From Kyrie to Hallelujah: A Musical Journey

Surely this week is the most profound time in the life of Christianity, and it’s no surprise that it has served as creative inspiration for a plethora of powerful sacred music. For every gem I’ve selected for the next three worship services there are 50 equally glorious pieces that I painfully set aside for another year. The music that made the cut includes several tried and true repeats along with a couple of new ventures. Together they will provide a poignant spiritual thread woven through the tapestry that is Holy Week.

MAUNDY THURSDAY: Tenebrae

Prelude (6:45pm): Cello Suites (excerpts) of J. S. Bach. The plaintive tones of unaccompanied cello will beckon us to begin our journey. Our extraordinary guest cellist, Adrian Daurov, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has appeared as soloist with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, and throughout Europe and the United States. He is a frequent performer at Bargemusic, the floating recital venue at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn. It was there that he performed all six of the Bach Suites for unaccompanied cello, no small feat for a cellist of any age. Considered to be among the greatest works ever conceived for the instrument, Bach’s suites are incredibly demanding, technically, but truly intimate and profound, emotionally. The lone baritone voice of the cello reminds us of Jesus' loneliness in his final hours, as He faced what only He alone could.

Introit: Kyrie from Mass in G Minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams.  During the service the choir sings Kyries by two 20th century composers, and they couldn’t be more different. Vaughan Williams’ influences included the great choral tradition of the Anglican Church, the heritage of English folk song which permeates his music, and a reverence for modal harmonies.  Grove's Dictionary sums it up best, saying when listening to Vaughan William’s music "one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new." This opening movement from his Mass in G Minor creates a barren landscape in sound, beginning and ending with a single voice.  The middle "Christe eleison" is sung antiphonally by a solo quartet.  Traditionally the Christe, or middle section of the tripartite Kyrie, is more intimate in nature, representing the direct, personal relationship between the believer and Christ.

Offertory: Out of the Deep from Requiem by John Rutter. The English composer John Rutter (b. 1945), well known for his religious choral music, approached his Requiem (1985) from an extremely meditative, yet accessible manner by combining both Latin and English text. Rutter describes his Requiem as an arc which leads the listener on a journey from darkness to light (the opposite path to our Tenebrae observance), with the second and sixth movements comprised of Psalm settings in contrasting styles.  This setting of Psalm 130 features a haunting cello obligato beginning on the lowest note of the instrument and rising up out of it. 

Communion Anthem: Jesu, Dulcis Memoria by Pierre Villette.  The choir has sung another work of this amazing composer, O Magnum Mysterium, for Christmas Eve, but this will be the first hearing at Marble of this miniature masterpiece.  Villette was a student of the great Maurice Duruflé, and his music pays subtle homage to the master, along with other towering figures in French music such as Olivier Messiaen. (Towards the conclusion of this motet there is a striking harmonic resemblance to Messiaen’s famous O Sacrum Convivium.) The Latin text, Jesu, Dulcis Memoria, originated in the 12th century as a communion hymn, but in the 15th century it also became associated with the Feast for the Naming of Jesus, also known as the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

Anthem: It Is a Thing Most Wonderful by Richard Busch.  The three main tools at a composer's disposal are melody, harmony, and rhythm. In this extraordinary setting of a text which began has a children’s hymn from an 1872 English hymnal, American composer Richard Busch chooses to focus on harmony as the means by which to convey the deep message of the words.  There are a series of surprising harmonic shifts, such as on the text, "That God’s own Son should come down from heaven," and "Jesus crucified for me." Any sense of meter and pulse is discarded in favor of speech-like rhythm and flexible tempo.  The result is a very fluid, personal expression of this hymn of gratitude for all Jesus did for us on the cross.

Anthem: Kyrie from Missa Misericordiae by Egil Hovland.  For our second Kyrie of the service the choir will sing a movement from a 1973 Mass by popular Norwegian composer, Egil Hovland.  Another of Hovland’s works has become a favorite of the choirs and congregation: Stay With Us, which we have sung often during Advent. However, this Kyrie is composed in a very different style, and it with its passing dissonances and unresolved harmonies it is even difficult to imagine it being composed by the same individual. Hovland’s Kyrie blends both the original Greek text and the English translation, and over the choir the first sopranos sing a repeating downward third which serves as an unceasing cry for God’s mercy.

Anthem: O Vos Omnes by Pablo Casals. The final choral selection during our Tenebrae service is one of the saddest and most beautiful pieces of music I know. It is a setting of the heart-wrenching text based on Lamentations 1:12: "O all you who pass along this way, behold and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow."  The O Vos Omnes was incorporated into the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary (September 15) but was also used on Holy Saturday, the eve of Easter, as a reminder of the suffering and sorrow of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Spanish Catalan cellist, Pablo Casals, is considered to be one of the greatest masters ever to play the instrument. He was not nearly as well known for his compositions, although his Hymn of the United Nations was performed in 1971, two months before his 95th birthday, and he was awarded the U.N. Peace Medal in recognition of his stance for peace, justice, and freedom.  During our Tenebrae service, Casals’ highly romantic treatment of this sacred text will weep with heavy emotion as sanctuary lights are dimmed, candles extinguished, and the full weight of Christ’s sacrifice sinks in.

GOOD FRIDAY (11:30am prelude; 12noon service)

Our Good Friday experience begins at 11:30am with a 30-minute prelude by Voxare String Quartet, a dynamic ensemble of recent Juilliard graduates formed in 2007. Voxare has since received critical praise for its inventive programming, technical prowess, attention to detail, and passionate performances. Individually, Voxare members Emily Ondracek-Peterson (violin), Galina Zhdanova (violin), Erik Peterson (viola), and Adrian Daurov (cello) have amassed a number of prizes at international competitions. They will be playing incredible music of Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Virgil Thomson, and Rorem.

Following without pause at noon will be our Good Friday worship service, featuring several movements from the Mozart Requiem with the combined Festival of Voices and Sanctuary Choirs accompanied by Chamber Orchestra, 70 musicians in all.  To close the service the choirs will sing one of the most sublime choral pieces in the repertoire, F. Melius Christiansen’s arrangement of Beautiful Savior.  I suggest you have tissues handy!

Extensive remarks on the Mozart Requiem and other music featured during the service are included in the service leaflet, and can be viewed online.

EASTER SUNDAY

Sunrise Service: 7am in Poling Chapel

I’m very excited about co-leading the music with Djoré Nance for our first Marble Easter Sunrise service this year.  Poling Chapel is the best acoustical space for singing in the building and a wonderful setting for intimate worship. What better way to start our celebration of Christ’s resurrection than with a time of joyful hymn singing and Holy Communion? Rev. David Lewicki will be preaching, and all of the hymns sung at the early service will be different from those of the later sanctuary services; they will include such  cherished favorites such as Crown Him with Many Crowns, He Lives, and I Am the Bread of Life.  I am personally looking forward to really being able to worship during this service before rushing off to juggle the complex musical demands of the later ones. I hope you will join me, along with Dr. Kimberleigh Jordan and Rev. Steven Pierce in what promises to be the start of a great annual tradition at Marble!

Sanctuary Worship: 9am and 11am (identical)

Prelude: Sonata in A Major by Felix Mendelssohn, arr. Kenneth Dake.  The festive prelude for organ and brass (which begins promptly at 8:45 and 10:45) will include a masterpiece of the organ repertoire which I have arranged for brass ensemble.  The work opens with a theme of exalted, noble grandeur, and is followed by an extended middle section in the parallel minor key. Mendelssohn, always the good Lutheran, includes a German Chorale tune, "Aus Tiefer Noth" (Out of the Depths) as the cantus firmus in the pedals, which I have also given to the trombone and French horn. This 16th century hymn by Martin Luther is found as #134 in the Marble hymnal. It also brings to mind the setting by John Rutter of Psalm 130, Out of the Deep, which the choir sang during Tenebrae. But now the deep cries of the anguished soul have become the ecstatic shouts of "Alleluia!  Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed!"

Anthem: A Call to New Life by Kenneth Dake.  A Call to New Life is the opening track on the Sanctuary Choir’s first CD, With Many Voices. It was first conceived as an introit for Easter Sunday, 1998, and is based on a rising motif that begins with just two notes and quickly expands upwards. The ringing of handbells as the piece begins brings to mind the cacophonous ringing of church bells throughout the city on Easter Sunday.  In the text by Charles Wesley, the faithful are summoned to participate in Christ’s resurrection, not merely by annual commemoration, but as a daily rite of renewal throughout life. ("Come, let us with our Lord arise.")  Dr. Ronald Patterson, a former associate minister of Marble Church and an avid gardener, added beautiful new words evoking the image of perennial bulbs lying buried in winter only to bloom in springtime splendor. ("The bulb bursts forth in glorious flow'r: New life, new hope, new grace, new pow'r.") What to our eyes may appear dead and beyond hope is often teeming with inner life and wondrous possibility.

Offertory: O Sing unto the Lord a New Song by Healey Willan (1880-1968). Healey Willan was an English-born composer and organist who immigrated to Canada. He became head of the theory department at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and for 46 years served as Organist/Choirmaster of the Anglican church of St. Mary Magdalene. Of his more than 800 works for many different genres he is best known for his sacred music. His anthem, O Sing unto the Lord is conceived in three sections. The first opens with brass and choral fanfares which portray a marvelous sense of majesty. (Willan also composed one of the anthems for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.) A middle section stands in quiet relief, as unison basses proclaim, "It behoveth Christ to suffer and rise again from the dead," answered twice by the sopranos and altos singing angelic alleluias.  The work concludes with a brilliant choral fugue on the text "Make God’s praise to be glorious," after which the brass returns to play the concluding fanfare of celebration.

As ever, we will conclude our Easter service with the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, and I strongly encourage you to sing with the choir as you are able. If nothing else, everyone can join in on the final expansive, resounding "Hallelujah!"

During this blessed Holy Week and Easter celebration I invite us all to remember the words to this beautiful song by William Gaither, for no matter what we are going through they speak great truth for our lives:

Because He lives I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives all fear is gone,
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.