Music at All Saints Parish Sunday, November 12, 2006
From All Saints Music Director Donald Teeters
Three great hymns, a choral masterpiece by Johannes Brahms, and a delightful duet for two male soloists by Heinrich Schütz constitute the musical highlights of our celebration of the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.
First, a word about Brahms and Schütz. Brahms, the towering figure of late Romanticism, stood in awe of the music of his German predecessor Schütz, often using the earlier composer's works as a template for his own music, especially as regards meter and rhythm. Schütz, who was born exactly a century before Bach, in 1585, wrote virtually nothing but vocal music set to religious texts throughout his long life (d. 1672). Increasingly, musicians and sophisticated listeners of today, following Brahms's lead, are discovering the rich beauty and intricate design of his music.
At the communion on Sunday, two fine tenors in our choir - Tom Bridge and Alan McLellan - will sing a duet from a collection of Schütz's work called Cantiones Sacrae (Sacred Songs). This duet is based on a Gospel text (Luke 5:5) where Jesus tells Simon and Andrew to put their nets back in the water after a night of failed effort. To their amazement, their nets cannot hold the abundant catch. Later, Jesus exhorts Simon Peter to become a "fisher of men."
At the offertory one of the best-loved movements from Brahms's Requiem, "How lovely is thy dwelling-place, O Lord," will be sung by the choir. Its text helps us to keep in mind an All Saints Day theme for one more week: "Blest are they who dwell within thy house."
All the hymns this Sunday are familiar and rewarding to sing. The opening hymn (#57) "Lo, he comes in clouds descending," is usually associated with Advent, but we have reason to include it at this service. You might want to read the text before Sunday and consider its relevance to the Collect of the Day. The tune is an old one, but Ralph Vaughan Williams gave it new life in his brilliant harmonization.
The offertory hymn contains one of the greatest of all 20th century hymn texts, "O holy city, seen of John." This song of the heavenly Jerusalem was written by Walter Russell Bowie in 1910, and first appeared in the 1940 Hymnal, set to the tune Morning Song, with which it has become most closely identified. This tune seems to be American in origin and dates from the early 19th century, when it appeared in an eight page musical leaflet published in Philadelphia.
The service concludes with another of Charles Wesley's stirring hymns, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun." If you aren't familiar with this rousing hymn, you just haven't been paying attention. What a great way to be sent out into the world to do God's work.