Jim Raycroft 8/25/24 Jim Raycroft 8/25/24

Music Notes 8-25-24

Charles Wesley, the co-founder of the Methodist movement, wrote the text for Christ the Lord Is Risen Today in 1739 where it was initially titled Hymn for Easter Day. The new hymn was first performed at the first service at The Foundery Meeting House after Wesley had adapted it into the first Methodist chapel. Following this, Wesley published it in the Hymns and Sacred Poems hymnal of 1739, initially with eleven verses of four lines each. The hymn was subsequently published in the hymnal A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists, and in 1754, it appeared in Harmonia Sacra, a hymnal compiled by Thomas Butts. When Christ, the Lord, is ris'n today was published by Thomas Butts in his 1754 hymnal Harmonia Sacra, it was paired with the tune Maccabaeus. The rousing melody was originally composed by George Frideric Handel, initially for his 1747 oratorio Joshua, and later added to his 1746 oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. This choice of a militaristic theme was intended to reinforce the metaphorical depiction of the resurrected Christ as a victorious warrior who has vanquished death and the powers of evil. Today, this tune is popularly associated with the 1923 hymn Thine Be the Glory. Today there are two tunes commonly used for Christ the Lord Is Risen Today: these are Easter Hymn and Llanfair. Easter Hymn, the most used tune for the hymn, was originally titled The Resurrection and published anonymously in Lyra Davidica in 1708. Despite being anonymous, over time it has been misattributed to J. W. Worgan, Henry Carey and George Frideric Handel. The writer James T. Lightwood said of it: "there is probably no tune in Christendom so universally sung on any festal day as the Easter hymn, with its rolling "Hallelujah", on Easter morning.” Christ the Lord Is Risen Today also gained popularity as a children's hymn by editors of children's hymnals. This was attributed to the tune being easy to learn despite the complex language within the text. In our hymnal, the Easter Hymn tune is paired with the slightly altered lyrics “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”. Llanfair is the tune we use in our hymnal and was written by Robert Williams in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey, Wales (the tune was named after the town). This hymn tune was harmonized by the Director of Music of University College, Oxford, David Evans in 1927.

The lyrics to Christ Is Risen! Shout Hosanna! were written by Brian Wren, an English hymn poet and writer in 1984 and incorporates the well-known melody from the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – Ode To Joy, also known as “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”. Wren’s hymn has been published in 23 different hymnals, and the Ode To Joy melody has shown up in over 450 hymnals. The 9th Symphony was not Beethoven’s last work, but it is certainly his largest and most well-known. Completed in 1824, it is considered to be a masterpiece of western classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. Even more remarkable is the fact that Beethoven was almost completely deaf when it was being written and not only never heard it performed (he was at the performance and sort of conducted – he stood in front of the conductor’s podium and waved his arms in the air), but he didn’t know the audience was applauding at the end, and the contralto soloist had to turn him around to see the adulation of the audience. He was given 5 standing ovations with hats and handkerchiefs in the air, as they knew he couldn’t hear the applause. The symphony is a staple of most symphony orchestras, and personally, I’ve sung it probably 35-40 times. Roger Wagner used to tell the story of the great conductor Otto Klemperer, when asked how many times he had conducted the piece, he replied, “Oh, about a thousand times.” Roger asked him if he ever got tired of it, and Klemperer replied that every time he studied the score, he saw something new.

Jim Raycroft 8/18/24 Jim Raycroft 8/18/24

Music Notes 8-18-24

Tracy Saliefendic began singing in church when her mother was directing the childrens choir. She then sang in school choirs until high school and discovered her love of performing in her senior year when she was the “Day by Day” disciple in her schools production of Godspell. While studying music at Pierce College she sang in a rock band with her future husband playing guitar. She then dabbled in classical voice lessons but it was when her husband surprised her by taking her to see Don Giovanni at LA Opera that she realized she wanted to sing opera. She went back to school at USC and studied with Judith Natalucci. She sang in the LA Opera Chorus for 3 years and did apprentiships with Glimmerglass Opera and Utah Festival Opera before starting a solo career that included singing Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) with Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana) with Santa Barbara Opera; Leonora (Il Trovatore) with Opera South (Ireland); Gertrude Stein (The Mother of Us All) with Glimmerglass Opera; Tosca with West Bay Opera (Palo Alto) and Intimate Opera (Pasadena); Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera) with Bel Canto Opera (Santa Monica); Lady in Waiting (Macbeth) with Florida Grand Opera; Inez (Il Trovatore) with Virginia Opera as well as soprano soloist in the Verdi Requiem and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Los Robles Master Chorale and the Ventura Master Chorale. She has also appeared in concert with the San Bernardino Symphony in a concert of Mozart arias. Since 2007 she has been the soprano section leader/soloist at the First Presbyterian Church of Encino and has performed several recitals as well as The 1st & 2nd Penny & Tracy Shows in 2014 & 2015.

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. His Magnificat, written in 1723 and revised 10 years later, is also universally revered as a masterwork. Roughly 30 minutes in length, it has 12 movements that include pieces for chorus and soloists. This week’s anthem is the 5th movement duet Et misericordia – “And mercy…”, sung by our own Jose and Tracy.

Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace is also commonly known as the Prayer of St. Francis. However, it was almost certainly not written by St. Francis. The true author is unknown and it was more probably written around the time of the outbreak of World War One. It is also incorrectly called the Serenity Prayer of St. Francis. The Serenity Prayer is, in fact, a different prayer from the 20th century written by Reinhold Neibuhr. Sebastian Temple adapted the words in 1967 to create the hymn that we know now.

Jim Raycroft 8/11/24 Jim Raycroft 8/11/24

Music Notes 8-11-24

This week we have all four of our wonderful section leaders assisting with the service, and we welcome back Kylie, who has been buried in the “Cone of Silence” – taking time off from singing while her vocal cords healed.

How Great Thou Art took quite a while to get here, and went through several versions before ending up in the form we all know. The poem "O Store Gud" (O Great God) was written in 1885 by Swedish poet Carl Boberg in Mönsterås, Sweden. He said at the time that it was a paraphrase of Psalm 8. The poem was then matched to an old Swedish folk tune and sung in public for the first time in 1888. It was then translated into German as "Wie groß bist Du" (How Great are You) by wealthy Baptist nobleman Manfred von Glehn, after which it became very popular in Germany. In 1912 it became “Великий Бог” (Great God in Russian), produced by Ivan S. Prokhanov, called “The Martin Luther of Russia”. The first English translation was written by E. Gustav Johnson, who was a professor at North Park College in Illinois, in 1925. The version we know began its life when Stuart K. Hine heard the Russian version while on an evangelical mission to the Ukraine in 1931. He began translating it and using it in his evangelical services, adding the 4th verse after the 2nd World War in 1948. It became a monster, however, when it was discovered in London in 1954 by the Billy Graham Crusade. They sang it for the 1st time in Toronto in 1955, but when they took it to Madison Square Gardens in 1957, they sang it over 100 times, because the people wouldn’t let them stop.

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.

Now Thank We All Our God is a popular Christian hymn. Catherine Winkworth translated it from the German Nun danket alle Gott, written around 1636 by the Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart. Its hymn tune, Zahn No. 5142, was published by composer Johann Crüger in the 1647 edition of his Lutheran hymnal Praxis Pietatis Melica. Martin Rinkart was a Lutheran pastor who came to Eilenburg, Saxony, at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. The walled city of Eilenburg became the refuge for political and military fugitives, but the result was overcrowding, deadly pestilence and famine. Armies overran it three times. The Rinkart home was a refuge for the victims, even though he was often hard-pressed to provide for his own family. During the height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor in Eilenburg, conducting as many as 50 funerals in a day. He performed more than 4000 funerals in that year, including that of his wife. Rinkart was a prolific hymn writer. In Rinkart's Jesu Hertz-Buchlein (Leipzig, 1636), "Nun danket alle Gott" appears under the title "Tisch-Gebetlein", as a short prayer before meals. Composer Johann Crüger was active during the 1600’s, living most of his adult life in Berlin, working as a teacher in a Gymnasium (basically, a college prep high school) and as cantor at the Nicolaikirche, the oldest church in Berlin. In addition to numerous concert works and editing the hymnal Praxis Pietatis Melica, the most important Lutheran hymnal of its time, he also wrote the tune to Johann Franck’s hymn Jesu, Meine Freude (in English, Jesus, My Joy), and Rinkart’s Nun danket alle Gott, which was set to it’s now standard harmonization by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 when he used it for the chorale for his Symphony #2. Translator Catherine Winkworth was born in London and spent a year in Dresden, Germany, where she took an interest in German hymnody. She published several books of translations of classic German hymns, including From Heaven Above to Earth I Come (Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her, Martin Luther, 1534), Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying (Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, Philipp Nicolai, 1599), How Brightly Beams the Morning Star! (Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, Nicolai, 1597), and the Christmas hymn A Spotless Rose (Es ist ein Ros entsprungen), known in our hymnal as Lo, How A Rose E’re Blooming. According to The Harvard University Hymn Book, Winkworth “did more than any other single individual to make the rich heritage of German hymnody available to the English-speaking world”.

Jim Raycroft 8/4/24 Jim Raycroft 8/4/24

Music Notes 8-4-24

This August marks the end of an era – Jose is leaving us, at least from his position as section leader. He’s been promoted at work and his job is becoming sufficiently demanding that he’s been having trouble balancing his job and his time with us. He’s promised us that he’ll still be around – we’ll see him again at the end of August – and I’m determined to get him to sing for us from time to time, when his job allows. So please take a moment to thank him after the service for his dedication and commitment to our worship. We’ll miss you, Jose!

Jose Meza holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance and a Masters in Music Industry Administration from California State University, Northridge. Some of his performed soloist concert repertoire include: Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, Handel’s Messiah & Dettingen te Deum, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bach’s Magnificat & Wachet auf, Schubert's Mass in G, and Mozart’s Requiem. José has received the Desert Opera Theater Scholarship and the David & Judith Scott Voice Scholarship. He has also been a winner in the Pasadena Schubertiade Lieder Competition and in the Center Stage Opera Vocal Competition. José has participated in summer programs with Opera San José, Angels Vocal Art, and CSU Summer Arts. Currently, Jose is the Education Programs Manager at Los Angeles Master Chorale and leads The Sunday Night Singers, a non-profit community choir in Palmdale, CA. He has been the tenor section leader at First Presbyterian Church, Encino since January 2018.

In 1971, Jacqueline Kennedy commissioned Leonard Bernstein to write a piece for the opening ceremonies of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. Initially, he intended to write a traditional Mass, but ultimately chose to create a more innovative format. Its official title is MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers. It was intended to be staged but is often presented in a standard concert presentation. The liturgical parts are in Latin, but there are additional texts in English written by Bernstein, Broadway composer Stephen Schwarz and Paul Simon. It premiered on September 8, 1971, conducted by Maurice Peress. A Simple Song is the second piece in the work, following the opening Kyrie Eleison, and is sung by “The Celebrant”.

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 Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone was part of the album See The Morning, his 4th studio album that was released in 2006 and arguably was the album that established him as one of the bright lights of the contemporary Christian music world. In this song, he takes the beloved classic and adds a “chorus” to it, treating the words of Amazing Grace as if they were the verses.

The text to Blest Be The Tie That Binds was written in 1782 by John Fawcett, a self-educated orphan who was apprenticed to a tailor, but was called to preaching at the age of 16. He was preaching at a small Baptist country church in Wainsgate, Yorkshire, England when he wrote the words to this familiar hymn. Lowell Mason, who we all know from his setting of Joy To The World, was an American musician and banker (!) who wrote an arrangement of the tune we know and attributed it to Swiss composer Johann Nageli. The resulting hymn has been published in 2,273 hymnals around the world.

Jim Raycroft 7/28/24 Jim Raycroft 7/28/24

Music Notes 7-28-24

This is the last week we get to hear our faithful choir for a while. They get the month of August off and we’ll get to hear them again on September 8th, the Sunday after Labor Day. During the month of August, our section leaders will be filling the gaps, and I’ll take the Sunday of Labor Day weekend so they can take that weekend off. Please take a moment to thank our wonderful choir. Our visiting pastor last week came over to me after the service and said, “You’re doing really good things here!” I know. He said that he’s hearing gossip around the Presbytery about us. It’s all thanks to the faithful members of our choir and staff who contribute their time and talents week after week so our worship can be elevated. Thanks, folks. It’s truly a pleasure.

People Need The Lord is a ballad by Greg Nelson and Phill McHugh written in 1983 and recorded by Steve Green. Greg Nelson is a composer/arranger/orchestrator who is also a Nashville record producer with 20 Dove (Christian Music) awards and has produced 13 gold records and 7 platinum records. He gave People Need The Lord to singer Steve Green, who released it on his self-titled album in 1984. It is now considered to be a Christian classic, and I thought it would make a nice duet.

The lyrics to the classic hymn Praise Ye The Lord, The Almighty were written in 1680 by Joachim Neander, who was born in Bremen in 1650. His text, Lobe Den Herren (Praise to the Lord), was written very near to the end of his life and was translated into English by Catherine Winkworth in 1863. She was born in 1827 in London, was initially educated by her mother and lived with relatives in Dresden, Germany in 1845, where she learned German and developed an interest in German hymnody. Upon returning to England, she began translating German hymns into English. Her translations are known as polished and yet don’t stray too far away from the original text. She translated over 400 hymns and Praise To The Lord, The Almighty appears in over 300 hymnals around the world. The melody first appeared in 1665 in the German hymnbook Stralsund Ernewerten Gesangbuch and was harmonized into the hymn tune we know now by Sir William Sterndale Bennett. Bennett was born in Sheffield, England, in 1816 and studied first at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1826, and then in Leipzig, Germany, in 1836. The hymn, in the form we know now, first appeared in The Chorale Book For England in 1863, and has appeared in over 40 hymnals.

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.

Jim Raycroft 7/21/24 Jim Raycroft 7/21/24

Music Notes 7-21-24

Jester Hairston was a local treasure. One of the most recognizable names in the world of spirituals, Jester was born the grandson of slaves, who worked the Hairston Plantation in Belews Creek, North Carolina. His parents moved to Homestead, PA (outside Pittsburgh), where he graduated high school. He then studied at, as one of the first black individuals admitted, and graduated from Tufts College outside Boston in 1929. He sang with the Hall Johnson Choir in Harlem for a while, but was almost fired because of his Boston accent (Johnson told him “we’re singing ain’t and cain’t, and you’re singing shahn’t and cahn’t – they don’t mix!”). His work on Broadway with that choir took him to Hollywood, where he began working regularly on movies, television and radio. He began writing and arranging, especially spirituals, with Mary’s Little Boy Child composed in 1956. Most of us have seen the movie Lilies of the Field (1963), starring Sidney Poitier. Those wonderful scenes where Sidney is singing “Amen, amen, amen”, which he teaches to the nuns – that song was composed and arranged by Jester for the movie, and Sidney’s singing isn’t Sidney – it’s Jester. Jester lived out his life in Los Angeles, traveling all over the world teaching and conducting and spreading the word of spirituals. He also worked as an actor in front of the camera, in such movies as The Alamo, To Kill A Mockingbird and In The Heat Of The Night, to name a few. Many of the singers in town were his protégés, and “Jester stories” abound at local music events. We lost Jester on January 18, 2000, at the age of 98, and most of the musical world in Los Angeles attended the funeral service. Our anthem this week, Give Me Jesus, is one of his classics.

In the spring of 1863, Folliott S. Pierpoint, born in Somerset, England in 1835, sat on a hilltop outside his native city of Bath, England, admiring the country view and the winding Avon River. Inspired by the view to think about God’s gifts in creation, he wrote this text for For The Beauty Of The Earth. He was educated at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and periodically taught classics at Somersetshire College. But because he had received an inheritance, he didn’t need a regular teaching position and could afford the leisure of personal study and writing. His 3 volumes of poetry were collected in 1878. He contributed hymns to The Hymnal Noted (1852) and Lyra Eucharistica (1864). The text of For The Beauty Of The Earth has been set to music by numerous composers over the years, adapted for our hymnal to an 1838 chorale tune by German composer Conrad Kocher (1786-1872) and more recently and notably set to music by English composer John Rutter. For The Beauty Of The Earth is the only Pierpoint hymn still sung today.

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.

Jim Raycroft 7/14/24 Jim Raycroft 7/14/24

Music Notes 7-14-24

Andrew Lloyd Webber has become an icon in the world of theatrical music, writing his first pieces, a suite of 6 pieces, at the age of nine. Over the years he has written 21 musicals (several of which have run for over a decade both on the West End of London and on Broadway), a song cycle, a set of variations, 2 film scores and a Latin Requiem Mass. The Requiem was written during 1984 in memory of his father, William Lloyd Webber, a composer and organist. It was premiered in 1985, conducted by Lorin Maazel, with soloists Placido Domingo, Sarah Brightman (Webber’s wife at the time) and boy soprano Paul Miles-Kingston. It contained elements of his melodic, pop-oriented style with more angular, austere musical environments. The recording proved to be quite popular, although the piece is seldom performed live, partially due to the large forces needed and the fact that the vocal writing is very tricky and demanding. The Requiem debuted in Los Angeles in 1986 at the Shrine Theatre. It was the backdrop for the American Ballet Theatre, under the leadership of Mikhael Baryshnikov. I was singing with the Roger Wagner Chorale at the time, and we were hired to be the pit choir for the performance. It turned out that the iconic Pie Jesu was choreographed and danced by Baryshnikov himself, and subsequently, none of us were paying much attention to the conductor (our eyes were glued to the stage – we had, after all, the best seats in the house). The Pie Jesu features both the soprano soloist, the boy soprano (although this week we’re substituting a real soprano) and the choir. Probably the most popular piece in the Requiem, the Pie Jesu is, for my money, also the best piece of music in the work.

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."

All Creatures Of Our God And King is a hymn written by William Henry Draper, based on a poem by St. Francis of Assisi written in 1225 in his poem Canticle of the Sun, which was based on Psalm 148. William Henry Draper was rector at a Church of England parish in Abel, near Leeds. He paraphrased St. Francis’ poem and set it to music sometime between 1899 and 1919 (the exact date is unknown). It was written for his church’s children’s Pentecost celebrations, and was first published in 1919 in The Public School Hymn Book. It is usually associated with the tune Lass Uns Erfreuen, a German Easter hymn published by Friedrich Spee in 1623 in his book Auserlesene Catholische Geistliche Kirchengesäng. The most famous arrangement of the melody was written by Ralph Vaughn Williams in 1906 when he was on the committee for the Church of England hymnal. At last count, it has been published in 264 hymnals.

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

Music Notes 7-7-24

This week we have our wonderful band with us, and our anthem is a tune I have had on the brain for literally decades. Back in 1999, The New Covenant Singers, the contemporary choir from Bel Air Presbyterian Church, came to my wife’s church (St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Granada Hills) as guest artists and asked if our resident band could accompany them on their anthem piece. I orchestrated it for them, and lost track of the choral score. Finally, a couple of months ago, after a lot of detective work, I discovered the song had been written by Dan Adler. Dan and his wife run a coffee house/performing space/ministry in Minneapolis. The piece was out of print, but I contacted Dan, and he gave me a copy of the choral score and the brass parts that were on the recording (you can hear it on YouTube). The piece, It Is Good, is a calypso tune that was released on the album What We Really Need by his band the Heart of the City Worship Band and is so infectious, it makes you want to dance in the aisles.

You Raise Me Up was originally composed by the Norwegian-Irish duo Secret Garden and was initially an instrumental titled Silent Story. Composer Rolf Løvland approached Irish novelist/songwriter Brendan Graham to write the lyrics (which probably appealed to Graham due to the similarity between the tune and the tune for the Irish folk song Danny Boy). It was released in 2002 on Secret Garden’s album Once In A Red Moon, sung by Irish singer Brian Kennedy, and sold well in Ireland and Norway. In 2003, David Foster decided to produce the song and chose young up-and-coming singer Josh Groban to sing it. It was released on the album Closer in 2003 and rose to #1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Chart in early 2004, where it remained for 6 weeks.

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.

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 and was released in 2014 on the album The Art Of Celebration.

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.

Bob Marley was a Jamaican composer/singer/recording artist who became a world-renowned cultural icon and synonymous with Jamaica and reggae music. In fact, today Jamaica still uses his song One Love in their tourism ads. He was born in 1945 and fused reggae, ska and rocksteady styles of music into his compositions. He started his career with his band The Wailers in 1963, which released some of the earliest reggae recordings. When the band disbanded in 1974, he moved to England and embarked on a solo career with the 1977 release of his mega-hit album Exodus. It had 4 hit singles – Exodus, Jamming, Waiting In Vain and One Love. It went stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks, sold 75 million records and established him as one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. He tragically died young, at the age of 36, of melanoma in Miami in 1981.

Jim Raycroft 6/30/24 Jim Raycroft 6/30/24

Music Notes 6-30-24

Next week, on the 4th of July weekend, we’ll be welcoming back our wonderful band. The musical menu will include music to uplift your soul, and music that will make you want to dance. So, spread the word – FPCE is the place to be Sunday mornings!

Wade In The Water is a negro spiritual that belongs to the genre “code songs”. Slaves were not allowed to congregate, for fear of fomenting revolution, but they were allowed to sing in the fields, as long as the lyrics weren’t too revolutionary. Biblical subjects were considered relatively safe, which gave birth to the “spiritual”. However, the slaves got past the problem of disallowed communication with code songs, which were spirituals that had a secondary meaning. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot referred to the town of Ripley, West Virginia, which was a station in the underground railroad. Slaves would make their way to the banks of the Ohio River and wait for the people of Ripley to come across in rowboats at night to take them to safety – “Well, I looked over Jordan and what I did I see….a band of angels comin’ after me…”. Wade In The Water was a code song that told the listener that there were slave hunters or bounty hunters ahead, and to go in the opposite direction. Harriet Tubman used the song to remind escaping slaves to get off the trail and into the water so that the dogs employed by slavers lost the trail. This groovy arrangement by Mark Hayes is immensely fun to sing. 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. The feel of the stride piano in this arrangement evokes the nightclubs of the 20’s and 30’s – I’ve been telling the choir to imagine themselves in the “Ink and Paint Club” (from Who Framed Roger Rabbit) or the nightclub from the Harry Potter prequel movie Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.

Sarah McLachlan is a Canadian singer/songwriter known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range. As of 2015 she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians on an unprecedented scale. The Lilith Fair concert tours took place from 1997 to 1999, and resumed in the summer of 2010. She also funds an outreach program in Vancouver that provides music education for inner city children. In 2007, the provincial government announced $500,000 in funding for the outreach program. Originating at the "Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach", this program evolved into the Sarah McLachlan School of Music. This program provided children with high quality music instruction in guitar, piano, percussion and choir. In 2011 McLachlan opened the Sarah McLachlan School of Music in Vancouver, a free music school for at-risk youth. The School of Music provides group and private lessons to hundreds of young people every year. It is their goal that through music education, students will develop a love of the arts and have greater self-esteem. On May 25, 2016, the Sarah McLachlan School of Music expanded to Edmonton, Alberta (my hometown), opening in Rundle Elementary School and Eastglen High School. The music school contains the same initiative as the Vancouver school. Her version of The Prayer of St. Francis, simple and meditative, was released in 2015 on the album Surfacing, noted above as her best-selling album to date.

Jim Raycroft 6/23/24 Jim Raycroft 6/23/24

Music Notes 6-23-24

What began as a Gregorian chant that some music scholars believe originated before the formation of the Catholic Mass, Ubi Caritas ("Where Charity Is") has evolved into many iterations and compositions. The actual origin of the chant is unknown and ambiguous, although musicologists and researchers believe it was written between 300 and 1100 CE. Today Ubi Caritas is performed in a variety of settings and traditions, including its typical use as an antiphon during the Catholic Church's washing of feet ceremony. That ceremony is performed on Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), which is the Thursday before Easter Sunday commemorating the Last Supper where Jesus's washed his disciples' feet. Ubi Caritas is also sometimes performed during Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Perhaps one of the most popular compositions of Ubi Caritas is by Maurice Duruflé. Maurice Gustave Duruflé was a French composer, born in Louvier in 1902. After studying with a variety of famous French composers, he ended up as assistant to organist/composer Louis Vierne at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, and was named the titular organist at St-Étienne-du-Mont. His most renowned works were his Requiem Mass, which received its North American premier right here in Los Angeles under the baton of renowned conductor Roger Wagner, and his settings of four motets based on Gregorian chants. Duruflé composed the arrangement of Ubi Caritas in 1960 as part of his Quatre motets sur des thèmes grégoriens, Op. 10, by using only the first stanza of the original chant. He also used the chant's original melody, layering and weaving it into a sublime, polyphonic, and understated choral work. Ubi Caritas is one of the “Top 10” choral works for a cappella choir and is basically part of every choral singer’s repertoire. I remember singing it at the spur of the moment in the Sony Studios scoring stage for film composer Jerry Goldsmith after we recorded the music for the movie First Knight.

In This Very Room is considered to be one of the all-time “Top 10” modern Christian songs. It was written by Los Angeles-based composer Ron Harris, who, at the time, was music director for Carol Lawrence. Over coffee at Starbucks one day, he told me the story of how he was on the road with Carol, and had been away from home for over a month. He was in New Orleans, and had just gotten off a one hour phone call to his wife. He was sitting on the bed of his hotel room, feeling lonely and miserable, and, looking around at the walls of the room, suddenly came to the realization that there was more to the room than just the 4 walls. Pulling out his electronic keyboard, he began writing a melody to the words that had popped into his head - “In this very room there’s quite enough love for one like me….” It’s been performed as a solo, as a choral work, with piano, with orchestra, a cappella, and to date, is known to have been sung in the Upper Room – the room generally accepted to be the room where the Last Supper took place – at least twice.

One Thing Remains is a song that was written in 2010 by Brian Johnson, Jeremy Riddle and Christa Black Gifford. It was recorded and released as part of the live album Come Away, which was recorded at the 2010 Jesus Culture Encounter Conference. The Jesus Culture Conference began as part of the youth group of Bethel Church in Redding, California, with the first conference being held in 1999 and attracting 500 attendees. Since then, it has grown into a musical force for worship with a full time staff of dozens and a discography that numbers 33 albums. It recently expanded to Sacramento, where they meet at Folsom High School. One Thing Remains has been covered by numerous artists, including Kristian Stanfill, Israel Houghton and Chris Tomlin.

Jim Raycroft 6/16/24 Jim Raycroft 6/16/24

Music Notes 6-16-24

Father’s Eyes is the title track of the album My Father’s Eyes, written by Gary Chapman and released in 1979 by 19-year-old Amy Grant. It was her 2nd studio album, released on Myrrh Records, and was a turning point in her career. The title track gave her her 1st Christian Top 10 hit, as well as the Christian Top 10 hit Faith Walkin’ People. The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Performance, Contemporary, and was certified Gold in 1987. I’m always on the lookout for good songs for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and was delighted to find this one.

Total Praise is a powerhouse gospel ballad by Richard Smallwood, who is a legend in gospel music circles. It’s best to let him tell the story: “In October 1995, my mother was ill, my godbrother was terminally ill, and I was a caregiver, going from the hospital to my house, taking care of everything. Caregiving is a very difficult thing to do. It’s time-consuming, and if you don’t watch out, you’ll end up in the hospital, too. I also began to feel that I wasn’t doing enough for my loved ones. I felt helpless and inadequate in what I was doing. At the same time, I had just founded Vision and was starting early rehearsals in preparation for a recording the beginning of that next year, 1996. I was coming up with music for the album, so from time to time, I would sit at the piano and fiddle around and see what I could come up with. I don’t remember specifically trying to write a song that day in October. I just sat down at the piano in my living room and started playing, and Total Praise just started coming out. I remember distinctly recognizing that it was a praise song, in terms of a theme, but I was trying to pull it back the other way and go into a pity party kind of song: “Lord, I will lift mine eyes to the hills, I know you’re my help, so I need you to hold me, to dry my tears”- that kind of thing. But the more I pulled it that way, the more it pulled the other way, in terms of praise.

I thought, “This is a song we probably could use. Let me see if I can’t finish it.” I wrote Total Praise pretty fast - in an hour or an hour and a half. I was putting it down on my cassette recorder, which was sitting on my piano. I could hear the amens in my head, but I wanted to hear them back at me. I had a four-track cassette player on which you could record separate tracks. I recorded the amens on it so I could make sure the harmony was what I was hearing in my head. It took about a half hour to record the amens. But at the rehearsal, we couldn’t move on from the song. After I taught it and we sang it, I remember God coming through and stopping the rehearsal. The same thing happened the following year, in Atlanta, during the sound check the day before the recording. Total Praise was to be the opening song for the recording. I’m not sure why I put it first; it was just a good opening. It was sort of a new chapter for me. I’d done the Smallwood Singers for almost fifteen years, and this was the first time I had done a choral ensemble aggregation. So, I thought it would just sort of set the tone. But it was even hard to move past it the night we recorded it.”

Total Praise has become a “Top 10” standard in the world of gospel music, has been covered by just about everybody, from Patti LaBelle to Destiny’s Child, and was sung on the White House lawn for President Obama and Pope Francis.

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.

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. Today, Matt and his wife, Beth, are members of St. Peter’s Church in Brighton, England and have 5 children.

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.

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.

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.

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 Oceans was released in 2013 on their album Zion and was certified Platinum – 1,000,000 copies sold.

First Presbyterian Church Encino