Sunday 21st May 2023 Sunday after Ascension Matins

Benedictus in C  C V Stanford

The Benedictus was composed in 1909 as part of Stanford's Morning and Evening Service together with the Office of Holy Communion Op 115.  Stanford was given the choice to hear one of his services sung at Matins at York Minster in 1923 when he was a guest of the organist, Edward . "He chose the one in C", Bairstow recalled, "for he said he had never heard it!"

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) thought to be one of our great British composers was actually Irish, born in Dublin, although educated at The University of Cambridge and then studied music in Leipzig and Berlin.

Whilst an undergraduate, he was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge and was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life.  He was also Professor of Music at Cambridge.  His pupils included Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams whose fame went on to surpass his own.

He is best remembered for his sacred choral compositions for church performance in the Anglican tradition. Along with Hubert Parry and Alexander Mackenzie, he was thought responsible for the renaissance of music in the British Isles.

Charles Villiers 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.  

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. 

Thursday 18th May 2023 Ascension Day

  Lift Your Heads   Anthem for Ascension  J S Bach

This comes from The Royal School of Church Music, words adapted by C S Phillips and the mean parts added by P C Buck. It is an anthem in 2 sections, it starts as a sedate 4/4 largamente passage 

"Lift your heads, ye gates eternal, 

Welcome your returning King:

 Angel choirs, with loud Hosannas 

make the courts of Heav'n to ring." 

Then we move to a swifter and dance -like 3/4 section, 

"For swift as an eagle that soareth on pinion, 

The son cometh home to the Father's dominion. 

His sorrows are ended, His lifework is done: 

Victorious He mounteth to take back His throne."

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He was a highly respected organist in his lifetime, although not recognised as a composer of magnitude (possibly one of the greatest) until a revival of his works in the first half of the 19^th century. He showed considerable skill in counterpoint and harmony. He was able to adapt rhythm, form and texture from abroad. He was a prolific composer of church music due to the demand for huge numbers of cantatas over the Christian year.  It is thought her wrote over 300 with only around 200 surviving. He also wrote many other works sacred and secular.  It is now agreed that his music has technical command, intellectual depth and artistic beauty.

Sunday 7th May 2023 5th Sunday of Easter

Ave Verum Corpus    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 30th April 2023 Fouth after Easter

Communion Service in Fmajor   Harold E Darke

Today the choir sang the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agneus Dei from the Darke Communion service.

This setting was dedicated to the Rev. John H Ellison M.V.O. Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, E.C.

Harold Edwin Darke (1888-1976) was born in Highbury, London.  His first post as organist was at Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead from 1906 - 1911.  He became organist at St Michael's, Cornhill in 1916 and stayed there until 1966, leaving for a short time to deputise for Boris Ord as Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge during the second World War.  Darke started lunchtime concerts at St Michel's in 1916 and these are the thought to be the longest running lunchtime organ concert series in the world.

He is best known for his setting of Christina Rossetti's poem "In the bleak midwinter".  His othr music still performed are his Communion Services in E minor, F major and A minor, and his Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis in F major.

Brother James's Air (Marosa)  arr. Gordon Jacob

James Leith Macbeth Bain (1860-1925) was a minister, hymn writer and poet known to his peers as Brother James.  He was born in Pitlochry where he was a pupil teacher before going to Edinburgh Free Church College and the Edinburgh Established Church College.  His ministry took him to Liverpool and then to London as a spiritualist minister. He is best known for Brother James's Air which is usually set to The Lord's My Shepherd.

Gordon Jacob (1895-1984) is best known as a composer for wind band and instructional texts. He was a prisoner of war in 1917 and was one of only 60 survivors of the 800 in his battalion. On his release he initially studied journalism, but changed to composition, theory and conducting at the Royal College of Music. Because of a cleft palate and a childhood hand injury he was very limited as a performing musician, but found his forte as a composer especially for wind instruments.  He was considered to be conservative in style, but famously said "the day that melody is discarded altogether, you may as well pack up music...".

gordonjacob.net

Sunday 23rd April 2023 Third Sunday after Easter

 This Joyful Eastertide  Melody from "David's Psalmen" Amsterdam 1685, Harmony Charles Wood (1866 -1926) , Words G R Woodward (1848 - 1934)

This is an Easter carol first published in 1894 in "Carols for Easter and Ascensiontide".  George Radcliffe Woodward was an Anglican priest who wrote many religious verses often set to music by his friend Charles Wood. He was born in Birkenhead and graduated in 1872 from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Two years later he was ordained by the Bishop of London. In 1924 he received an Honorary Lambeth Doctorate in Music.

Charles Wood (1866-1926) was born in Ireland. He was a treble chorister in the nearby St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh. He received his early education in the cathedral choir school and also studied the organ under Robert Turle and Dr Thomas Marks. In 1883, he was one of the inaugural students of the Royal College of Music, studying composition under Charles Villiers Stanford and CHH Parry. After four years he continued his studies at Selwyn College, Cambridge. In 1889 he was appointed as organ scholar in Gonville and Caius college, Cambridge, becoming a fellow in 1994 and Director of Music and organist. Following the death of Stanford in 1924 Wood took over the role of Professor of Music in Cambridge.

He is remembered for his Anglican Church music.

Sunday 9th April 2023 Easter Day

This is the day  (Haec dies)   Thomas Morley 1557-1603?

voice parts adapted from "A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke " 

edited and arranged by Anthony Greening.

This is a short antem suitable for Easter day and any Sunday.

"This is the day which the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

You are my God and I will thank you.

Alleluia."

Thomas Morley, (born 1557/58, Norwich, England—died October 1602, London), composer, organist, and theorist, and the first of the great English madrigalists.

Morley held a number of church musical appointments, first as master of the children at Norwich Cathedral (1583–87), then by 1589 as organist at St. Giles, Cripplegate, in London, and by 1591 at St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1592 Morley was sworn in as a gentleman of the Chapel Royal.

It is highly probable that Morley converted to Roman Catholicism early in life, perhaps under the influence of his master, William Byrd. By 1591, however, Morley had defected from the church, for in that year he engaged in espionage work among the English Roman Catholics in the Netherlands.

About that time, Morley evidently began to recognize the possibilities that were offered by the new popularity of Italian madrigals fitted with English texts, for he began publishing sets of madrigals of his own composition. Morley published 25 canzonets (“little short songs,” as he referred to them) for three voices in 1593; in 1597 he published 17 for five voices, and 4 canzonets for six voices in the same year. His first madrigals—a set of 22—appeared in 1594, and 20 ballets were published in 1595. The latter were modeled on the balletti of Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi but expressed more elaborate musical development and a stronger sense of harmonic direction than Gastoldi’s. Morley excelled in the lighter and more cheerful types of madrigal or canzonet.

Among his works are a considerable proportion of Italian madrigals reworked and published by Morley with no acknowledgment of the original composers—a practice not uncommon at the time. In 1598 Morley brought out a volume of English versions of selected Italian madrigals; and in that same year he was granted a monopoly to print music in England for 21 years. His textbook, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597), provides knowledge of the theoretical basis of composition of Morley’s own time and that of earlier generations.

Morley’s compositions are written in two distinct styles that may be chronologically separated. As a pupil of Byrd he was trained in the premadrigalian English style of broad and strong polyphony; his volumes of the 1590s, however, exhibit his mastery of Italian madrigal style and are characterized by a direct effectiveness, gentle harmonic warmth, springy rhythms, and clarity of texture.

Morley edited The Triumphes of Oriana (published 1603), a collection of 25 madrigals by various composers. His last volume of original compositions was The First Booke of Ayres (1600). Morley’s body of work also includes services (primary music of the Anglican liturgy), anthems, motets, and psalms. The six-voice motets “Laboravi in gemitu meo” and “De profundis clamavi” are considered among his best works.

Taken from Britannica.com

Sunday 26th February 2023 First Sunday of Lent

O Lord My God  Samuel Sebastian Wesley 

This is known as King Solomon's prayer based on 1 Kings 8.

O Lord my God,

Hear thou the prayer thy servant prayeth,

Have thou respect unto his prayer?

Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place,

And when thou hearest Lord, forgive.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley (14 August 1810 – 19 April 1876) was an English organist and composer. Wesley married Mary Anne Merewether and had 6 children. He is often referred to as S.S. Wesley to avoid confusion with his father Samuel Wesley.

Biography

Born in London, he was the eldest child in the composer Samuel Wesley's second family, which he formed with Sarah Suter having separated from his wife Charlotte. Samuel Sebastian was the grandson of Charles Wesley. His middle name derived from his father's lifelong admiration for the music of Bach.

After singing in the choir of the Chapel Royal as a boy, Samuel Sebastian embarked on a career as a musician, and was appointed organist at Hereford Cathedral in 1832. While there he married the sister of the Dean, John Merryweather. S.S. Wesley was, like his father Samuel Wesley, a Freemason. He was initiated in Palladian Lodge No.120 in Hereford on 17 September 1833. He moved to Exeter Cathedral three years later, and joined St George's Lodge No.129 Exeter on 10 December 1835. He subsequently held appointments at Leeds Parish Church (now Leeds Minster) (from 1842), Winchester Cathedral (from 1849), Winchester College and Gloucester Cathedral (1865-1876). In 1839 he received both his Bachelor of Music degree and a Doctor of Music degree from Oxford. He became a Professor of Organ at the Royal Academy of Music in 1850. He died at his home in Gloucester on 19 April 1876 aged 65. He is buried next to his daughter in St. Bartholomew's Cemetery in Exeter by the old City Wall. There are memorial tablets to him in Exeter Cathedral and Winchester Cathedral, and his memorial at Gloucester Cathedral is in stained glass.

Famous in his lifetime as one of his country's leading organists and choirmasters, he composed almost exclusively for the Church of England, which continues to cherish his memory. His better-known anthems include Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace and Wash me throughly. He also wrote several rather late examples of verse anthems, which contrast unison and contrapuntal sections with smaller, more intimate passages for solo voice or voices. Blessed be the God and Father, The Wilderness and Ascribe unto the Lord are of considerable length, as is his Service in E.

The popular short anthem Lead me, Lord is an extract from Praise the Lord, O my soul. Several of his pieces for solo organ have enduring value and continue to be played in recitals now and then.

Of his hymn tunes the best-known are "Aurelia" and "Hereford." "Aurelia" has been widely adopted in the United States, and is regularly heard there. Usually now sung to the words "The Church's One Foundation", Wesley composed the tune for the hymn "Jerusalem the Golden", hence the name "Aurelia".

One notable feature of his career is his aversion to equal temperament, an aversion which he kept for decades after this tuning method had been accepted on the Continent and even in most of England. Such distaste did not stop him from substantial use of chromaticism in several of his published compositions.

While at Winchester Cathedral Wesley was largely responsible for the Cathedral's acquisition in 1854 of the Father Willis organ which had been exhibited at The Great Exhibition, 1851. The success of the Exhibition organ led directly to the award of the contract to Willis for a 100-stop organ for St George's Hall, Liverpool built in 1855. Wesley was the consultant for this major and important project, but the organ was, arguably, impaired for some years by Wesley's insistence that it be tuned to unequal temperament.

Wesley, with Father Willis, can be credited with the invention of the concave and radiating organ pedalboard, but demurred when Willis proposed that it should be known as the "Wesley-Willis" pedalboard. However, their joint conception has been largely adopted as an international standard for organs throughout the English-speaking world and those exported elsewhere.

Taken from Wikipedia