From: Richard Thomas
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2014 12:53 AM
Subject: Music for the OSH Service of Sunday, December 7, 2014
The introit is “Be Still and Know that I am God,” by J. Jerome Williams of North Carolina.
“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is the opening hymn for this service of the second Sunday of Advent.
The hymn and tune come from an ancient chant, “Veni Emmanuel.” It was translated by John Mason Neale in 1851.
http://youtu.be/Mn7iFxvfn3A “Veni, Veni Emmanuel” sung by the Paderborn Cathedral Choir of Paderborn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
The Brigham Young University group Vocal Point does an interesting rendition of this hymn:
http://youtu.be/AdR79P-2ewo?t=12s “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” BYU Vocal Point
Here is an instrumental version that is hauntingly longing:
http://youtu.be/iO7ySn-Swwc “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” instrumental: piano and cello, by the PianoGuys
Now for a truly spectacular performance, here it is done by the Stonebriar Community Church with full orchestra, a children’s choir, and a very large adult choir. (The Stonebriar congregation does a better job of decorating their church than we do at Old South Haven. They even have a big blue Star of Bethlehem.)
http://youtu.be/sID0vyENNBU “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” arrangement by Paul Thompson (who posted it to YouTube), Stonebriar Community Church
Stonebriar Community Church is a “a nondenominational evangelical Christian church in Frisco, Texas, a fast-growing suburb north of Dallas, Texas.” It was founded by a small group in 1998 and now has 4,000 worshippers every Sunday. I wonder how Barbara Brown Taylor, the author of Learning to Walk in the Dark, the book of our book study, would explain that.
The Peace Candle will be lit by Brian Mullahy, and the choir will sing about the peace candle.
According to the bulletin, our singing the little bit about the Peace candle from Candles of Advent will be followed immediately by the choir singing the communion anthem:
Invitation to the Table by Mary Kay Beall. The practice file from October 2003 is attached.
The Old Testament lesson is from Malachi, the last book of the Protestant Old Testament.
It’s the part that is a prophecy of one who is coming:
“Who can endure the day of his coming?” For he will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.”
The New Testament lesson from Luke, chapter 3. The reader will have an opportunity to try to pronounce a lot of proper names (Trachonitis, Lysania, Annas, Caiaphas, etc.).
It’s the part about John the Baptist, quoting Isaiah, a “voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley . . .”
http://youtu.be/4J9EaVeyKVA Bogdan Mihai, “Comfort Ye/Ev’ry Valley Shall Be Exalted,” Bucharest, National Radio Chamber Orchestra and Academic Radio Choir
(Bogdan Mihai is good at pronouncing his end consonants. He’s a Romanian tenor who trained in Italy.)
The second hymn is “Comfort, Comfort You My People,” by Johannes Olearius, 1671, to the tune from the Genevan Psalter (1551) used for singing Psalm 42. The translation is by Catherine Winkworth. Some attribute the tune to Louis Bourgeois (~1510-1559).
Johannes Olearius attended the University of Wittenberg and received an M.A. in 1632 and later, a D.D. He was an adjunct professor in the Wittenberg philosophy department. The Duke of Sachsen-Weissenfels, Duke August, appointed Olearius his “chief court preacher” in 1643 and private chaplain at Halle. Olearius died 24 April 1684.
http://youtu.be/rTOeAl-Ph8I “Comfort, Comfort O My People” sung by the Conrad Grebel College Chapel Choir
Here is how the Presbyterians do it at the West Side Presbyterian Church of Ridgewood, NJ:
http://youtu.be/z1BeKHq2LIQ “Comfort, Comfort You My People” with organ, drum, and tambourine (audio quality only so-so)
There is also a small orchestra, but you can’t hear it---at least I couldn’t.
Both Bach and Pachelbel wrote choral works for the same tune [“Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele (Rejoice Greatly, O My Soul)”].
http://youtu.be/Xlb_zrCZdQw “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” by J. S. Bach
The communion hymn is “Become to Us the Living Bread” with words authored in 1970 by Miriam Drury.
The tune is the French melody O FILII ET FILIAE, (O Sons and Daughters).
Here is a high school choir in Santa Barbara singing a piece by the same name as the tune (but it’s not the tune of the hymn). However, it is a very good video (and it’s short):
http://youtu.be/ys-Kl_gFddA O Filii Et Filiae (O Sons and Daughters), San Marcos High School Choirs, Santa Barbara, California
Young people should dress up more often.
This is the tune we’re singing (which is the tune of “O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing”):
http://youtu.be/wsjFezL5KdY O Filii Et Filiae (O Sons and Daughters), sung by the choir of Notre Dame de Paris.
The words we will be singing were written by Miriam Drury (1900-1985) who was born in California and lived there most of her life. Her husband taught at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. At the end of her life, she lived in the Presbyterian Retirement Home in Monte Vista Grove, Pasadena, California, http://www.mvgh.org/ a faith-based, multi-level retirement community.
“Watchman, Tell Us of the Night” is the closing hymn. The words date from 1825 and were authored by John Bowring
In the U.S., the words are most frequently sung to the tune WATCHMAN by Lowell Mason, but in our hymnal, it is set to the tune ABERYSTWYTH by Joseph Parry.
Here’s the tune played by the Tredegar Town Band:
http://youtu.be/t47CxHXtRMc ABERYSTWYTH by Joseph Parry
Joseph Parry was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales, in 1841. He died in Glamorganshire on 17 Feb 1903. From that, you might think he lived his whole life in a small region in Wales, but that is not the case.
Joseph Parry
From the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1998:
At the age of nine he was “sent to work in the puddling furnaces of a steel mill.” His family emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1854, and he was an ironworker in Danville, Pennsylvania. He started a music school there, then in 1865, he returned to Great Britain to study music in London and at Cambridge. In 1873, he became a professor of music at the Welsh University College in Aberystwyth, Wales, a seaside resort.
ABERYSTWYTH is also the tune for “Jesu, Lover of My Soul.”
You can also hear parts of the tune in the National Anthem of South Africa: http://youtu.be/Gr0414FrN7g and http://youtu.be/TdG7pEgzV5Q .
The author of the words of “Watchman! Tell Us of the Night,” Sir John Bowring (17 Oct 1792 – 23 Nov 1872), was the 4th Governor of Hong Kong. He was very proficient in languages.
John Bowring
According to Wikipedia, he was born in Exeter, “the son of a wool merchant from an old Unitarian family” and the daughter of Thomas Lane, vicar of St. Ives, Cornwall.
He was known as a hyperpolyglot. He said he knew 200 languages and could speak 100. He translated many Eastern European poems into English, including the poems of the Magyars (Hungarians), Polish poems, and poems of Russia.
He is the great-great grandfather of the English actress, Susannah York.
Instrumental Music
The prelude is "Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf (Lord God, now unlock Heaven)" which the bulletin shows as being by Marcel Dupre.
I found a piece of the same name by Bach:
http://youtu.be/2ao66kfTwFE "Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf (Lord God, now unlock Heaven), BWV 617” by J. S. Bach, played by Jonas Roman
The Offertory Is a waltz by Chopin played on the piano by Annika Johnsen.
Chopin wrote many waltzes. The Offertory music is probably based on one of these:
http://youtu.be/MEmIuXgfpTM Chopin, Waltzes.
Communion music is not listed in the bulletin.
John Stanley’s “Voluntary in E Minor” is the postlude.
Here it is played on an audio reproduction of an organ in the Netherlands:
http://youtu.be/kQ7HZU7xNjQ “Voluntary in E Minor” by John Stanley (1712-1786).
By watching the video you learn about John Stanley too. (In 1779, he became Master of the King’s Music.)
But if you would like to see and hear it played on a Hinners Organ, try:
http://youtu.be/HWfG8Fd9gk8 John Stanley’s “Voluntary in E Minor” played by David Christensen on a Hinners Organ
The organ is at the Christ Episcopal Church in Ontario, California.
It is a two-manual organ, very similar to Old South Haven’s organ.
The long pipes that had to be mitred (or Haskellized) in the OSH organ are simply mounted lower on the organ in California.
Richard
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