Music Ministry Musings from Mary
Music Ministry Musings from Mary
This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples who were gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus ascended into heaven. Some call this feast day ‘the birthday of the Church’. Today we’ll be looking at some of the music for our service on Sunday.
This Sunday, for the first time since our Pandemic shut-down began in March, we will feature our first-ever ‘virtual anthem’, sung by members of the St. Thomas-Epiphany Choir. This project has been quite a journey for us, as we cannot obviously sing together at this time. We began working on it over six weeks ago, when I reached out to colleagues to learn how to do this technological project. I thought you might enjoy knowing what had to happen to create our short two minute anthem If ye love me by Thomas Tallis. Here are the steps: I made a recording on the piano of the choral parts, and sent it out to our section leaders. On this recording I counted a measure, then clapped another measure and then played the opening chord for another measure before beginning to play. They in turn listened to the recording on their computers with headphones while simultaneously singing their own part into their cell phone. They also clapped for the clapping measure. (This becomes important later on!) This way we captured just their parts without the piano. When we received their recordings back, Bill made four new recordings of each of them singing their part alone with the piano part. We then sent each section leader’s part to the choir members, who then repeated the process, listening to their section leader on their computers with headphones while singing along into their cell phones. Everyone had to clap with the clapping measure so that Bill could line up all their individual recordings for the final version. The clapping not only helps everyone with the tempo, it is visually very distinctive on the audio editing screen to help line everyone up.
As you can see, this is very different from all of us singing together! For many it involved multiple takes. As a choir we are used to breathing together and supporting each other with the music. To do this alone is a completely new experience. We finally got the last recordings back in this past weekend, and Bill spent about eight hours last Sunday putting them all together. We hope you enjoy listening to it on Sunday morning!
And now about the music itself! All of the music today centers around the Holy Spirit. Thomas Tallis was an English Renaissance composer for the Chapel Royal and was highly regarded in his day. His career spanned the tumultuous period of the English Reformation when England broke with the Catholic Church. During his career he had to navigate the changing faiths of Catholic and Reformed monarchs. Church music for the Catholic churches at the time was in Latin and involved quite intricate polyphony (many voices in counterpoint). During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, edicts went out to all churches that music must be in English and the music must be in simpler, more homophonic (hymn-like) style. Tallis was able to navigate these musically murky times with some of the most sublime music in our Anglican musical heritage. His simple anthem If ye love me is one of these treasures, a setting of the text from John 14:15-17:
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may ‘bide with you forever;
E’en the spirit of truth.
Our two hymns today also feature our new virtual technology. Our four section leaders and I put together for the first time these hymns with voices and organ, all of us working separately. We hope that these new hymn recordings will inspire you at home to sing along on Sunday mornings! Again, we owe a great deal of thanks to my husband Bill, who spends many evening and weekend hours editing and compiling all of the recordings you are hearing in our online worship.
The text of our first hymn (Hymnal #225), Hail thee, festival day is a translation of a 14th century Latin text, with music composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is a hymn loved by many, and has an unusual musical form, in that it has two different alternating melodies for the verses, with a unifying refrain knitting it all together. Have a listen to the refrain and first two verses sung by our section leaders by viewing the video. Likewise, you can also hear our final hymn, Gracious Spirit, give your servants (WLP 782) a text written in 1996 for the Consecration of Bishop Andrew D. Smith of Connecticut and set to the much loved tune Abbot’s Leigh, composed by Anglican priest Cyril Vincent Taylor in 1941.
