I just had the rehearsal in the sanctuary with the brass ensemble for Easter. Due to the complexity of people's schedules we often must rehearse earlier this week in our preparations for Resurrection Sunday. So there we were this morning, with the sanctuary already being set up for the Maundy Thursday service. Candles fill the chancel in solemn readiness as the room itself takes on a hushed tone of sacredness. But this morning we went about our business, cranking out Easter hymns, putting ourselves through our Hallelujah Chorus paces (which is a tricky little thing to play, truth be told), and summoning all the majestic splendor we could – smack dab in the middle of one of the most somber, prayerful weeks of the year. Hopefully Jesus would approve since He's the inspiration for it all.

One of my favorite record albums when I was much younger was a Gabrieli spectacular that featured the combined brass sections of the Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. As I recall it was also billed as one of the earliest quadraphonic LP's, which was an ingenious marketing ploy with absolutely no discernable effect on the sound quality, near as I could tell. As a serious trumpet student at the time, I idolized the men pictured on that jacket as much as other children idolized the Yankees starting lineup. With the volume on high I was oblivious to the buzz and crackle coming from my cheap little plastic bookshelf speakers. I was, quite simply, in heaven.

 

Giovanni Gabrieli (1555-1612) specialized in grand ceremonial music in his post as director of music at the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice, a post which his uncle Andrea Gabrieli had held before him, and which Claudio Monteverdi was to inherit afterward. With its antiphonal choir lofts facing each other it was natural that polychoral music – intended for multiple choirs – would flourish in such a transcendent space. Our prelude on Sunday includes Canzon septimi toni, composed in Venice in 1597. [LISTEN] In this arrangement the antiphonal brass choir part will be played on the organ. Note the contrasting tempi in different sections that are typical of the Canzon – an Italian Renaissance term for an instrumental Chanson, or song. When the choirs finish answering each other and come together it is a grand effect, albeit one that pales in comparison with what it would be like hearing this music in the great San Marco for which it was composed.

 

 

This week's offertory with Sanctuary Choir and brass ensemble is A Song to the Lamb by Gerre Hancock (b. 1934). [LISTEN] One of the most respected figures in American ecclesiastical music, he was born in Lubbock, Texas and holds degrees from the University of Texas, Austin, and the School of Sacred Music at Union Seminary. This regal setting of verses from Revelations 4 and 5 was composed shortly after Hancock had assumed the post of Organist/Choirmaster of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue, a position he held for 33 years – 1971-2004. As the brass play a series of fanfares the choir sings sustained harmonies; clearly the composer had in mind the magnificent acoustic of St. Thomas's for which this music is so well suited. There is a noticeable static quality to the music, harmonically; the work inhabits a realm of perpetual adoration, and remains closely centered on the ceremonial key of D Major. In order to provide a traditional frame around the piece the choir will directly precede it with an excerpt of the famous Worthy is the Lamb from the Messiah, creating a medley of the old and the new, the timeless and the innovative.

 

 

Amidst all the Easter fanfare and celebration we will take a moment to center ourselves and bask in the layers of profound meaning of this day. My friend and amazing musical genius, Ken Medema, composed a song of incredible beauty, Rise Up, My Love, to be sung at an Easter pageant at the Crystal Cathedral a few years ago. He wrote it for his friend Johnnie Carl, the long-time director of the Cathedral Orchestra. Johnnie told Ken he always imagined God singing Christ up out of the tomb, and that powerful image became the song's inspiration. [LISTEN] 

 

Tragically, however, on the day Ken Medema sent his friend the new song Johnnie Carl took his own life. He never heard the sublime beauty of this music and its message of hope which he needed – and we all need – so badly.

 

I first heard Rise Up, My Love when I was with Ken Medema on a choir retreat in Florida this January. People were sharing their stories and Ken was doing his amazing work of weaving them into melody and lyrics on the spot, much like he did for us at Marble in October. One woman, Lori White, told her story:

"I found myself at the bedside of my husband who had been in a coma for 18 days in the Intensive Care Unit of our hospital. A bacterial infection had caused his body to go into septic shock in the course of a few hours eighteen days earlier. The doctors were amazed that he was still alive, but he had shown no signs of coming out of the coma. On that Saturday, I was alone with my husband in the late hours of the night as I had been for most of the previous nights, listening to the drone of the ventilator and all of the other machines that were keeping my husband alive. I talked with him during these times, trying to find a connection that might bring him back to me. As I talked and prayed with him that night, he opened his eyes and looked directly at me. I knew that he saw me and recognized me. He had come back to me. It was a beautiful Easter that I will never forget."

 

And I will never forget the profound experience of hearing Ken Medema follow her story with Rise Up, My Love. I have created an arrangement which David Sisco, Lara Hirner and the choir will sing in worship on Sunday, and it’s actually been difficult to write because tears continue to flow. I pray that it will touch your heart deeply.