Saturday, April 8, 2017

Music for the OSHC Service of April 9, 2017, Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday

From: Richard Thomas [mailto:richardathomas@optonline.net]

                This Sunday is both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday, so one can choose between two liturgies, either the Liturgy of the Palms or the Liturgy of the Passion.  At Old South Haven, I think it has always been Palm Sunday.

                [Perhaps we should have two services on the Sunday before Easter.  We could have one using the Palm Sunday liturgy, and another using the Passion Sunday liturgy.  It would give the choir an opportunity to sing the Passion Sunday anthems, such as “The Passion and the Crown” http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/the-passion-and-the-crown-sheet-music/16716972 or “He Was Despised” or “Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs.”]

                Until the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church celebrated Passion Sunday on the Fifth Sunday in Lent and Palm Sunday on the sixth Sunday.   After Vatican II, the Catholic Church went from a one-year liturgy to a three-year liturgy and removed the distinction between Lent and Passiontide.  

That resulted in Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday overlapping.

                The Revised Common Lectionary also has a three-year liturgy (Years A, B, and C) with Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday on the same day.

                            Entry into Jerusalem by Pedro Orrente, c 1620

(Pedro Orrente was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period and appears to have

                                    studied with el Greco in Toledo)

[The arrival of Jesus must have been earlier than expected, as the men appear

    not to have had time to get properly dressed, and they are hastily trying

                                    to tear branches from the trees.]

                The introit (which is the same as the one we sang on Palm Sunday last year) is Paul Revere Ladd’s arrangement of “Hosanna to the Son of David” by Franz Schubert, otherwise known as Hosanna filio David, (No. 1 of op. 113, Six Antiphons for Palm Sunday D. 696), composed in 1820 and published in 1829.  The choir will be accompanied by Joe Porcelli on trumpet.

                You can also watch a choir singing Hosanna filio David (in Latin, of course) here:

               https://youtu.be/hF4Zwh5aoCQ  Boys choir in Philadephia, at St. Bridgett’s, a cappella

Hosanna filio David,
Benedictus, qui venit
In nomine Domini.
O rex Israel,
Hosanna in excelsis.

Translation:
Hosanna to the Son of David
Blessed is He that cometh
In the name of the Lord
King of Israel
Hosanna in the highest

Franz Schubert died at the age of 31 years 9 months 19 days.  He was only 23 when he composed this work, the first of his Six Antiphons for Palm Sunday.

According to Wikipedia:

                Franz Schubert was nicknamed "Schwammerl" by his friends, which Gibbs describes as translating to "Tubby" or "Little Mushroom.” Schubert, at 1.52 m height, was not quite five feet tall.

                The cause of his death was officially diagnosed as typhoid fever, though other theories have been proposed, including the tertiary stage of syphilis. 

                By the late 1820s, Schubert's health was failing, and he confided to some friends that he feared that he was near death.

                In the late summer of 1828, the composer saw court physician Ernst Rinna, who may have confirmed Schubert's suspicions that he was ill beyond cure and likely to die soon.

                Some of his symptoms matched those of mercury poisoning (mercury was then a common treatment for syphilis, again suggesting that Schubert suffered from it).

                At the beginning of November, he again fell ill, experiencing headaches, fever, swollen joints, and vomiting. He was generally unable to retain solid food and his condition worsened. Schubert died in Vienna, at age 31, on 19 November 1828, at the apartment of his brother Ferdinand.

                Paul R. Ladd, Jr., the arranger, was born 26 Sep 1919 in Framingham, Massachusetts.  He died in Rhode Island on 29 May 1998.

                He was a high school physics teacher (among other things) and his family grew its own food in his garden in Rhode Island. He wrote a book about the latter, Grow Good Food.  He and his wife, Eva Maria Hegemann, were the parents of ten children.  (No wonder they grew their own food.)

Paul Revere Ladd, Jr.

                After February 1964, the Ladd family lived in this house on Narragansett Bay:

Home of Paul Revere Ladd, Jr., completed in 1885 as

a summer house for a Brooklyn businessman.

                From his obituary:

            Paul Revere Ladd, Jr. was a pastoral musician/composer from Wakefield, Rhode Island and served as music director/organist at St. Thomas More Church in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

            He graduated from Harvard College and later attended the Harvard Longy School of Music and the Berkshire Music School/Tanglewood Institute where he studied chant with the Gregorian Institute and with Dom Gajare of Solesmes; his organ studies were with E. Power Biggs.

            Besides being a pastoral musician/composer, Paul's many careers included work as a farmer, carpenter, and high school physics teacher. He preferred the quiet life and lived on a ten-acre organic farm with his wife Eva Maria Hegemann and their Jersey cow with the Latin name "Bos." Paul is survived by 10 children and 25 grandchildren.


                The opening hymn is no. 89, the same as last year and the year before, “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna,” words by Jeanette Threlfall, sung to the tune ELLACOMBE.

                ELLACOMBE is also the tune for “I Sing the Mighty Power of God” and “The Day of Resurrection.”

                                https://youtu.be/0fNzLi7_tV0 ELLACOMBE improvisation by John Hong

                                https://youtu.be/kC3RyboidOU “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” sung by the Markham Woods Seventh Day Adventist Choir, with brass and organ

                The tune first appeared in the hymnal for the chapel of the Duke of Würtemberg (Gesangbuch der Herzogl, 1784). ) It was a setting for the hymn "Ave Maria, klarer und lichter Morgenstern." ELLACOMBE is the name of a village in Devonshire, England, so the tune must have been given a new name when it was used in England.

                Jeanette Threlfall was the daughter of a wine merchant.  She was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, on 24 Mar 1821.  She was raised by her uncle and aunt after she was orphaned at a young age.  An accident left her lame and mutilated, and a second accident left her an invalid, so she spent her time writing poems, some of which became the words of hymns.  These hymns include “When from Egypt’s House of Bondage,” “Thou Bidd’st Us Seek Thee Early,” “Lo, to Us a Child is Born,” and “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.” “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna, the Little Children Sang” is by far the most popular.

                She died 30 Nov 1880.


                The choir anthem is “Wave the Palms, Hosanna!” by Ruth Elaine Schram.

                Ruth Elaine Schram was born on 28 May 1956 in Montrose, Pennsylvania.  She began piano lessons at age 5.  She attended Lancaster Bible College and Millersville State College then taught music for several years.  She married Scott Schram and now lives in Birmingham, Alabama.

     Ruth Elaine Schram

                She has composed or arranged over 2,000 works.  Seventeen million copies of her music have been purchased.


                The Old Testament reading is Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, which includes the following verses:

Open for me the gates of the just king’s temple!

This is the gate of Yahweh, where the upright go in.  . . .

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

This is Yahweh's doing, and we marvel at it.

This is the day which Yahweh has made, a day for us to rejoice and be glad.

We beg you, Yahweh, save us, we beg you, Yahweh, give us victory!

Blessed in the name of Yahweh is he who is coming! We bless you from the house of Yahweh.

Yahweh is God, he gives us light. Link your processions, branches in hand, up to the horns of the altar. . . .

Give thanks to Yahweh for he is good, for his faithful love endures forever.

Here’s an anthem on the theme by Shawn L. Kirchner of Los Angeles:

https://youtu.be/jjf0KBf-qwo “Cornerstone—The Stone that the Builder’s Rejected Became the Cornerstone of a Whole New World” sung by the Loma Linda Academy choir

https://youtu.be/df0ET8C4CjM “Cornerstone” by Shawn Kirchner, sung by the Northern Lights Chorale of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota

                The gospel reading, Matthew 21: 1-11, which includes the words of the introit at verse 9 (“Hosanna to the Son of David”).  It also includes the odd report that Jesus rode into Jerusalem while sitting on two different animals at the same time (verse 6).

                The writer of Matthew, being anxious to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy, takes Zechariah 9:9

Exult greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
Behold: your king is coming to you,
    a just savior is he,
Humble, and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

to mean that if Jesus was to fulfill prophecy, he had to ride into Jerusalem on two animals, which he then proceeds to have him do:  “They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.”

   Frescoe in the Hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga, an early 11th-century

church in northern Spain, showing Jesus riding both a donkey and a colt into Jerusalem

               The author of the gospel must not have been familiar with a poetic device in classical Hebrew poetry, called “synonymous parallelism,” and, anxious that Jesus be seen as fulfilling prophecy, he has Jesus ride into Jerusalem on two animals!

                “Synonymous parallelism” is a form of rhyming.  In English, poets rhyme sounds, in classical Hebrew, they rhymed thoughts.

                Mark, Luke, and John have a better understanding and correctly interpret Zechariah:

And they bring the colt unto Jesus, and cast on him their garments; and he sat upon him. [Mark 11:7]

And they brought him to Jesus: and they threw their garments upon the colt, and set Jesus thereon. (Luke 19:28)

And Jesus, having found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Zion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt." (John 12:14-15)


The second hymn is “Ride On! Ride On in Majesty,” words by the Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman, music by John Backus Dykes, ST. DROSTANE.

              Henry Hart Milman

                Henry Hart Milman was the youngest son of Francis Milman, first baronet.  He was born 10 Feb 1791 in London and attended Eton and Oxford, where he was brilliant.  He won prizes in Latin Verse, Latin Essay, and English Essay, and also wrote what was called “the most perfect of Oxford prize poems.”

                He wrote long “dramatic poems” which, in the 1820s, where staged as plays.  For a time, he was a Professor of Poetry at Oxford.

                Milman established a name for himself in theology when he published his controversial History of the Jews in 1829.  He took the view that the Bible could not be considered the literal word of God and held instead that the Old Testament contained many different types of literary material that had been assembled by the Jewish people.  He believed it had been edited and re-edited, sometimes miscopied, and sometimes had additions inserted by scribes.  He treated the characters of the Bible as he would the characters of any other literary work.  History of the Jews, a multi-volume work, was originally published without the name of the author.

                After History of the Jews, he wrote History of Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire and then Latin Christianity.  He also authored Life of Keats and Life of Horace.

                In 1849 he was appointed Dean of St. Paul’s.

                In addition to that, he wrote thirteen hymns, which were published in 1827.  In 1907, all of his hymns were still in common use.

                Henry Hart Milman died in 24 Sep 1868 and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

John Bacchus Dykes

                John Bacchus Dykes, the composer, was born 10 Mar 1823 at Kingston upon Hull and died 22 Jan 1876, Ticehurst, Sussex.  He became the assistant organist at St. John’s Church, Myton, Hull, at age 10.  (How did his feet reach the pedals?) He attended St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in Classics in 1847.

                He became vicar of St. Oswald’s, Durham, in 1862, a post he held until his death in 1876.

                Dykes composed over 300 hymn tunes.  He wrote the tunes for “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” “We Plow the Fields and Scatter,” and “The King of Love My Shepherd Is.”

                                http://www.hymnary.org/media/fetch/148450 ST. DROSTANE by John Bacchus Dykes.

                                https://youtu.be/S_CtIWSeVyY “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty” (with words)


The sermon title is "Becoming a Part of the Crowd."


                The closing hymn is “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” no. 88.

                The words were authored by Theodulf of Orléans in about 820 A.D.  The tune, VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBER, was composed by Melchior Teschner in 1614.

                Watch how this choir is able to walk, sing, hold their music and wave palms, all at the same time!:

                                https://youtu.be/wpi_ZeA7mUs?t=39s  “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” First Plymouth Church, Lincoln, Nebraska (with orchestra)

                I think if I’m ever in Lincoln, Nebraska, on a Sunday morning, I’ll stop by.  First Plymouth is a Congregational church.

                Here are the original words to the tune:

                                https://youtu.be/lKAYsy0qoso “Valet Will Ich Dir Geber” (very good)

                which, loosely translated mean:

I want to bid you farewell,

You evil, false world.

The world’s sinful, wicked life,

is not at all pleasing to me.

In heaven it is good to dwell,

My longing is set on what is above.

There God will reward forever

those who serve him here.

The words are by Valerius Herberger and were written during a plague.

                Theodulf was the Bishop of Orléans during the reign of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.  (Louis the Pious was sometimes known as “Louis the Debonaire.”  He was King of Aquitaine from 781, and also co-Emperor and King of the Franks with his father, Charlemagne, after 813.

                Theodulf was born in Spain and was a descendant of Visigoths.  When the Moors occupied the region where he lived, he fled to Aquitaine in Gaul, then entered a monastery in southern Gaul.  Later he went to Rome and sent letters advocating the establishment of public schools.

                Charlemagne appointed him Bishop of Orléans in about 798.  Charlemagne died in 814, and in 817 King Bernard of Italy, nephew of Louis the Debonaire, revolted.  Louis thought Theodulf had conspired with Bernard and removed Theodulf as Bishop of Orléans, exiling him to a monastery in Angers.

 

                Melchior Teschner, the composer of the tune, was born 29 Apr 1584 in Fraustadt, Posen, Prussia (now Poznań, Poland).  He died 01 Dec 1634 in Oberpritschen, Posen.  He studied music at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder where he also studied philosophy and theology, beginning in 1602.  Later, he was a cantor and teacher in Schmiegel and at Zum Kripplein Christi Church.


Instrumental Music


                The prelude is trumpet/organ selections from Sigmund Hering "Classic Pieces" and also Gordon Young’s "Diapason Dialogue."

                The diapasons are a kind of organ pipe.  They are frequently included in the façades of pipe organs, often painted and decorated.  In Old South Haven’s Hinners organ, the diapason rank of pipes is an open 8’ diapason stop.  These are “flue pipes.” They don’t attempt to sound like some other instrument.

                Flue pipes are sometimes called “labial pipes” as the sound is produced by the air passing a sharp lip, just as in a whistle.

                Flue pipes sound like this:  http://www.die-orgelseite.de/audio/prinzipale.mp3 Diapason, 16’ + 8’ + 4’

                While reed pipes sound like this:  http://www.die-orgelseite.de/audio/oboe.mp3 Oboe, 8’

                “Diapason” is the term used in English organs.  German organs call the same stop a “Prinzipal” or “Principle” stop.

                The Hinner’s organ has both metal and wood flue pipes.  The wood flue pipes are used in the pedal division and are stopped rather than open.  The rank is called the 16’ Bourdon.  “Bourdon” is derived from the French word for bumble-bee.  These pipes have a “deep, dark, and penetrating tone” that can be easily heard.

   Gordon Young (1919-1998)

                Gordon E. Young was born on 15 Oct 1919 in McPherson, Kansas. (McPherson is in central Kansas, north of Wichita.)  He graduated from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, (south of Wichita), then studied under Alexander McCurdy, organist at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in the 1940s.

                [Winfield, Kansas, by the way, is the scene of the first modern mass shooting in America, “On August 13, 1903, 30-year-old Gilbert Twigg, armed with a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun, opened fire at a concert, killing six people and wounding at least 25, before killing himself. Three others died in hospitals afterward. Wikipedia.]

                He served as choir director of churches in Philadelphia and Kansas City.

                Gordon Young composed over 800 different works and received eighteen composition awards.  One of his choir anthems is “Now Sing We Joyfully Unto God.”

                He taught organ at Wayne State University for fifteen years, and served as organist and choir director at First Presbyterian Church, Detroit.

                (The First Presbyterian Church, Detroit, is now the Ecumenical Theological Seminary.)

                Gordon Young died on 02 Oct 1998 in St. Clair Shores, Michigan.


                The music for the offertory is  "Open the Gates of the Temple" (organ and trumpet). The music was composed by Mrs. Joseph Fairchild Knapp [Phoebe (Palmer) Knapp].  The Knapps were quite wealthy.  Her grandson lived in the “Knapp Mansion” in Mastic.  The arrangement is by M. A. Simpson.

                Mrs. Knapp, though she married well, was not as well known in religious circles as her mother, Phoebe Worrall Palmer.  Her mother was a Methodist evangelist, author, and journal editor who promoted the doctrine of Christian perfection. 

                She was a founder of the Holiness movement in the United States.

                I suspect that Mrs. Phoebe Knapp published her compositions under the name Mrs. Joseph Fairchild Knapp rather than Phoebe Palmer Knapp in order to avoid confusion with her more famous mother, Phoebe Worrall Palmer.

                Phoebe was born 09 Mar 1839 in New York City.

                At age 16, Phoebe Palmer married Joseph F. Knapp, who was wealthy from his lithographing business.  He also invested in insurance.

                Insurance companies in the nineteenth century were often investment schemes and frequently went bankrupt.  Mr. Knapp invested in Metropolitan Life and then found its assets were insufficient to cover its liabilities, so he invested more and propped up the company.  The Board of Directors were so grateful that they made him President.  He soon got the company into good financial shape and became even more wealthy.

                The Knapps had their own large pipe organ in their “music room” in their house in Brooklyn.  It had three manuals, 24 stops, 24 ranks, plus “chime of bells,” “snare drum,” and “bass drum.”  [See: http://www.nycago.org/Organs/Bkln/html/ResKnappJF.html ]

                             Knapp Music Room in Residence in Brooklyn

             Mrs. J. F. Knapp, age 60 in 1899

                According to Edith Blumhofer, who wrote a biography of Fanny Crosby (Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby, 2005):

                Mrs. Knapp was what would now be called a social activist and she claimed to “care more for the active movements of the world of society than for spiritual abstraction.” Her understanding of Christianity was to aid the poor and foster social reform.  By the time she was thirty and Fanny met her, she was actively involved in many political and social activities and had already given away large sums of money to the poor.

                Phoebe Knapp was an attractive woman, tall, slim, with fine, regular features, intense eyes, and dark, curling hair.  Although she was deeply concerned about the plight of the poor, she did not by any means disdain the life of the rich. 

                She was a lavish dresser, given to wearing elaborate gowns and diamond tiaras.  The “Knapp Mansion,” a palatial residence on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Ross Street in Brooklyn, was a New York institution.  There she held a European-style salon in which she entertained most of the prominent people of the day . . . in her music room was one of the finest collections of musical instruments in the country, and well-known artists and performers were from time to time her guests. 

                Phoebe Knapp was not liked by many people. Very talkative, she had the reputation of being a smothering, possessive, strong-willed woman, and a bizarre eccentric.  She considered herself a better musician than she actually was and gave vocal recitals, despite the fact that her soprano voice was thin and weak.

The negative assessment above of Phoebe Knapp, however, was based on the opinions of the hymnal editors at Bigelow and Main, which was run by American Baptists who often had disputes with Phoebe Knapp regarding the welfare of Fanny Crosby and the hymns she authored.

                Mrs. Knapp also composed the music for “Blessed Assurance,” the tune CLEANSING WAVE (as a setting for “Oh, Now I See the Crimson Wave!” (https://youtu.be/uFueVpiZjuk), and the secular song “Watching for Pa.”

                After her husband died, she moved to the Savoy Hotel in Manhattan. She had the organ moved too.

                She died on 10 Jul 1908 in Poland Springs, Maine.

                Phoebe’s son was Joseph Palmer Knapp, and her grandson was Joseph Fairchild Knapp II.  J. P. Knapp went into publishing.  He purchased Collier’s Magazine in 1917. The grandson purchased a 180-acre estate in Mastic from Frank and Louise Lawrence in 1916.  The house on the property became known as the Knapp mansion.  (See http://spoonercentral.com/SpotlightPhotos/KnappMansion1929.html )  The Knapps owned it until 1940. It burned to the ground in 1959, presumably due to the act of an arsonist (or arsonists).

 

                You can hear Nelson Eddy sing “Open the Gates” here:

https://youtu.be/XgWW13vKj00?t=20s  Nelson Eddy sings “Open the Gates to the Temple”

He is an organ and euphonium version:

https://youtu.be/VzI4Cg5-a7E “Open the Gates of the Temple,” Brian Bowman playing euphonium with organ accompaniment


                The postlude is “Trumpet Voluntary,” also by Gordon Young, and trumpet/organ selections from Sigmund Hering "Classic Pieces for the Advancing Trumpeter.”

https://youtu.be/weysK13Q7W4 “Trumpet Voluntary (in C Major)” by Gordon Young, posted by HolyHolyHolyOrganKid

https://youtu.be/RYngQ1RDadw “Trumpet Voluntary” by Gordon Young, played very quickly by David Michalowski

                Sigmund Hering was born 10 May 1898 in Austro-Hungary. He studied at the Academy for Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna from 1915-1921.

                On 27 Mar 1921, he immigrated to the United States with his parents and his brother and sister-in-law.  (On the ship’s manifest, the S. S. Lapland, his father’s occupation is also shown as “musician,” and his language is shown as Yiddish. Sigmund’s nationality is shown as “Polish.”)  After immigrating to the United States, he also obtained a degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1930, where he majored in trumpet an double bass.  He was also a skilled pianist.  He was a trumpeter with the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1925 to 1964.

                Sigmund Hering was the most influential trumpet teacher of his generation.  He published 32 etude and method books (with 408 trumpet etudes) which his students used.  He taught his students sight-reading, transposition, and the orchestral repertoire. He gave lessons at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia for over fifty years, but (at least in his later years) he never played at lessons.

                He died in January 1986.

                I didn’t find a YouTube video of Hering’s “Classic Pieces” but I did find videos of Hering’s “Progressive Etudes.”  Here is #29.

                                https://youtu.be/ueqQS8gO3_Y   Sigmund Hering’s #29 of 32 etudes played by Jerry Wyrick

Richard

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