What's for Worship November 6th > Marble Collegiate Church

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Thursday, November 03, 2011

What's for Worship November 6th
By webmaster @ 2:40 PM :: 402 Views :: 0 Comments :: Kenneth Dake

Several audio samples of this week's music are included for you to enjoy as you read.

Music Transcends Time

I believe the most beautiful choral music is inspired by the theme of eternal life. Why? For one thing, the universal hope that this life is not all there is – that there exists a world to come – cannot adequately be expressed through language alone. Music takes over where language fails. The bible refers to music as one of the only human experiences that is transferable to heaven. Or could it be the other way around? Perhaps music awakens in us a hidden memory of our previous existence in the spiritual realm, with harmony serving as a remembrance of the unity we once knew. Certainly we often experience music as a "thin place," one where the dividing line between the temporal and the divine – between our earthly and eternal life – becomes narrow or indistinguishable.

This All Saints' Sunday we honor the memory of those whom we have loved who are now counted among the multitude of heavenly saints. We will read the names of those Marble members who have been called home this past year, giving thanks for their earthly life among us and for their everlasting life in the world to come. From them we can draw strength for our own journey: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin that easily distracts us, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." (Hebrews 12:1) What an appropriate coincidence that the New York City Marathon is this Sunday, for it serves as a living metaphor of our earthly life as a great race, replete with clouds of saints cheering us on from heavenly stands.

Music of Memory and Hope

Prelude: God's Time Is the Best Time (Cantata 106) – J. S. Bach (1685-1750) The cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit was composed in 1707 upon the death of Bach’s uncle, Tobias Lämmerhirt. The choral work opens with this exquisite instrumental movement, a tranquil Sonatina scored for two recorders, two viole da gamba and continuo. [LISTEN] If you have attended any memorial services at Marble for which I was the organist you will may recognize this as the first piece of prelude music I almost always play. It seems fitting to begin each service with the reminder that our lives are in God's all-knowing hands, and that the timing of our departing lies beyond our knowing or understanding. On Sunday, in lieu of recorders this movement will be masterfully interpreted on trumpet by Dominic Derasse, accompanied by organ.

Prelude: Sweet By-an-by / Swing Low, Sweet Chariot – arr. Dake Last week I went home to Minneapolis to visit my family, stopping off in Chicago to see my 91-year-old uncle on the way back (and getting grounded there by the storm, resulting in my unplanned absence from worship). I'm the only professional musician of the clan, but music plays an important role in my family, and several are gifted amateurs and active in their church's music ministries. At these gatherings there is the inexorable pull to the piano for a post-dinner sing-along. Last week the highlight for me came as I began playing the old hymn Sweet By-an-by, and my step-mom sang it in Swedish. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she recalled her Swedish Baptist childhood and the singing of this wistful melody at her mother's own funeral: "In the sweet by-and-by we shall meet on that beautiful shore."

The next day I was with my Uncle Will in the nursing home and again we held a spontaneous hymn-sing after supper. Earlier in our visit he had shown a fair amount of confusion, and I was concerned at his noticeable mental decline since my last visit. But what joy when, at the first few bars of the spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, he sprang to life and began to sing out with a strong voice, music serving to fire up a part of his brain and spirit that words alone could not. While composing this arrangement of Sweet By-an-by and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot I discovered that these two melodies fit beautifully together![LISTEN] Here the tunes of each hymn are superimposed over one another, imbued as they are with the patina of bittersweet nostalgia.

Rivers On All Sides

Introit: Beautiful River (Shall We Gather) by Robert Lowry, arr. William Hawley For the introit the choir sings a lush a cappella arrangement of Robert Lowry's old hymn, Beautiful River, which Aaron Copland included (a century later) in his collection of Old American Songs. This audio sample is taken from one of my top ten favorite choral CDs of all time, Harvest Home, as recorded by the magnificent Dale Warland singers. [LISTEN]

Often heaven is described as Paradise, literally a 'walled garden' (pairidaeza). To nomadic desert peoples of biblical times, constantly vulnerable to attack, the hope of attaining in the next life a safe, verdant place, surrounded by flowing streams and an abundance of food must have been quite compelling. As Lisa Miller points out in her insightful book, Heaven – Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife, the idea of heaven as a garden is nowhere more important than in Islam, "a religion established in one of the hottest, driest, most inhospitable spots in the world." No wonder the four rivers of Islamic paradise are comprised of milk, honey, wine and water.

Likewise, for Robert Lowry (1826-1899) the promise of peace, health, and a cool "silver spray" from the River of Life provided needed hope amid the desperation brought on by Civil War and rampant disease. Born in Philadelphia, Lowry was a Baptist preacher who served churches in New York City, Westchester, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was during his tenure as pastor of the Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn that he wrote Shall We Gather, perhaps his most beloved hymn. On a sweltering July day in 1864, with war ravaging the country and a severe epidemic sweeping the city, Lowry grieved both for those who were dying in large numbers and for those who remained behind, their lives in tatters. He began his hymn with a searching question: "Shall we gather at the river where bright angel feet have trod?" He quickly answers with words promising eventual relief and heavenly reunion, an assurance perhaps directed as much to himself as to his congregation: "Yes, we'll gather by the river that flows by the throne of God."

Rivers to Cross

Anthem: Deep River, African-American Spiritual arr. Anders Paulsson [LISTEN] The late Moses Hogan wrote, “Just as Christianity itself refers both to liberation of the spirit here and to eternal joy hereafter, the spirituals came to be vehicles for sustaining the spirits of those in bondage and for aiding the escape of some to a life of freedom in the North or in Canada.” Certainly the longing for safety and release – both in life and in the world to come – pervades the powerful music originated by enslaved peoples. One of the most beautiful of all the spirituals, Deep River, recalls the story of Moses climbing Mount Nebo and looking across the Jordan River to glimpse the Promised Land. Among enslaved people, the Jordan River was often code for the Ohio River, the boundary between slave and free states. Other times it was symbolic of crossing over into freedom, either physically or spiritually.

When the choir sings “My home is over Jordan,” it is with the awareness that this was an unattainable home for many, a longing that too often went unfulfilled in this life. Some believe the title of Deep River also refers to the Deep River Friends, a Quaker meeting house in Guilford County, North Carolina. In the 1840’s and 1850’s Deep River Friends were involved with neighboring meeting houses in the Underground Railroad, assisting slaves in journeying northward to freedom. In Swedish saxophonist Anders Paulsson’s creative arrangement, the old spiritual is re-imagined as a kind of blues song, with the semi-improvised wailing of the saxophone representing the universal, wordless cry of the human spirit.

From Farewell to Reunion

Anthem: There Is an Old Belief from Songs of Farewell by C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918) The English composer Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry wrote music for nearly every genre, including four symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber music, opera, and a vast amount of choral music. Perhaps his most famous choral composition is the noble setting of Psalm 122, “I Was Glad” which was composed for the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, and has been sung at every British coronation since. His six a cappella Songs of Farewell are richly romantic in style and superb examples of lush, symphonic writing for unaccompanied voices. They were composed in 1916-1918 on the heels of WWI, by which Parry was said to have been devastated in mind and heart. Perhaps Parry also sensed his own life was drawing to a close, for these motets are not merely spiritual, they are also deeply personal.

In There Is an Old Belief [LISTEN] one hears how each phrase of melody and harmony reveals layers of meaning within the text. In this audio sample, listen for the remarkable harmonic shift within the first few measures, as Parry’s music perfectly parallels the poem: “There is an old belief that on some solemn shore, Beyond the sphere of grief, dear friends shall meet once more.” On the word “beyond” Parry abruptly leads us into unfamiliar harmonic territory, while on the phrase, “dear friends shall meet once more” he then provides a keen sense of returning, a harmonic homecoming of sorts. In my mind the Songs of Farewell represent the pinnacle of English choral music of the period.

Joining the Choir of Saints

Hymn: Let Saints on Earth in Concert Sing – Dundee[LISTEN] This text by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) is a profound and beautiful poetic statement of the meaning of the Communion of saints. It was published in 1759 in a collection of funeral hymns, but I hear it as much more of a noble celebration than a mournful elegy. After all, Wesley’s original opening lines were: “Come let us join our friends above that have obtained the prize, and on the eagle wings of love to joy celestial rise.” This is clearly Wesley’s invitation for us to join the Choir of Saints, and we certainly need not pass away in order to accept it. I believe we become a member of that heavenly choir every time we sing God’s praise on earth. The Saints’ surround God’s throne with their unceasing song of adoration, and we simply join them from time to time with ours. Perhaps it is the very music itself which bridges the divide between this world and the next, uniting us with those who have gone before in ways we cannot fully comprehend.

Let saints on earth in concert sing
With those whose work is done;
For all the servants of our King
In heaven and earth are one.

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