Music Notes 5-26-24

Next week, our marvelous band will be joining us again for a service of uplifting music.  Included will be a big band swing tune, a hit recorded by Whitney Houston, and a special surprise.  So spread the word – it’s going to be a celebration.

Mark Hayes is a composer/arranger/pianist based in Kansas City whose music is renowned around the world.  He got his degree in piano performance at Baylor University, moved to Kansas City to work as a music editor for Tempo Publishing, and now spends his time writing music for the church and traveling around the world as a clinician and guest conductor.  When I met Mark in the late 80’s, I was struck by his pianistic skills – more specifically, the way he manhandled the piano into submission to produce the most wondrous sounds.  Mark’s writing is superbly crafted, with influences of black gospel and jazz.  He’s one of my favorite contemporary writers.  If you play piano and want some music that will both challenge you and satisfy your appetite for delicious piano music, pick up a book of Mark Hayes piano improvisations.  You’ll love it.  This week’s anthem is an arrangement of the song When I Lift My Hands To You In Praise, which was written by David Stearman in 1980.  David Stearman is a Kentucky born and bred musician who studied at Oral Roberts University and maintains a busy international ministry.  He writes books, has 4 albums on the market and writes a regular blog with his wife, Diane.  When I Lift My Hands To You In Praise was part of a cantata Mark completed in 1985 called Jubilate published by Tempo Music.  It was an unusual concept at the time – a mixture of musical styles – traditional anthems, pop solos, big orchestra – and was designed for an adult choir, soloists, a youth choir, a junior choir, a handbell choir, a liturgical dance team, an orchestra, a narrator, and places for the congregation to join in the singing.  There are a number of particularly groovy pieces that we will get to here as time goes on, including a wonderful communion medley, an old hymn medley and several marvelous anthems that the choir will enjoy sinking their teeth into.  It was about a year after this came out that I met Mark and got familiar with his music.  The solo will be sung by one of our wonderful choir sopranos, Jacquie Fernandez.

The offertory song today is a song that I particularly enjoy.  It’s entitled Hallelujah and was the winning song in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest.  It was composed and conducted by Israeli film and television composer Kobi Oshrat.  Every year, all the nations of Europe and beyond have preliminary contests to choose the song that will represent their country in the Eurovision contest.  The final contest is broadcast live over the European Broadcasting Union and is a spectacle.  The vocals have to be performed live, there are no more than 6 performers allowed onstage for each performance and the song can’t be any longer than 3 minutes long.  This year on March 20th, Switzerland walked away with the title.  There is, of course, “the Eurosong Curse” – if you win the contest, you, as a performer, won’t amount to anything.  There have been exceptions, of course.  In 1969, the UK won with a song called Boom Bang-a-Bang sung by a young girl called Lulu (who went on to record the theme song for the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun).  In 1974, Sweden won with a song called Waterloo, sung by a little quartet called ABBA.  And in 1988, Switzerland won with a ballad called Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi, sung by a young French Canadian singer named Celine Dion.  Hallelujah was chosen to be the official song of the 70th anniversary of independence of the state of Israel, and an updated version was released.  The tune is infectious, and we hope you’ll join in and sing it with us.

O God, Our Help In Ages Past was originally titled Our God, Our Help In Ages Past.  John Wesley changed the first word of Isaac Watts’ original 1719 lyrics when he included it in his hymnal Psalms and Hymns in 1738.  The most familiar melody sung to those lyrics was composed by William Croft in 1708 when he was organist of the church St. Anne, Soho, hence the name of the tune St. Anne.  Isaac Watts’ original version of the song had 9 verses, although it’s usually limited to stanzas 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9.  Later on it was used by other composers, including Handel, Bach, Arthur Sullivan, Carl Ruggles and Ralph Vaughn Williams.  It was sung at the funeral of Winston Churchill, was used in the score for the 1963 movie Tom Jones (the score won an Oscar) and is the University Anthem of UC Berkley.