Throughout my life, the music that spoke most deeply to me has always been passionate penitential music, and Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are some of my favorite days in the Liturgical Year because of that. The first two recordings I purchased at the age of seven were Durufle’s Requiem [chant-based Mass for the Dead], and Evensong for Ash Wednesday from King’s College, Cambridge. So the season of Lent has always spoken deeply to me, and this Sunday’s music includes some of my favorites!
Our Psalm and Gospel texts are both referenced in the words of“On Eagle’s Wings”and Charles Callahan’s organ voluntary captures the panoply of emotions in these hope-filled words. Mr. Callahan was a leading proponent of making hymn playing artful, innovative and inspiring while always supporting the singing congregation, and his hymn arrangements are used worldwide to enhance worship. In this setting he makes recurring motifs out of the best-known melodies and brings them back in major and minor keys and varying rhythms. He envisions full organ with the loudest available solo trumpet stop for the last phrase – I will spare your hearing as we begin our Worship, however!
The Chancel Choir’s Prelude is a setting of the Spiritual “Give Me Jesus”arranged by David Haas. The repetitive text can be altered for any occasion: In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus; Oh, I heard my Mother say, give me Jesus; Oh, I heard my Father/Brother/Sister say, give me Jesus; Dark midnight was my cry, give me Jesus. My choirs have always loved this setting and we have sung it at many choir member funerals because of the 2nd and 4th Verses: Oh, when I come to die, give me Jesus, and Oh, when I want to SING, give me JESUS!
Our Anthem has also been sung at many funerals in my ministry, because Herbert Howells paints the most aching longing for God’s presence and comfort in “Like As the Hart”. The verses from Psalms could be Christ’s words in His desert suffering: “My tears have been my meat day and night”. Howells composed largely secular music in his early career, but after losing his son Michael to Spinal Meningitis at the age of 9, he channeled his grief into some of the most passionate and glorious sacred music of the last century. In a statement made during a BBC Program, Howells stated “I have composed out of sheer love of trying to make beautiful sounds” and he succeeded magnificently! The sheer sensuousness and pathos of his harmonic language create moods like few other composers. New Year 1941 saw his family snowed in at their Cheltenham home, and Howells determined to produce a new work every day until January 15th. He penned the 5 minute anthem “Like as the Hart” in one sitting on January 7th. Every note, word, and phrase is so lovingly and thoughtfully crafted, it’s hard to imagine such a brief gestation period!
Saturday March 8th is International Women’s Day 2025, and the American Guild of Organists (AGO) Task Force for Gender Equity recently named the winners of its Woman Composer Sunday Composition Contest. On the first Sunday of February, I played the Dallas Premiere of “Here’s One” by Evelyn Larter, and today I am including the other two winning sacred works in our Worship.
Miriam Reveley is the junior organ scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge where she is in her second year. Reveley started her musical career as a chorister at Ely Cathedral, and began her organ studies in 2017, and was named Organ Scholar at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in 2022, where she played for the committal service of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II. Her winning composition is a Baroque-inspired Adagio in C Minor, which could have been written by an Italian composer like Albinoni or Marcello.
Maureen Howell (b.1962) chose to set the ancient English Folk Song “Dives & Lazarus” under its hymn tune name KINGSFOLD. She opens with a stylized hymn introduction, then crafts two “verses” of the tune – one quiet setting with an active pedal line, and the second with a fuller registration which rises to a glorious climax before a subdued closing. Her pedal lines on the first verse require the organist to use both feet to play notes at opposite ends of the pedal board, moving up and down the scale in contrary motion. (Most organ compositions are written with only one note at a time in the pedal, freeing up the other foot to adjust the swell shades (volume) or tap toe studs to change the stops on the organ when the hands are otherwise occupied. Maureen Howell is a native of Virigina, and serves as organist at First Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. I pray you enjoy listening to this wonderful new work as much as I enjoy playing it!
