Jim Raycroft 6/9/24 Jim Raycroft 6/9/24

Music Notes 6-9-24

All Things Bright And Beautiful is an Anglican hymn that incorporates text written by Cecil Frances Alexander. It was a poem that appeared in a book of poetry entitled Hymns For Little Children, published in 1848. The inspiration for the text has been suggested to be Psalm 104 - "Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts" – or possibly passages from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner - "He prayeth best, who loveth best; All things great and small; For the dear God who loveth us; He made and loveth all." Mrs. Alexander was well traveled, and it’s been suggested that the references to the “purple headed mountain” referred to Benevenagh in Ireland, and "the river running by" to the River Roe which flows past Bellerena House in Londonderry, which she visited several times. The tune which we use is ROYAL OAK, which is an adaptation of the 17th century folk song The Twenty-Ninth Of May, which was first published in The Dancing Master in 1686. The tune was first arranged for the hymn by Martin Shaw in 1916 and published in his book for children Song Time. The arrangement became widely associated with the text when it was included in the 1925 hymnal Songs Of Praise, assembled by Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Ironically, the popular 1906 English Hymnal was considered by many to be too “high church”, so the three composers were charged with assembling a book of lighter material. It’s interesting that this hymn was considered a “praise song” at that time. The text has been used by many composers over the years, John Rutter’s famous anthem being one of the most well-known. The opening lines of the poem were used for the titles of his famous books of stories of English countryside veterinary adventures by James Harriott (pseudonym for Alf Wight). The first book’s title, All Creatures Great And Small, became a renowned British TV show (which we used to watch every Sunday evening after The Wonderful World of Disney) and has recently been rebooted. In 1970’s Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, composer Leonard Rosenman (who was teaching at CalArts when I was there) created a discordant version of the hymn that was sung by a dystopian cult that worshipped a nuclear bomb. Monty Python also got into the act with a parody of the hymn on their 1980’s album Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album in which the choir sings in praise of “All Things Dull And Ugly”. This hymn has shown up in over 325 hymnals and is known and beloved the world over.

Jim Raycroft 6/2/24 Jim Raycroft 6/2/24

Music Notes 6-2-24

This week we welcome back our marvelous band, and we’ll be traveling around the world musically. We hope you’ll join us for the adventure.

The Brooklyn Tabernacle is a non-denominational, multi-cultural church in the heart of downtown Brooklyn that began as a small congregation worshiping in a rundown building, and has grown into a congregation of over 16,000. The husband and wife team of Pastor Jim Cymbala and music director Carol Cymbala took over leadership of the 30 member congregation in 1971. By the 1980’s, the church had grown enough to purchase the 1383-seat Carlton Theatre and convert it into their sanctuary. By 2002, they had outgrown that facility and purchased Loew’s Metropolitan Theatre, a former vaudeville theatre, and renovated it into a state-of-the-art, 3,200-seat worship facility. The choir began with just 9 members in 1971 and grew with the church. Carol Cymbala began writing music for the choir, and they recorded their first album in the 1980’s. Now numbering over 280 members, their music is sung all over the world, and they sang at the 2013 inauguration of President Obama. The song Revival In The Land was written in 1983 by Renee Morris and was recorded for the 1989 album Live…Again.

I Look To You was the title of the hit single from the album of the same name by Whitney Houston. It was written by R. Kelly (Robert Kelly), was her seventh album and was released to very favorable reviews in 2009. The single was her highest charting single in seven years and reached #19 within 3 days of its release. It was later recorded as a duet with R. Kelly, and the duet version was released seven months after her death. R. Kelly sang it at her funeral service on February 18, 2012, which was broadcast and streamed live to a worldwide audience. Houston said that the powerful piano ballad “sums up the album” and was all she wanted to say at that stage of her life.

Awesome God is a song written and recorded by Rich Mullins and first recorded in 1988 on his album Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth. It was the first single released from the album and rose quickly to #1 on all the charts, spending several months on Christian radio. It was so popular that it became his signature song and became a popular congregational song. Since his passing in 1997, it has been covered by numerous artists, including Michael W. Smith and the heavy metal band Unashamed.

Chris Tomlin was born in Texas in 1972 and learned to play guitar by playing along with Willy Nelson recordings. He has become one of the dominant forces in contemporary Christian music, and in 2012 CCLI announced that his songs were played 3 million times in churches that year. His 2013 album Burning Lights debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, only the fourth Christian album ever to open at No. 1, and he was pronounced the most sung songwriter in the world that year. In 2018, he was the 1st Christian artist to receive the “Billionaire” award from Pandora for reaching one billion Pandora streams. The song Indescribable was written by songwriters Jesse Reeves and Laura Story, and debuted on the album Arriving in 2004. Indescribable is listed in Christian Copyright Licensing International’s (CCLI) list of Top 25 Worship Songs of 2007 as #22. In 2008, it was listed in The Countdown Magazine’s list of Top 20 Praise and Worship songs as #6.

Matt Maher is a Canadian Christian artist who was born in Newfoundland, studied jazz on a scholarship from Arizona State University in Tempe and now lives in Nashville. He’s written and released 7 studio albums to date, 3 of which have reached the top 25 of Billboard’s Christian Album chart, and 4 of his singles have reached the top 25 of Billboard’s Christian Songs chart. A practicing Catholic, he was asked to lead worship for crowds of thousands at the Rally for Youth and Seminarians in Yonkers, New York during the visit by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, and in 2013 he sang Lord, I Need You for an audience of about 4 million, including Pope Francis, for World Youth Day in Rio de Janerio. His song And All The People Said Amen was the title track for his first compilation album, released in 2013. The album charted at #5 on Billboard’s Christian Albums.

Jim Raycroft 5/26/24 Jim Raycroft 5/26/24

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.

Jim Raycroft 5/19/24 Jim Raycroft 5/19/24

Music Notes 5-19-24

Pentecost has always been an important holiday on the Christian calendar. It falls on the 49th day after Easter and is one of the great feasts in the Eastern Orthodox church, a Solemnity in the Roman Rite of the Catholic church, a festival in the Lutheran church and a principle feast in the Anglican Communion. Musically, it is associated with certain hymns, like Martin Luther’s Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord, Charles Wesley’s Spirit of Faith Come Down and Hildegard von Bingen’s O Holy Spirit Root of Life. Other related hymns include Oh that I had a Thousand Voices and O Day Full of Grace. In the Catholic church, Pentecost closes the Easter season, and they sing a double Alleluia at the end of Mass as a dismissal. Trumpeters or brass ensembles are often specially contracted to accompany singing and provide special music at Pentecost services, recalling the sound of the mighty wind. While this practice is common among a wide spectrum of Western denominations (Eastern Churches do not employ instrumental accompaniment in their worship) it is particularly typical, and distinctive, to the heritage of the Moravian Church.

John Rutter is a British composer, born in London in 1945, and one of the most recognized composers of church music in the world. His work includes carols (both original and arrangements of familiar carols), anthems, choral works and larger musical compositions. He has written for the King’s Singers and regularly records his music with his own chorus, the Cambridge Singers. Many of his larger works, including his Gloria and his Requiem, are considered classics and are part of standard repertoire (our choir sang the first movement of the Gloria on Easter morning this year). He’s also known for having reconstructed and published the original version of the Faure Requiem. Gabriel Faure originally wrote his Requiem orchestrated for a chamber orchestra, but his publisher suggested that he re-orchestrate it for full orchestra so that it would become part of standard concert repertoire, which he completed in 1900. The original 1893 version was lost until Rutter found Faure’s original sketch books in a closet at Faure’s church, the Madeleine Church (or, more formally, L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, which Eileen and I visited in April). This week’s anthem, The Lord Bless You and Keep You, is also considered to be a “top 10” anthem in the world of church choral music. It was composed in 1981 for the memorial service of Edward T. Chapman, the director of music at Highgate School, London, with whom Rutter had studied when he attended the school, and is an adaptation of a 1900 choral anthem by Peter Lutkin. It was sung at the 100th birthday party for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 2000 and at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018. It has what I personally consider to be one of the great “Amens” in the world of choral anthems, and the piece is so well known that most choirs are able to trot it out at a moment’s notice. Personally, I like the singability of Rutter’s music, and the widespread appeal is undeniable.

Come Thou, Almighty King is a classic hymn with a murky authorship. The earliest known publication of this hymn is a leaflet that was bound into the 6th edition of George Whitefield's Collection of Hymns for Social Worship, 1757. In this leaflet, the hymn had five verses of seven lines each, and was titled An Hymn to the Trinity. The leaflet also contained the hymn Jesus, Let Thy Pitying Eye by Charles Wesley, and because of this hymnologist Daniel Sedgwick attributed Come Thou Almighty King to Wesley as well. However, there is no record of this hymn in any of Wesley's collections of hymns, nor is there any hymn known to be Wesley's that uses the same meter as this hymn does. These days, Come Thou Almighty King is usually sung, as it is in our hymnbook, to the tune Italian Hymn (also called Moscow or Trinity), which was written as a musical setting for this hymn by Felice Giardini at the request of Countess Selina Shirley. This hymn tune along with three others of Giardini's were first published in Martin Madan's Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, 1769.

Jim Raycroft 5/12/24 Jim Raycroft 5/12/24

Music Notes 5-12-24

This week, we will be enjoying the dulcet tones of our own Kylie Smith. Kylie graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz in summer of 2021 with a Bachelor's degree in Vocal Performance and Environmental Studies. Before falling in love with classical music, Kylie was convinced she was going to be a musical theater superstar (She's honestly relieved she didn't stay on that path). She studied for 5 years under Dr. Emily Sinclair, and Kylie is forever thankful that she had such an amazing teacher to introduce her to this artform. Kylie was extremely active in her university’s opera program. She has sung a variety of operatic roles including but not limited to Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Adina in L'Elisir D'Amore, and the title role in Handel's Semele. Kylie is quite active in the choir community. Before coming to Encino Presbyterian, she had the privilege of being a section leader and soloist in her university choir and in choirs across the Santa Cruz community. She has been singing in choirs since she was sixteen years old and has never grown tired of the intrigue, challenge, and striking beauty choral music presents her.

While Kylie enjoys all elements of singing and performing, she has a special place in her heart for all of the action that happens behind a stage. In past years, she worked as an assistant stage manager for Pacific Opera Project's Into the Woods at the Descanso Gardens and as a Production Coordinator for LA Opera's Simulcast. Before moving to LA, Kylie also gained experience in stage managing operas through her University's opera program. Currently, Kylie is working in the Development Department at the LA Opera learning all she can about Arts Administration. Her current goal in the arts is to introduce opera back into her community through community engagement and education. She has not stopped singing, however. She is currently studying with baritone and composer Joel Balzun and preparing a recital with some colleagues from this very community! She is so thankful to get to serve Encino Presbyterian each Sunday through her favorite way to express herself.

Kylie is going to be singing a Celine Dion tune called Because You Loved Me. Celine recorded the song on her fourth English-language studio album, Falling Into You (1996). It was released on 19 February 1996 as the first single in North America, and as the second single in the United Kingdom on 20 May 1996. Because You Loved Me was written by Diane Warren and produced by David Foster, and served as the theme song from the 1996 film Up Close & Personal, starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Billboard ranked it as the 14th "Top Love Song of All Time". Diane Warren says she wrote it for her father, but it works very well for Mother’s Day, too.

“Temperament” is the word used to describe the way a musical scale is tuned – specifically, how many wavelengths apart are the notes C and G, for example. Over the centuries, there have been many ways to tune a scale, many different temperaments, including Meantone, Werkmeister, Pythagorian, and so on. Each temperament produces a unique sound when played, because not all the scales are perfectly “in tune”. For reasons that are too technical to talk about here, in Meantone temperament, the scales of D major and E major are brilliantly in tune, whereas the scales of Eb and Gb are extremely out of tune. Furthermore, every organ builder had a different theory about how the instrument should be tuned once built. So, an organ tuned to Meantone couldn’t play pieces of music in Eb or Gb. For years, composers yearned for a temperament that would allow them to write in any key without tuning issues. “Equal temperament” is a temperament that is generally accepted to have been designed by Zhu Zaiyu, a prince in the Chinese Ming court, who solved the tuning mathematically in 1584. Equal temperament became more and more accepted over the years, with composer Girolamo Frescobaldi being a strong advocate. In essence, all the scales can be played, due to the compromise that all the scales are equally slightly out of tune. In 1722, J.S. Bach wrote a book of keyboard music titled Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, or The Well-Tempered Clavier (“clavier” being a word used to describe pretty much any keyboard instrument), designed to show off the flexibility of the scale. The first piece in that book was the Prelude and Fugue in C Major. The prelude is a delightful piece that most young pianists learn because it’s relatively easy to play. In 1853, French composer Charles Gounod improvised a melody overtop of the prelude, and his future father-in-law, Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, wrote it down, then created an arrangement for violin with piano and harmonium (pump organ). In 1859, Jacques Leopold Heugel published a version with the familiar Latin Ave Maria text, which is the version we all know today.

Jim Raycroft 5/5/24 Jim Raycroft 5/5/24

Music Notes 5-5-24

It’s been a little more than a week since we returned from Paris, and it’s been a whirlwind of activity getting back into the swing of things. My computer received some TLC while I was gone – hard drive wipe, upgraded to Windows 11, new cooling fans, new disk drive (upgraded to Blu-ray burner), fresh gel, etc, - and I’m back in business. Our trip to Paris was wonderful, especially the food (how can you go wrong with Parisian pain au chocolat and espresso in the morning?), and discovering that crazy Los Angeles drivers don’t hold a candle to the insane Parisians when they get behind the wheel. It was a breath of fresh air to step in front of our dedicated choir and make music again.

This week, our wonderful band joins us for the service. Tracy will channel the nuns of the movie Sister Act as we sing the closing number from that movie. We’ll also resurrect the favorite songs Shine, Jesus, Shine and 10,000 Reasons, and we’ll add the old Samuel Wesley chestnut Lead Me, Lord to the mix. Since we’ll be celebrating communion, we’ll also sing One Bread, One Body. Spread the word, and be there or be square.

One of the more engaging Whoopi Goldberg movies was “Sister Act”, where she played a lounge singer that was a witness to a murder. The police hid her from the bad guys by stashing her in a convent, where she made waves by taking over and modernizing the choir of nuns. The final song from this movie is a favorite of many musicians, as it takes an old hit from the 60’s - I Will Follow Him - and makes it a bit classier. It was written by Franck Pourcel and Paul Mauriat, with English lyrics by Norman Gimbel. Originally recorded by Franck Pourcel as an instrumental in 1961, it was recorded with French lyrics by Petula Clark in 1962, which earned her a gold record. It was the 1963 English version, recorded by Little Peggy March, who was 15 at the time, that the song really earned its wings. It reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 27, 1963, as well as #1 in Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, South Africa, Uruguay and New Zealand, making her the youngest female artist to have a chart-topping single.

John Foley is a composer of Catholic liturgical music and a professor of liturgy at St. Louis University, in St. Louis, Missouri, where he founded the Stroble Center for Liturgy, and where he still serves as director. Much of his early music was as a member of a group called the St. Louis Jesuits, which produced several tunes which became classics in the Catholic music world – such as Here I Am, Lord by member Dan Schutte – and Foley’s most well-known composition One Bread, One Body.

Lead Me, Lord is a hymn by English composer and organist Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876). He was the son of composer Samuel Wesley (known as the English Mozart) and grandson of hymn tune giant Charles Wesley. He was organist at Hereford Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and Gloucester Cathedral. He composed largely for the Church of England, who still cherishes his name, and was responsible for many hymn tunes that can be found in modern hymnbooks, including Lead Me, Lord and The Church’s One Foundation in ours.

Jim Raycroft 4/28/24 Jim Raycroft 4/28/24

Music Notes 4-28-24

It’s been satisfying to look back at the past year and take stock of where we’ve been. It’s kind of like Doc Brown’s time machine DeLorean from the movie Back To The Future – the readout screen shows where you were, where you are and where you’re going. The first year, for me, was spent getting the music department organized and functional. Everything the church owns, from choral music to microphones, are all tools on the tool bench, or spices in the spice rack. If you don’t know what you have, and have them where you can get to them, you are severely limited in what you can do. Establishing procedures and goals, developing friendships and working relationships with the other staff and congregants, and learning about the church itself has given me a clear vision of where I think we should go. Getting there will be a wonderful adventure, and I’m looking forward to having that adventure with all of you. See you Sunday.

Craig Courtney is one of the dominant forces in the world of church anthems. He is currently the Executive Music Editor for Beckenhorst Press in Columbus, Ohio, and was the protégé of the founder, the legendary John Ness Beck. What his resume doesn’t tell you is how he started composing (I got this information one day over coffee with him). He was a staff piano teacher at the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Sitting in his cubicle, day after day, waiting for piano students to arrive (or not), he began to improvise and noodle. This brought about his first big publication, Thy Will Be Done (which we happen to have in our library). He sent that to John Ness Beck, founder of Beckenhorst Music Publications, and the rest is history. This week’s anthem is an arrangement of a true classic, How Great Thou Art. There’s always a danger when you work with a song from that generation – How Great Thou Art, Shall We Gather At The River, Old Rugged Cross, and so on – that the Wisconsin factor can get out of hand…they can get really cheesy. But in the hands of a master, it becomes dignified and meaningful. His treatment of this old classic is both wonderful to sing and to listen to. Enjoy.

Our offertory is another Brooklyn Tabernacle offering called Praise You by Elizabeth Goodine and arranged by music director Carol Cymbala. We’re featuring one of our newer choir members, Lori Amadei, whose last name, appropriately enough, is Italian for “Love of God”. Lori is a member of the choir of lawyers that I conduct and volunteered to come and sing with us as well. Now that we’re on an even keel musically, we’re going to be featuring more of our members in solos and solo instruments.

Francesca Battistelli is a Christian recording artist who was born in New York in 1985 and released her first independent album in 2004 titled Just A Breath. She released her first studio album under the Fervent label in 2008 titled My Paper Heart. Her single Holy Spirit, written by Bryan and Katie Torwalt, was released in 2014 as part of her 3rd studio album, If We’re Honest, and it went on to win a Grammy in 2016 for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song.

Jim Raycroft 4/21/24 Jim Raycroft 4/21/24

Music Notes 4-21-24

In a couple of weeks, on May 5th, we’ll be welcoming back our marvelous band. It’s always a treat to have them with us, as it brings a musical expansiveness that you just can’t find anywhere else. That day, we’ll be doing the closing song from the movie Sister Act, featuring our terrific alto Tracy, as well as barnburners like 10,000 Reasons and One Bread, One Body. Spread the word, tell your friends, shout it from the rooftops – they’ll never get music and worship like this anywhere else.

The choir began with just 9 members in 1971 and grew with the church. Carol Cymbala began writing music for the choir, and they recorded their first album in the 1980’s. Now numbering over 280 members, their music is sung all over the world, and they sang at the 2013 inauguration of President Obama. All I Want Is You, Lord is a typical example of the kinds of music they do – richly harmonic, memorable melodies, and verses that are sung by a soloist with the choruses sung or supported by the choir. Think About His Love is an arrangement of a song by local composer Walt Harrah (The Lord Is My Light) by Carol Cymbala and was released on the album “Live…We Come Rejoicing” in 1993. Walt is a friend and lives in Irvine. We sang together a few years ago in a barbershop quartet that was assembled for an episode of the TV show Living Biblically.

Hailing from Marietta, Georgia, Third Day is a Christian rock band formed at YMCA Camp High Harbour in 1991 by high-schoolers Mac Powell and Mark Lee. The name Third Day is a reference to Jesus’ resurrection on the third day after crucifixion. Over the years, like most bands, they had several different musicians playing with them and released their first independent album, Long Time Forgotten, in 1994. In 1995, they signed a contract with Reunion Records and released their second album Third Day in 1996. That year they were nominated for a Dove Award for New Artist of the Year and their video Consuming Fire won a Billboard Music Award for Best Christian Video. In 2004, they released their seventh album Wire, toured the U.S. and Europe, collaborated on Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ, played at the Republican National Convention and were featured on 60 Minutes. Their hit single, Soul On Fire, is from their album Soul On Fire of 2014, and spent 19 weeks on the Billboard charts, peaking at No. 2 on Hot Christian Songs and No. 3 on Christian Digital Songs. Their song God Of Wonders was released in 2003 on the album Offerings II: All I Have To Give.

Jim Raycroft 4/14/24 Jim Raycroft 4/14/24

Music Notes 4-14-24

Eileen and I left Los Angeles on the 4th for a 2-week trip to Paris, so last week and this week, Paul and the choir are very capably holding down the fort. In fact, by the time you read this on Sunday morning, we will have already gone to church at Saint Sulpice, the beautiful cathedral in the Latin Quarter, made famous, and infamous, in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. Long before Dan Brown came along, Saint Sulpice was renowned for its organ and its organists. The organ is one of the most renowned in the world and the list of resident organists over the centuries is a list of Who’s Who, including Charles-Marie Widor, Marcel Dupré and the current resident organist Karol Mossakowski. I sent him a note asking him about the organ schedule, and he told me that he was playing at the Mass on the 14th and there was a concert that afternoon. Guess where we’ll be that day……

Up until the Protestant Reformation, all music for the church was written in Latin (of course). After about 1539, it was required by law that all music for the English church was to be written in English, and Thomas Tallis was one of the first composers to really tackle that project with gusto. Thomas Tallis was born around 1505, which places him about half a century before William Shakespeare. Little is known about his early years, and in fact, there are no contemporary portraits of him – nobody painted his portrait while he was alive, so we don’t even know what he looked like. There is a rare sample of his signature, in which he spells his name “Tallys”. He eventually ended up at Canterbury Cathedral, where he was sent to Court in 1543 as Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. There he wrote and performed for King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth I (until his death in 1585). It was during his Elizabethan period that he wrote one of his most famous works, the unique motet Spem In Alium, a piece written for 8 five voice choirs. We sang that piece at the Disney Hall, and the surround effect is remarkable. In 1575, he and his student, William Byrd, were given a 21-year monopoly by Queen Elizabeth I for polyphonic music, and a patent to print and publish music, which was one of the first arrangements of this kind in the country. He had exclusive rights to print any music in any language, and he and Byrd were the only ones allowed to use the paper that was used in printing music. His anthem If Ye Love Me is his most famous anthem, was from the time of Edward’s reign, and is judged to be on par with his later works during his Elizabethan period. It was first published in 1560 in a book titled Certaine notes set forthe in foure and three partes.

The band Hillsong United was formed in 1998 from close friends within the Hillsong youth ministry (called “Powerhouse Youth”). So many songs were being written within the youth ministry that it was suggested they make an album. The songs One and Everyday were recorded and released with the annual Hillsong worship album in 1999. They both achieved gold sales status in Australia, and the band has gone on to win five Dove Awards in 2014 and were nominated for an American Music Award and won the Billboard Music Award Top Christian Artist in 2015. Their song Oceans was released in 2013 on their album Zion and was certified Platinum – 1,000,000 copies sold.

Jim Raycroft 4/7/24 Jim Raycroft 4/7/24

Music Notes 4-7-24

The week after Easter is always a well-deserved rest for our faithful choir. The drive up to Easter morning is always intense and heavy with additional music, so by the end of the Easter morning service, they are all ready to kick back on a beach in the South Pacific somewhere and watch the sunset, and deservedly so. They also show up every Thursday night at 7:30 to spend the evening rehearsing music that will help to uplift the worship. They even show up an hour early Sunday morning, at 9 a.m., to refresh the memories before the service. That’s over 120 hours a year that they give to the church, over and above whatever else they might contribute, whatever other groups and committees they might serve on, to make our Sunday worship more meaningful and inspirational. We owe our choir a big debt of thanks for their contributions that make our worship so much better. Anybody have a jet we could borrow to take them all to Maui….?

Great Is Thy Faithfulness is a hymn written by American composer William M. Runyan and author Thomas O. Chisholm. William Runyan composed the tune in 1923 to an original poem by his good friend and fellow Methodist minister Thomas Chisholm. The hymn has been included in more than 95 hymnals, and his family endowed the "The Rev. William M. Runyan Endowed Memorial Scholarship" at Baker University, in Baldwin City, Kansas (where he is buried), with the royalties from his song Great is Thy Faithfulness.

Chris Tomlin was born in Texas in 1972 and learned to play guitar by playing along with Willy Nelson recordings. He has become one of the dominant forces in contemporary Christian music, and in 2012 CCLI announced that his songs were played 3 million times in churches that year. His 2013 album Burning Lights debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, only the fourth Christian album ever to open at No. 1, and he was pronounced the most sung songwriter in the world that year. In 2018, he was the 1st Christian artist to receive the “Billionaire” award from Pandora for reaching one billion Pandora streams. His song Your Grace Is Enough was released on the album Arriving in 2004.

Break Forth, Oh Beauteous Heavenly Light is a classic hymn that began its life in the German language. The author, Johann von Rist, was born in 1607 and dedicated his life to the church, eventually becoming a pastor in Ottensen, a small town just outside Hamburg, Germany. Although the text was written in 1641, it wasn’t until 1873 that it was translated into the English text we know by John Troutbeck, who became Chaplain and Priest in Ordinary to the Queen (Victoria) and was known for having compiled the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book in 1883. The melody was written in 1641 by Johann Schop, who was a Lutheran composer and violinist known for his virtuosity, and harmonized by J.S Bach in 1734.

Jim Raycroft 3/31/24 Jim Raycroft 3/31/24

Music Notes 3-31-24

Once again, it’s Easter morning and it’s time to celebrate. We welcome our extra musicians, artists that play with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Disneyland Band and in the studios. The glorious sound of the brass, the organ, the timpani, the voices, all combine to bring the joy of the resurrection to a level that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I hope you leave the service with a sense of euphoria – that means I did my job. Happy Easter!

Also Sprach Zarasthustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra) is an orchestral tone poem by German composer Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 when he was 32 years old. It was inspired by the philosophical novel of the same name by Friedrich Nietzsche. The opening fanfare, which he titled “Sunrise” in his program notes, became wildly famous when it was used extensively in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001, A Space Odyssey. By the time of the 2nd World War, Richard Strauss was the most famous composer in the world. He had written orchestral works and operas that had put him on the very short list of composers who were absolute masters of both melody and orchestration. To this day, his opera Der Rosenkavalier (“The Knight of the Rose”) is considered to be one of the very best in history, and the closing trio, even if you don’t particularly like opera or understand the German language, is considered to be the closest thing to musical ecstasy ever written. Listen to it on YouTube sometime – turn up the volume, because with the specified 125 piece orchestra, it will blow your mind. Wanting to take advantage of his fame, the Nazis appointed him, without his consent, to the position of music master of the Third Reich. He took advantage of his position to save a number of Jews from prosecution (including his daughter-in-law), then packed up his family and escaped to Austria, where he hid for the remainder of the war. Ironically, the first Allied soldier to find him and tell him the war was over was an oboe player from the New York Philharmonic, who recognized him and immediately asked him to write something for oboe (he agreed).

John Williams is an international icon and national treasure. He attended North Hollywood High School, then UCLA, then was drafted into the US Air Force, where he conducted and wrote arrangements for the Air Force Band. He then went to Julliard School of Music, where he studied piano, and worked as a jazz pianist in the New York nightclubs. After moving back to Los Angeles, he began working as a session pianist (in those days, he was known as Johnny Williams), especially with Henry Mancini. He was the pianist on the famous recording of Peter Gunn (we know that piece as the background music for the movie The Blues Brothers), and was the pianist for Marilyn Monroe on the movie Some Like It Hot. He wrote music for TV shows like Lost In Space and the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island, and began transitioning to movies. His first movie score was a B movie called Daddy-O, his first Oscar nomination was for 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, and his first Oscar win was for 1971’s Fiddler on the Roof. In 1974 he was approached by Steven Spielberg to write the score for The Sugarland Express, and the rest is history. Spielberg recommended John to his pal George Lucas to write the score for a little movie called Star Wars, and history exploded. In 1984, the Olympic Organizing Committee commissioned him to write a fanfare to be debuted at the opening ceremonies, and it has become part of the Olympic tradition, as well as one of the most recognized orchestral pieces of the 20th century. The composer told Jon Burlingame in 1992 that his music was intended to musically represent “the spirit of cooperation, of heroic achievement, all the striving and preparation that go before the events and all the applause that comes after them.”

Craig Courtney is one of the dominant forces in the world of church anthems. He is currently the Executive Music Editor for Beckenhorst Press in Columbus, Ohio, and was the protégé of the founder, the legendary John Ness Beck. What his resume doesn’t tell you is how he started composing (I got this information one day over coffee with him). He was a staff piano teacher at the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Sitting in his cubicle, day after day, waiting for piano students to arrive (or not), he began to improvise and noodle. This brought about his first big publication, Thy Will Be Done (which we happen to have in our library). He sent that to John Ness Beck, founder of Beckenhorst Music Publications, and the rest is history. This week’s offertory, Coronation, was composed in 1986 and invokes visions of the Coronation of King Charles of England – a slow, majestic procession and text that talks about “crowning Him Lord of All”

Jim Raycroft 3/24/24 Jim Raycroft 3/24/24

Music Notes 3-24-24

Jesus Christ Superstar began as a concept album in the late 1960’s, with Webber working with his school friend Tim Rice. They began recording the music piecemeal, and released I Don’t Know How To Love Him as a single in 1970, which peaked at #28 in the U.S in 1971. The lead role of Jesus was sung by Ian Gillan, who had just joined the English rock band Deep Purple and brought with him a degree of fame and following to the project. Mary Magdalene was sung by Yvonne Elliman, who was born in Honolulu (Irish father, Japanese mother) and was singing in London clubs at the time she was discovered by Webber and Rice. She and Barry Dennen (Pilate) were the only cast members to do the original concept album of 1970, the first authorized stage performance at the Pittsburgh Civic Auditorium in July of 1971, the original Broadway production, which opened in October of 1971, and the movie, which was released in 1973 (starring Ted Neeley as Jesus, who was the Jesus understudy for the original Broadway production). The music director on the movie was Andre Previn, who began his career scoring movies and was hired to be the music director for the London Symphony in 1968. He told me about his experience working on the movie while we were preparing a performance of the Britten Spring Symphony. “I was knee-deep in the London Symphony when Norman Jewison called and told me he needed me for a movie. I told him I didn’t have time. He said, “It’s Jesus Christ Superstar” and I said, “Then especially NO, because I hate the piece”. He told me that Webber had insisted on being music director and they had spent 18 three-hour sessions with the London Philharmonic and had only 2½ minutes of usable music. I agreed to go look at what they had, and when I saw it, I told him that the problem was that the music wasn’t laid out for a movie (aside – all movie music has to be time-coded, so that it can be syncopated to the action on the screen). After much groveling, I told him that I would do it, but I needed 2 orchestrators and 6 copyists at my disposal immediately, there was a specific music editor that he would fly out from Hollywood first class and, sorry to be crass, but it’s going to cost you a lot of money. Jewison said “Fine. Right now, I have no movie”. I rewrote the score and we recorded it in 6 weeks.” Hosanna is the song underscoring the Palm Sunday entrance of Jesus into the temple. The Broadway production of Superstar ran for 711 shows and was nominated for 5 Tony Awards (but didn’t win any), including Best Score, and Andrew Lloyd Webber won a Drama Desk Award for “Most Promising Composer” (Oh, really? Ya think?).

Jack Walker is a composer based in Santa Monica. He’s written mostly for the church, including anthems, instrumentals, and musicals, including a musical called Moses (yup, it’s about exactly what you think it’s about) that was received to critical acclaim (I recorded a couple of tunes from it for him a few years ago). He was music director at Brentwood Presbyterian Church for many years, retiring in the late 90’s, and was there when I was the bass section leader from 1987 to 1991. One day he was complaining to me that no one would publish a communion anthem he had recently written called Come To The Table because it was a cappella (no accompaniment). In those days especially (and even now), publishers were in the business of selling music, not publishing it, and they were looking at studies that showed that the average church choir in the country had 12 members with no tenors. The publishers became increasingly specific about what kinds of music they would consider for publication, and for many years, the church music world was drowned in a sea of poorly written, uninspired little anthems that would never float in the real world of music, but they were easily accessible for the “average” church choir. I told Jack to simply add a “Chopinesque” piano accompaniment and submit it, because it was a good piece of music. He told me “Well, DO it!” So I did, and it got published by Fred Bock Music and went on to be his best-seller. Jack has been to visit our congregation a couple of times since I’ve been here, and gave us a copy of Come To The Table for our library.

Jim Raycroft 3/17/24 Jim Raycroft 3/17/24

Music Notes 3-17-24

Once again, it is St. Patrick’s Day, and everyone is automatically an honorary Irishman. My own family traces its roots back to County Cork, where John and Jane Raycroft got on a boat in 1812 and traveled across the ocean to Montreal. Of course, the fun myth about St. Patrick’s Day is celebrating how he chased all the snakes out of Ireland, but the reality is very different. I won’t go into here but would urge you all to look it up – the real story is very interesting. The music and culture of Ireland is fascinating – the original language, which they still speak, is Gaelic, the music is a more folk-based music – remember the music we’ve done by the Rend Collective? They have their own version of bagpipes, where the player can actually create a vibrato and play a melody with expression and soul. The accordion is big – I have a colleague in the Master Chorale – Dermot from Dublin – who actually did a master’s degree in classical accordion and played in an accordion orchestra and was taught to play the penny whistle from age 4 (interestingly, my Italian professor in college was from Venice and played in an accordion orchestra). Of course, not all their music is folk based – there’s the matter of that little band called U2……

The Lord Is My Shepherd is a monumental work that features a tenor soloist and choir, with a big orchestra accompaniment (for our purposes, we have our own orchestra in the 10 fingers of Paul). It was composed here in Los Angeles by Meir Finkelstein 30 years ago. Meir is a British national who was brought to Los Angeles by the Sinai Temple in Westwood to be their cantor and composer in residence, where he flourished for decades. These days he is in Detroit and continues to write what is, in my humble opinion, some of the best music in the Jewish world. Back in 1995, the Jewish community staged a concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. They rented the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, hired the L.A. Philharmonic and the L.A. Master Chorale (I can’t begin to imagine what it must have cost) and filled the concert with Meir’s music. They had celebrity MC’s (I remember Billy Crystal talking about growing up in an Italian neighborhood and splitting the cultural difference by having spaghetti with matzo balls). I was absolutely floored singing The Lord Is My Shepherd – my first thought was “where has this been all my life and WHY isn’t it a part of international standard repertoire?” Of, course, for the basic church choir, it’s not for the faint of heart…it’s advanced music that requires a serious tenor soloist – of course, we have a serious tenor in Jose and the choir has been tackling the piece with gusto. We’re cutting parts of it for time, but it’s such a marvelous piece that we’ll circle back to it, perhaps in the fall and do it again with all the parts. Several years ago, I was looking for a big concert work to do with my choir of lawyers, so I sent a note to Meir and asked him if we could do this. He sent me not only the vocal score, but the orchestral parts as well. It’s truly magnificent, and I hope it impacts all of you the same way it impacted me. You can hear it on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5-Z0X5eSVI

Phil Wickham is a Christian artist from San Diego. He grew up in a musical home, with both his parents at one time being members of the Christian band Parable. His father, John, is still a worship leader and his brother, Evan, started as a musician in a worship band and now is pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego. Phil released his first album, Give You My World, in 2003 and has since released a total of 9 albums. The song Living Hope was the title song released on the album Living Hope in 2018. You’ll be able to catch his act in Bakersfield on April 19 this year. Check out his website for more information.

Jim Raycroft 3/10/24 Jim Raycroft 3/10/24

Music Notes 3-10-24

It was, as always, a great joy to have our wonderful band with us last Sunday. The next big musical extravaganza will be Easter morning. I’ve mentioned this before, but the various holidays in the Christian calendar suggest different things to me musically. Christmas celebrates the birth of a baby – as a musician, this translates to me as a sound world of harp and strings. Easter, on the other hand, is a party. There have been many prophets over the millennia, but ours actually rose from the dead. His resurrection is the reason we’re here, celebrating his life and messages, spreading his philosophies and living by his commandments. Now that’s a reason to celebrate. From a musical standpoint, that suggests brass and timpani to me. Over the years I’ve developed my musical language and my concepts of the ideal Easter ensemble. I’ve been busy writing orchestrations for our Easter celebration, and it’s going to be spectacular. Of course, we might have to get a permit from the city to relocate the roof of the church out onto Balboa Blvd., but I promise you, you’ll walk out of the church on a cloud. Spread the word.

Craig Courtney is one of the dominant forces in the world of church anthems. He is currently the Executive Music Editor for Beckenhorst Press in Columbus, Ohio, and was the protégé of the founder, the legendary John Ness Beck. What his resume doesn’t tell you is how he started composing (I got this information one day over coffee with him). He was a staff piano teacher at the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Sitting in his cubicle, day after day, waiting for piano students to arrive (or not), he began to improvise and noodle. This brought about his first big publication, Thy Will Be Done (which we happen to have in our library). He sent that to John Ness Beck, founder of Beckenhorst Music Publications, and the rest is history. This week’s anthem is based on Psalm 91 and was written for a commission in memory of Margaret Ashworth Craig in 1996.

Chris Tomlin was born in Texas in 1972 and learned to play guitar by playing along with Willy Nelson recordings. He has become one of the dominant forces in contemporary Christian music, and in 2012 CCLI announced that his songs were played 3 million times in churches that year. His 2013 album Burning Lights debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, only the fourth Christian album ever to open at No. 1, and he was pronounced the most sung songwriter in the world that year. In 2018, he was the 1st Christian artist to receive the “Billionaire” award from Pandora for reaching one billion Pandora streams. The song Adore is the title track for the album Adore: Christmas Songs Of Worship, which was released in 2015.

What Wondrous Love Is This is a hymn that has a multi-layered past. The text’s author is listed as “Anonymous”, which means that it could have gone through a variety of authors, iterations, and rewrites before arriving in the form we now know. It was first set to the tune we know in William Walker’s 1840 second edition publication of Southern Harmony. Interestingly, the tune comes from an old English ballad about the infamous English pirate Captain Kidd:

My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed, when I sailed;
My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed;
My name was Robert Kidd, God's laws I did forbid,
So wickedly I did when I sailed, when I sailed
So wickedly I did when I sailed.

Jim Raycroft 3/3/24 Jim Raycroft 3/3/24

Music Notes 3-3-24

This week we welcome back our fabulous band. The postlude music this week will be provided by pianist Jeff Colella. Jeff was conductor and pianist for Lou Rawls for 16 years and for Jack Jones for several years before that. His legendary piano is all over the musical world and he has recorded several jazz albums, excerpts of which you can listen to here - http://jeffcolella.com/music/ . The piece he’ll be playing is Lotus Blossom by jazz great Billy Strayhorn. We are very lucky to have him with us and sharing his music.

Duke Ellington was a very spiritual man, who carried a Bible and crucifix everywhere he went. He studied scripture every day, and so when he was approached in 1962 to create and execute a concert of music for the opening of the new Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, it was dream come true. Finally, he was allowed to write the music HE wanted to write – it didn’t have to be commercial to make the publishers happy, and it didn’t have to be 2 ½ minutes long to play on the radio. Most of all, it could be music that came from his soul, a soul that was deeply rooted in the church. He undertook what he called “the most important work I’ve ever done” and created what ultimately became three concerts that became known as “The Sacred Concerts”. He stated publicly many times that he was trying to avoid writing “a mass”, and observers at the time commented that he brought the Cotton Club revue to the church. The music was familiar Ellington, and yet had modern esoteric elements that even today make music aficionados sit up and take notice. The most lasting thing to come out of all that is the song we know from the hymn book, known variously as “Come Sunday” or “Savior God Above”. Like all good composers, he took that tune and reused it in a variety of places in the concert, including the tap dance number “David Danced” – yes, there were tap dancers in church. Today’s anthem, Ain’t But The One, is the 4th piece in the original concert. The original 1965 concert was filmed and can be seen on YouTube.

How Marvelous! How Wonderful! was composed by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (1856-1932) in 1905. It is also known by the first line “I stand amazed”. The tune My Saviors Love shows up in 127 hymnals. He is said to have composed between 7,000 and 8,000 songs, which were published under several pseudonyms, including Charlotte G. Homer, H. A. Henry, and S. B. Jackson. There is one folklore story, that the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Wilton (Pastor Pollock or McAulay) once saw Gabriel walking in town early in the week. He asked Gabriel if he knew a good song to go along with his sermon. The pastor shared the sermon topic and by the end of the week the boy had written a song for that Sunday, words and music. The Rev. N. A. McAulay was a pastor at the Wilton church for many years, and it is also said that young Gabriel wrote the music for one of McAulay's songs. The song, How Could It Be, was later published in Songs for Service, edited by Gabriel, with the music being credited to "Charles H. Marsh," possibly one of Gabriel's pseudonyms. He eventually served as pastor of Grace Methodist Episcopal Church in San Francisco. He died in Hollywood and was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1982.

Jesus Christ Superstar began as a concept album in the late 1960’s, with Webber working with his school friend Tim Rice. They began recording the music piecemeal, and released I Don’t Know How To Love Him as a single in 1970, which peaked at #28 in the U.S in 1971. The lead role of Jesus was sung by Ian Gillan, who had just joined the English rock band Deep Purple and brought with him a degree of fame and following to the project. Mary Magdalene was sung by Yvonne Elliman, who was born in Honolulu (Irish father, Japanese mother) and was singing in London clubs at the time she was discovered by Webber and Rice. She and Barry Dennen (Pilate) were the only cast members to do the original concept album of 1970, the first authorized stage performance at the Pittsburgh Civic Auditorium in July of 1971, the original Broadway production, which opened in October of 1971, and the movie, which was released in 1973 (starring Ted Neeley as Jesus, who was the Jesus understudy for the original Broadway production). Music director on the movie was Andre Previn, who began his career scoring movies and was hired to be the music director for the London Symphony in 1968. He told me about his experience working on the movie while we were preparing a performance of the Britten Spring Symphony. “I was knee-deep in the London Symphony when Norman Jewison called and told me he needed me for a movie. I told him I didn’t have time. He said “It’s Jesus Christ Superstar” and I said “Then especially NO, because I hate the piece”. He told me that Webber had insisted on being music director and they had spent 18 three hour sessions with the London Philharmonic and had only 2½ minutes of usable music. I agreed to go look at what they had, and when I saw it, I told him that the problem was that the music wasn’t laid out for a movie (aside – all movie music has to be time-coded, so that it can be syncopated to the action on the screen). After much groveling, I told him that I would do it, but I needed 2 orchestrators and 6 copyists at my disposal immediately, there was a specific music editor that he would fly out from Hollywood first class and, sorry to be crass, but it’s going to cost you a lot of money. Jewison said “Fine. Right now, I have no movie”. I rewrote the score and we recorded it in 6 weeks.” I Don’t Know How To Love Him was originally written in 1967 with different lyrics and called Kansas Morning (people in the know commented on how similar the melody sounded to a theme from Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor). The lyrics were re-written, and the piece re-named, in January of 1970 to give the character of Mary Magdalene a primary solo song. When presented with the song, Yvonne Elliman was puzzled by the romantic nature of the lyrics, because she thought that the Mary she’d been recruited to play was Jesus’ mother. The song is one of those rare songs to have 2 versions reach the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart at the same time - Elliman’s at #28 and Helen Reddy’s cover at #13. Recorded in 1 take in June 1970 at Olympic Studios in London, it has been universally acclaimed as the high point in the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack since the album's September 1970 release. In 2003, The Rough Guide to Cult Pop would assess Elliman's performance: "It's rare to hear a singer combine such power and purity of tone in one song, and none of the famous singers who have covered this ballad since have come close."

Jim Raycroft 2/25/24 Jim Raycroft 2/25/24

Music Notes 2-25-24

On March 3rd, we welcome back our wonderful band. This time around, we’re going to celebrate worship with the music of Duke Ellington and Tracy is going to fill the communion time with that wonderful song from Jesus Christ, Superstar, I Don’t Know How To Love Him. Duke Ellington was a deeply spiritual man who took a crucifix with him everywhere and read the Bible every day. When he was asked to write a concert of sacred music for the opening of Grace Cathedral in San Fransisco in 1965, he jumped at the chance. Spread the word – where else would you hear Duke Ellington in a church service?

The Lord Is My Light is a song written by Southern California native Walt Harrah. Walt, who lives in Irvine, is a singer and a friend and colleague who has written several gospel songs that have become classics, a couple of which are included in The Faith We Sing. It has a relatively simple message: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, so I will not be afraid.” This arrangement of the song was written for Maranatha! Music back in the early 1990’s by Texas-based composer/arranger J. Daniel Smith, who specializes in sophisticated contemporary arrangements of songs that are accessible to groups with smaller forces. This particular arrangement has always been a favorite of mine, as it’s easy to learn and sing, and is especially groovy. The book that it came from has, sadly, gone out of print, but Eileen and I have a couple of copies in our library, and we’ll be featuring more from this book as time goes on. On a personal note, those of you that watch CBS might have seen Walt and I singing in a barbershop quartet together in a TV show called Living Biblically a few years back.

Matt Redman is an English Christian worship leader currently based in Brighton. He has won 10 Dove Awards for everything from Worship Song of the Year 2005 (for Blessed Be Your Name) to Songwriter of the Year 2013. His album 10,000 Reasons was released in 2012 and the title track went on to be #1 on the Billboard Christian Songs chart, where it remained for 13 weeks. 10,000 Reasons also won Grammy Awards in 2013 for Best Contemporary Christian Music Song and Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance. One Day (When We All Get To Heaven) is a new song from a new album – Glory Song, released in September of 2017. Glory Song takes a more “gospel” approach, using lots of background singers that gives the album a choral feel. Today, Matt and his wife, Beth, are members of St. Peter’s Church in Brighton, England and have 5 children. One interesting side note – he has a live YouTube video of him singing this song with just a keyboard player and 6 vocalists. If you look closely, they are performing it on the roof of the Capitol Records building in downtown Hollywood. For those of you who don’t know, when Capitol Records decided to build a headquarters building in Hollywood in 1955, it is rumored that it was Nat King Cole who suggested the iconic shape to resemble a stack of records (remember those?). It’s been called the “world’s first circular office building” and “the house that Nat built”, due to the enormous number of recordings and vast amount of merchandise Nat sold for Capitol. In 2006, it was sold to a New York developer to be turned into condos, but the iconic recordings studios are still there and when you walk into the main studio, there are large black and white photos of the artists who recorded there, including Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr. Personally, I’ve recorded in there several times and the history of the building always overwhelms me.

Hosanna, Loud Hosanna was written by Jeannette Threlfall, who was born in the Lancashire town of Blackburn in 1821. Her life was extremely difficult, being orphaned at an early age, and then 2 consecutive accidents left her mutilated and an invalid for life. But she bore her misfortunes with grace and fortitude and maintained a ministry for others throughout her life. She wrote devotional verse, that was published anonymously and later collected in 2 volumes, including Sunshine and Shadow, assembled in 1873 and containing the verse we know as Hosanna, Loud Hosanna. It was subsequently paired with the tune ELLACOMB, which was first published in a chapel hymnal for the Duke of Württemberg in 1784. The hymn we know has been printed in over 150 hymnals to date.

Jim Raycroft 2/18/24 Jim Raycroft 2/18/24

Music Notes 2-18-24

Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord) is an African-American spiritual that was first printed in 1899. It was likely composed by African American slaves in the 19th century. The song was first published in William Eleazar Barton's 1899 Old Plantation Hymns but was described in writings prior to this publication. In 1940, it was included in the Episcopal Church hymnal, making it the first spiritual to be included in any major American hymnal. It is also unique in that it is the only African-American song included in the Catholic Church's Liturgy of the Hours. The text utilizes a system of coded language in its lyrics like most, if not all, African-American spirituals. Metaphors, especially those involving Old Testament figures, as well as Jesus, are often central to the meanings of spirituals. Were You There tells the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. Underneath this narrative, however, is a metaphor likening Jesus's suffering to the suffering of slaves. As reported in Howard Thurman's autobiography, the song was one of Mahatma Gandhi's favorites. The song has been recorded by artists including Paul Robeson, Marion Williams, Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Phil Keaggy, Max Roach, Diamanda Galás, Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson, The Seldom Scene, Diamond Version (with Neil Tennant), Bayard Rustin, Rajaton, and Chris Rice. A writer from the Indianapolis News wrote about Paul Robeson's rendition, saying that "It was as startling and vivid a disclosure of reverent feeling of penetrating pathos as one could imagine." I wanted to create something fresh for the choir, a more theatrical approach to the song. This week’s anthem will be the premier of the piece.

Hillsong Church is a Pentecostal megachurch based in Sydney, Australia. Founded by Brian and Bobbie Houston in August of 1983, the church grew to the point where the word “megachurch” is utterly redefined by them, with campuses in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Newcastle, Gold Coast and Noosa. In addition, they have international churches in London, Bermondsey (Greater London), Oxford, Guildford, Kent and Newcastle (United Kingdom), Cape Town and Pretoria (South Africa), Kiev (Ukraine), Paris, Lyon and Marseille (France), Konstanz and Duesseldorf (Germany), Stockholm, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Moscow, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey and 3 campuses scheduled to open this year in Arizona. The band Hillsong United was formed in 1998 from close friends within the Hillsong youth ministry (called “Powerhouse Youth”). So many songs were being written within the youth ministry that it was suggested they make an album. The songs One and Everyday were recorded and released with the annual Hillsong worship album in 1999. They both achieved gold sales status in Australia, and the band has gone on to win five Dove Awards in 2014 and were nominated for an American Music Award and won the Billboard Music Award Top Christian Artist in 2015. Their song From The Inside Out was released in 2007 on the album Almighty To Save: Powerful Songs of Transforming Worship.

All Glory Laud And Honor is one of the earlier hymns in the hymn book. The author was Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans (France), who was born around 750 and died in prison in 821 - the usual political intrigue (he was suspected of being involved in a plot against Emperor Louis). The text to this hymn was translated into the familiar form in 1854 by John Mason Neale. Neale was born in 1818 and, despite being in perpetually poor health his entire life, was incredibly prolific. He translated hundreds of hymns from a variety sources, especially Greek and Latin, wrote original hymns, including two volumes of hymns for children and wrote hundreds of books. He won the Seaton prize for religious poetry eleven times while a student at Trinity College in Cambridge, was ordained by the Church of England in 1842 (although his poor health kept him from the pulpit) and later in life founded the Sisterhood of St. Margaret, which became one of England’s finest training orders for nurses. The tune, named ST. THEODULF (after the author, obviously), was composed by Melchior Teschner in 1613. Teschner was born in what is now Poland in 1584. He studied music, theology and philosophy at the University of Frankfurt and spent his life first as a cantor at the Lutheran church in Fraustadt and then, until his death in 1634, as pastor of the church in Oberpritschen. He wrote 3 hymn tunes that are still in use, but his magnum opus is All Glory Laud And Honor, which has been published in almost 600 hymn books to date.

Jim Raycroft 2/11/24 Jim Raycroft 2/11/24

Music Notes 2-11-24

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most famous composers in history. Born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685, he spent the bulk of his most renowned composing time – the last 25 years of his life (1723-1750) - in Leipzig at St. Thomas Church, where he provided music for 4 churches in the area. He was a bit of a maverick, disagreeing with his employers and taking unannounced leaves of absence to go hear other musicians perform. There is even a story of him pulling a sword in the middle of the street during an argument with a local bassoon player (Bach publicly called him a “nanny goat bassoonist”…the bassoonist didn’t like it). He had 22 children with 2 different wives – Phyllis Diller used to joke that his harpsichord bench made out into a bed. His music, however, is what he is most renowned for. His catalogue is enormous, containing over 1100 pieces of music (that’s what has survived – we know a lot of his music was lost after he died), from small pieces for harpsichord to huge choral works (The St. Matthew Passion is written for 2 orchestras and 2 choirs). He is the god of organ music, however, and organists around the world defer to him and his music. During the time period between 1723 and 1729, right after he moved to Leipzig, he wrote most of his cantatas – small performance works that usually consist of a choral piece, a few arias and a couple of chorales (hymns). He wrote over 220 of these pieces, which were all written with orchestra. Probably the most famous single piece of music to come out of his cantatas is the piece we call Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, which is actually a chorale from cantata #147 – Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life). A wonderfully lilting countermelody underscores the main hymn tune, and is probably his most universally recognized piece of music, other than the organ piece Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which owes its renown to Hollywood.

Holy, Holy, Holy is a classic hymn that, at last count, has been published in 1421 hymnals. The words were written in by Reginald Heber, an English clergyman born in 1783. He entered Oxford at age 17, winning awards for his poetry, and was appointed to the post of Vicar of Hobnet (near Shrewsbury) in 1807. All 57 of his hymns were written during his time at Hobnet, were he resided for 16 years before being appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823. He was inspired by the Nicene Creed to write this great hymn of praise to the Triune God, with the intent that the hymn be sung before or after the creed was recited in a service, and on Trinity Sunday – eight weeks after Easter. The tune was composed by John Bacchus Dykes in 1861, and is considered to be one of his best melodies. He was called his tune NICAEA, in recognition of Heber’s text, and after their first publication together in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861, the tune and the text have been inseparable.

Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise is a Christian hymn with words written in 1867 by the Free Church of Scotland minister, Walter Chalmers Smith. It is usually sung to the tune, St. Denio (referring to St. Denis, the patron saint of France), originally a Welsh ballad tune, which became a hymn (under the name Palestrina) in Caniadau y Cyssegr (Hymns of the Sanctuary), edited in 1839 by John Roberts, also known by his Welsh name, Ieuan Gwyllt (wild John), to distinguish him from numerous other John Roberts. Of this hymn, musicologist Erik Routley has written: "Immortal, Invisible should give the reader a moment's pause. Most readers will think they know this hymn, the work of another Free Kirk minister. But it never now appears as its author wrote it, and a closer look at it in its fuller form shows that it was by no means designed to be one of those general hymns of praise that the parson slams into the praise-list when he is in too much of a hurry to think of anything else but a hymn about the reading of Scripture. Just occasionally editorial tinkering changes the whole personality of a hymn; it has certainly done so here."

Jim Raycroft 2/4/24 Jim Raycroft 2/4/24

Music Notes 2-4-24

This week we welcome back our marvelous band, who will bring us a smorgasbord of musical styles to support the worship. Tell your friends, bring them to church.

Written in 1984, Canadian song writer Leonard Cohen struggled with his song “Hallelujah”, writing as many as 80 verses before paring it down to the song we know. It was named one of the 500 Best Songs by Rolling Stone magazine, in 2005 Chart magazine named it the 10th best Canadian song, and on December 21, 2008 became the first song in 51 years to be both #1 and #2 on the UK Singles Chart. But, it’s John Cale’s soulful rendition used in the movie Shrek that most of us know and love. His passing, at the age of 82 at his home here in Los Angeles, caused a surge in interest in his music, with sales skyrocketing.

On September 26, 1976, 14-year-old Larry Mullen, Jr. placed a note on the bulletin board of Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, Ireland, looking for members to form a band. 6 people responded. They began as Feedback, performing covers of other artists’ music, then in 1977 changed their name to The Hype with 5 members. In March of 1978, they phased out their fifth man and changed their name to U2, playing their own original material. Their 1st big break came when they won a competition on St. Patrick’s Day, 1978, which provided them with the opportunity to record a demo that would be heard by CBS Ireland, a record label. Since then, U2 has gone on to release 13 studio albums and have become one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, selling over 170 million albums worldwide. They have won 22 Grammy Awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked U2 as 22nd on their list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. Love Rescue Me was part of the album Rattle and Hum, which was released in 1988. The album explores American root music and incorporates blues rock, folk rock, and gospel elements in the music. In November of 1987, Bono met Bob Dylan and they wrote a song together called Prisoner of Love, which later became Love Rescue Me. The original recording was recorded with Bob Dylan singing lead vocals and was recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, which had been home to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, to name a few. Dylan asked that his version not be included in the album because of previous commitments.

Hailing from the small coastal town of Bangor in Northern Ireland, the Rend Collective is a group of “twenty-somethings” that gathered at Rend, what the band describes as “a ministry for spiritually hungry young adults, desperately seeking an authentic, raw and real expression of church, which was informally pastored by bandleader, Gareth Gilkeson.” Their first album – Homemade Worship by Handmade People – was released in 2012, and was followed by a string of hits in the contemporary Christian music world. Their music is based around older instruments - their native Irish folk instruments, old rock and roll guitars and assorted other whimsical musical toys - and has a raw, uninhibited style that gets the toes tapping and the feet stomping. They don’t call themselves a folk band, but insist rather “We are not actually an indie-folk band - despite all the beards and bow-ties and banjos. We are a celebration band. It’s just a coincidence that folk music and celebration make a great pairing!” Their song My Lighthouse is a classic foot-stomper that never fails to engage the listener.

David Wallace Crowder, who goes by the mononymous stage name Crowder (in the finest tradition of Cher, Madonna, Adele and Prince), was the lead singer in the now defunct David Crowder Band, a contemporary worship band that disbanded in 2012. He has since gone on to a solo career, releasing his first solo studio album in 2014, under the sixsteps/sparrow label, called Neon Steeple. Come As You Are, one of the cuts from that album, peaked at #3 on the US Christian Songs chart and went on to receive a Grammy nomination in 2015 for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song. His song I Am A Seed was released on the 2012 album Give Us A Rest (or A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys]).

Dan Schutte is one of the most renowned of the contemporary composers in the Catholic world and is one of the founding members of the St. Louis Jesuits, who popularized a contemporary style of church music set to sacred texts sung in English. This was a result of the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960’s (also known as Vatican II), which revamped and reformed the Catholic liturgy in an effort to bring it closer to the people (before that, the mass was sung in Latin and the priest kept his back to the congregation throughout). He is based in San Francisco, has written over 120 popular hymns and mass settings, and continues to be one of the most influential figures in the world of contemporary Catholic liturgical music. His most famous composition is Here I Am, Lord, based on texts from Isaiah and Samuel. Despite its Catholic origins, it is found in most Protestant hymnals and has been translated into over 20 different languages. In 2008, a survey conducted by the United Methodist Church found it to be 2nd favorite after Amazing Grace.

Jim Raycroft 1/28/24 Jim Raycroft 1/28/24

Music Notes 1-28-24

It all begins with an idea.

Next week we’ll be welcoming back our marvelous band to our worship. We have some wonderful music planned, including Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and U2’s Love Rescue Me. I would encourage you to come over after the service and chat with the members of the band. They are all giants in the music industry here. Jeff Colella, the pianist, was Lou Rawls’ music director for 16 years, and has several albums available on his website. We are talking about featuring him with a piece from one of his albums for the postlude when the band is with us on March 3rd. Drummer/percussionist Ed Zajac is a working professional in town and plays on movie soundtracks and in pit orchestras for musicals. He is also a singer who has sung on the soundtracks of movies like Star Trek Beyond, Tomorrowland and Jurassic World. When I started at the church, I brought him over to see the facility, and after taking one look at the sanctuary, stated that we couldn’t put a drum set in the sanctuary – it would overwhelm the room. After several weeks of thought, he designed and created an ingenious kit that gets the flavor of a drum kit without the physical size or volume. Bassist Bryan Fougner, who also comes out to sing with our choir when he’s in town (and when the band isn’t playing) has toured with Pat Benatar and has shared the stage with bands like Kansas, Loverboy, STYX, Grand Funk Railroad, Joan Jett and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. My favorite story about Bryan is when he was playing with a Metallica tribute band. While he was onstage, during the concert, instead of tuning his in-ear monitor to the music of the band he was playing with, he had it tuned to the online bible study that my wife was conducting and would contribute his thoughts between songs. Guitarist Stan Ayeroff has been a friend and colleague for many years. Years ago, he hired me to provide singers for a Christmas party at the home of Gene Roddenberry and the dance band he provided was the Tonight Show band. He’s an acoustic guitar specialist but has played and recorded with Roger Daltry of The Who, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and has a YouTube channel where you can hear him playing solo pieces on his acoustic guitar. He was especially prolific on YouTube during the lockdown, and has published several books on guitar, including several books of arrangements - his book of arrangements of Christmas carols for classical guitar is considered to be definitive. I took Eileen to the Canyon Bistro in Topanga to hear him play for Mother’s Day a couple of years ago.

Hillsong Church is a Pentecostal megachurch based in Sydney, Australia. Founded by Brian and Bobbie Houston in August of 1983, the church grew to the point where the word “megachurch” is utterly redefined by them, with campuses in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Newcastle, Gold Coast and Noosa. In addition, they have international churches in London, Bermondsey (Greater London), Oxford, Guildford, Kent and Newcastle (United Kingdom), Cape Town and Pretoria (South Africa), Kiev (Ukraine), Paris, Lyon and Marseille (France), Konstanz and Duesseldorf (Germany), Stockholm, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Moscow, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey and 3 campuses in Arizona. The band Hillsong United was formed in 1998 from close friends within the Hillsong youth ministry (called “Powerhouse Youth”). So many songs were being written within the youth ministry that it was suggested they make an album. Their song Oceans was released in 2013 on their album Zion and was certified Platinum – 1,000,000 copies sold. It’s considered to be a “Top 10” song in the world of Christian contemporary music, and you can find it on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GGFb6LcX3U – if you’d like to listen to it. It’s a profound, contemplative song that invokes images of nature and spirituality.

Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1809 and was only 38 when he died in Leipzig in 1847. During that short period, he became one of the most renowned composers of his time and was responsible for renewing interest in the music of J.S. Bach. Today, we know him for his incidental music for the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream (within which is the tune we all know as the traditional “there goes the bride”, while the traditional “here comes the bride” tune was written by Richard Wagner for his opera Lohengrin) and the melody for Hark, The Herald Angels Sing. He was an admirer of the oratorios of Bach and Handel and organized the 1st performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion since Bach’s death. He was commissioned to write an oratorio for the Birmingham Festival in 1845, and created the oratorio Elijah, based on text by Julius Schubring. He wrote it twice, once in English for Birmingham, and then revised in German, being careful to make the music fit the intricacies of the languages. The Birmingham version was debuted August 26, 1846, and the German version was first performed on his birthday, February 3rd, 1848, a few months after his death. He Watching Over Israel is arguably the most famous chorus from the work, being #29 in the work and based on Psalm 121 and Psalm 138.

First Presbyterian Church Encino