Friday, April 28, 2017

Music for the OSHC Service of April 30, 2017, 3rd Sunday of Easter

From: Richard Thomas

                The introit will be the Easter introit, “He is Exalted,” but without the trumpet accompaniment.


                The first hymn, no. 469, is one made famous by the Muslim pop/folk singer Yusuf Islam in 1971.  Although he has been known as Yusuf Islam since 1978, in 1971, he went by the name Cat Stevens.

         Cat Stevens                                                 Yusaf islam

     (now Yusaf Islam)

 

                The words are by Eleanor “Nellie” Farjeon (1881-1965) who also wrote children’s stories.  She was born in London and “lived much of her life among the literary and theatrical circles of London.”

                The tune BUNESSAN is named for a village on a peninsula of the island of Mull off the west coast of Scotland.

                The tune was first used for the carol, “Child in a Manger,” written in Gaelic by Mary MacDonald (1789-1872).  When the words were translated into English by Lachlan Macbean (1853-1931), he gave the name BUNESSAN to the tune.  BUNESSAN was first published in 1888 in Songs and Hymns of the Gael.

                You can hear and see Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) sing “Morning has Broken” here:

                http://youtu.be/U5sSEkZ86ts “Morning has Broken,” Yusuf Islam (in performance)

or with better audio, here:

                http://youtu.be/uZAsfB1Np-8 “Morning has Broken,” Yusuf Islam, (better audio)

 

 In 1979, [Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam] . . . left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He has received several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world. . . .


                The reading from Acts, which substitutes for a reading from the Old Testament during Eastertide, is Acts 2:14,36-41.  It includes Acts 2:40: “Save yourselves from this perverse generation.”  (Some translations have “corrupt” or “crooked” instead of “perverse.”)  The reading is about how the crowd responds to Peter’s exhortation, “Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  Peter tells them that the promise of the Holy Spirit is for “as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.”  So Peter must not have been a universalist. 

                Although Jesus had sometimes drawn large crowds, few were baptized.  Peter, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, is much more successful, and three thousand people are baptized in a single day.

-          -       -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -     -      -      -      -      -       -       -

                The gospel lesson is from the last chapter of Luke, Luke 24:13-35, the story about an encounter of two disciples (Cleopas and another who is not named) on the road to Emmaus.  Though the second disciple is not named, all artists appear to have assumed the second disciple to be male, but there is nothing in the story to lead one to that conclusion.  I was hoping to find a painting in which the second disciple was depicted as female.  I didn’t find any, but in the painting below by Altobello Melone, the second disciple is, at least, shown as a long-haired young man with a pink cape who has a wispy beard and small feet.

Altobello Melone’s painting The Road to Emmaus (~1516-17) of two disciples being startled by the appearance of a stranger.

With his silly hat as a disguise, and a dangerously-pointed walking stick (which he flings about carelessly as a distraction), and a weird costume (that causes the disciples to avert their gaze and only look upon him askance), Jesus is able to join the disciples without being recognized.

     I like the shell on his hat:

 

                Here are other paintings of the two disciples being joined by another traveler, but not realizing that traveler is Jesus.

                In the paintings above, it is a bit surprising the two disciples can’t recognize Jesus.  One would have thought his white robe would have been a dead give-away. J

Especially with the halo:

Perhaps the artists of the paintings above didn’t get the clothing right. An unknown Dutch painter in New York in the eighteenth century, showed Jesus wearing a red robe, but it’s still clear that he’s no normal traveler on the road to Emmaus:

While at supper in Emmaus, Jesus breaks the bread, and the two disciples finally realize that the stranger who  joined them is actually Jesus.

Supper at Emmaus (~1633-1639) by Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) of Utrecht, Netherlands

                The artist was "especially noted for his depiction of artificially lit scenes."

                      Was it the way he broke the bread or his trance-like heavenward gaze

                                                    as he did it that gave him away?

  Even the servant-boy is struck by Jesus’ odd pose---the dog, however, is more interested in

                                                         getting something to eat.

 

The story appears only in Luke.  A very short account (with no details) does appear in “the longer ending of the gospel of Mark,” but that ending doesn’t appear in two of the most respected early manuscripts, and several early Greek manuscripts which do include it have marginal comments noting that earlier manuscripts lacked the verses.  In English translation, the story is only two sentences long:

Mark 16:12-13.  Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.


                The second hymn is no. 363, “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.”  It isn’t a hymn we sing often at Old South Haven, but it fits today’s gospel reading.  (The Smithtown Presbyterians sang this hymn on January 22, the Sunday after Martin Luther King Day—also the Sunday after the Presidential inauguration.) 

                It is an African-American spiritual.  The tune is called SOJOURNER.  The composer’s name is unknown.

                The publisher of an anthem arrangement of this hymn says “imagine singing this hymn as a member of a chain-gang crew with heavy weights on your ankles, then “you can begin to understand . . . the intensity of the prayer.”

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/i-want-jesus-to-walk-with-me-sheet-music/17321094 “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me”

(Click on the “Listen” beside the speaker icon, then click the “play” icon in the window that opens.)

                Here is an interesting—perhaps even moving, depending on your mood—organ improvisation on the tune.  It is performed on an organ on rollers on a basketball court in Oregon:

https://youtu.be/7qR9Bj2L0U0 Organ improvisation on “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” played by Noah Freeman (in his white socks) on the Trillium organ, Trinity Lutheran Church, Bend, Oregon.

 

                Here is a performance by a church choir in a warm church  (some of the choir members are fanning themselves):

https://youtu.be/xsLrtmIAaxU  “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” jazzy performance by a church choir, with piano, guitar, trumpet and drum set

 

https://youtu.be/koLAwjlJZYY “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” with Mormon Tabernacle Choir, sung by Alex Boyé

Alex Boyé is a British-American singer born in London on 16 Aug 1970 to Nigerian parents.  He never knew his father, who remained in Nigeria.  His mother told him one day she was going to Nigeria for a couple of weeks and did not return for eight years.  He was raised mostly in foster homes.  He started working at a London McDonald’s at age 16, where the manager was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which Alex then joined.  (For a time, he was a backing dancer for George Michael.)  He moved to Salt Lake City in 2000.  He joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in 2006 and became one of its three black choir members.


                The title of the sermon is “Opening Eyes.”


                Hymn no. 311, “We Meet You, O Christ, In Many a Guise (Your image we see, in simple—and wise)” is the closing hymn.  The words were authored by Fred Kaan in 1966.  The tune is a Basque carol called NORMANDY.  This hymn is more often set to STANLEY BEACH, DURHAM 72, or SHERSTON.

                                https://youtu.be/czas-C2kw8E Normandy Carol (not quite the same as in the hymnal), played by the World of Brass Ensemble

                One version of the Normandy Carol tune is used as a setting for “Away in a Manger.”

Fred Kaan (1929-2009)

                Fred Kaan was born in Haarlem, The Netherlands, on 27 Jul 1929.  During World War II, his parents worked with the resistance and hid a young Jewish woman who had escaped from Belsen.  Three of his grandparents died from starvation during the war. He never attended church as a child, and first stepped into a church when he was in his late teens.

                After studying theology and psychology at Utrecht University, he went to Great Britain (Western College in Bristol).  He became a Congregational minister in 1955 and served first in south Wales, and was the pastor at Pilgrim Church in Plymouth. In 1972, the “Presbyterian Church of England” and the “Congregational Church in England and Wales” merged to become the United Reformed Church.

                Fred Kaan began writing hymns at age 34, originally as a way of summarizing and emphasizing the themes of his sermons. 
                He didn’t like the new style of hymns called “praise hymns,” which he called “nursery rhymes of the church.”  He believed that new hymns needed to “address the modern challenges to faith” and “issues of peace and justice.”

                His hymns include “Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ,” “For the Healing of the Nations,” and “Now Let Us from this Table Rise.”

                He was instrumental in the creation of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 1968. 
                In 1954, he had married Elizabeth Steller, a daughter of missionaries, but in 1989, they divorced.  After she died in 1993, he married a general practitioner, Anthea Cooke.  They moved to the Lake District after her retirement.

                He developed Alzheimer’s disease and cancer and died on 4 October 2009 in Penrith.


Instrumental Music


                The prelude is "Dedication" by William Stickles.  I’m not sure  whether he is the composer of “Dedication” or whether he instead prepared an arrangement of a piece called “Dedication” which is by someone else.  (A Sunday bulletin of a church in Mississippi listed him as the arranger of “Dedication.” There are several hymn tunes with the name DEDICATION.)

                http://www.hymnary.org/media/fetch/182448 DEDICATION, a tune composed by Sir George A. Macfarren (1813-1887)

                http://www.hymnary.org/media/fetch/183255 DEDICATION, a tune composed by Edmund Gilding (? - 1782)

                William Charles Stickles was born in Cohoes, New York, (north of Troy) on 07 Mar 1882.  He was a composer, arranger, teacher, and editor.

                He attended the Utica Conservatory and Syracuse University, then studied abroad.  For five years, he assisted Isadore Braggiotti, a voice teacher, in Florence, Italy.  Then he spent two years as a vocal coach for soloists with Felix Motti at the Hof Theater in Munich.  After that, he taught in Boston and New York. 

                In April 1912, he was the accompanist for Anna Chase of the Metropolitan Opera in her appearance at the White House for President and Mrs. Taft.

                On 01 Dec 1919, he married Clara Hazard of Los Angeles in Trinity Chapel, New York City.  She was a soprano and soloist at St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.  He had been touring with her and Theodore Karie (tenor) as their accompanist.

                He produced many arrangements of standard works for chorus, organ, and piano, and also composed original pieces.  He did arrangements of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” (music: Jerome Kerns, words: Otto Harbach), “Bali Ha’i” (music: Richard Rogers, words: Oscar Hammerstein II), “Summertime” (SATB) (George Gershwin and Du Bose Heyward), “easy-to-play piano arrangements” of the songs of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate,” and also a collection of arrangements of “cowboy songs,” along with arrangements of the songs of many other popular musicals (“Oklahoma,” “West Side Story,” etc.). 

                His Book of Preludes, Offertories, Postludes for all Organs was published in 1957.  It was enlarged and published as The Deluxe Book of Preludes, Offertories, Postludes for all Organs ten years later with Chester Nordman as co-editor and composer.

                He died in Queens, New York, in October 1971.


                The music for the offertory is "Lento (Slow)" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  “Lento” is a tempo marking.  It can suggest any tempo between 52 and 108 bpm (according to some sources, other sources give 40-60 bpm).  “Lento” is generally thought to mean faster than “adagio,” but slower than “andante.”  However, as the range of tempos that “lento” can designate is so wide, it can be as slow as “largo” or as fast as “allegretto.”

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 27 Jan 1756, Getreidegasse, Salzburg, Austria, d. 05 Dec 1791, Vienna, Austria)

                In 1777, Mozart wrote that “tempo” was “the most difficult and most important, and the main thing in music.”

                Jean-Pierre Marty, in Perspectives on Mozart Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2006)says that “tempo” in Mozart’s time had a broader meaning than it has today.

. . . it is certain that they [Haydn and Mozart] shared a common idea of tempo, an idea that transcended the mere question of speed.  The invention of the metronome at the beginning of the nineteenth century represented a distinct setback for both the comprehension and the expression of tempo, which was now reduced to its purely quantitative element.  This reduction had two major consequences: eighteenth-century tempo indications ceased to be understood; and metre lost its central role in the expression of tempo, so that composers were deprived of an essential element for conveying the expression of their musical message.

                I’m not sure which one of Mozart’s compositions (that has a tempo marking of “Lento”) will be the music performed.  Mozart’s “Marche Funèbre del Signor Maestro Contrapunto” (1784) is one such piece.  Mozart intended the piece as a joke (as you can tell by the name of the piece, “Signor Maestro Contrapunto” indeed).  It is a parody of the first movement of his Concerto in D Major (K. 451). The similar theme is played Lento instead of Allegro as it is in the concerto.

https://youtu.be/vmgHI0q2BoY “Marche funèbre del Signor Maestro Contrapunto” KV 453a by W.A. Mozart, played by 14-year old Pip Claire Yap, Bethaniënklooster, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Here it is played on an organ:

https://youtu.be/JV6_ZUuBuf0 “Marche funèbre del Signor Maestro Contrapunto” KV 453a

For comparison, here is the much faster theme played in Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, K 451:

https://youtu.be/EUrovt0eIXc Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 16 in D Major, K 451, Lars Vogt, piano, Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra (Switzerland), Gábor Tákacs-Nagy, conductor


                The arranger/composer of the postlude is the same as for the prelude, William Stickles.  The postlude is his “Triumphal March.”

https://youtu.be/v1hpCOyhoy0 “Triumphal March” by William Stickles

Here it is played by a small orchestra in Brazil:

https://youtu.be/YvZGjEl5FrY?t=24s “Triumphal March” by William Stickles performed by the Instrumental Adventist of Santo André - SP – Brazil

Richard

Thursday, April 27, 2017

This Week at Old South Haven Chrch


 
Sunday, April 30             10:00am           Third Sunday of Easter
                                                                 Sermon:  "Opening Eyes"
                                                                 Lessons:  Luke 24:  13-25
                                                                                 Acts 2: 14, 36-41
                                                                 Sunday School
 
Monday, May 1                5:00pm            Confirmation Class
 
Tuesday, May 2               1:00pm            Lunch Bunch at the Manse
 
Wednesday, May 3       9:00am-6pm      "Organizing for Racial Justice:                      
                                                                        1960s and Today"
                                                                  Union Theological Seminary
                                                                      Pastor Tom attending
 
Sunday, May 7                10:00am            Fourth Sunday of Easter/ Holy Communion
                                                                  Sermon: "How Did You Get Into The Pasture?"
                                                                  Lessons: John 10: 1-10     I Peter 2: 11-25
 
Monday, May 8                  5:00pm            Confirmation Class
 
Saturday, May 13               9:30am            Property and Finance Committee          
                                         12:30pm            South Country Peace Group in the Gallery
 
Sunday, May 14               10:00am            Fifth Sunday of Easter/ Mother's Day
                                                                    Sermon:    "Discerning His Voice"
                                                                       ( a second message from the same lessons)
                                                                     Lessons:  John 10: 1-10   I Peter 2: 11-25
                                                                     Sunday School
 
Monday, May 15                   7:00pm           Session Meeting
 
Tuesday, May 16                 11:30am           Local Clergy Lunch
                                                                     The Royal Oak
 
Thursday, May 18                  4:30pm          Long Island Council of Churches
                                                                     Annual meeting: Glen Head
 
Sunday, May 21                  10:00am           Sixth Sunday of Easter
                                                                     Sermon:   "If You Love Me..."
                                                                      Lessons   John 14: 15-21  Acts 17: 22-31
 
                                              5:30pm            Pot Luck Supper
                                               (conversation on Immigration and the Sanctuary Movement
 
Saturday, May 27            9:00am-3:00pm          YARD SALE
 
Wednesday May 31           6:00pm             "Gang Information Forum"
                                             sponsored by Brookhaven, Bellport, East Patchogue Clergy
                                                               Christ Episcopal Church, Bellport
                                                                            Parish Hall

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Music for the OSHC Service of April 23 2017, 2nd Sunday of Easter

From: Richard Thomas

 

                We now enter the period between Easter and Pentecost. This Sunday will be the second Sunday of Easter.  The Sunday following the seventh Sunday of Easter will be Pentecost.

                The introit will be "We Are Here, Lord," with words by Herb Frombach sung to Robert Lau's arrangement of a tune originally composed by Herb Frombach.  Herb Frombach attended Indiana University in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.


                The opening hymn is "Christ Is Alive," no. 108.  It is a hymn we regularly sing on the Second Sunday of Easter.   The words are by Brian Wren.

                Brian Wren has more hymns in our current Presbyterian Hymnal than any other author except Charles Wesley (b. 1707) and Fred R. Anderson (b. 1941).  (Rev. Fred Anderson wrote "versifications" of the psalms.)

    BRIAN WREN (b. 1936) is an internationally published hymn-poet whose work appears in hymnals from all denominations and traditions. Ordained in Britain's United Reformed Church, he lives in Decatur, Georgia, where he served as the first holder of the John and Miriam Conant Professorship in Worship at Columbia Theological Seminary until his retirement in 2007.
    A Fellow of the Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada, Brian holds B.A. and D.Phil (= Ph.D.) degrees from Oxford University and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis. 
    Brian lives with his partner in marriage and ministry, Rev. Susan Heafield ("Hayfield"), a United Methodist Pastor and composer. Together they have published two worship song collections.

    Brian Wren's hymn collections are published by Hope Publishing Company, which represents all his hymns in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

                There are eleven Brian Wren hymns in our hymnal

                The hymn is sung to the tune TRURO, an anonymous tune first published by Thomas Williams in 1789.

                Truro is a small city in Cornwall, England, north of Falmouth, and west of Plymouth.  I've driven through Truro, but not the one in England, the one on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.  It is the last little village before Provincetown.

                TRURO is the tune for "Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" and "High in the Heav'ns, Eternal God."

                                https://youtu.be/IhsYkMOv5jg Organ improvisation on the tune TRURO, recorded by John Hosking

                Here is an anthem arrangement by Hal Hopson:

http://www.jwpepper.com/sheet-music/media-player.jsp?&type=audio&productID=3185584 "Christ Is Alive!" by Brian Wren, arr. Hal H. Hopson, "for brass quartet or quintet, organ, handbells, and congregation"

Here is the Brian Wren hymn:

                               https://youtu.be/ylZ0G0WvD8g "Christ Is Alive!" with organ accompaniment

If the basses want to practice the bass part, here it is:

                                https://youtu.be/WfRNT8_6EQE  "Christ Is Alive!," bass part

We sing another hymn to this tune also, Jane Parker Huber's "Live into Hope," hymn no. 332.


                During Eastertide, a reading from Acts is substituted for a reading from the Old Testament in the Revised Common Lectionary.

                For the Second Sunday of Easter, the lesson is Acts 2:14a, 22-32.  It is a story of Peter preaching to the Jews.  Peter quotes Psalm 16:8-11:

                I keep Yahweh before me always,

                                for with him at my right hand,

                                nothing can shake me.

                So my heart rejoices, my soul delights,

                                my body too will rest secure,

                for you will not abandon me to Sheol,

                                or let your faithful servant see the Pit.

                You will teach me the path of life.

                                In your presence there is unbounded joy;

                                at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

                Then Peter makes the astounding claim that in that psalm, David was being a prophet and was speaking of Jesus:

"Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne.

Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, 'He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.'

This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.

                The English translation of Psalm 16:8-11 above is an English translation of the Hebrew.  But, according to Acts, Peter did not quote the Hebrew scriptures when he was speaking to the Israelites!

                According to the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter actually quoted directly from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (or LXX).  An English translation of Psalm 16:8-11 from the Greek in the Septuagint is:

'I saw the Lord always before me.

    Because he is at my right hand,

    I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

    my body also will rest in hope,

because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,

    you will not let your holy one see decay.

You have made known to me the paths of life;

    you will fill me with joy in your presence.'

                Psalm 16 is a "Psalm of Confidence," as are Psalms 4, 11, 23, 27:1-6; 62; and 131.

                Peter appears to be telling the Israelites that Psalm 16:8-11 is about resurrection.

                Psalm 16 is not about resurrection.  The writer of Psalm 16 faces unspecified immediate dangers.  The psalm is an expression of the psalmist's confidence in Yahweh to keep him safe and protect him from an early death so that he may live a rich, full life with his Lord.  (Earlier in the Psalm, Ps. 16:3-4, the psalmist writes of how the pains of leading officials have multiplied because they desired other gods.  He then declares that he will not make offerings to other gods, then expresses his confidence that because he has devoted himself to Yahweh as his only god, that he, unlike the officials, will not have his troubles multiplied in this time of danger, but will instead be protected from physical harm.)

                The writer of the Psalm is not saying he will never die, he is saying that, though faced with current dangers, he is confident that Yahweh will protect him and not let him die right now—that Yahweh will make it possible for him to get through perilous times.

                Apologists argue that Peter's claim that David was writing about the resurrection has to be seen in a different way.  Peter is calling David "prophetic" in an unusual sense—not that David was foretelling the future, only that the psalmist understood events in his time in a way that bears correspondence to the understanding of events that occurred in Jesus' time. 

                The psalmist (David, according to Peter) understood that Yahweh does not abandon his hasid (his holy one).  Just as Yahweh protected David from an immediate death, he raised Jesus, the ultimate hasid, from death, and because David understood how Yahweh relates to those who devote themselves entirely to Yahweh, David was being "prophetic."

                One apologist writes (https://bible.org/article/use-psalm-168-11-acts-225-28 ) that because Peter could see Psalm 16:8-11 as relating to Peter's own experience of the resurrection of Jesus, the psalm is "prophetic" even though David himself was not writing, or even thinking, about resurrection himself when he wrote it. 

                The psalm did not speak of a resurrection until there was one, then it did.

                Though not at all convincing, it is an ingenious argument.

-          -      -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -     -      -

                The epistle lesson is 1 Peter 1:3-9.  Most scholars agree the epistle was not actually written by Peter.  The writer has a better understanding of Greek rhetoric and philosophy and also of the Greek language itself than would be likely for Simon Peter of Galilee. 

                The reading is about how suffering is good for the soul.

                "Trials show the character of your faith . . . and will bring praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." 

                The author says, "the goal of your faith is the salvation of your soul," and "salvation is ready to be revealed in the last time."  Salvation is "an inheritance reserved in heaven" for those "who have not seen him, yet love him, and who do not see him now, but believe in him."

                According to a recent Presbyterian Panel survey of Presbyterian Church (USA) pastors and members, 6% of both members and pastors believe "Salvation is an outdated concept."  (The results of the survey were published 22 October 2016.)

 

See: https://www.presbyterianmission.org/wp-content/uploads/rs201608report.pdf

                The survey indicates that half of the ministers are still Calvinists when it comes to who does the saving.  Only 20% of the members believe that salvation is by the grace of a sovereign God who alone chooses the Elect.  (The idea of being one of God's elect seems to have fallen out of favor.)  Is Presbyterianism still a kind of Reformed Christianity  or has it become some other kind of Protestantism?


                The second hymn is no. 117 "O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing!" and has special stanzas for the Second Sunday of Easter.

                The tune is the French melody O FILII ET FILIAE, (O Sons and Daughters).

                Here is a smartly dressed 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

                Here is the tune we're singing (the tune of "O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing"):

https://youtu.be/6RrpKKD8Rlo O Filii Et Filiae (O Sons and Daughters), sung by the Choir of the Great Opera of Budapest with Xaver Varnus (organ).


Sermon: "The Future Is Now"


                "I Danced in the Morning," hymn no. 302, is the closing hymn. It is by Sydney Carter.

                "Lord of the Dance" is sung to the Shaker melody SIMPLE GIFTS. Some sources say Elder Joseph Brackett, a Shaker, composed the tune in 1848.

     Elder Joseph Brackett

                You can see the words originally sung with the tune and hear it sung here (highly recommended):

http://youtu.be/c_g4rEPXkyI "Simple Gifts" sung by the vocal chamber ensemble Cantus  (VERY GOOD)

                The words we will be singing were authored by Sydney Carter in 1963.

                You can hear those words here:

http://youtu.be/ZGX9IobyIIE  "Lord of the Dance," sung by the Central Islip High School Concert Choir

                According to Wikipedia, Sydney Bertram Carter was "an English poet, songwriter, and folk musician."  He was born 06 May 1915 in Camden Town, London, and died 13 Mar 2004 in Herne Hill, London.

                He also wrote a song called "Julian of Norwich."  She was an English anchoress and Christian mystic (1342-1416).

    Sydney Carter

                Carter attended Balliol College, Oxford, where (as they say in England) "he read history" and graduated in 1936.  He was a pacifist and a conscientious objector in World War II.  He served in an Ambulance Unit in Egypt, Palestine, and Greece.

                His most controversial lyrics are:

It was on a Friday morning that they took me from my cell

And I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well.

You can blame it on to Pilate, you can blame it on the Jews,

You can blame it on the Devil, it's God I accuse.

It's God they ought to crucify, instead of you and me,

I said to the carpenter a-hanging on the tree.

He was right, of course, according to sound Calvinistic theology, the death of Jesus on a cross was precisely what God intended.  In fact, it was not only what God wanted, it was what God demanded according to the penal substitutionary atonement theory of the reformation.  The penal substitution theory is a substitutionary atonement theory that is derived from a merit-based system of righteousness.  It replaced the older ransom-to-Satan theory.

                According to Wikipedia:

Many, but by no means all, ancient and modern branches of Christianity embrace substitutionary atonement as the central meaning of Jesus' death on the cross.

Oddly, in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, substitutionary atonement is not incorporated in their doctrine of the Cross and Resurrection.

                C. S. Lewis rejected the penal substitutionary atonement theory, but he did believe in some kind of substitutionary atonement.

                All of the substitutionary atonement theories attempt to provide some logical explanation of what was the point of the crucifixion.

                Atonement theories first require that one decide what is sin and how sin relates to God.

                If you define sin as merely being a failure to do what God has designed humans to do, and believe that God can forgive sins, then one doesn't need one of the more exacting substitutionary atonement theories.  One can just say that through the crucifixion Jesus was providing a moral example—and be done with it.


Instrumental Music


                Prelude: "Kyrie Eleison"  by Charles-François Gounod

                "Kyrie, eleison" (Greek for "Lord, have mercy") is a part of the liturgy of the mass.

  https://youtu.be/WmxJc6Ujl_8  "Kyre, eleison" in Gounod's Short Mass for Chapels, No. 7 in C Major

  https://youtu.be/O4vzxePf6WY "Kyre, eleison" in Gounod's Short Mass for Chapels, No. 7 in C Major (sung by the National Taiwan University Chorus)

  https://youtu.be/Xb6ISI7Jwz8     "Kyrie Eleison," of Gounod's Solemn Mass in Honor of St. Cecilia (sung by the Busan Catholic Choir, Korea)

 

                      Charles Gounod

                The best known works of Charles Gounod are Ave Maria and his opera Faust

                Gounod also wrote Marche Pontifcale, the official anthem of the Pope, the Holy see and the Vatican City State.

                                https://youtu.be/wKJZSNZ4Zgg  Marche Pontificale by Charles Gounod, the National Anthem of Vatican City

                                https://youtu.be/K7IiR3ek-08 Marche Pontificale, sung, a cappella

                Gounod was born in Paris on 17 Jun 1818.  His mother was a pianist and his father, an artist.  He died 18 Oct 1893 in Saint-Cloud (a commune in the western suburbs of Paris).


                The music for the offertory is "Sacred Piece" by Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (13 Nov 1817 – 31 Dec 1869).

                "Sacred Piece" may be a name given to a composition of Lefébure-Wély that has another name.  I couldn't find a "Morceau Sacré," so perhaps it is one of the ten parts of Lefébure-Wély's Opus 122, Meditaciones religiosas, first published in 1858.

                I rather like the "Andante in F Major."

https://youtu.be/fRxK9iZhTfQ "Andante in F Major, 'Chœur de Voix humaines' " No. 7 from Meditaciones religiosas, Op. 122, played by Mikail Mishcenko in the Maltese Chapel of the Vorontsov Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia

 

               Léfébure-Wély was born in Paris and was the son of an organist.  He became the official organist of a fashionable church, Saint-Roch, at age 14 upon the death of his father.  He began attending the Paris Conservatory in 1832, and won first prize for organ in 1835.

Louis Alfred James Léfébure-Wély, 1840

                Here is another composition of Léfébure-Wély.  It takes three people to play this piece on an organ.  One to play the music and two to pull out and push in the stops, and turn the pages of the music.

                It's fun to watch:

http://youtu.be/4Px3_MOEySM "Sortie in E-flat major" by Louis Alfred James Léfébure-Wély,  played by Gert van Hoef in the Stephanuskerk, Hasselt, The Netherlands

                You can learn more about the organ Gert van Hoef is playing here: http://www.pleasuresofthepipes.info/Hasselt-StStephanusKerk.html.  The organ has many little statues of angels sitting atop the woodwork that holds the pipes.  The angels are playing a flute, a horn, a lyre, etc.


            "Gloria" by Ignaz Joseph Ritter von Seyfried is the postlude.  (He is also known more simply as "Ignaz von Seyfried.")  "Ritter" is the German word for "Knight."  There is a place in the middle of Austria called Seyfried, but Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried spent his life in Vienna.

            Ignaz von Seyfried was born in Vienna on 15 August 1776, and he died there on 27 August 1841.

    

               Ignaz Joseph Ritter von Seyfried

   (also known as Ignaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried)

 

            He was a musician, conductor, and composer.  He had been a student of Mozart and of Johann Albrechtsberger.  He became music director of the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna in 1797 and continued in that post until 1826.  (After the organization moved to a new building, it was known as the Theater an der Wien.)

            He conducted the première of Beethoven's Fidelio in 1805.

            His compositions have not achieved much fame and are rarely performed. 

            He did receive a somewhat favorable review in an 1827 issue of The Harmonicon for his compositions for Zum goldenen Löwen:

From The Harmonicon (London), No. 49, 1827, p. 53.

I did find this piece by him on YouTube called "Fest-Chor."

            https://youtu.be/lewe-m2U8rM "Fest-Chor" by Ignaz von Seyfried, sung in Prague by two choirs  (the audio quality isn't great)

 

Also, here is a part of the "Gloria" from his solemn mass in B minor:

                https://youtu.be/XaiSJxyGFzM "Gloria: Gloria in excelsis Deo" of Missa solemnis in B Minor by Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried

 

and

https://youtu.be/opEJtTcDERU "Gloria: Quoniam tu solus Sanctus" of Missa solemnis in B Minor by Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried

Both are sung by the choir of Rzeszów University in Rzeszów, Poland.

Richard

 

Thursday, April 20, 2017

This Week at Old South Haven Chrch




Saturday, April 22                                  EARTH  DAY

12:00 noon The League of Women Voters of Brookhaven
Earth Day Luncheon
Harbor Crab Restaurant in Patchogue.
See LWV Flyer Attached

                               7:30pm    Old South Haven Presbyterian Church
                                                  observes this day by presenting
                                                         THE  NEW  STUDENTS
                                                          in concert, celebrating Earth Day
                                                               including numbers created for Earth Day 2017
                                         donations will be received for an environmental cause
See flyer attached.


Sunday, April  23            10:00am               Second Sunday of Easter
                                                                    Sermon:  "The Future Is Now"
                                                                    Lessons: I Peter 1:3-9  Acts 2:14, 22-32
 
Monday, April 24               5:15pm           Confirmation Class
 
Sunday, April 30              10:00am            Third Sunday of Easter
                                                                   Sermon;  "Opening Eyes"
                                                                   Lessons: Luke 24: 13-35  Acts 2: 14,36-41
 
Looking Ahead
 Sunday, May 7                10:00am           Fourth Sunday of Easter
                                                                    Sermon:   'A Different Kind of Confidence"
 Monday, May  8                7:00pm           Property/Finance committee
 Saturday, May 13            12:30pm           South Country Peace Group in Gallery
                        
 Sunday, May 14               10;00am                   Mothers Day              
 Monday, May 15                                        Peace Essay submission Deadline
                                              5:00pm          Confirmation Class
                                              7;00pm        Session
 Tuesday, May 16             11:30am        Brookhaven. Bellport Clergy
                                                                       lunch at Royal Oak
 Thursday, May 18              4:30pm      Long Island Council of Churches
                                                                        Annual Meeting
  Sunday, May 21                 5:30pm      Pot luck supper
                                                                      The Plight of Recent Immigrants
  Saturday, May 27                9:00am       Church yard sale