Music at All Saints Parish Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Day of Pentecost
From All Saints Music Director Donald Teeters
The Day of Pentecost, which we celebrate this Sunday, the 27th, is one of the great Feast Days of the Church, Even so, there will be a somewhat reduced choral component at this service this year - for a couple of reasons. First, when we did the scheduling last Fall, it was expected that there would be a parish weekend at the Barbara Harris Center in New Hampshire this weekend and, because of that, attendance here in Brookline would be off substantially, thus warranting only skeletal staffing in Brookline. The retreat was cancelled, but many choir members made alternate plans for this weekend. Second, it is always difficult to get choir members to commit to singing on the "first weekend of summer," as Memorial Day has become known. So, the choir was scheduled in for another service in the winter where they might otherwise not have been. All this is by way of telling you that the music will be of a somewhat less elaborate style than otherwise might have been expected. However, the Birthday of the Church will still be a wonderful service with excellent vocal music, hymns and organ music.
At the offertory two very talented sopranos in our choir will sing a duet, the Laudamus te, from Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria. This is music of great elation and beauty, and Mary Ricker and Gretchen McBride will perform it beautifully. And the choir, though somewhat reduced in numbers, will sing Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Call at the communion. This lovely setting of George Herbert's poetry is one of RVW.'s most beloved movements.
Since both Keith and I will be away, the choir will be directed by Alan McLellan and the organist for the service will be our highly treasured liturgical polymath, Christian Brocato.
There will be baptisms, one of the readings will be in a variety of tongues, and the hymns will reflect emphasize the themes of Pentecost with joy and grandeur.
511 - Holy Spirit, ever living. In this song of praise, matched with one of the fine hymn tunes of the mid-20th century, the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church is vividly portrayed. This two-stanza text is the work of the Bishop of Llandaff, Timothy Rees. The tune, Abbot's Leigh, was composed on a Sunday morning in 1941 by Cyril Vincent Taylor, an Anglican priest, who was then Assistant to the Head of Religious Broadcasting of the BBC. Their headquarters were in the village of Abbot's Leigh, across the suspension bridge from Bristol, England, thus the tune name. It has become very popular in England, especially because it was heard so often on the BBC, but also throughout the Anglican Church world.
513 - Like the murmur of the dove's song. Both the text and tune, which were composed for use in the Hymnal 1982, are the work of persons with strong Boston connections. Peter Cutts, the composer, is English by birth, but has been active for a number of years as church musician and teacher here. Carl P. Daw, Jr., the author is the prodigiously active creator of many popular, modern hymn texts. This hymn, especially suited to the Feast of Pentecost, was an instant "hit" with congregations throughout the Episcopal Church in this country.
510 - Come, holy Spirit, heavenly Dove. Isaac Watts' text has the distinction of having appeared in every edition of British and American hymnals since 1786. John Bacchus Dykes composed the tune in 1866 to accompany the text "Jesus, the very thought of thee," which is also to be found in our hymnal.
516 - Come down, O Love divine. As Episcopalians, we, as much as native Britons, have reason to be deeply in debt to Ralph Vaughan Williams for his contributions to the musical life of our worship. He was an editor of the English Hymnal, where much that was outdated was discarded, and much that was new was admitted if it lived up to his extremely high standards of quality and appropriateness. And, of course, as one of the pre-eminent classical British composers of the first half of the 20th century, his direct contributions in the form of many fine hymn tunes was of immense value. Come down, O Love divine is one of his finest, and a perfect fit to R.F. Littledales's fine 19th century reflection on the Pentecost theme.