Current Sunday Service Music & Schedule

Click below for past programming.
2011-12 / 2010-11 / 2009-10 / 2008-09 / 2007-08 / 2006-07 / 2005-06 / 2004-05 /
2003-04 2002-03 / 2001-02 / 1991-92 / 1978-79 / 1966-67 / 1964-65
Early History of Music at First Parish 1733-1964

Adult Choir Rehearsal Schedule : 8-9:30pm Thursdays (except school vacations) - NEW MEMBERS WELCOME, grades 8-adult
Chalice Singers Youth Choir Rehearsal Schedule : 5:30-7pm most Thursdays in September-March; Noon-2pm most Sundays in Spring - NEW MEMBERS WELCOME, grades 2-8
Intergenerational Family Orchestra Rehearsal Schedule : 12:15-1pm, performing in 1 service per month from November-March - NEW MEMBERS WELCOME grades 7-adult

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2012 Music Schedule

• Composer Centenaries: Nancarrow, Weisgall, Cage, Raksin, Françaix
• 150: Boëllmana, Debussy, Delius
• More: Thalberg (200), Sweelinck (450), John Bull (450)

January 7 Silent Retreat

January 8, 2012
"Am I My Sister's Keeper?" Rev. Marta Flanagan
UUlations in Needham

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Frobisher Bay arr. Diane Loomer
• Offertory: Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening by Randall Thompson
  OR In my Room by Brian Wilson
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 55

January 15 Worship Associates on Race and Class
(MLK Day observed on Monday, Jan. 16)

• NO ADULT CHOIR
• Service Music: Somebody's Mother and First Parish Jazz
• Hymns & Readings: 55

January 21 Blood Drive

• Chalice Singers Performance - Songs from Annie & February Songs
• Adult Choir Performance - Selections from music for January & February

January 22
"Setting Your Goal and Aspirations" Rev. Marta Flanagan
Possible all-Parish meeting Noon-2pm

• Prelude: Organ &
  (at 9:58am, after chime) Glimpse of Snow and Evergreen by Vijay Singh
• Candle Music: O, For the Wings of a Dove by Felix Mendelssohn
  soprano solo
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 55

January 29
Leaf Seligman, guest preacher

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: To be sung I by Frederick Delius (1861-)
  In celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birthday
• Anthem: Zambian praise song
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 55

February 5
Stewardship Kickoff

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: O Raise Me Up, a mashup by Laura Prichard
  (You Raise Me Up by Rolf Løvland/Brendan Graham (based on O Danny Boy)
• Offertory:
• Anthem: We Rise Again by L. Dubinsky, arr. S. Smith
• Postlude: Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder
• Hymns & Readings:

February 12, 2012
"Living Heroes and Heroines" Guest Speaker Michelle Deakin

• Prelude: Call to Remembrance by Richard Farrant
  Online score - http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/farr-ca1.pdf
  Online midi practice file - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/farr-ca1.mid
  
• Chalice Singers: I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly
• Candle Music: I Love All Beauteous Things by Herbert Howells
• Offertory: Piano
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 57

February 13 Event: Sarah Haera Tocco Recital
Winchester Music School

February 16
Kenneth Seitz: guest conductor for Adult Choir rehearsal

February 19
Guest Preacher Marjorie Jones
Co-Director, Dept. of Education, Lesley U.
Teacher of "Cultural Diversity: the African-American Experience"
http://www.boston.com/jobs/advice/careerdevelopment/fallregistration09/seven_careers/
(President's Day is Feb. 20; Winter vacation week)

• NO CHOIR
• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Seasons of Love by Larsen
  Small group or solo
• Offertory: Organ
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 57

February 26, 2012
Guest Preacher/Neutral Pulpit
(First Sunday in Lent) (Birthday of composer Frank Bridge)

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Surge Illuminare from the second volume of Gradualia (1607) by William Byrd (c1540-1623)
  Small Chamber Choir
  Online score - http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/9a/BYRD-SUR.pdf
  Online midi practice file - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/5/57/BYRD-SUR.mid
  Translation: "Arise, shine, O people, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Alleluia." (Isaiah 60:1)
  Notes: The greatest English composer of his generation, Byrd was a versatile musician. He remained a Catholic during times of persecution in England, even though all of his Latin-language motets were banned in England after the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. He also served as a member of the Chapel Royal under the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, providing music for the liturgy of the Church of England which has been sung continuously in English cathedrals for the last 400 years. Biographical website on Byrd: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/byrd.ph
• Offertory: Excerpt from A Pushkin Wreath by Gyorgy Sviridov
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 57

March 2-3

• Chalice Singers Enrichment Trip - Boston Baroque plays Mozart in Jordan Hall

March 4, 2012 Youth Sunday
Youth Group projects this year focus on Homelessness
possible Lay Ministry Testimonial

• NO ADULT CHOIR
• Service Music: Chosen and provided by the First Parish (HS) Youth Group
• Hymns & Readings:

March 11
"Immigration Reform: Thoughts on Wandering and Invisibility"
Rev. Marta Flanagan
Daylight Savings Time, Lay Ministry Testimonial

• Prelude:
• Candle Music:
• Offertory:
• Anthem: Motets by Juan Navarro (c.1560 - after 1604)
  Navarro was Spanish composer and Franciscan monk who went to Mexico, and his 1604 volume of Passion and Lamentation settings was one of the first music publications to appear in the New World. He was a notable early composer of the Andalusian school and predecessor of Guerrero and his great teacher, Morales. During the long reigns of Charles V (1517-56) and Philip II (1556-96) Spanish music, especially church music, reached its highest level of perfection and there was no lack of expert musicians of international calibre. Instrumental music, especially for organ and vihuela, attained an excellence equal to anything being produced in Europe while Spanish religious polyphony, which had distinctive individual qualities, was in the very first rank not only in its spiritual intensity but also in its musical achievement. Three great schools contributed to the astonishing wealth of Spanish religious music in this period: Castile, Catalonia-Aragon, and Andalusia.
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

March 15
Kenneth Seitz: guest conductor for Adult Choir rehearsal

March 17 Blood Drive

• Chalice Singers & Adult Choir Performance - Ethnic Music & songs from Hymnody of Earth (for 3/25)

March 18, 2012
"On Abstinence and Choice" Rev. Marta Flanagan

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Vesi Vasyy Lumen Alle (Water under Snow is Weary) by Eha Lattemae and Harri Wessman (1949-)
• Offertory:
• Anthem: new work by Kenneth Seitz
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:
  

March 25, 2012 Music Service
"Finding the Sacred in Nature: The Writings of Wendell Berry"
Possible all-Parish meeting Noon-2pm

• Hymnody of Earth
  Notes on the text - Poet and conservationist Wendell Berry was born in Newcastle, Kentucky in 1934. Berry's father and Robert Rodale contributed to the founding of the organic farming movement: following their examples, Wendell uses only farm animals to work his fields and organic methods of fertilization and pest control. In 1958, Berry received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and attended Stanford University's creative writing program, where he studied with Stegner in a seminar that included Larry McMurtry, Edward Abbey and Ken Kesey. His writing is grounded in the notion that one's work ought to be responsive to one's natural environment. In 1964, he and his wife Tanya purchased the Kentucky farm close to his parents' birth places, and in 1965 moved onto the land to become organic farmers (of tobacco, corn and small grains) on what would eventually become a 125-acre homestead.
  Berry was granted a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, which took him and his family to Italy and France in 1961. From 1962 to 1964, he taught English at New York University’s University College in the Bronx. From 1964-77, he began teaching creative writing at the University of Kentucky. In the 1970s and early 1980s he served as an editor of, and wrote many articles for, Rodale Press publications including Organic Gardening and Farming and The New Farm. In 1987, he returned to the University of Kentucky, teaching literature and education. Today he still lives, writes, and farms at Lane's Landing near Port Royal, Kentucky, alongside the Kentucky River, not far from where it flows into the Ohio. He is a prolific author, with at least twenty-five books (or chapbooks) of poems (A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997), sixteen volumes of essays (The Failure of War, 1999), and eleven novels and short story collections to his name. His poetic voice is direct and resonant, indebted to Whitman and William Carlos Williams.
  
• Prelude:
• Candle Music: Finches from Hymnody of Earth by Malcolm Dalglish
  Sound file: http://prichard.net/fpuua/FPApracticefiles2004.html
  Text by Kentucky Poet Wendell Berry:
  The ears stung with cold
  sun and frost of dawn
  in early April, comes
  
  the song of winter finches,
  their crimson bright, then
  dark as they move into
  
  and then against the light.
  May the year warm them
  soon. May they soon go
  
  north with their singing
  and the seasons follow.
  May the bare sticks soon
  
  live, and our minds go free
  of the ground
  into the shining of trees.
• Musical Reflection following Candles: Great Trees from Hymnody of Earth by Malcolm Dalglish
  
• Offertory:
• Anthem:
• Postlude:
• Hymns & Readings:

April 1 "A Tragedy or a Comedy?"
(April Fools/Palm Sunday)
UUlations in Waltham

• Prelude: Octoot by P. D. Q. Bach
• Candle Music:
• Offertory: Octoot by P. D. Q. Bach
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Octoot by P. D. Q. Bach
• Hymns & Readings: 61

April 5
Kenneth Seitz: guest conductor for Adult Choir rehearsal

April 8, 2012 Intergenerational Easter Services (8am/10am)

• Prelude: Angelus Domini by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
  Score SATTB: http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/pal-o26.pdf
  Practice File (midi): http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/pal-o26.mid
  Angelus Domini descendit de coelo et dixit mulieribus:
  quem quaeritis, surrexit sicut dixit, alleluja.
  The angel of the Lord descended from heaven and said to the women,
  Whom are you seeking? He has risen, as he said. Alleluia.
• Anthem: The Lamb by John Tavener
  Notes: The Lamb is a hauntingly beautiful piece. It is for unaccompanied SATB choir. It is almost entirely syllabic which, along with its homophony, adds to the simplicity of the piece. Performance directions state that tempo should be flexible and also guided by the words, and Taverner uses contrapuntal varitations to develop his themes.
  In the second bar, the alto part sings an inversion (upside down) of the melody sung by the soprano. Bars 3 and 4 are also soprano solo, with bar 4 being the retrograde (reverse) of the previous bar. The same technique is used in the soprano part in bars 5 and 6, with the alto singing a retrograde inversion (combining both ideas, sung upside down and backwards). The overall effect of this section is blatant dissonance, though the fact that each line returns to the same point reaffirms a serene, uncomplicated mood.
  After an atonal start, the full chorus joins for the second half of the verse. The music here is gently dissonant, with a feeling of E-minor but without the expected D-sharps. This section is entirely based upon the opening soprano melody. The soprano and alto parts sing in thirds throughout, with the tenors and basses helping to create subtle suspensions. Each bar ends with an E-minor chord. The second verse is similar to the first, with the women's voices focusing on the tune in unison.
  Use this link for a midi practice file: http://patep34.sdfpau.org/mids/LAMB2.mid
• Communion Processional: Drink with Me from Les Mis
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 61

April 15 Guest Preacher Betty Jeanne Reuters-Ward
(April 16 is Patriot's Day & School Vacation Week)

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Choir sings
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 61

April 19 No Thursday rehearsals (Spring vacation)

April 22 Alliance Sunday
Earth Day

• NO ADULT CHOIR
• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 61

April 29
"Anger and Kindness: A Two Part Sermon Series, Part I"
Rev. Marta Flanagan

• Prelude:
• Candle Music: Fifth section of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (II) by Thomas Tallis
  Heth. Facti sunt hostes eius in capite, inimici illius locupletati sunt: quia Dominus locutus est super eam propter multitudinem iniquitatem eius: parvuli eius ducti sunt captivi ante faciem tribulantis.
  Ierusalem, Ierusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.
  (Part 5) Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return unto the Lord thy God.
  Score: (pp. 15-25 only) http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/5/54/Tallis-Lamentations-SAATB-Part2-up1.pdf
• Offertory:
• Anthem: Julian of Norwich (gift from Montréal UU Church)
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 61

May 6, 2012
"Anger and Kindness: A Two Part Sermon Series, Part II"
Rev. Marta Flanagan

• Prelude: Im kuhlen Maien by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)
  Online score - http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/hassler/hass-imk.pdf
  Online midi practice file - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/hassler/hass-imk.mid
  Hans Leo Hassler’s best work achieved a synthesis of German and Italian national styles. As a young man, he left Nuremburg and studied in Italy with Andrea Gabrieli, became friends with Giovanni, and developed a penchant for the Venetian polychoral style. He also straddled the Renaissance and the Baroque, with his rich counterpoint and madrigalian text-painting grounded in harmonic structures. The eight-voice madrigal Im kuhlen Maien shows the Venetian double choir texture. May is welcomed with a joyful dance-like shift to triple meter.
  Im kuhlen Maien tun sich all Ding erfreuen, In the cool month of May all things are joyful,
  die Blumlein auf dem Feld sich auch verneuen, the little flowers in the field appear again,
  und singen d’Maidlein in ihren Reihen: and the girls dance and sing:
  Willkommen Maien. (Welcome May.)
  Zwei liebe Herzen sind voller Freud und Scherzen, (Two loving hearts are full of joy and fun,)
  im Schatten kuhl, vergessen aller Schmerzen. (in the cool shade they forget all pain.)
  Cupido blind, das gar listige Kind, (Blind Cupid, the cunning child,)
  gesellt sich dazu mit seinem Pfeil geschwind. (is joining them and shooting his arrows.)
  Venus allwegen gibt dazu ihren Segen, (Venus gives her blessing)
  auf dass zwei herzen sich in Lieb bewegen. (so that the two hearts can unite in love.)
  Wem nun dies Leben tut wohlgefallen eben, (Everyone who likes this life)
  der soll sich ohn Verzug der Lieb ergeben, (should, without delay, surrender to love,)
  und mit der Magdelein sing’n im Reihen: (and dance and sing with the girls:)
  Willkommen Maien. (Welcome May.)
• Lay Ministry Installation
• Candle Music:
• Offertory:
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

May 10
Kenneth Seitz: guest conductor for Adult Choir rehearsal

May 13
Guest Preacher Rev. Amy Freedman
Mother's Day Sunday

• Prelude: Organ &
  (at 9:58am, after chime) If ye love me by Thomas Tallis (small group)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awEDcVucRWA&feature=related
• Child Dedication: Tabula rasa
• Candle Music: new work by Kenneth Seitz
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

May 17
Kenneth Seitz: guest conductor for Adult Choir rehearsal

May 20
"Surrender: A Faithful Response to Life" Rev. Marta Flanagan
Annual Meeting of the Parish Membership

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: And I Saw a New Heaven, part 2 by Edward Bainton
• Offertory: Let it Be by John Lennon
  Vocal solo
• Anthem: new work by Kenneth Seitz
• Postlude: And I Saw a New Heaven, part 2 by Edward Bainton
• Hymns & Readings:

May 27
"Memorial Day as an African American Holiday"
Guest speaker Lori Kenschaft
(Memorial Day is May 28)

• NO ADULT CHOIR
• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:
• Offertory:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

June 3 Coming of Age Service
"The Health Effects of Wonder and Curiosity" Rev. Marta Flanagan

• Prelude: Ecco moromorar l'onde by Claudio Monteverdi
  New Dublin Voices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-lpJ5aSx_c
  Online score (pp. 68-74) - http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/25/IMSLP52944-PMLP82323-Monteverdi__Claudio_-_Madrigali._Libro_II.pdf
  Online piano practice tracks: http://users.skynet.be/fa976167/practice_files_archive.htm
  Ecco mormorar l’onde is an early madrigal from Monteverdi's his Second Book of Madrigals (of 9) (1590). Although not yet as dramatic as the later continuo madrigals, the soprano parts are rather florid, showing knowledge of the Ferrara school of composition and the ensemble of virtuoso women singers who influenced them. The musical description of dawn is quite programmatic; beginning low and soft and gradually building, as well as including a lot of text-painting, such as the melismas on “cantar” (sing). The text by Tasso makes a play on words between dawn “l’aura” and the beloved “Laura.”
  
  Hark! Low murmurs the water
  The bushes are a-flutter,
  In morning’s breeze the groves are gently stirring
  O’er leafy branches amorous birds are winging
  And singing, sweetly singing;
  The east is bright with laughter
  And lo, the dawn is waking
  The sea her mirror making
  And calming all the heavens
  Light frost the meadows pearling
  And lofty mountains gilding
  Lovely and gay Aurora!
  Soft winds do herald thee, and thou my Laura
  Each seared heart reviving.
• Candle Music: Vezzosi Augelli by Giaches de Wert (1535-1596)
  Online score - http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/wert-vez.pdf
  Online midi practice files - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/wert-vez.mid
  De Wert was a late Renaissance madrigal composer, active in Ferrara, Italy. His music was influential on many other composers, including the English (such as Wilbye) and Monteverdi. Vezzosi Augelli describes a competition between the music of the birds and the music of the breeze, using lots of colorful text painting.
  Vezzosi augelli in fra le verde fronde Delightful birds among the green branches
  tempran’ a prova lascivette note. tune their lively notes.
  Mormora l’aura, The breeze murmurs,
  e fa le foglie e l’onde and russles the leaves and waves
  garir che variamente ella percote: as it strikes each in turn:
  quando taccion gl’augelli, when the birds are silent
  alto risponde, the sound replies from above,
  quando cantan gl’augei, when the birds sing
  piú lieve scote; the breeze shakes softer;
  sia caso od’ arte, either by chance or purpose
  or accompagn’ed hora Music in turn accompanies,
  alterna i versi lor la Musica hora. now alternates their verses.
  Italian original by Torquato Tasso
  English version by Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
  The joyous birds hid under greenwood shade
  Sung merry notes on every branch and bough;
  The wind, that in the leaves and waters played,
  With murmurs sweet now sung, and whistled now.
  Ceased the birds, the winds loud answer made,
  And while they sang, it rumbled soft and low;
  Thus were it hap or cunning, chance or art
  The wind in this strange music bore its part.
• Offertory: Piano
• Anthem: Choir
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings: 12

June 10
Guest Rev. Susan Chorley (UU Urban ministry, community organizer, domestic violence activist)
AHS Graduation

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Linden Lea by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
  Online score - http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/3/3d/Williams_Linden_Lea.pdf
  Online midi practice file - http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/92/Williams_Linden_Lea.mid
  Choral recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvoYHwYDYLA
  
• Offertory:
• Anthem:
• Postlude:
• Hymns & Readings: 12

June 17, 2012 Flower Communion
"Lessons from my Father" Rev. Marta Flanagan
(Father's Day - Last Sunday in Regular Program Year)

• Prelude: Les Fleurs et les Arbres, op. 68, no. 2 by Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)
  Online score - http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/53/IMSLP44756-PMLP96128-Saint-Sa__ns_-_2_Choeurs__Op._68__SATB_.pdf
  Online midi practice file - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/sain-682.mid
  Flowers and trees
  Bronzes and marbles,
  Golds and enamels,
  The sea, fountains,
  Mountains and plains,
  These console our pains.
  
  Eternal nature,
  You seem more beautiful
  In the bosom of sorrows!
  And art dominates us,
  Its flame illumines
  Laughter and tears.
• Chalice Singers Anthem: A Girl's Garden by Randall Thompson
• Candle/Flower Music: Contre Qui, Rose from the Rilke Flower Songs by Morten Lauridsen (1943-)
  The English translation by Barbara and Erica Muhl reads: “Against whom, rose, have you assumed these thorns? Is it your too fragile joy that forced you to become this armed thing? But from whom does it protect you, this exaggerated defense. How many enemies have I lifted from you who did not fear it at all? On the contrary, from summer to autumn you wound the affection that is given you.”
  Link to a short article on this text and its relevance to current events: http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2006/03/contre_qui_rose.html
  Link to listening example:
  http://www.imeem.com/people/-YICDHM/music/orj5QRc3/morten_lauridsen_lauridsen_les_chansons_des_roses_2_cont/
• Anthem (octet): Easy Enough for Strangers by Daniel Pinkham
  Easy enough for strangers—
  far-come and famous kings—
  to lavish a child
  with wealthy offerings.
  How shall I help his mother
  Mary, my sweet wife,
  raise him up to a long,
  abundant life?
  How teach him true reward,
  how tell him cost?
  How be father
  to a boy star-crossed?
  Poems © Norma Farber, reprinted with permission.
  
• Offertory: Piano
• Postlude: Red River Valley arr. by Miles Ramsay
• Hymns & Readings: 12

June 24 {Summer Service}
General Assembly of the UUA in Phoenix, AZ, June 20-24

• Prelude:
• Candle Music:
• Offertory:
• Anthem:
• Postlude:
• Hymns & Readings: 12

July 1, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

July 8, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

July 15, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

July 22, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

July 29, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

August 5, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

August 12, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

August 19, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

August 26, 2012 {Summer Service}

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

September 2, 2012 {Summer Service}
Labor Day Weekend

• Service Music:
• Hymns & Readings:

Sept. 9

Sept. 16

Sweet Day by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The prolific Ralph Vaughan Williams is considered the quintessential English composer. Choral and vocal works form a deeply important part of his repertoire, from large scale choral orchestral works like the Sea Symphony and Dona Nobis Pacem, to miniature motets and madrigals like this setting of a George Herbert poem. The poem tells of the passing of all things (the day, the spring) but the virtuous soul endures. The music has a pastoral/folksong quality, reminiscent of Debussy and Delius.
Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.
Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

Calme de nuits, op. 68, no. 1 by Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)
Online score - http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/53/IMSLP44756-PMLP96128-Saint-Sa__ns_-_2_Choeurs__Op._68__SATB_.pdf
Online midi practice file - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/sain-cal.mid
Saint-Saens, most prolific of the late French romantic composers, wrote in virtually every medium, foreshadowing the neoclassical revivalism of Fauré and Ravel. His best known choral work, the Christmas Oratorio, is a favorite of large choruses, while chamber choruses have discovered the madrigalian op. 68. They celebrate nature as perceived by the artist and as comfort to the sorrowful. The two offer a nice contrast, between the slow, careful layering of harmonies in the first, and the frenetic motion of the second.
Calm of nights, coolness of evenings,
Vast shining of worlds,
Great silence of black caves,
You charm deep souls.

The burst of sun, gaiety,
These are pleasing to the most futile
Only the poet is haunted
By love of quiet things.

Sept. 23

• My Spirit Sang All Day by Gerald Finzi (1910-1956)
  Finzi, the youngest of five children in a Jewish family, abandoned his Sephardic upbringing for a persona of total Englishness. His parents disinherited him and opposed his choice of career, but the young Finzi relocated to London to study with Bairstow and Vaughan Williams. Eventually he moved to the countryside where he indulged his passions for composing, collecting books, and rare varieties of apple trees, as well as hosting many British composers and artists, including his friend Herbert Howells. Perhaps because of his frail health, and the early death of his father and three brothers, Finzi’s music seeks to capture the world’s beauty in a pastoral neo-romantic style. Much of his music is vocal, and sets the greatest English poets with careful attention to the poetry. My Spirit Sang All Day is deservedly one of his better-known gems, on a text by Robert Bridges.
  My spirit sang all day O my joy.
  Nothing my tongue could say, Only My joy!
  My heart an echo caught — O my joy.
  And spake, Tell me thy thought, Hide not thy joy.
  My eyes gan peer around, O my joy —
  What beauty hast thou found? Shew us thy joy.
  My jealous ears grew whist; O my joy.
  Music from heaven is’t, Sent for our joy?
  She also came and heard; O my joy.
  What, said she, is this word? What is thy joy?
  And I replied, O see, O my joy,
  ’Tis thee, I cried, ’tis thee: Thou art my joy.
• Psalm 111 (Hallelujah) by Salomon Sulzer (1804-1880)
  Sulzer was born March 30, 1804 in Hohenems, a small town in Vorarlberg, an Austrian province between Tyrol and Switzerland. Schooled at the Yeshiva at Endigen, Switzerland, Sulzer concurrently studied music in Karlsruhe (Baden) and decided to become a cantor. At age 14 Sulzer was elected cantor in his hometown, but in 1826 on an extended leave of absence, he traveled to Vienna where he was engaged for the next twenty-one years as the chief cantor of the Vienna Jewish community. It was there that Sulzer undertook the serious study of composition, where he become close friends with Franz Schubert and other famous members of the Vienna Opera. It was, however, under the influence of the chief rabbi of Vienna, Isaac Noa Mannheimer, that Sulzer published three volumes of music that followed the Mannheimer's prayer-book (1839-1865). It was Sulzer's deliberate attention to proper diction, musical form, and harmony that wed liturgical words with sacred sounds. Almost single-handedly, he reintroduced dignity and decorum into Jewish worship, through choral music, pioneering a renaissance of Jewish music.

Sept. 30

Kol Nidre: Adagio on Hebrew Melodies by Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Click here to hear a recording by Alexander Skwortsow
Online score and parts - http://imslp.org/wiki/Kol_Nidrei,_Op.47_(Bruch,_Max)
Click here for an article on the Kol Nidre with many links to recordings of the melody.
Abraham Idelsohn, a noted scholar of Jewish music, wrote in 1929, "There is hardly any other traditional Jewish tune that attracted so much attention from the composers of the last century. Innumerable are the arrangements for voice with piano, organ or violin accompaniment and violoncello obligato. We have the exalted melody prepared for choir and small orchestra. And last but not least is the concerto by Max Bruch. In the first bars of Beethoven's C-sharp minor quartet, the opening theme of Kol Nidre is recognizable. Thus has the music world come to consider this the most characteristic tune of the synagogue. [Bruch's] melody was an interesting theme for a brilliant secular concerto. In his presentation, the melody entirely lost its original character. Bruch displayed a fine art, masterly technique and fantasy, but not Jewish sentiments. It is not a Jewish Kol Nidre which Bruch composed."
Max Bruch himself wrote the following on Kol Nidre, in a letter to cantor and musicologist Eduard Birnbaum (4 December 1889), "...I became acquainted with Kol Nidre and other Jewish melodies in Berlin through the Lichtenstein family, who befriended me. Even though I am a Protestant, as an artist I deeply felt the outstanding beauty of these melodies and therefore I gladly spread them through my arrangement. As a young man I had already ... studied folksongs of all nations with great enthusiasm, because the folksong is a wellspring at which one must repeatedly renew and refresh oneself---so lay the study of Jewish ethnic music on my path."
Lichtenstein was the cantor-in-chief of Berlin, who was known to have friendly relations with many Christian musicians of that time. The conductor of Lichtenstein's choir was nobody less than Louis Lewandowski. Idelsohn proved that many of the compositions of Lewandowski were based on the chazzanut (cantorial solos) of Lichtenstein.

Oct. 7

Oct. 14

Oct. 21

Oct. 28

Nov. 4

Nov. 11

Trois Beaux Oiseaux du Paradis by Maurice Ravel
Click here to hear a recording of this selection
Online choral score of all 3 Chansons - http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/ce/IMSLP01774-Ravel_-_Trois_chansons__Complete_score_.pdf
Online solo vocal score of all 3 Chansons - http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/1/12/IMSLP01775-Ravel_-_Trois_chansons__Piano_and_Voice_arrangement_.pdf
Online midi practice files for Trois beaux oiseaux - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/b/be/Ravel-Trois-beaux-oiseaux.mid

Nov. 18
Anthem: O Wild West Wind, op. 53, no. 3 (1908 ) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Online score - http://www.doveton-music.de/PDFfree/ElgarOWildWestWind.pdf
Online midi practice files - http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/5/57/BYRD-SUR.mid
Text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) from Ode to the West Wind:
O wild West Wind, [...]
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness.
Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit!
Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy!
O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

November 25 Intergenerational Thanksgiving Service

• Mi’kmaq Honor Song (Nova Scotia) arr. by Lydia Adams
  The Mi'kmaq language, Míkmawísimk, is an Algonquian language spoken by 8,000 Indians in the Canadian Maritimes and a few US communities. The Mi’kmaq Honor Song is a chant to honor the Creator. This arrangement by Lydia Adams uses humming to “move the air” and create a wilderness atmosphere into which nature sounds and the human call are suspended. Lydia Adams is conductor of the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto, Canada and recipient of many awards. She took over as Conductor and Artistic Director of the Elmer Iseler Singers in 1998.
  Use this link for a midi practice file: http://patep34.sdfpau.org/mids/Mi'kmaq2.mid
  Choral recording: http://www.vocalartsingers.org/samples/Mi'kmaq%20Honour%20Song.mp3
  

December 2

December 9

• Magnificat in G by Charles V. Stanford

December 16, 2012 Music Service
(December 21, 2012 End of a World Age/Epoch in the Hopi and Mayan calendars)

• Prelude: Hopi Lullaby from Mountain and Mesa by Katherine Hoover
  flute and piano
• Apamuy Shungo (Giving of the Heart) and Wawaki (Festival) by Gerardo Guevara
  Music from Ecuador sung in the Mayan language of Quichua.
  See link for info on Mayan languages and writing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages
• Dies Irae from Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi

December 23

Il est né, le divin Enfant
It is not clear whether the word carol derives from the French "carole" or the Latin "carula" meaning a circular dance. In any case, the dancing seems to have been abandoned quite early, but some examples are very danceable. In the 1680s and 1690s Louis-Claude Daquin wrote 12 noels for organ. Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote a few instrumental versions of noels, plus one major choral work "Messe de minuit pour Noël" (carols with orchestral links written by Charpentier). Ça, Bergers, assemblons nous is from the 16th century, and was sung aboard Jacques Cartier's ship on Christmas Day 1535. Perhaps the best known traditional French carol is Il est né, le divin Enfant!, which comes from Provencal. In 1554 "La Grande Bible des Noels" was printed, in several versions in Orleans. It was a collection of French carols. "Chants de Noels anciens et nouveau" (1703) was printed by Christophe Ballard (1641 - 1715) in Paris.

Hodie Christus Natus Est by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

Score: http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/swee-hod.pdf
Practice file (midi): http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sound/swee-hod.mid

December 24 4pm & 6pm
The Oxen (1967) by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Text: Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years!
Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,
In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
by Thomas Hardy

Even So She Sings by Daniel Pinkham
Now is the intimate hour.
The roof leaks, but the hay’s
dry within the stall
where a newborn infant lies.
The stable reeks of a score
of animal breaths and all
their damp coats and the farm
or forest whence they’ve come.
Even so she sings.
A rude place, she feels,
for this family affair:
her personal event.
The kings disquiet her
as each, approaching, kneels,
his gift an embarrassment.
A murmur takes her throat,
thrumming to be let out.
And so she sings.
What rough clamor, this noise
of creature wing and hoof!
They can’t with the best will
in the world, keep quiet enough
to hear her lulling voice.
They do try to be still.
A child has heard her song
separate among the throng.
For him she sings.
Poems © Norma Farber, reprinted with permission.

January 6 Epiphany
Amahl and the Night Visitors

Epiphany Song: Austria & Bavaria - Star Singers Carol
In Austria and Bavaria, children dress up as "The Three Kings" and carry an imitation star on a pole. They go from house to house from New Year's day to January 6th, and sing religious songs. The children are called "Star singers." If they are rewarded with sweets, they may eat them. If they are rewarded with money, it is given to a Catholic church or to a charity. They put a chalk mark "C.M.B" on houses they have visited. Although this is sometimes taken as a reference to the three kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar - it may originally have represented the words "Christus mansionem benedicat" (Christ bless this house).

Christmas Greeting, op. 52 (1907) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) with text by Caroline Alice Elgar (1848-1920):
Bowered on sloping hillsides rise
In sunny glow, the purpling vine;
Beneath the greyer English skies,
In fair array, the red-gold apples shine.
Refrain: To those in snow,
To those in sun,
Love is but one;
Hearts beat and glow,
By oak and palm.
Friends, in storm or calm.
On and on old Tiber speeds,
Dark with the weight of ancient crime;
Far north, thr' green and quiet meads,
Flows on the Wye in mist and silv'ring rime.
Refrain
The pifferari wander far,
They seek the shrines, and hymn the peace
Which herald angels, 'neath the star,
Foretold to shepherds, bidding strife to cease.
Our England sleeps in shroud of snow,
Bells, sadly sweet, knell life's swift flight,
And tears, unbid, are wont to flow,
As "Noel! Noel!" sounds across the night.
Refrain

Peace Services & Other music for the future

• Ethnic Combo Music: Argentina, Brazil (Samba), Django Rheinhardt Jazz Guitar, Gypsy, Israeli, Jazz Band, Jazz Combo, Klezmer, Mariachi, New Orleans, Parisian Café Music
  
• Thou visitest the earth (1743) by Maurice Greene
  Online score - http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/2/2d/Tvte.pdf
  Online midi practice file - http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/1/1b/Tvte.mid
  

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2002-03 / 2001-02 / 1991-92 / 1978-79 / 1966-67 / 1964-65
Early History of Music at First Parish 1733-1964

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