for the postlude each Sunday.
I’ve had a varied career teaching and performing in addition to my work in the area of church music ministry. While working in all combinations of church organist and choir director for the past 40 years, I have also been on the faculties of Northern Virginia Community College and Shenandoah Conservatory of Music along with teaching in my private studio. I founded a chamber music series in Purcellville and a community chorus, which grew into what is now the Loudoun Chorale. In addition to working as pianist and flutist with the Loudoun Symphony Orchestra and the Loudoun Wind Symphony I have performed in solo and chamber music recitals and accompanied a wide range of instrumentalists and vocalists, given organ recitals in Italy and served as organist for week-long residencies at the cathedrals of Canterbury, York and elsewhere in Great Britain and Ireland.
The Italian language and choral singing are my avocations. I thoroughly enjoy trying to speak Italian and discovering Italian literature, and as a choral singer (much simpler and easier than the language thing!) have continually been a member of choral groups ranging from chamber to symphonic in size. An exceptional result of my choral activity was that of meeting the man who became my husband. Bob and I met in our college chapel choir and we will soon celebrate our 49th wedding anniversary.
Currently I am Rehearsal Pianist for the Choir and Festival Chorus at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, and Rehearsal Assistant for the Thomas Circle Singers in Washington, DC. Bob and I both sing with this group. Maybe we can convince you to come to a concert!
We live in Foxhall Village in DC with our dachshund, Piccola and have two daughters, a son-in-law and a grandson soon to be four years old. All live close by in Virginia.
During the current upset created by COVID-19 I feel quite fortunate to be able to offer my part in combination with many others at RELC to provide comfort and hope during this pandemic. With all of you I look forward to the time when it will be safe to resume meeting together for services on Sundays, to continue getting to know you and make music together with you and the choir here at RELC!
With a voice of singing, Barbara
Hymn of the Day: “Where Charity and Love Prevail” ELW 359
Text: Latin hymn, 9th cent.; tr. Omer Westendorf, 1916–1997, alt.
Tune: TWENTY-FORTH, attr. Lucius Chapin, 1760–1842
The hymn “Where charity and love prevail” is appropriate for this day. Especially stanzas 4-5 fit well with the day’s emphasis on communal forgiveness. The hymn derives from the ninth-century chant “Ubi caritas,” and many Christians sing it during the foot washing on Maundy Thursday. This translation of the classic text was crafted by Omer Westendorf, a Roman Catholic musician.
In its first publication, in A Collection of Tunes, 1812, under the name TWENTY-FORTH, it is attributed to Lucius Chapin, but Lucius attributes it (under the name ORANGE) to his brother Amzi in an 1812 letter to Andrew Law.
Offertory Anthem: “With A Voice of Singing” Martin Shaw (1875-1958)
The text is Isaiah 48:20 and Psalm 66:1. These verses are used together as an Introit in the mass. Shaw’s works number more than three hundred published pieces, of which this church anthem, originally published 100 years ago, is an enduring favorite. It is scored with a quotation from Vaughan Williams’ “For All the Saints”. Composer, conductor and producer, Martin Shaw was of the Holst and Vaughan Williams generation of composers who was key in reviving public interest in the work of Purcell. He was also a co-founder of the Royal School of Church Music. He once toured Europe as conductor to dancer Isadora Duncan and was briefly engaged to the daughter of theatrical star Ellen Terry.
With a voice of singing declare ye this, and let it be heard, Alleluia!
Utter it even unto the ends of the earth. The Lord hath delivered His people, Alleluia!
O be joyful in God, all ye lands.
O sing praises to the honor of His name, make His praise to be glorious.
With a voice of singing, declare ye this, and let it be heard, Alleluia!
Opening Voluntary: “Listen, God Is Calling” Anne Krenz Organ (1960)
Anne Krentz Organ is a composer and church musician serving as the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL.
Anne is the primary composer of Setting 12, a musical setting of the liturgy found in All Creation Sings, the recently published hymnal supplement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Additional liturgical compositions are included in Evangelical Lutheran Worship and the three volumes of Music Sourcebooks: Lent and the Three Days; Advent through Transfiguration; and Life Passages.
Hymn of the Day: Lead Me, Guide Me, ELW 768
Text: Doris Akers, 1922-1995
Tune: LEAD ME, GUIDE ME, Doris Akers
LEAD ME is representative of the first generation of African American gospel music, a generation that began with Thomas Dorsey and includes gospel artists such as Roberta Martin, Lucie Campbell, Kenneth Morris, Theodore Frye, and Doris M. Akers. The core of this style is improvisation. Thus the printed notes are intended only as guides to the creativity of singers and accompanists.
Doris M. Akers wrote both text and tune of this African American gospel hymn in 1953 in Oakland, California. The text is an earnest plea for an intimate walk with God, who is asked to lead, guide, and protect the believer. The deeply personal stanzas emphasize that divine guidance is essential because of our lack of strength, our blindness, and Satan's temptations. Only God can lead us on the narrow path and through all the complexities and challenges of earthly life. Like many of the psalms, this text pours out the yearning of the individual Christian, a prayer that reminds us of the words of Psalm 4.
Doris Akers was a biracial African-American gospel music composer, arranger and singer and is considered to be "one of the most underrated gospel composers” of the 20th century. She had an active career as singer, choir director, and songwriter. She wrote her first song at age ten and after that time composed more than five hundred gospel songs and hymns. Known for her work with the Sky Pilot Choir, she was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Offertory Anthem: “How Lovely Are the Messengers” Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
“How Lovely Are the Messengers,” by Felix Mendelssohn, is from Saint Paul, the first of Mendelssohn's oratorios. It refers to Paul and Barnabas as ambassadors of the Christian Church. The composer oversaw versions and performances in both German and English within months of completing the music in early 1836. The libretto "after words of holy scripture" was begun in 1832. The composer with pastor Julius Schubring, a childhood friend, compiled passages from the New Testament, chiefly the Acts of the Apostles, and the Old, as well as the texts of chorales and hymns, in a polyglot manner after Bach's model. Composition of the music started in 1834 and was complete in early 1836. During Mendelssohn's lifetime, St. Paul was a popular and frequently performed work. Today it is regularly performed in Germany and well disseminated in both of its original languages through an array of complete recordings.
How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace.
To all the nations is gone forth the sound of their words,
Throughout all the lands their glad tidings.
Opening Voluntary: “Now Let Us All Loudly” Healey Willan (1880-1968)
This is a very exuberant setting of the hymn tune “Now Let Us All Loudly” (Nun preiset alle), text and music by Matthäus Apelles von Löwenstern. Löwenstern’s hymns, thirty in all, are of very varied worth, many being written in imitation of antique verse forms, and on the mottoes of the princes under whom he had served. In the original editions they were accompanied with self-composed melodies. When or where they were first published (cir. 1644) is not clear.
Long-lived composer Healey Willan is best known for his liturgical music, though his output of more than 800 works includes most genres: opera, symphony, chamber, organ, piano, band, incidental scores, song, folk-song arrangements, and much else. More than half of those 800 efforts were sacred works for choir and organ, used for Anglican church services. Stylistically, Willan was a conservative whose music divulged the influence of Wagner and post-Romanticism in general. Born in England, he migrated to Canada and there became probably the most influential composer of liturgical music of his time. His influence spread across North America, spilling over into the musical traditions of most major denominations. Although Willan's compositions are not commonly encountered in the concert hall, renewed interest in his liturgical music since the 1990s offers hope to his admirers that even his concert music may enjoy rediscovery.
Closing Voluntary: Allegro assai vivace from Organ Sonata #1 in F Minor, Op. 65, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Felix Mendelssohn’s six Organ Sonatas, Opus 65, were published in 1845. Mendelssohn was well known and respected for his diversified improvisations and a seemingly endless varieties of new ideas, and it added new dimensions to what one normally heard played on the organ at the time. These qualities are evident in the organ sonatas, which were commissioned in1844 as a set of voluntaries, or preludes, and published in 1845. In fact, all of the music in these Sonatas was composed between August,1844, and January, 1845, so it is not surprising to find certain general characteristics appearing, almost like a recurring theme, throughout all six sonatas, which unifies the whole collection.
Hymn of the Day: “Lord of All Nations, Grant Me Grace” (ELW 716)
Text: Olive Wise Spannaus, 1916-2018, alt.
Tune: BEATUS VIR, Šamotulský Kancionál, 1561.
With Philippians 2:1-18 as its basis, Olive Wise Spannaus wrote this hymn in 1960. She was living in Elmhurst, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago that, like many cities at that time, was experiencing racial tensions. She says that “the first stanza practically wrote itself. The lines came to me in the midst of ironing, and I quickly picked up a pencil to write them down. The rest of the hymn was done by snatches, and before too long I knew I was writing the hymn for the Lutheran Human Relations Association, a group which my husband and I actively supported. I sent it to them with a note that I hoped they would have some use for it. If not, then I at least shall have had the fun of writing it.”
The Lutheran Human Relations Association did have a use for it. They sang it at their Eleventh Annual Institute at Valparaiso University, 1960. In the same year it appeared in Christians, Awake, the record of their proceedings. In 1965 Edgar Reinke of Valparaiso University brought the hymn to the attention of the Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod (LCMS), and in October 1967 it was published in the supplement to This Day magazine called A New Song and then in the Worship Supplement (1969) to The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). The original language was updated for inclusivity in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), but Elizabethan English was retained. Evangelical Lutheran Worship duplicates that version. Three things might be noted. 1) It expresses the always radically-new message of Christian behavior with archaic English that sounds new. 2) The word "erred" in stanza 3 is not a slant rhyme. It actually rhymes with "word." 3) The author has resisted requests to change singular constructions to plural ones on the ground that "personal relations are and ought to be personal and therefore an individual concern and responsibility."
The hymn was published in This Day magazine with the tune BEATUS VIR. Jaro-slav Vajda was the editor of This Day. One has to assume that, with his knowledge of the Slovak repertoire, he made this match. The tune comes from the Samotulsky Kancionál (1561), where it went with "O blahoslaveny dovek." Psalm 1 was the basis for the original text, so the editors of the Worship Supplement named it with the Latin of Psalm 1, "Beatus vir." In the Duchovna Citara (1933), the tune is attributed to Matthias Kunwaldsky (1442 or 1460-1500). Matthias Kunwaldsky was a Bohemian Brethren bishop. Four of his hymns are in the first known Bohemian Brethren hymnal of 1501 and five more in the Samotulksy Kancionál of 1561.
Offertory Anthem: “O Bread of Life from Heaven” David Ashley White
This text was from the Latin hymn O Esca Viatorum from the Maintzich Gesangbuch which was published in 1661. It was translated to English by Philip Schaff (1819-1893).
This composition by David Ashley White incorporates a 17th-century Latin hymn and has a plainsong feeling.
O Bread of Life from heaven,
To saints and angels given;
O Manna from above!
The souls that hunger feed thou,
The hearts that seek thee, lead thou,
With thy sweet, tender love.
Opening Voluntary “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart” Joe Utterback (1944).
This tune, MORECAMBE, was written in 1870 by Frederick C. Atkinson. The jazz musician, Joe Utterback beautifully captures this serene hymn tune with his jazz-inspired harmonies. He has published nearly 400 works for piano, choir and organ.
Closing Voluntary “Lead Us, Heavenly Father” Robert J Powell (1932)
Robert J. Powell is an American composer, organist, and choir director. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Louisiana State University with a focus on organ and composition. He studied with Alec Wyton at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and he was also Wyton's assistant at The Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Powell's conservative, neo-Romantic style stems from his practical approach to composition. According to Powell himself, he writes for "choirs of twenty-five because that's what most choirs are. When you come right down to it, most choirs are not of cathedral ability or size. My pieces are all practical things and useful for specific occasions." His publications appear in The Hymnal 1982 as well as in the catalogs of most of the significant American publishers of church music. Powell is a composer whose output bridges denominational boundaries and who is able to serve the larger Church. He has made ecumenical sharing a reality–-and always with a genteel touch.
Hymn of the Day: “Will You Come and Follow Me?” ELW 798
Text: John Lamberton Bell (1949)
Tune: KELVINGROVE, traditional Scottish melody
Though he is not certain of it, John Bell is "fairly confident" that this text was written for the sending out of one our youth volunteers. This was a scheme sponsored by the lona Community whereby young people gave a year or two to live in impoverished parts of Scotland, on the dole, and work out their discipleship in hard places. When they finished, my colleague and I would often write a song for their farewell ceremony always held in the house where they had been working. The words of this song therefore reflect the experience of the volunteer concerned. But we only wrote it for one-off use. It probably goes back to around 1986-87. Bell then adds, "If I had kept a record of people who have spoken of how a particular line in this affected their life, I could have published a book of very moving testimonies by now, but I'm glad I didn't."
John Lamberton Bell is a Scottish hymn-writer and Church of Scotland minister. He is a member of the Iona Community, a broadcaster, and former student activist. He works throughout the world, lecturing in theological colleges in the UK, Canada and the United States, but is primarily concerned with the renewal of congregational worship at the grass roots.
Kelvingrove is a place in Glasgow, Scotland, perhaps best known for the museum with that name. The tune that bears the name KELVINGROVE is a traditional Scottish one linked with a text by Thomas Lyle (1792-1859), "Let us haste to Kelvin Grove, bonnie lassie, O," published in The Scottish Minstrel (1811) as KELVIN WATER. Before that in the eighteenth century it was paired with "Bonnie Lassie-O (The Shearing's Nae for You)," which is about a young woman being raped.
The tune-darkly paradoxically--works very well with this text by John Bell, and one has to believe that the irony of such a tune for a story of rape was not lost on those who sang it in the eighteenth century either.
Offertory: “Meditation on ‘RUSTINGTON’” Hugh S Livingston, Jr. (1945-2014)
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.
Hugh S Livingston, Jr. served in music ministries in Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio, providing his talents as a choral director, pianist, organist, and trumpeter. Even in his retirement, Hugh remained active as a church musician, and shared his musical gifts with hundreds of people in assisted living and nursing homes.
Opening Voluntary: “Bridegroom” James Biery (1956)
Peter Cutts (1937) wrote this melody for "As the bridegroom to his chosen." It was first published in 100 Hymns for Today (London, 1969). He was born in Birmingham, England. He sang in the Birmingham Cathedral Choir, and later earned diplomas in Music and Theology.
James Biery is an American organist, composer and conductor who is Minister of Music at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where he directs the choirs, plays the 66-rank Klais organ and oversees the music program of the church. Prior to this appointment Biery was music director for Cathedrals in St. Paul, Minnesota and Hartford, Connecticut.
Closing Voluntary: “Processional from Partita on ‘Crucifer’, Charles Callahan (1951)
Paired perfectly with our Sending hymn, today’s Closing Voluntary is the first movement of a partita based on the hymn tune, CRUCIFER, composed by Sydney H. Nicholson (1875-1947), who wrote this tune for the text with which it appeared in the 1916 Hymns Ancient and Modern supplement. It is a processional tune that appropriately accompanies the cross borne by the crucifer, for whom it is named.
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. Callahan compositions are performed frequently in church and concert; his writing style has been described by The Washington Post as gentle, confident lyricism.
Hymn of the Day: “The Church’s One Foundation” ELW 654
Text: S. J. Stone (1839-1900)
Tune: AURELIA, Samuel S. Wesley (1810-1876)
In the mid-nineteenth century, Bishop John William Colenso of Natal raised a ruckus in the Catholic Church when he challenged the historicity and authority of many of the Old Testament books. Bishop Gray of Capetown wrote a stirring response of defense, which, in 1866, inspired Samuel Stone, to write this beloved hymn, basing his text on Article 9 of the Apostle’s Creed: “The Holy Catholic (Universal) Church; the Communion of Saints; He is the Head of this Body.” Now an affirmation of Christ as the foundation of our faith, we sing this hymn with those who have gone before us and with Christians around the world, declaring that beyond any theological differences, cultural divides, and variances in practice, we are all part of the same body, the body of Christ.
The actual words have not changed much from Stone’s original text, though there are differences in what verses are sung. Stone’s hymn originally consisted of seven stanzas, to which he added three more, and today most hymnals include the original 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, though not every hymnal contains all five. In the first two verses, we proclaim our unity as the Church in Christ, through baptism, the Word, and Communion. In stanza 3 and 4, we pray that divisions might cease and we would fully experience that unity, and in verse 5, we acknowledge the unity greater than the sum of individual people, our fellowship with God, the Three in One.
Stone attended schools at Charterhouse and Pembroke College in Oxford, England. Ordained in the Church of England in 1862, he became curate of Windsor, a position he held until he joined his father in ministry at St. Paul's in Haggerston, London, in 1870. He succeeded his father as vicar at Haggerston in 1874, staying until 1890. From 1890 until his death he served All-Hallow-on-the-Wall in London, which he turned into a haven for working girls and women. In addition to his collection of hymns, Stone's publications include Sonnets of the Christian Year (1875), Hymns (1886), and Iona (1898). He served as a member of the committee that prepared Hymns Ancient and Modern (1909). His Collected Hymns and Poems were published posthumously.
The tune that most often accompanies this text is AURELIA, composed in 1864 by Samuel S. Wesley and first published as a setting for “Jerusalem the Golden.” It was paired with Stone’s text shortly after, to the chagrin of some: Dr. Henry Gauntlett was apparently very annoyed by this match-up, as he thought Wesley’s tune was “inartistic, secular twaddle.” Dr. Gauntlett was not to have the last word however, and the tune has stuck.
Offertory: “Trentham” Philip Moore (1943)
Robert Jackson (1842-1914) originally composed TRENTHAM as a setting for Henry W. Baker's "O Perfect Life of Love". Named for a village in Staffordshire, England, close to the town in which Jackson was born, the tune was published with the Baker text in Fifty Sacred Leaflets (1888).
Philip Moore was educated at the Royal College of Music in London. Here he won the Walford Davies Prize for Organ Playing and the Limpus, Turpin, and Read Prizes in the Royal College of Organists’ exams. He holds a BMus degree from the University of Durham, and more recently was awarded Honorary Fellowships by the Royal School of Church Music, the Guild of Church Musicians, and the Academy of St Cecilia for his services to Church Music. In 2008, the Archbishop of York awarded him the Order of St William, and in 2016 the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded him the Cranmer Award for Worship “for his contribution to the English choral tradition as a composer, arranger, and performer”.
Opening Voluntary: “Spirit of the Living God” Malcolm Archer
Daniel Iverson (1890-1977) wrote the first stanza and tune of this hymn after hearing a sermon on the Holy Spirit during an evangelism crusade by the George Stephens Evangelistic Team in Orlando, Florida, 1926. The hymn was sung at the crusade and then printed in leaflets for use at other services. Published anonymously in Robert H. Coleman's Revival Songs (1929) with alterations in the tune, this short hymn gained much popularity by the middle of the century. Since the 1960s it has again been properly credited to Iverson.
Malcolm Archer has had a distinguished career in church music which has taken him to the posts of Organist and Director of Music at three English Cathedrals: Bristol, Wells and St Paul’s, and for eleven years, Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. He holds Fellowships from the Royal College of Organists, the Royal School of Church Music and the Guild of Church Musicians, the latter two awarded for his many years of service to the church as a choir trainer and composer.
Closing Voluntary: “Shipston (Fugitives on the Run)” Paul Leddington Wright (1951)
SHIPSTON is English traditional melody collected by Lucy Broadwood (1858-1929). It was originally harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), first appearing in The English Hymnal (1906) where it accompanied two hymns: “Firmly I believe and truly” and “Jesu, tender Shepherd, hear me”.
PAUL LEDDINGTON WRIGHT held his first two appointments as Organist and Choirmaster of the Maidenhead Methodist Church, and also the Maidenhead Schools' Orchestra at the age of 15. At 17, he made his first organ recital tour of the USA, Canada and Jamaica.
A graduate of Cambridge University, he was organ scholar of St. Catharine's College, graduating with a Masters degree in music, studying with Sir David Willcocks and Peter Hurford.
Hymn of the Day: “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” ELW 588
Text: Frederick W. Faber, 1814–1863, alt.
Tune: LORD, REVIVE US, North American, 19th cent.
Frederick Faber, born in Yorkshire, England, was one of a number of English clergy who converted from the Anglican Church to Roman Catholicism in the Romantic era of hymnody in the 19th century.
Faber was born an Anglican and reared a strict Calvinist. After attending Oxford, he took orders as an Anglican priest and began his ministry as a rector. Influenced by his friend John Henry Newman who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, Faber also converted to Catholicism that same year.
Both Newman and Faber were influenced by the rituals and tradition of Rome. Faber formed a community in Birmingham called “Brothers of the Will of God.” Newman joined the Oratory, an order of secular priests established in 1564 by St. Philip Neri in Rome, and Faber eventually followed him there. Hymnologist Albert Bailey noted, “Father Faber was the moving and guiding spirit [of the Oratory] as long as he lived, a great preacher and a man of charming personality.”
Drawing inspiration from the hymns of John Newton, William Cowper and the Wesleys during his Anglican youth, he recognized that Roman Catholics lacked a tradition of more recent metrical hymnody in English. He took it upon himself to remedy this. By the time he died, he had contributed 150 hymns, all composed after his conversion to Roman Catholicism.
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” originally had eight stanzas and appeared under the title “Come to Jesus” in Faber’s Oratory Hymns (1854). In a later collection, the hymn expanded to 13 stanzas, beginning with “Souls of men, why will ye scatter/ Like a crowd of frightened sheep?” That version was included in a posthumous collection, Hymns Selected from F. W. Faber (1867).
LORD, REVIVE US is an anonymous nineteenth-century American tune first used with John Newton's hymn "Savior, visit thy plantation" at #51 in Joseph Hillman's The Revivalist: A Collection of Choice Revival Hymns and Tunes, Original and Selected (New York, 1868). The last line of Newton's fifth and last stanza (in Olney Hymns, #51) was "To revive thy work afresh." It was printed as stanza 4 in The Revivalist. The last line of Newton's second stanza was "Help can only come from thee." Though it was not printed in The Revivalist, somebody seems to have known it and put the two lines together to construct the refrain, "Lord, revive us, All our help must come from thee." The name of the tune was born. The tune seems to be related to HOLY MANNA though it is not pentatonic.
Offertory: Prelude on “Open My Eyes” Charles Callahan (1951)
Charles Callahan is a well-known composer of music best described as exhibiting a gentle, confident lyricism. He is an organist, choral conductor, pianist and teacher, a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.
The tune, “Open My Eyes,” was composed by Clara Harriett Fiske Jones Scott (1841-1897). She was the first woman to publish a volume of anthems, 'The Royal anthem book’ in 1882. This hymn first appeared in Best Hymns No. 2, by Elisha A. Hoffman & Harold F. Sayles (Chicago, Illinois: Evangelical Publishing Company, 1895). Some hymnals show the author incorrectly as "Charles" Scott.
Opening Voluntary: “Elevation,” Léon Boëllmann (1862-1897)
Léon Boëllmann was a Romantic French organist and composer who wrote over 160 works in his short lifetime of only 35 years. His best-known composition is Suite Gothique, which is a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its concluding Toccata. Had he lived longer, Boëllmann would likely be regarded today as one of the great Romantic French organist-composers, in a line that included Franck, Widor, and Vierne.
Closing Voluntary: “Invention #1 Joseph Callaerts (1830-1901)
Joseph Callaerts was born in 1830 in Antwerp, and spent nearly all of his life in that city. He started learning music when he was a boy, singing in Antwerp's choir of the Cathedral of Our Lady. As a young man, he studied the organ with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (whose “Fanfare” I played last month) at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire, and he won the first prize in organ at that institution in 1856. Starting in 1850, Callaerts served as the organist at the Jesuit College in Antwerp. In 1855 he became the organist at Antwerp Cathedral and in 1863 he became carillonneur of the city of Antwerp. From 1867 on, he taught organ and harmony at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, which had its name changed to the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in 1898. He also gave expert advice in the building of several organs. Callaerts has a traditionalist composer profile. Unlike his contemporaries, he did not search for innovative forms and did not aspire to convey a political or social message with his music. His compositions were widely appreciated during his lifetime, but their popularity decreased from the first decades of the twentieth century onwards.
Hymn of the Day: “Eternal Father Strong to Save” ELW 756
Text: William Whiting (1825-1878)
Tune: MELITA John B. Dykes (1823-1876)
William Whiting wrote this hymn in 1860 for one of his students who was about to sail to America. It was revised and included in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) "for those at sea." The first stanza originally began, "O Thou who bidd'st the ocean deep" and has sometimes been found with "Almighty Father" rather than "Eternal Father." Evangelical Lutheran Worship uses the same altered versions of Whiting's four stanzas that Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) used. This hymn has found wide usage in English-speaking countries as the sailor's hymn and has been allied to the state almost as much as to the church. In the United States it is inscribed over the chancel of the Naval Academy chapel at Annapolis, was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's favorite hymn, was sung at his funeral in 1945, and was played by the Navy Band as John F. Kennedy's body was carried up the steps of the Capitol building to lie in state in 1963.
William Whiting was born in Kensington, England, the son of a grocer, and moved with his family to Clapham, where he went to school. In 1841 he enrolled at the Winchester Training Institute, and in 1842 he became master of the Winchester College Choristers' School, serving there until he died. He was an active participant in civic and church life and became honorary secretary to the Winchester-Hursley branch of the English Church Union, which supported the Catholic cause in the Church of England. Besides hymns, he wrote two books of verse: Rural Thoughts (1851) and Edgar Thorpe, or the Warfare of Life (1867).
The tune, MELITA, is named after the island where Paul was shipwrecked (Acts 28:1 KJV; modern Bible translations have “Malta”). It is a fitting name for a tune associated with a text about safety on the seas. MELITA was composed by John B. Dykes especially for this text in 1861, and they were published together in Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Offertory: “Aria” Georg Böem (1661-1733)
The son of an organist-schoolmaster, Georg Böhm went to study at the University of Jena in 1684 and left probably in 1690. In 1698 he became organist at the Church of St. Johannis in Lüneburg, where he remained for the rest of his life and where the young J.S. Bach doubtless heard him play. Although Böhm wrote numerous cantatas and sacred songs, he is chiefly remembered for his keyboard works, in which he deploys differing styles for harpsichord and organ. His harpsichord suites are in the manner of J.J. Froberger, but his organ works are more important. Some of his toccatas, preludes, fugues, and postludes for organ are brilliant, and his treatment of chorale melodies in organ partitas was truly original and exercised a strong influence on Bach.
Opening Voluntary: “Pleading Savior,” Emma Lou Diemer (1927)
A beautiful old American hymn tune, PLEADING SAVIOR is the setting for a half-dozen lyrics by Protestants and Catholics and even Orthodox. The tune was written by Joshua Leavitt and first published by Deodatus Dutton in The Christian Lyre in 1833, then again in The Plymouth Collection in 1855 where the words "There the Savior stands a-pleading" were the first words of the lyric. The English editors called it SALTASH after a town in Cornwall.
Emma Lou Diemer played the piano and composed at a very early age and became organist in her church at age 13. Her great interest in composing music continued through College High School in Warrensburg, MO, and she majored in composition at the Yale Music School (BM, 1949; MM, 1950) and at the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D, 1960). She studied in Brussels, Belgium on a Fulbright Scholarship and spent two summers of composition study at the Berkshire Music Center. She taught in several colleges and was organist at several churches in the Kansas City area during the 1950s. From 1959-61 she was composer-in-residence in the Arlington, VA schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project, and composed many choral and instrumental works for the schools. She was consultant for the MENC Contemporary Music Project before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland where she taught composition and theory from 1965-70. In 1971 she moved from the East Coast to teach composition and theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At UCSB she was instrumental in founding the electronic/computer music program. In 1991 she became Professor Emeritus at UCSB. She is an active keyboard performer (piano, organ, harpsichord, synthesizer), and has given concerts of her own music at Washington National Cathedral, St. Mary's Cathedral and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, and elsewhere.
Closing Voluntary: “Fanfare,” R. Mark Otterstad
“Fanfare” was written by Mr. Otterstad in 1963, while he was a student at St. Olaf College.
Hymn of the Day: "Break Now the Bread of Life" (ELW 515)
Text: Mary A. Lathbury (1841-1913)
Tune: BREAD OF LIFE, William F. Sherwin (1826-1888)
Mary A. Lathbury is known primarily for two hymns: this one (originally "Break Thou the Bread of Life") and "Day Is Dying in the West." She wrote both at the request of Bishop John H. Vincent for use in the services of the Chautauqua Assembly, well-known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a conference center that offered a rich fare of Bible study, Sunday school teaching methods, concerts, and plays. Vincent, the secretary of the Methodist Sunday School Union, founded the Chautauqua Institution on Chautauqua Lake in upper New York State in an effort to educate Sunday school teachers. An assistant to Vincent at the camp, Lathbury was also a well-known writer, editor, and illustrator of children's books. Her literary skills earned her the nickname "Poet Laureate of Chautauqua."
Lathbury wrote stanzas 1 and 2 in 1877; they were first published in Chautauqua Carols (1878). Alexander Groves (1842-1909) added stanzas 3 and 4 later, and they were first published in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (London, Sept. 1913). Groves's career included being a grocer and accountant as well as a trustee, auditor, and actuary for the Henley Savings Bank. He served as organist of the Henley Wesleyan Chapel but later in life became a member of the Anglican Church in Henley.
Some expressions in "Break Now the Bread of Life" may not satisfy everyone in the Reformed community, but these verses were not written to define doctrine in sharp detail. They were intended to be used as a simple prayer for illumination for Bible study groups and in the meetings of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Tradition also calls for the hymn's use during Sunday-evening vespers at the Lake Chautauqua' assembly grounds.
The hymn text draws on biblical images to depict Scripture's role in our lives. Stanzas 1 and 2 recall the breaking and the blessing of the bread at Jesus' feeding of the five thousand. Stanza 3 confesses Christ as the bread of life.
This hymn has served as both a comfort and inspiration to many people since its first publication. Before every mid-week service, the great English preacher G. Campbell Morgan would read the words to this hymn to help him focus on his message. The primary focus of this hymn is centered upon Bible study and the desire to glean truth from God’s word.
The tune most commonly sung for this hymn is BREAD OF LIFE, specifically written for the text by William F. Sherwin in 1877. He composed BREAD OF LIFE in 1877 for the stanzas by Lathbury when he was the music director for the Chautauqua Institution. The notes are both gentle and reassuring, complimenting Mary Lathbury’s lyrics, and allowing the singer to focus on each word of the hymn. It is a slow, flowing tune, but uplifting nonetheless.
William F. Sherwin, an American Baptist, was born at Buckland, Massachusetts. His educational opportunities, so far as schools were concerned, were few, but he made excellent use of his time and surroundings. At fifteen he went to Boston and studied music under Dr. Mason. In due course he became a teacher of vocal music, and held several important appointments in Massachusetts; in Hudson and Albany, New York County, and then in New York City. Taking special interest in Sunday Schools, he composed carols and hymn-tunes largely for their use, and was associated with the Rev. R. Lowry and others in preparing Bright Jewels, and other popular Sunday School hymn and tune books.
Hymn of the Day: “Jesus, priceless treasure” ELW 775
Text: Johann Franck, 1618-1677; tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1827-1878, alt.
Tune: JESU MEINE FREUDE, Johann Crüger, 1598-1662
A most appropriate hymn for the day is “Jesus, priceless treasure” (ELW 775). Using some of the imagery of today’s gospel, such as a treasure that is priceless, the author Johann Franck adds his own image of the merciful domain of God: God is lover, for whom we are thirsting, in whose arm we rest. Such erotic religious imagery was more common in its time, 1653, than it is for some Christians in the present time. Any suggestions why?
— Gail Ramshaw
Johann Crüger composed JESU, MEINE FREUDE, a bar form tune (AAB) written for this text. Crüger was one of the most distinguished musicians of his time. He was editor of Praxis pietatis melica, considered one of the most important collections of German hymnody in the seventeenth century. Of his hymn tunes, which are generally noble and simple in style, some 20 are still in use, the best known probably being "NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT."
Opening Voluntary: Liturgical Prelude #2, George Oldroyd (1886-1951)
George Oldroyd was an English organist, composer and teacher of Anglican church music. He composed numerous settings of the mass, but is best remembered for his Mass of the Quiet Hour composed in 1928. It is still part of the repertoire of many English cathedrals and parish churches. Other works include the part song, “Lute book lullaby”, organ works including the Liturgical Prelude played today and pieces for piano and for violin. Oldroyd was an authority on counterpoint, and published The Technique And Spirit Of Fugue: An Historical Study.
Offertory: In Communion Dennis Eliot (1941)
Today’s Offertory is a setting of the hymn tune TRUST IN JESUS, with a text written by Louisa M. R. Stead (1850-1917). The accounts vary widely on the details and drama surrounding the writing of this hymn. What is known is that, in 1880, Louisa Stead’s husband drowned, and that this hymn was published in Songs of Triumph two years later. It is widely believed that she wrote this hymn in response to the peace she found in trusting Jesus despite her sorrow. Mrs. Stead went on to serve for many years as a missionary in Africa.
This hymn is always sung to the tune TRUST IN JESUS, which was written for this text by William Kirkpatrick (1838-1921) in 1882 and appeared in the first publication of this text.
Closing Voluntary: Fanfare Jacques Lemmens (1823-1881)
When Jacques Nicolas Lemmens first published his organ method book, the Ecole d'orgue. his aim was twofold: to help organists develop the technical ability to play great organ literature, and to provide a body of repertoire especially suited to the Catholic church. Although the compositions in the Ecole are rarely performed today, the exercises that Lemmens developed to improve the technique of organists have had a profound influence on organ pedagogy for over one hundred years.
Jacques-Nicholas Lemmens was an eminent Belgian organist, recitalist, composer, and educator. His first organ training was with his father, then he studied at the Royal Brussels Conservatoire, where he was appointed organ professor at age 26. His distinguished students included Alexander Guilmant and Charles-Marie Widor. During 1852 he presented numerous stunning organ recitals in Paris. His astonishing pedal technique was mostly due to his studies of Bach’s organ works, which were not well-known in France at the time.
Fanfare is Lemmens’ most famous composition, which was very popular when he performed it in recitals, and is probably his most famous work today.
Hymn of the Day: “ALMIGHTY GOD, YOUR WORD IS CAST”, ELW 516
Text: John Cawood (1775-1852)
Tune: ST. FLAVIAN, English folk tune
Written about 1815 in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and designated for use "After a Sermon". The text is stimulated by Jesus’ parable of the sower. It was reprinted in 1825 and from that date it has grown in importance as a congregational hymn, and its use has become extensive in all English-speaking countries. John Cawood published several prose works, but no volume of hymns or poems. His son says, "My father composed about thirteen hymns, which have one by one got into print, though never published by himself, or any one representing him.”
ST. FLAVIAN is an example of an English psalm tune that, like many Genevan Psalter tunes and German chorales, had its original rhythms smoothed out. It is an English tune that has been happily attached to numerous texts.
Offertory from Thirty-five Miniatures for Organ, #18 Flor Peeters (1903-1986)
This is another selection from Flor Peters’ collection of Thirty-five Miniatures for Organ.
His compositions include an organ method, various collections and recital pieces, and work for church use. His "Thirty-Five Miniatures" is perhaps his most popular collection of organ compositions.
Opening Voluntary: “Down Ampney (Hommage to RVW)” David Blackwell (1961)
To ready our hearts and minds for the service, I continue to offer quiet and gentle music to help us feel cool and comfortable in spite of some very hot weather. This is David Blackwell’s setting of DOWN AMPNEY, in which he uses introductory and accompanying material recalling the very pleasing style of last Sunday’s Opening Voluntary, Ralph Vaughn Williams’ “Rosemedre.” In addition, this tune, written for the text "Come Down, O Love Divine" was composed by Vaughn Williams and named DOWN AMPNEY in honor of his birthplace.
Closing Voluntary: "We Are One in the Spirit" (St. Brendan’s)” by David Schelat (1955)
Also known as "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love," Peter Scholtes (1938–2009) wrote this hymn text and the hymn tune “St. Brendan’s” while he was a parish priest at St. Brendan's on the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s. The idea for the hymn was born when he was leading a youth choir and was looking for an appropriate song for a series of ecumenical, interracial events. When he couldn't find such a song, he wrote the now-famous hymn in a single day. His experiences at St. Brendan's, and in the Chicago Civil Rights movement, influenced him for the rest of his life.
David Schelat is Minister of Music at First & Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware. He has performed as organist, conductor, or composer for five regional conventions of the AGO, as well as for conferences of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and National Association of Pastoral Musicians.
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Hymn of the Day: “The Word of God is Source and Seed” ELW 506
Text: Delores Dufner (1939)
Tune: GAUDEAMUS DOMINO, David Hurd (1950)
Delores Dufner wrote this hymn in 1983. Her descriptions of its themes plot the progression: "God's Word is like seed; God's Word is powerful and life-giving; God's Word was made flesh in Jesus”. She says that for her "one of the greatest gifts of Vatican II was the 'opening up' of scripture. Hearing chapter 37 of Ezekiel powerfully proclaimed shortly after Vatican II, I understood that the Word of God could bring new life even in apparently hopeless situations."
This hymn was first published in Benedictine Book of Song II (1992), with a musical setting by Jay Hunstiger. He added the refrain, which "seemed to complete both text and tune nicely." It was retained in With One Voice (1995) and Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
The name of the tune, GAUDEAMUS DOMINO, comes from the refrain. Augsburg Fortress commissioned David Hurd to compose it for With One Voice. He had not previously seen the text and "very much enjoyed creating a musical setting for it.”
Offertory Anthem: “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me” Stephan Casurella (1973)
An original and utterly charming setting of this late 19th century hymn text written by Edward Hopper. Incidentally, the nautical theme reflects Hopper’s ministry at the Church of the Sea and Land in New York City.
Stephan Casurella was born in England, where he began studying piano, organ and music composition at an early age. After moving to the United States, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in both piano performance and music composition and in 2009 was awarded a doctor of musical arts degree in church music (organ emphasis) from the University of Kansas. Stephan is a published composer who has written for a wide range of media. His works have been performed by soloists and ensembles such as the choir of Chester Cathedral, England, the Thalia Symphony Orchestra, the Xavier University Concert Choir, and flutist James Hall.
Jesus, Savior, pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea;
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal.
Chart and compass come from Thee;
Jesus, Savior, pilot me.
As a mother stills her child,
Thou canst hush the ocean wild;
Boisterous waves obey Thy will,
When Thou sayest to them, "Be still!"
Wondrous Sovereign of the sea,
Jesus, Savior, pilot me.
When at last I near the shore,
And the fearful breakers roar
’Twixt me and the peaceful rest,
Then, while leaning on Thy breast,
May I hear Thee say to me,
Fear not, I will pilot thee.
Opening Voluntary: Prelude on the Hymn Tune “Rhosemedre”, Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958)
Although best known in this original version for solo organ, “Rhosymedre” is also well known as an orchestral arrangement by Arnold Foster. Ralph Vaughan Williams used the hymn tune as the basis of the second movement of his organ composition Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes. “Rhosymedre” is the name of a hymn tune written by the 19th-century Welsh Anglican priest John David Edwards. Edwards named the tune after the village of Rhosymedre in the County Borough of Wrexham, Wales, where he was the vicar from 1843 until his death in 1885. The hymn tune is seven lines long, appears in a number of hymnals and is sung to a variety of texts.
Closing Voluntary: “Processional” William Mathias (1934 - 1992)
Welsh composer William Matthias was a child prodigy who began playing the piano at the age of three and composing at five. His formal musical studies took place first at Aberystwyth University and later the Royal School of Music where he was a composition student of Lennox Berkeley. He received his doctorate from the University of Wales, where he was appointed Professor of Music in 1970 and remained in the position until 1988. He was an in-house composer for Oxford University Press and founded the North Wales Music Festival at Asaph Cathedral, where he served as Artistic Director until his death.
In addition to a number of symphonies, concertos, and operas written for the secular music world, Matthias produced a large number of solo organ works and Anglican-style choral anthems for use in the church. His “Let the People Praise Thee, O God” was commissioned for the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981 and brought him international fame.
“Processional” dates from 1964 and is written in neo-classical style. Its jaunty, fanfare-like main theme hearkens back to the trumpet voluntaries of the English baroque but with a modern twist. Its ternary form features modal, quartal, and added-note harmonies.
Hymn of the Day: “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” ELW 611
Text: Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889
Tune: KINGSFOLD, English Folk Tune
Despite his intimidating name and physical appearance, Horatius Bonar was a great lover of children and was concerned about how little the children understood of the metrical Psalms that were sung in the Scottish church of his day. "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" was one of the over 600 hymns he wrote to address the needs of the churches he served.
In Great Britain and America nearly 100 of Dr. Bonar's hymns are in common use. They are found in almost all modern hymnals from four in Hymns Ancient & Modern to more than twenty in the American Songs for the Sanctuary, N. Y., 1865-72. The most widely known are, "A few more years shall roll;" "Come, Lord, and tarry not;" "Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face;" "I heard the Voice of Jesus say;" "The Church has waited long;" and "Thy way, not mine, O Lord."
Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar's "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say."
Offertory: “Poco Allegretto” Cesar Franck (1822-1890)
Cesar Franck was a Belgian-French Romantic composer and organist who was the chief figure in a movement to give French music an emotional engagement, technical solidity, and seriousness comparable to that of German composers. He showed unmistakable musical gifts that enabled him to enter the Liège conservatory at the age of eight, and his progress as a pianist was so astonishing that in 1834 his father took him on tour and a year later dispatched him to Paris, where he worked with the Bohemian composer Anton Reicha, then professor at the Paris Conservatory. In 1836 the whole family, including the younger son Joseph, who played the violin, moved to Paris, and in 1837 César Franck entered the Paris Conservatory. Within a year he had won a Grand Prix d’Honneur by a feat of transposition in the sight-reading test, and this honor was followed by a first prize for fugue (1840) and second prize for organ (1841). Although the boy should now normally have prepared to compete for the Prix de Rome, a prize offered yearly in Paris for study in Rome, his father was determined on a virtuoso’s career for him and his violinist brother, with whom he gave concerts, and therefore removed him prematurely from the conservatory.
In order to please his father and earn much-needed money, Franck gave concerts, the programs of which were largely devoted to performing his own showy fantasias and operatic potpourris, popular at that time. After 1840, when he turned his attention increasingly to the organ, his compositions became noticeably more serious. Only when he had finally asserted himself against what amounted to the unscrupulous exploitation of his gifts by his father could he achieve maturity and peace of mind.
Opening Voluntary: “Melody” Richard Purvis (1913-1994)
Richard Purvis was an American organist, composer, conductor and teacher. He began playing the organ publicly at the age of 14 in churches and in the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. In addition to recitals and church services, Purvis played nightly recitals broadcast on the 7-rank style "E" Wurlitzer organ at the Chapel of the Chimes over local radio station KRE. His stage name was Don Irving and his theme song was “I'll Take an Option on You”.
He was admired as one of the finest organ improvisateurs in the U.S. In an era when so-called "romantic" music was out of favor with most composers, and atonal, serial music was considered the hallmark of serious composition, he was not afraid to write tuneful, accessible, richly colored, and even whimsical compositions that possessed commercial viability. He is especially remembered for his expressive recordings of the organ classics and his own lighter compositions for the instrument.
Closing Voluntary: “Invention #3 Joseph Callaerts (1830-1901)
Joseph Callaerts was born in 1830 in Antwerp, and spent nearly all of his life in that city. He started learning music when he was a boy, singing in Antwerp's choir of the Cathedral of Our Lady. As a young man, he studied the organ with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire, and he won the first prize in organ at that institution in 1856. Starting in 1850, Callaerts served as the organist at the Jesuit College in Antwerp. In 1855 he became the organist at Antwerp Cathedral and in 1863 he became carillonneur of the city of Antwerp. From 1867 on, he taught organ and harmony at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, which had its name changed to the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in 1898. He also gave expert advice in the building of several organs.
Hymn of the Day: “All Are Welcome” (ELW 641)
Text: Marty Haugen (1950)
Tune: TWO OAKS, Marty Haugen
This hymn by Marty Haugen was "an attempt to write a text that reflects the welcome to table fellowship that Jesus offered unconditionally to everyone." The five stanzas of the hymn as it now appears were "redacted down" from the thirteen stanzas Haugen originally created with the intention that they would "somewhat model the four-fold rite of gathering-word-meal-sending." Haugen says that "the hymn was originally intended to be a gift to the St. Thomas Becket Catholic Community in Eagan, Minnesota, where my former pastor and his congregation were about to dedicate their new church. At the request of my editor, the hymn was dedicated to his uncle and aunt” - "Dedicated to Gene and Peggy Figliulo at the request of Michael A. Cymbala.”
"For quite a while the tune KINGSFOLD was considered for the text, but the length of the final verses (and the need for the 'all are welcome’ refrain) dictated a new tune." Haugen's new tune was called TWO OAKS, which "was the name the Figliulos gave to their home in Michigan because the home faces two large and beautiful oak trees. TWO OAKS is constructed in four sets of two-phrase groups, each 2 + 2 until the last one, which by its extension to five measures (now without the pickups) emphasizes "all are welcome."
Opening Voluntary: “Te ofrecemos” Jeffrey Honoré (1956)
The composer, Jeffrey Honoré, started out teaching high school choral music in Ripon, Wisconsin. Since 1984, he has worked full time as a pastoral musician, serving Catholic parishes in Milwaukee and Phoenix. “Te ofrecemos” is a Spanish hymn.
Offertory: from Thirty-five Miniatures for Organ, #5 Flor Peeters (1903-1986)
Flor Peters was the son of a church organist. He was a pupil of Dupre and Tournemire and attended the Lemmens Institute where he won highest honors in organ playing. In 1925 he became professor at the Institute, and organist at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mechelen. In 1931 he became professor at the Royal Flemish Conservatory in Antwerp. Since then he has won international recognition having concertized in Belgium, Holland, France, England, Italy, Switzer-land, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Canada, South America and in more than fifty cities in the United States.
His compositions include an organ method, various collections and recital pieces, and work for church use. His "Thirty-Five Miniatures" is perhaps his most popular collection of organ compositions. His masses have been generally accepted as among the best musical settings of our times, while his "Te Deum" and "Jubilate Deo" have become recognized as classic favorites for festival use.
Closing Voluntary: “Laudes Domini (When Morning Gilds the Skies)” Robert Lind (1940)
Robert Lind studied at North Park College and the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, majoring in organ, composition, and music theory. At the age of 20, he worked with his mentor, Leo Sowerby, and became his assistant at the Cathedral of St. James, Chicago. He succeeded him as Organist-Choirmaster at the cathedral two years later. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era, Mr. Lind entered the publishing world, while continuing to serve various churches in the Chicago area.
Joseph Barnby (1838-1896) composed the tune, LAUDES DOMINI (“When Morning Gilds the Skies”) for this anonymous German text, a litany of praise to Christ, translated by Edward Caswall (1814- 1878). Tune and text were published together in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern and they have been inseparable ever since. The tune's Latin title, which means "the praises of the Lord," is derived from the litany refrain “may Jesus Christ be praised”.
Caswall's translations of Latin hymns from the Roman Breviary and other sources have a wider circulation in modern hymnals than those of any other translator. This is owing to his general faithfulness to the originals, and the purity of his rhythm, the latter feature specially adapting his hymns to music, and for congregational purposes. His original compositions, although marked by considerable poetical ability, are not extensive in their use, their doctrinal teaching being against their general adoption outside the Roman communion.
Hymn of the Day: ACS1093 In a Deep, Unbounded Darkness
Text: Anonymous, China; tr. Francis P. Jones, (1890–1975); adapt. Mary Louise Bringle, (1953)
Tune: DIVINUM MYSTERIUM, Plainsong mode V, 13th cent.
This text that originated as the theme song for a Bible study institute in China is a meditation on the eternal nature of God. Like the hymn “Of the Father’s love begotten,” with which this tune is often paired, we begin in the time before creation when God claimed us. After praising God’s steadfastness in stanza two, our joy overflows at the incarnation in stanza three. Finally, stanza four returns us to the realm of eternity, joining together the beginning and final chapters of the Bible by connecting references to stories from Genesis and Exodus with the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation.