We need each others voice to sing

 

I love the following poem by the hymn writer Thomas Troeger.  It is one I’ve shared before, and one I think is important to hold close.   I love the beautiful imagery in the poem and how it captures not only the power and communal aspect of the songs we sing together in worship, but also the power of standing together to proclaim the love of Jesus in our worship and our daily lives.   I give thanks regularly for each of you, and our singing together each time we worship as we raise our songs of love and praise to God.

We need each other’s voice to sing,
each other’s strength to love,
each other’s views to help us bring our hearts to God above.
 
Our lives like coals placed side by side
to feed each other’s flame,
shall with the Spirit’s breath provide a blaze of faith to claim.
 
We give our alleluias
To the church’s common chord:
Alleluia! Alleluia!  Praise, O Praise, O Praise the Lord!
-Thomas Troeger

Soli Deo Gloria!
Ben Keseley, Minister of Music

© 1994, Oxford University Press.  Reprinted with permission OneLicense.net # A71721

Text Painting in Sunday's Anthem

Bring your personal flotation devices on Sunday!  The choir's anthem is a wild ride.  

The choir will sing Herbert Sumsion's beautiful and "stormy" anthem They that go down to the sea in ships.  Sumsion was born in Gloucester in 1899. He was a pupil of Sir Herbert Brewer, the Gloucester Cathedral Organist.  Sumsion was appointed as Cathedral Organist at Gloucester on the sudden death of Brewer in 1928.  Prior to this appointment, he spent a short period in America as Professor of Harmony at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia,  Sumsion died in 1995.
 
This anthem was written in 1979 for Dennis Kiddy and the Choir of Repton Preparatory School. The piece is an excellent example of how composers use music to "paint" the text which they are setting.  Text painting helps illustrate and depict the text in an dramatic and evocative way.

In this particular piece you will here the text of Psalm 107 come alive with a rippling of the sea in the organ accompaniment, a rising and falling choral part that depicts the movement of the ship.  Sumsion dwells on the word "wonders", repeating it several times.  We hear the dramatic effect of the stormy wind arising as the music moves upwards at the words "carried up to the heaven".  His use of syncopation to depict the psalmist words - "they reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man," show's his flair for the dramatic and less subtle text-painting.  The anthem ends with a beautiful depiction of peaceful waves.

Understanding a little about the composer's craft, such as these examples of text painting, help us move even deeper into the music and experience and hear the word of God being proclaimed.  I encourage you to listen to this anthem a little more closely than you might normally.  How does the organ support what the choir sings?  How do the choir melodies go with the text? It is remarkable to me how when the Word of God carried on the wings of song, dwell deeper and more profoundly in the soul.

Soli deo Gloria!
Ben Keseley, Minister of Music

They that go down to the sea in ships :
and occupy their business in great waters;
These men see the works of the Lord :
and his wonders in the deep.

For at his word the stormy wind ariseth :
which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They are carried up to the heav’n, and down again to the deep :
their soul melteth away because of the trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man :
and are at their wits’ end.

So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble :
he delivereth them out of their distress.
For he maketh the storm to cease :
so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they are at rest :
and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.

Photo Credit: The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew (detail), about 1389–1404, Master of the Brussels Initials. Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, and ink on parchment, 13 x 9 7/16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 34, fol. 172

A new organ for Saint George's

I am so excited for our parish, the greater community and for what the commissioning of Pasi, Opus 28, means for ministry at Saint George's and outreach in our community.  As you may have read in our Senior Warden's letter this week, our vestry approved moving forward with the long-awaited new pipe organ for Saint George's at its last meeting.  You can read about the Organ Committee's work several years ago and other background information here.

When I arrived in at Saint George's in the late spring of  2009 for my interview,  it became immediately apparent that Saint George's valued its music ministry, recognized music's importance in our faith lives and worship, and that there was a very strong desire to grow this ministry in dynamic and meaningful ways.  As our choirs have grown and blossomed these past years - both in numbers and musically - we have increasingly become aware of how inadequate our instrument is in supporting the beautiful music these ensembles make.  As I lead you all in congregational song each week, I have become intimately aware of both the technical challenges and tonal limitations of our instrument for leading your glorious hymns of praise and prayer.  

Our new instrument (Opus 28), built by Martin Pasi and team Pasi Organbuilders of Roy Washington, will change all of that.  Our nave will be graced by a beautiful new instrument,  a work of art lovingly handmade for our community and nave using time-tested practices.  Our instrument is designed with our ministries and worship in mind both today and into the future.  It will be one that inspires our grandchildren's grandchildren as it continues to lead the church's song in this place. It will be an instrument that inspires and leads congregational singing with clarity and sheer beauty.  It will be an organ that fully supports our choir's work and becomes and equal partner in these proclamations.  It will not only be an instrument that leads our holy praises and prayer and inspires us to a deeper faith, but a gift to our community which invites them in to the holy mysteries of God.

Because Martin Pasi's shop builds one instrument at a time, our instrument will not arrive until the Fall of 2020.  It will take 14 months to build once construction is started.  The building of an organ is a fascinating and beautiful thing, combining a variety of trades and fine craftsmanship.  I encourage you to check out Martin Pasi's website to not only see his beautiful instruments, but to watch the many videos which show his team making pipes and building an instrument.  It truly is an exciting and amazing thing!

I look forward to this journey with you as we watch Opus. 28 come to life and become a part of this community's generous work to love God, serve others, and change the world.

Soli Deo Gloria!
en Keseley, Minister of Music

1995 Martin Pasi - Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood, Washington, USA Martin Pasi is one of very few American organ-builders who is capable of recreating the sound of 18th and 19th century European organs in the new organs he builds. His organs and all pipes are hand-built in his shop in Roy, Washington.

Sunday's Prelude

 
Widor’s Andante Sostenuto
 
The prelude on Sunday comes from French composer Charles Marie Widor’s Symphonie Gothique, mvt. II op. 70 (Andante sostenuto).  For Widor, his organ symphonies were a symbolic way of communicating his spiritual insights and Christian faith.  Written in 1895, the Symphonie Gothique was based on the liturgical theme “Puer natus est nobis” (Unto us a child is born), and inspired by the magnificent Gothic basilica of Saint-Ouen at Rouen, France.  
 
The Andante sostenutowas considered by Widor’s student Albert Riemenschneider, as well as French organist Marcel Dupré, as a piece that evoked the serenity of the church’s interior.  Riemenschneider wrote in a program note that the Andante sostenutowas a “rare movement with a spiritual content so chaste and pure that involuntarily the atmosphere of prayer and incense suggests itself.”   So fittingly, Andante sostenuto is offered this Sunday as we begin our worship together to gather our prayers for us and the world.  May they rise like incense.

Soli Deo Gloria!
Ben Keseley

Cavaille-Coll organ at Saint-Ouen in Rouen, France

Refracted Light: "Advent" by Stan Curtis

I have always been fascinated by the intersection of different art forms and the new creation that results when two or more are juxtaposed and set in conversation. The power of art forms to express that which is unsayable is one we are all well aware.  When such forms are intermingled with each other through the creativity of God's people, these artistic "windows" of God's divine transcendence, God's immanence - God's holiness - become transformative icons for us and our faith journey.  Such artistic icons have been central to shaping my faith.
 
So, you can imagine my excitement when about five years ago, Stan told me of his plans to write different pieces inspired on our beautiful stained glass windows.  Such a marvelous idea!   I was excited to see and hear the results. 

Stan's album Refracted Light, is forthcoming and includes his pieces based on the windows of Saint George's.  ou will want to get a copy when its released! 

Over the past year, I've had the pleasure of working with Stan on three of his pieces based on our windows. We have performed them in recital and last June spent several days (and nights!) recording them in our newly renovated nave.  

This week Stan Curtis and myself, along with soprano Tia Wortham, are in San Antonio to present Stan's composition "Advent" at the International Trumpet Guild Conference.  This beautiful work by Stan for trumpet, soprano, and piano won a composition award and the honor of having it presented on one of the conference's New Works recitals on Thursday morning, May 31st.  So we take a little of St. George's to San Antonio this week to share with the world.  Congratulations and thank you, Stan!

Stan writes:

In 2012, I began to compose Advent, which, despite its name, is the piece I wrote to go with St. George’s Crucifixion Window. I was greatly moved by a poem of the same name by the American Poet Laureate Donald Hall. My intention was to provide a “Trinity” of variations for each of the three stanzas (three flexible interpretations based on the concepts of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost). Each stanza, therefore, has a set of three variations, making a total of nine iterations of the melody first sung at the beginning by the soprano.

Regarding the text, “rood” in the first stanza is a cross; “Tenebrae” in the second stanza refers to a Christian religious service celebrated during Holy Week marked by the gradual extinguishing of candles; “Horror vacui” in the third stanza literally means “fear of empty space” and usually describes artwork which fills the entire space with visual detail.

The original version of this extended aria featured an extremely unsettling phase-shifting mixed-meter melody between trumpet and piano with soprano singing in the rests, in an effort to imitate the artistic meaning of “horror vacui”, but an alternative, lyric, ending proved more effective in the long run.
 
 

Advent
(text by Donald Hall)
 
When I see the cradle rocking
What is it that I see?
I see a rood on the hilltop
        Of Calvary.
 
When I hear the cattle lowing
What is it that they say?
They say that shadows feasted
        At Tenebrae.
 
When I know that the grave is empty,
Absence eviscerates me,
And I dwell in a cavernous, constant
        Horror vacui.
 
“Advent” from The Back Chamber by Donald Hall. Copyright ©2011 by Donald Hall.
sed by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.