Sunday 10th October 2021 Trinity 19

 Tantum Ergo  Louis Vierne

Tantum ergo is the incipit of the last two verses of Pange lingua.  This is a Medieval Latin hymn written by St Thomas Aquinas c. 1264. The Genitori genitoque and Procedenti ab utroque portions are adapted from Adam of Saint Victor's sequence for Pentecost.  An incipit, is the opening phrase,or in music the opening sequence of notes.

The singing of Tantum ergo occurs during veneration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the Catholic Church and other denominations that have this devotion. We sang it as out anthem at the end of Holy Communion.

Louis Vierne (1870 - 1937) was a french organist and composer.  He was born in Poitiers, with very poor vision due to congenital cataracts.  However it was discovered at a young age that he had a gift for music. He was schooled initially in the provinces and then went to the Paris Conservatoire. In 1892, he was assistant organist to Charles-Marie Widor and subsequently was organist at Notre Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death.  He suffered greatly from his own ill health, the loss of his brother and son during World War One and he almost lost a leg after a severe accident. Although his leg  was saved it took a year for him to relearn to use it to play the organ. His organ in Notre Dame was in a severe state of disrepair and he undertook a tour of America, playing to raise money for its refurbishment. This tour was a huge success but it took its toll on his health.

He was playing a recital at his organ in Notre Dame, and had completed the majority of the programme.  He suddenly pitched forward with his foot on the low E pedal and died with the note echoing through the great cathedral.  He had often said he wished to die at the console of the great organ of Notre Dame and so fulfilled his wish.  Maurice Durufle (another great french composer and organist)  was at his side as he died.

Vierne in about 1910 from Wikipedia

Sunday 3rd October 2021 Harvest Thanksgiving

 "Thou Visitest The Earth" from "Thou O God Art Praised in Sion" Dr Maurice Greene (1696 - 1755)

"Thou Visitest The Earth" is a setting of Psalm 65 for solo tenor or baritone and SATB chorus.  In our case today, the solo was taken by one of our altos.  It is commonly used as a Harvest anthem speaking of God's blessings on the earth.

Maurice Green was born in London, his father, Thomas Greene, was chaplain of the Chapel Royal and canon of Salisbury. Young Maurice began his studies under Jeremiah Clarke and Charles King at St Paul's Cathedral. In 1714 he gained his first musical post as organist at St Dunstan-in-the-West on Fleet Street. In 1717 he became organist at St Paul's Cathedral.

Greene was a founder member of the Castle Society, established in 1724. He also helped found the Academy of Ancient Music.

In 1730, Greene was admitted "Doctor in Musica" at Cambridge University and later was made a professor of music there.

In 1735, Greene was elected Master of the King's Music, the highest musical position in the land.

Originally a friend of Handel, Handel had a disagreement with another composer, Giovanni Bononcini, but when Greene continued his friendship with Bononcini, this upset Handel and a lifelong feud ensued.

Sunday 26th September 2021 Trinity 17

 Ave Verus Corpus  Mozart

Ave Verum Corpus (Hail, true body) is a setting of the Latin Hymn, in D major.  It was written for Anton Stoll, a friend and church musician of St Stephen, Baden.

It was composed in 1791 whilst visiting his wife Constanze who was pregnant with their 6th child and staying at the spa Baden bei Wien.  It was composed for the feast of Corpus Christi.  Mozart's manuscript has only "Sotto voce" marked at the beginning with no other markings.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)

Mozart was a child prodigy competent on keyboard and violin.  He began composing at the age of five. He performed around Europe for royalty.  At the age of 17 he was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court but was restless and travelled looking for a better position.  Whilst visiting Vienna he was dismissed from his position in Salzburg.  He remained in Vienna, where he gained fame but no financial security.

He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as the finest in symphonies, concertante, operatic, chamber and choral music.  He remains one of the best loved classical composers, whose work influenced many composers.  Joseph Haydn said of Mozart "Posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

W A Mozart from Wikipedia

Sunday 12th September 2021 Trinity 15

 What Wondrous Love Is This    Geoffrey Weaver

Geoff Weaver was born in 1943.  He read Music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge gaining an honours degree. He founded the Bath Youth Choir and directed the Bach Cantata Choir. After teaching in the UK, worked in Hong Kong for 8 years with the Church Mission Society. He was Director of Music for 4 years in Bradford Cathedral and 8 years on the training staff at CMS Training College at Selly Oak. He was also Director of Studies/Outreach for the Royal School of Church Music for 8 years.

"What Wondrous Love is This" is an American Folk Hymn arranged by Geoff Weaver.  It starts as a simple melody sung for us today by the Junior Choir, and goes into 3 part harmony for the middle stanza, finishing with unison Alto, Tenor, Bass and  Soprano descant, building to a joyous crescendo.

Sunday 5th September 2021 Family Service and Patronal Festival

After the choir "summer break" we were back in full swing. What is even better is that the congregation can also join in with the hymns, although behind masks.

 Ave Verum Op 65 No 1  Faure 

Yet another Ave Verum, but this is written for Soprano and Alto voices (the tenors and basses get a rest). Although the start of the piece seems unfamiliar, the soprano and alto canon is in more familiar territory (O Jesu, Jesu dulcis - ).

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine,

Vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine,

Cujus latus perforatum vero fluxit cum sanguine;

Esto nobis praegustatum, mortis in examine.

O pie, O dulcis Jesu, Fili Mariae.

Tu nobis miserere. Amen.

Hail, true body, born of Mary Virgin,

truly suffering, was sacrificed on the cross for mankind,

From whose pierced side flowed with true blood;

Be for us a foretaste In our final judgment.

O pious, O sweet Jesus, Son of Mary.

You have mercy on us. Amen.

Gabriel Urbain Fauré 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.

Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to the Ecole Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime.

Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of Fauré's death, jazz and the atonal music of the Second Viennese School were being heard. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, notes that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of harmony for later generations. During the last twenty years of his life, he suffered from increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times turbulent and impassioned.

Taken from Wikipedia

27th June 2021

 Ave Verum     Edward Elgar

Ave verum corpus  is traditionally a communion hymn written by Pope Innocent VI, set to music by many composers over the years.

Edward Elgar (1857-1937) was born in a village close to Worcester.  His father had a music shop in Worcester and tuned pianos. Elgar was mostly self taught.  His influence grew in the 1880's and 1890's  despite his being a Roman Catholic in a largely Anglican community. In 1889 he married one of his pupils, Caroline Alice Roberts, against opposition from her family. She played a major part in his career development.

Elgar is one of the great English composers, who has left a legacy of great orchestral and choral works.

from Wikipedia

Sunday 16th May 2021 Mattins

 Jubilate Deo in B flat from Morning, Communion and Evening Service in B flat Op.10  Charles Villiers Stanford

Taken from the Novello  Copy

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford has a perverse relationship with posterity.  Remembered today largely for his choral miniatures, this restless symphonist was the unwilling Janus of British music.  A significant presence on the European scene in his own lifetime, he was an outspoken critic of Wagner, Strauss and modernism in general. Nevertheless, as a formalist with flair and skill, his influence catalysed much of the great English music of the 20th century.  As fellow composer George Dyson said: "In a certain sense the very rebellion he fought was the most obvious fruit of his methods."

The Jubilate in B flat displays the composers trademark mastery of thematic structures.

C V Stanford from Wikipedia

God Is Gone Up  William Croft

Croft was born at the Manor House, Nether Ettington, Warwickshire. He was educated at the Chapel Royal under the instruction of John Blow, and remained there until 1698. Two years after this departure, he became organist of St. Anne's Church, Soho and he became an organist and 'Gentleman extraordinary' at the Chapel Royal. He shared that post with his friend Jeremiah Clarke.

In 1707, he took over the Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal post, which had been left vacant by the suicide of Jeremiah Clarke. The following year, Croft succeeded Blow (who had lately died) as organist of Westminster Abbey. He composed works for the funeral of Queen Anne (1714) and for the coronation of King George I (1715).

In 1724, Croft published Musica Sacra, a collection of church music, the first such collection to be printed in the form of a score. It contains a Burial Service, which may have been written for Queen Anne or for the Duke of Marlborough. Shortly afterwards his health deteriorated, and he died while visiting Bath aged 48.

One of Croft's most enduring pieces is the hymn tune "St Anne" written to the poem Our God, Our Help in Ages Past by Isaac Watts. Other composers subsequently incorporated the tune in their own works. Handel used it, for instance, in an anthem entitled O Praise the Lord and also Hubert Parry in his 1911 Coronation Te Deum. Bach's Fugue in E-flat major BWV 552 is often called the "St. Anne", due to the similarity (coincidental in this case) of its subject to the hymn melody's first phrase. Croft also wrote various violin sonatas, which are not nearly as often performed as is his religious music, but have been occasionally recorded.

Perhaps Croft's most notable legacy is the suite of Funeral Sentences which have been described as a "glorious work of near genius". First published as part of the Burial Service in Musica Sacra, the date and purpose of their composition is uncertain. The seven Sentences themselves are from the Book of Common Prayer and are verses from various books of the Bible, intended to be said or sung during an Anglican funeral. One of the sentences, Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts, was not composed by Croft, but by Henry Purcell, part of his 1695 Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary. Croft wrote:

"...there is one verse composed by my predecessor, the famous Mr Henry Purcell, to which, in justice to his memory, his name is applied. The reason why I did not compose that verse anew (so as to render the whole service entirely of my own composition) is obvious to every Artist; in the rest of that service composed by me, I have endeavoured as near as I could, to imitate that great master and celebrated composer, whose name will for ever stand high in the rank of those who have laboured to improve the English style..."

Croft's Funeral Sentences were sung at George Frederic Handel's funeral in 1759, and have been included in every British state funeral since their publication. They were used at the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 2002, Baroness Thatcher in 2013 and Prince Philip in 2021.

The above is taken from Wikipedia.

God is gone up, is an appropriate anthem to sing at Ascensiontide. The choir also performed this anthem on Ascension Day earlier this week. 

God is gone up with a merry noise

and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet.

O sing praises, sing praises unto our God,

O sing praises, sing praises unto our King.

For God is the King of all the earth,

O Sing ye praises with understanding.

Amen.