Music for Easter-2-B (Apr 23) Divine Mercy

Prelude:           Voluntary # 1.1 in C (Adagio): Stanley
Processional Hymn: 328: We Walk By Faith
Kyrie:             Deutsche Messe: Schubert/Proulx
Gloria:            Deutsche Messe: Schubert/Proulx
Readings:          552
Offertory:         These things did Thomas: Troeger/Sacred Harp
Acclamations:      Deutsche Messe: Schubert/Proulx
Agnus Dei:         Deutsche Messe: Schubert/Proulx
Communion Hymn:    260: O Sons And Daughters
                   265: Regina Caeli
Final Hymn:        348: There's A Wideness In God's Mercy
Postlude:          Voluntary # 1.1 in C (Andante): Stanley

Music Notes:


Franz Schubert (1797-1828) composed his "Deutsche Messe (D 872)"
in 1826, setting devotional poetry by Johann Philip Neumann (1774-1849),
professor of Physics at the Vienna Polytechnical Institute; the
collaboration resulted in an Austrian folk-style Mass practical
for use by that student congregation. It consists of eight songs,
titled according to the appropriate points during the Mass at which
they are to be sung. Richard Proulx adaptated these Mass-Songs,
replacing German poetry with English Mass texts (Kyrie, Gloria,
Sanctus, Memorial Acclamation, Amen, Agnus Dei). These easily-learned
melodies will be used throughout the Easter Season; please use the
heavy-stock music cards in the pews (and leave them there for the
next Mass!).


At Offertory we hear a Thomas H Troeger (1945-) text ("These things
did Thomas count as real") from 1984 set to a tune (DISTRESS LM) from
"The Sacred Harp", a book first published in 1844 and frequently
updated since. Along with other hymn books from the era, its repertoire
of 550 four-part a cappella (unaccompanied) hymns, odes, anthems,
is part of the foundation of a vibrant oral tradition in the United
States, handed down since Colonial times and still practiced at hundreds
of annual singing meetings, conventions, and local singing groups
throughout the country. This type of music can be directly traced as a
distinct musical thread before the American Revolution, through to
rural England, back to Reformation psalmody, and earlier to Renaissance
polyphony. Sacred Harp singing is the largest surviving branch of
traditional American Shape Note Singing, which uses the standard five-line
and four-space staff for treble and bass clefs, but gives the note heads
various shapes (triangle, circle, square, diamond) to aid in pitch
identification.


John Stanley (1713-1786), born in London, wrote much music, including
three sets of Ten Voluntaries which, when published, made him the most
influential composer of the form, and the format was often imitated by
his contemporaries. His Voluntary Set One Number One (1745) is in four
sections and provides tempos and registrations: (1) Adagio [diapasons],
(2) Andante [trumpet], (3) Lento [swell], (4) Allegro [flute]; in the
second and fourth he also indicated that some phrases were to be "eccho"
and therefore both gallery and antiphonal organ stops will be heard in
alternation.