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Sacred Music (Church along with Synagogue and Other Religious/Liturgical arts)

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northland10
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Sacred Music (Church along with Synagogue and Other Religious/Liturgical arts)

#1

Post by northland10 »

So, after highjacking the Religious topic (well, not completely since this is still religious), I have gone ahead with Chancery's suggestion and started a sacred music thread. I made sure it is not limited to just Christian sacred or liturgical music but can include other areas as well since there is a wonderful wealth of other traditions' (or no traditions) music out there.

The idea was to post and discuss various aspects of basically what I do for a partial living (and many others do as volunteer, or appreciate from the pews or YouTube).

Since we are in Lent with Holy Week and the passion approaching, here are some ways composers have set the passion to music. I won't go into the history of how these came about as non-liturgical music, for now.

So, you have to start with one of Bach's so here is the St. John one. I have not listened to this version so I am no sure how good it is or is not.


They are still being written today. I mentioned Bob Chilcott on another thread and he does a St. John one I rather like. The link is to the first one in a play list.


I have a fondness for Arvo Pärt so here is his Passio


ETA: I changed the thread name to Sacred Music.
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Sacred Music (Church along with Synagogue and Other Religious/Liturgical arts)

#2

Post by Rolodex »

Thanks! Nicely decorated lil cozy spot you set up!
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain
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#3

Post by MN-Skeptic »

I'll add this for the piano players here.

I love playing piano, but I'm just an average pianist. I play every once in a while, but I don't spend hours practicing, so I really enjoy piano books with songs that sound great without a lot of practicing.

I'll give a shout-out here to Cindy Berry's piano books. This time of year I get out her What Can I Play for Easter? and What Can I Play on Sunday?, Book 2: March & April Services

You can see what she has at https://www.alfred.com/search/products/?t=cindy-berry. The site is nice, too, because it will list the songs in each book and display sample pages from the piano books.
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#4

Post by Rolodex »

Nice books. but I don't need to buy any more piano music!

I finally retuned my harp. I took lessons years ago and I want to get back to it. I planned to do that a year ago so maybe I'd be able to play by Christmas, but that didn't happen. I need to get a teacher to get me back on track. I've played piano since I started lessons at age 5, but harp is hard! I guess it's hard starting a new instrument when you're already pretty good on another - you want to be that good on your new thing! My trouble is that the harp strings are so much closer together than piano keys - which my fingers automatically know!

We have a respite program - where caregivers of dementia patients can drop off their loved one for a few hours. I play for them sometimes. They know old hymns very well and we do a sing along!
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain
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#5

Post by northland10 »

MN-Skeptic wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 3:48 pm I'll add this for the piano players here.
Thanks, I may look closer at some of them. I have a sometime need for quick and simpler stuff from the piano so I sometimes collect ones like these. It beats having to improv everything.
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#6

Post by MN-Skeptic »

By the way, one reason I like her books is because a number of the songs will be fairly basic for two pages, then get fuller and richer with maybe a key change for the third page.
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#7

Post by Flatpoint High »

I kinda sorta play Mandolin, so I'm learning Jewish (sephardic) secualr/liturgical music.
castigat ridendo mores.
VELOCIUS QUAM ASPARAGI COQUANTUR
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#8

Post by northland10 »

Flatpoint High wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 4:33 pm I kinda sorta play Mandolin, so I'm learning Jewish (sephardic) secualr/liturgical music.
Cool. One of our parishioners plays mandolin, but I have not figured out a place to use him yet.

Speaking of Jewish music, here is a choral work (with organ) I have been very fond of. The text is from a liturgical poem that begins the Ne'ilah service at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. They use 3 verses of the text:



The text
HebrewTransliterationEnglish
אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה, אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה,הַמְצִיא לָנוּ מְחִילָה , בִּשְׁעַת הַנְּעִילָה.
El nora ‘alila, El nora ‘alila, Ham'tzi lanu mechila, bish‘at hane‘ila.God of awesome deeds, grant us pardon, as the gates begin to close
----
מְתֵי מִסְפָּר קְרוּאִים, לְךָ עַיִן נוֹשְׂאִים, וּמְסַלְּדִים בְּחִילָה, בִּשְׁעַת הַנְּעִילָה.
Metei mispar k'ru’im, lecha ‘ayin nos’im, um'saldim bechila, bish‘at hane‘ila.We who are few in number took up to You, with trembling, we praise You, as the gates begin to close.
----
קְרָא נָּא שְׁנַת רָצוֹן, וְהָשֵׁב שְׁאָר הַצֹּאן, לְאָהֳלִיבָה וְאָהֳלָה, בִּשְׁעַת הַנְּעִילָה.
K'ra na sh'nat ratzon, vehashev sh‘ar hatzon, le’Oholiva ve’Ohola, bish‘at hane‘ila.Proclaim a year of favor, return the remnant of Your flock to honor and glory, as the gates begin to close.
Aided by Wikipedia, though the English translation comes from a CD I have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Nora_Alila
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#9

Post by chancery »

Northland10, thank you for starting this thread, and thanks also to the other contributors.

The tiny Episcopal church in our very small town has an experienced professional organist and a good volunteer choir, 12 voices, most of whom have been singing together for decades. My partner joined a few months ago; she's an alto who can sing soprano in a pinch.

Last Sunday they gave us Palestrina's lovely Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum (Like as the hart desireth the water brooks) and then, in a whiplash-inducing jump through the centuries, Heavenly Display, a Shaker song arranged in the 21st century by Kevin Siegfried.

These video clips are from the Sistine Chapel Choir



and a student choir from Georgia State University, directed by Deanna Joseph



Sigfried's wonderful arrangements of Shaker songs are new to me and a revelation. It's hard to avoid singing along (O le ul lum ul la, O le ul lum ul la!).

Somehow I don't think that the choirs of small Episcopal churches in the nineteenth century were performing either Palestrina motets or Shaker songs. I wonder how it happened that a repertoire covering half a millennium became standard.
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#10

Post by Rolodex »

Thanks for that. I've never thought about a Shaker music tradition. I like that one! I'll bet our excellent music director is familiar.
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#11

Post by northland10 »

Rolodex wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2024 11:12 pm Thanks for that. I've never thought about a Shaker music tradition. I like that one! I'll bet our excellent music director is familiar.
Shaker music is a gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
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#12

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

Simple Gifts is beautiful on a dulcimer.


and by a chorus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Si ... y_Band.ogg
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#13

Post by Foggy »

I'm not religious ;), but I like this one.

Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#14

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

My mom sang this at many a wedding.

"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
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#15

Post by Rolodex »

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2024 8:32 am Simple Gifts is beautiful on a dulcimer.


and by a chorus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Si ... y_Band.ogg
Simple Gifts is beautiful on anything. Thanks to Copland for popularizing it
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain
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#16

Post by Volkonski »

Tubas-

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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#17

Post by Volkonski »

Bagpipes-

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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#18

Post by Volkonski »

Massed Drum Corps-

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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#19

Post by Volkonski »

Ukulele-

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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#20

Post by northland10 »

Volkonski wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2024 2:06 pm Massed Drum Corps-
I still remember the Garfield Cadets show at the DCI Finals in 1987 where their show used Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring which includes the Simple Gifts melody. The ending was amazing.

They won that year.

The Video should start around 8:30 so you can get to the big finish (and the soft finish, for that matter).
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#21

Post by northland10 »

"And so, it begins" (bonus points for picking what TV show I pulled that from).

Tomorrow begins the busiest week of the year for me.

After processing with palms through the park across the street (weather permitting), we proceed into the church/nave, singing the well known "do it or be fired hymn."


Later, at my place, we do a favorite of mine.


The service, at least in the Episcopal tradition, takes an abrupt 180 from the triumphal entry to the passion. As it says in the hymn above:
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, thy power and reign.
As we have fully entered Holy Week and the passion, my choir will be singing the following, which illustrates the agony in the garden.


For those wonder why we pivot from Triumph Entry to Crucifixion in one service, I am not entirely sure myself (and we discuss this in seminary). While being jarring during Holy Week is not unexpected, and there is a great contrast to be illustrated, we also have the Passion played out during the Triduum, starting with Maundy Thursday until we go from darkness to light in the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. One guess might be that prior to the liturgical movement of the 50s-70s, many parishes and churches went from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday with few other liturgies and those who did a Good Friday one often did the 3 hours preaching on the 7th last words service, not the Crucifixion related service.

Having both on Palm/Passion Sunday made sure people did not skip a rather important part of the Resurrection.

Now I have to stop procrastinating and run off to practice the piano part of "Thy Will Be Done" along with being tortured by a Frenchman named Widor.
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#22

Post by chancery »

For those wonder why we pivot from Triumph Entry to Crucifixion in one service
:yeahthat:
Interesting take on something I've wondered about.

Our congregation will also, of course, begin by carrying palms and singing "All Glory Laud & Honor."*

The choir will perform the spiritual "Ride on King Jesus," arranged by the legendary Robert Shaw and the (as I have come to realize) even more revered Alice Parker,** here performed by the Robert Shaw Chorale.



and (new to me) All Flesh is Grass, a Chris Massa setting of the poem by Christina Rossetti, here performed by Basilica of Saint Mary Schola Cantorum (Minneapolis)



The lovely simple settings of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei that we have been singing for the last month or two are from the service music section of the hymnal; I've only belatedly realized that they were composed by Franz Shubert.

Throughout Lent the weekly psalm has been set to a wonderfully dark anglican chant written by our organist. It's printed in the program, and fun to sing, except there's a bit that should be dead simple, since all the basses have to do is carry on singing an easy C, but I get knocked off my perch when SAT move to different notes and the sopranos (F#) and altos (D) go all chromatic dissonant. :? My partner, one of the dissonant altos and a very accomplished musician, offers limited sympathy.


__________
* Query: "Play it or be fired"? I guess I understand; while the hymn is surely a familiar favorite for the congregation to belt out, I can imagine the musical staff becoming sick to death of doing the same thing each year, but having no luck whatsoever in selling an innovation to the rector or the vestry.

That's a showy brass & organ arrangement by Tom Trenney at the First Plymouth Church. I guess that's one way of doing something a little different.

** Gift Link: Alice Parker, Composer Who Heard Music in Poetry, Dies at 98
A master of American choral music, she wrote arrangements of hymns, folk songs and spirituals used in concert halls and churches countrywide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/arts ... =url-share
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#23

Post by northland10 »

chancery wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2024 8:19 pm The lovely simple settings of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei that we have been singing for the last month or two are from the service music section of the hymnal; I've only belatedly realized that they were composed by Franz Shubert.
We do the Schubert setting in Advent.
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#24

Post by northland10 »

chancery wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2024 8:19 pm * Query: "Play it or be fired"? I guess I understand; while the hymn is surely a familiar favorite for the congregation to belt out, I can imagine the musical staff becoming sick to death of doing the same thing each year, but having no luck whatsoever in selling an innovation to the rector or the vestry.
It is a joke I learned in seminary. It is such a well-known, popular hymn for Palm Sunday, the joke is if you didn't do it, you'd be looking for a new job. The same applies to hymns like O Come All Ye Faithful and Silent Night on Christmas, and Jesus Christ is Risen Today for Easter. Luckily, I like these hymns also and I like a singing congregation so I have no issue with them.

You usually don't want to mix it up too much with hymns for major services. I can rotate anthems and motets around each year. We did manage to put Hail Thee Festival Day to rest on Easter. The new rector stated that was her preference and while she does not want to micromanage the music, I put up no argument (the hymn that never ends). There were no complaints about going away, at least none that I heard.

If somebody told me I could no longer program Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending during Advent, I might be looking for a new job. :mrgreen:
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#25

Post by northland10 »

chancery wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2024 8:19 pm That's a showy brass & organ arrangement by Tom Trenney at the First Plymouth Church. I guess that's one way of doing something a little different.
First Plymouth Church (a United Church of Christ congregation in Lincoln, Nebraska) does some wonderful stuff. The arrangement for All Glory, Laud, and Honor, which is a bit different, is by Richard Webster who was the OCM (Organist/Choirmaster, i.e. music director) for St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Evanston, IL for 31 years, and after that, at Trinity Church, Boston (Episcopal) for another 17 years until retiring in 2022.
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