18 May 2014 - The Fifth Sunday of Easter

9:00am Eucharist, II and Choir Promotions

      Training Choir / Treble Choir / Canterbury Choir

      John Linker, Organist/Choirmaster

      Kakie Hester, Music Assistant

            Stanford / Allegretto & Allegro non troppo e pesante (from Op. 101)

            Bedford / Alleluia! Christ is risen! Training Choir

            Stanford / Jubilate Deo in Bb

            Hymns

            1*                       Father, we praise thee                          Christe sanctorum

            WLP 761 (st. 1)  All who hunger gather gladly                         Holy Manna

            487*                   Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life                       The Call

            432*                   O praise ye the Lord!                             Laudate Dominum

11:15am Eucharist, II

      Parish Choir

      John Linker, Organist/Choirmaster

            Stanford / Allegretto & Allegro non troppo e pesante (from Op. 101)

            Lloyd / Psalm 31:1-5, 19-24

            Stanford / Jubilate Deo in Bb

            Hymns

            1*                       Father, we praise thee                          Christe sanctorum

            WLP 761 (st. 1)  All who hunger gather gladly                         Holy Manna

            487*                   Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life                       The Call

            432*                   O praise ye the Lord!                             Laudate Dominum

4:15pm Concert

      Larry Sharp, Organ, with Merrilee Elliott, Flute

            Leon Nelson / A Trumpet Fancy

            Frank Ferko / Angels

            Lowell Liebermann / Five Pieces from Album for the Young

            Charles Callahan / Pastorale for Flute and Organ, Op. 35

            Gerald Near / Sarabande on Land of rest

            Christopher Uehlein / Postlude on an Original Antiphon

5:00pm Eucharist, II

      John Linker, Organist

            Stanford / Allegretto & Allegro non troppo e pesante (from Op. 101)

            Hymns

            432*                   O praise ye the Lord!                            Laudate Dominum

            WLP 761 (st. 1)  All who hunger gather gladly                        Holy Manna

            35*                     Christ, mighty Savior                                   Mighty Savior

[* = Hymns chosen from the 2009 Hymn Survey]

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was a key player in the revival of fresh, refined church music in the early 20^th century. Having taught the most important British composers of the twentieth century (Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Holst, Howells to name a few), his influence was immeasurable. The Voluntaries are from Stanford's Six Short Preludes and Postludes, Op. 101. The Allegretto is a charming pastorale in 6/8. Employing a theme that favors step-wise intervals, this miniature work resembles music of Stanford's choral music. The Allegro non troppo e pesante is a dramatic short work, in which one hears homophonic (chordal) motion, use of "wedge-like" motive (contrary motion), and showy scalar passages, perhaps Stanford's nod to the Baroque stylus phantasticus style of composition. Stanford's Jubilate Deo in Bb is an expeditious setting of Psalm 100. Through composed, this short setting is mostly homophonic, and concludes with the same Gloria Patri that Stanford uses in his Nunc dimittis in Bb.

The text of Hymn 432 is based on Psalms 148 and 150 and is matched with the quintessentially British hymn tune Laudate Dominum, whose opening phrase echoes the chime of countless parish and town clocks, is by the prolific C.H.H. Parry, who like Stanford, was one of the prime movers in the renaissance of English music at the turn of the 20^th century. 

Frank Ferko (b. 1950) received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano and organ performance from Valparaiso University in 1972, and a Master of Music degree in music theory, with a minor in organ performance, from Syracuse in 1973.  He holds a doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University.  For over three decades, he has held the post of director of music at various churches throughout the Midwest, primarily in the Chicago area.  Commissioned in 1994, Angels is a chaconne for organ, organized not on a traditional ground bass, but as a repeating harmonic progression, based on the twelfth-century chant O aeterna Deus, composed by Hildegard von Bingen.  Seven variations on this harmonic pattern build in complexity and volume, expressing the mystical qualities of angels.  The perfect intervals of the octave and the fifth reflect the perfection of these celestial beings.  The sixth variation, a tango, expresses exuberant joy, before returning, in the seventh variation, to the same ethereal quality inherent in the original chant melody.

Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961) is one of America's most frequently performed living composers.  He has written over one hundred works of all genres, combining elements of traditional tonality and structure with more adventurous harmonies.  Liebermann studied at Juilliard School of Music, earning master's and doctoral degrees.  He resides in his native New York City and serves on the composition faculty of The New School for Music at Mannes College.  Five Pieces, Op. 79,  was adapted by the composer for flute and piano in 2002 from his original Album for the Young, written for piano solo in 1993.

Charles Callahan (b. 1951) is one of America's leading composers of organ and church music.  A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Catholic University of America.  His Pastorale, Op. 35, published in 1990 for flute and organ, is suggestive of traditional shepherds' music or an idyllic rural life.

Gerald Near (b. 1942) is one of the finest composers of church music today.  He has studied theory and composition at the American Conservatory of Music, in Chicago, and at the University of Michigan.  He resides in New Mexico.  The lovely and tranquil Sarabande is the second movement from Near's Suite for Organ, composed in 1966.  It is based on the hymn tune Land of Rest, sung by many congregations as the hymn I Come with Joy.