Ben Keseley 5/21/25 Ben Keseley 5/21/25

O Blessed Spring

O Blessed Spring

Our hymn during communion on Sunday is by the hymn writer Susan Palo Cherwien (1953-2021), author of our hymn, All-embracing God. O blessed spring is centered in the Christian idea of the Tree of Life where Christ is the vine and source from which all life grows. Susan’s poetry is beautiful, layering the different stages of human life, the seasons of creation, and Christ presence and centrality throughout our life cycle. Her verse unfolds like a ‘bud into a blossom’ to borrow the words of Michael Hawn, professor of church music at Southern Methodist University, with the singer arriving at the last stanza with a ‘sense of wonder that comes from glimpsing sacred mystery.’

Susan drew her inspiration for this hymn from a striking bronze sculpture by Paul Granlund that hangs over the baptismal font at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This sculpture embodies the image of John 15:5 ‘I am the vine; you are the branches.’ Granlund cast a tree with four branches depicting the four ages of human life, with Christ as the central trunk.

I love this hymn and this sculpture. Meredith and I had this hymn sung at our wedding. For us the idea of being grafted to Christ the Vine throughout all seasons of life – the good and the hard – was not only a beautiful image to behold, but one of unmeasurable comfort, joy, and hope. It is one that continually reminds us of the importance of our faith and the power of belonging to and actively participating in Christan community regardless of what life brings our way.

O blessed spring, where Word and sign
Embrace us into Christ the Vine:
Here Christ enjoins each one to be
A branch of this life-giving Tree.

Through summer heat of youthful years,
Uncertain faith, rebellious tears,
Sustained by Christ’s infusing rain,
The boughs will shout for joy again.

When autumn cools and youth is cold,
When limbs their heavy harvest hold,
Then through us, warm, the Christ will move
With gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.

As winter comes, as winters must,
We breathe our last, return to dust;
Still held in Christ, our souls take wing
And trust the promise of the spring.

Christ, holy Vine, Christ, living Tree,
Be praised for this blest mystery:
That Word and water thus revive
And join us to your Tree of Life.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Ben Keseley, Minister of Music

PS. There is a great twelve-minute piece by David Cherwien, Susan’s husband, on this hymn including a performance of David’s setting of this hymn on youtube. Well worth a listen.

Ben Keseley 2/1/25 Ben Keseley 2/1/25

Music Notes: Evensong, Feb. 2

“This piece was inspired by the traditional Diné (Navajo) concept of Hózhó, often translated as ‘balance and beauty.’ This concept permeates Diné life and culture, and reflects the state of harmony that binds all things together in the universe. When elements of the universe fall out of balance, nature will ultimately strive to achieve homeostasis and balance once again.”

Going deeper…notes on our music for today’s Choral Evensong for the Presentation of our Lord.

Prelude

Our voluntaries today include three settings of the Nunc Dimittis which capture different emotional aspects of this regular Evensong text. The last piece, Hózhó, by Native American composer, Connor Chee, reflects on beauty and balance and that which binds all things together.

Nunc Dimittis by Frederick Frahm

Frederick Frahm (b. 1964) was born in Hemet, California and was educated at Pacific Lutheran University. As a professional church musician for more than 35 years, he served parishes across the country, including more than 10 years as Director of Music at St. Luke Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a composer, Frahm has written numerous works in many genres, including chamber opera and cantatas. His work appears in the catalog of more than dozen publishers. As a performer, he has appeared in organ recitals across the country and as organist and harpsichordist for the New Mexico Philharmonic and Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. Frahm has been active as a teaching composer-artist for the Santa Fe Opera company, working with elementary and middle school age children to write their own chamber operas for public performance.

Nunc Dimittis was written in memory of those who have died from Covid 19. It is based on the tune Le Cantique de Siméon (hymn 36 in our Hymnal 1982). It is played on the facade prinicpal 8’ stops of the organ.

Nunc Dimittis by Karen Beaumont

American organist and composer Karen Beaumont (b. 1965) received her degree in Music History from the University of Wisconsin and studied organ with Gerre Hancock, John Behnke, Jeffrey Peterson, and Carol Haakenson. Beaumont has performed as a recitalist in numerous venues throughout the USA and the UK. From 1988 to 2011 she provided the organ and choral music for St. James Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her album of classic French noëls was released on the Pro Organo label in 2020. Her musical compositions have been published by Lorenz, Leupold Editions, Fagus-Music, and SMP Press.

Karen’s setting of the Nunc Dimittis is played on the 8’ Gedeckt, a flute stop, on the Swell division, and the 16’ Bourdon on the Great division.

Nunc Dimittis by Franklin Ashdown

Franklin D. Ashdown is a composer and medical doctor, who has pursued dual careers for the past 3 decades. Born in 1942, he studied piano for 12 years, and was “recruited” at age 13 to play the organ for a local congregation. He later studied organ with Judson Maynard and James Drake, was was privately coached by Fred Tulan of San Francisco and Leonard Raver of New York's Juilliard School.

A widely-published composer of organ and choral music, Ashdown has had his works performed in venues ranging from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City to St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. His compositions have been featured on American Public Radio's “Pipedreams,” National Public Radio's “All Things Considered,” and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's CBS broadcast, “Music and the Spoken Word.” Leonard Raver and Stephen Burns recorded his “Requiem for the 'Challenger'” for trumpet and organ on the Classic Masters label, and James Welch has included some of his solo organ music in his series of CD recordings for various labels. A resident of Alamogordo, New Mexico, Ashdown enjoys a full life as an internist, composer, and organist-choir director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Franklin’s setting of the Nunc Dimittis is played on the foundation stops of the organ at 8’ pitch.

Hózhó by Connor Chee

Navajo pianist and composer Connor Chee (b. 1987) is known for combining his classical piano training with his Native American heritage. Chee made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 12 after winning a gold medal in the World Piano Competition. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, Chee’s solo piano music is inspired by traditional Navajo chants and songs.

A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER:

As a child, my grandmother taught me that keeping balance and harmony in my life started with the simplest things. I was taught to always keep my necklaces hung neatly so they would not tangle, to keep my belongings in order, and even to make sure my shoes were untied when I took them off. The idea was that if I could keep balance in those fundamental things, it would permeate my spirit and inspire my life as a whole. Although I still struggle to keep the space where I live and work in perfect order, I know that when I feel overwhelmed or out of sorts, I can start by organizing the simple things to welcome balance back into my life.

‘Hózhó’ for Organ Solo presents a musical search for balance and beauty. At times, the music is unbalanced in form and meter, but seeks to return to a more harmonious state. The melodic content that opens the piece is presented again at the end, but in retrograde. This symbolizes a balanced idea that surrounds the rest of the (sometimes unbalanced) musical content. It returns the listener to the beginning of the piece with a melody that is in essence the same, but transformed during the experience.”

-Connor Chee

The Anthem:

O Nata Lux by Morten Lauridsen

Morten Johannes Lauridsen (born February 27, 1943) is an American composer. A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (1994–2001) and has been a professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than 40 years.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen worked as a Forest Service firefighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens) and attended Whitman College before traveling south to study composition at the University of Southern California with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He began teaching at USC in 1967 and has been on their faculty ever since.

In 2006, Lauridsen was named an 'American Choral Master' by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide."

A Note from the Composer:

Each of the five connected movements in this choral cycle contains references to “Light,” assembled from various sacred Latin texts. I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my mother’s final illness and found great personal comfort and solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels - spiritual, artistic, and intellectual.

The work opens and closes with the beginning and ending of the Requiem Mass, with the central three movements drawn respectively from the Te Deum, O Nata Lux, and Veni, Sancte Spiritus. O Nata Lux is an a cappella motet at the center of the work . - — Morten Lauridsen

O Light born of Light,

Jesus, redeemer of the world,

with kindness deign to receive

the praise and prayer of suppliants.

You who once deigned to be clothed in flesh

for the sake of the lost,

grant us to be made member

O nata lux de lumine,

Jesu redemptor saeculi,

dignare clemens supplicum

laudes precesque sumere.

Qui carne quondam contegi

dignatus es pro perditis,

nos membra confer effici

tui beati corporis.

Choral Director Tim Sharp writes:

In my conversations with Mr. Lauridsen he recently expressed his approach to his art: “My passion second to music is poetry. I read and study it constantly–every day. It is a fundamental part of my life. I have profound admiration for poets who seek deeper meanings and truths and are able to express themselves elegantly through the written word. Consequently, it has been a natural development for me as a composer to wed these two passions and to set texts to music.”

Lauridsen has not only set a variety of poems and poets to music, but he has also set poems from several historical eras in a variety of languages. Lauridsen is particularly attracted to the idea of the choral cycle, which through his craft becomes a multi-movement piece unified by both a central poetic theme by one or more authors tied together by recurring musical elements. He finds inspiration and historical precedents for his work in the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms. Contemporary musical influences include Rorem, Copland, Barber, and the jazz stylings of Miles Davis. The poets he has chosen for his cycles include Graves, Rilke, Moss, and Lorca, as well as historical liturgical Latin texts.

The central movement of the cycle, “O Nata Lux”, is an unaccompanied motet. Lauridsen inserts a pure vocal sound without orchestral accompaniment as the centerpiece of this choral cycle, underscoring the historical place held by centuries-old unaccompanied sacred motet. The ongoing homophonic texture of “O Nata Lux” tends to disguise the constant emergence of gentle but stunningly beautiful melodic fragments offered by various vocal parts. If the essence of water can be captured on canvas, surely Claude Monet approached this conceptual impossibility in his painting. Similarly, if light could be set to music, Lauridsen’s choral centerpiece “O Nata Lux” has given us this deeply felt impression and expression.

Postlude

Chorale-Prelude on ‘Te Lucis’ by Healy Willian

James Healey Willan was born on October 12, 1880, in Balham, Surrey, England. He had a wide experience as a composer of a full-length opera, a symphonic work, countless organ and choral works, as a music educator, a choral director, and a church musician. He played his first service at the age of eleven in 1891 and his last service on Christmas Eve, 1967, just two months before he died on February 16, 1968.

Having served churches in England, Willan left for Canada in 1913 to serve as organist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Toronto as well as head of the Theory Department at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. In 1921, he accepted the position of organist-choirmaster at St. Mary Magdalene Church, an Anglo-Catholic parish in Toronto, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. During his tenure there, Willan also accepted in 1938 the position of Professor in the Music Faculty at the University of Toronto.

Most of his hymn-based motets and organ preludes came into existence after his retirement from the University of Toronto in 1950, the most prolific compositional period of his life. Willan is probably best known for his sacred and liturgical music, especially that written for St. Mary Magdalene Church. His anthems, hymns, motets, mass settings, and carol settings—all contributed to his reputation as the “dean of Canadian composers.”

His setting of the hymn tune Te Lucis, hymn 44 in our Hymnal 1982, is one of his many settings of hymn tunes. You will hear the chorale tune in the tenor range on the principal stop. Willian slows down the melody’s tempo and overlaps it between the left hand and feet surrounding this with a delicate, yet interesting "accompaniment"

Ben Keseley 4/12/22 Ben Keseley 4/12/22

A week that will change us

We have all been given a special and profound gift in our Holy Week & Easter liturgies and its music. It is a gift that will change us. It is a gift that will help us to know God’s love more fully and spread that love throughout the world. I hope you and your loved ones will take advantage of this gift – all of it – so that we might give thanks to our God and allow ourselves to truly experience the profound love that is made present in our time of worship together during this incredible, beautiful, and most holy week.

This is the week, my friends! And how wonderful we can celebrate this most wonderful week together in person again. I think Holy Week has the best liturgies of the entire year. These liturgies are at the core of our Christian faith. And, I’d say this week has the best music of the year, too. The music of Holy Week and Easter, particularly of our Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Vigil services, are not only stirring, but works of sheer and simple beauty that bring us deeply into the mysteries of our faith.

The simple beauty of this music is directly tied to the bold liturgical action it accompanies, and because of this, the music is even more powerful and moving. From the anthems sung during the washing of the feet to the chanting of Psalm 22 as the altar is stripped on Maundy Thursday, to the Passion Gospel and anthems sung on Good Friday and the four-part singing of O sacred head now wounded, to the ancient Exultet chant, psalms, and first Easter hymn at the Vigil – together this music and liturgy bring us fully into the salvation story and make it alive within us. It ushers in the numinous – that which is holy, the presence of divine beauty – and allows us to encounter in a more complete way the mysteries of God’s love for us and the world.

And then, there is Easter Day, the culmination of our salvation story. What a joyous celebration we will have, complete with all our finery! Again, our music is directly tied to our liturgy, with much of our music featuring rising figures that represent Christ rising from the dead. We sing the great hymns of Easter in celebration, just as other Christians around the world do on this day.

See you in church!

Soli deo Gloria!

Ben Keseley, Minister of Music

Ben Keseley 3/30/22 Ben Keseley 3/30/22

The Cross as a Musical Figure

Music of the Baroque (roughly 1600-1750) is known for its use of rhetorical musical figures, figures used to express the mood (affect) or text of a piece. These are used to bring the listener into deeper understanding and conversation with the music. The Doctrine of Affections was a theory used heavily in the Baroque that explained how music could arouse specific emotions in the listener. By using certain musical figures, the composer could involuntarily elicit an emotional response in the listener. One of these such musical figures was the cross. In the example above, if you draw a straight line from the beginning note to the last note and then another line between the two middle notes you get a cross on its side. This figure is found quite often in Baroque music, especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Our postlude uses this figure extensively to bring us deeper into the meaning of its text. Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund (As Jesus hung on the cross) is a meditation on the seven last words of Christ. The pedal line opens with an elongated cruciform figure said to represent the cross, followed by a chain of suspensions that represent Christ’s languishing on the cross. Many other cross figures pervade this reflection on the crucifixion that is succinct and profoundly moving. It is registered on the 8’ Swell principal alone, which on our organ is ravishingly beautiful by itself. The text of the choral is as follows:

As Jesus hung on the cross

and His body was wounded

with such bitter pain,

consider in your heart the seven words

that He spoke there.

Our prelude is Johannes Brahm’s famous A-flat minor Fugue. A piece in 7 flats, which for keyboard players, is no small feat. Brahm’s fugue is a textbook example. The subject (or theme) and its counter-subject are developed throughout the piece through inversion, key changes and other devices such as augmentation. A twisting and turning a few notes which are spun into a masterpiece. Often referred to as a love letter from Brahms to Clara Schumann, the piece is also a tribute to J.S. Bach and his exceptional talent at writing fugues. Like Bach, Brahms uses the cruciform figure in his counter subject material. Here the cruciform figure is the musical spelling of BACH’s name (Bb-A-C-H (or b natural)). This is depicted in the graphic above. (Click here to hear and learn more about this motif).

Soli Deo Gloria,

Ben Keseley, Minister of Music

Brahms’ A-flat minor fugue, played by Daryle Robinson on Martin Pasi’s, Opus 19.

Bach’s “Da an dem Kreuze stund” described and played by Daniel Aune.

Ben Keseley 3/23/22 Ben Keseley 3/23/22

There's a wideness in God's mercy

As a church musician and organist, I am often asked about my favorite hymn. My response is always something to the effect that I have a top 5 or 10 or 15… and it depends on the week. However, our gradual hymn for Sunday is pinned right up at the top. The text is brilliant, efficient, powerful. The tune is simply beautiful and evocative.

Writing in a simple and intense style, much like the Wesleys, Frederick William Faber penned “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” in 1854. The verses found in our hymnal are from a much longer hymn. Faber’s text soon became very popular and was found in the hymnals of many different denominations, although the verses and tune selected for each were rarely the same.

One of the tunes we find in our hymnal for this text is St. Helena, written by Calvin Hampton in 1978. Calvin was a brilliant musician who sadly died from AIDS much too early in his life. His tune is written specifically for this text. With undulating notes in the accompaniment and rocking melodic figures, his tune paints a picture of a vast rolling sea while at the same time capturing ever-present nature of God’s compassion and mercy.

The hymn as we sing it on Sunday represents a fine example of a perfect marriage of text and tune. I encourage you to not gloss over this text, but to pray it daily and allow its words to wash over you, to sink in, to grow within you. May it be a balm for your soul as we go about our daily life in a troubled world. You can listen to a wonderful recording of it below.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in His blood.

There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of the mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving
for the goodness of the Lord.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Ben Keseley, Minister of Music