2026-2027 Season
9•27•26 | The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 21)
Nettleton, by Aaron David Miller (b. 1972)
God be in my head, by Alinda B. Couper (1901-1989)
O Love, by Elaine Hagenberg (b. 1979)
Christus factus est, by Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Improvisation on King’s Weston, by Douglas Buchanan (b. 1984)
Alinda B. Couper’s prayerful setting of God be in my head takes its text from the Sarum Primer, a 13th-century compilation of prayers and liturgical resources from Salisbury, England. “Sarum” refers, generally, to Salisbury, and the “Sarum Rite” are the Latin rituals and chants developed at Salisbury Cathedral. (The Sarum Rite is unique in that it is utilized by not only the Anglican Communion, but also the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.) Couper studied with famed French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. In addition to numerous compositions, she also developed the “four-in-hand” technique of handbell playing. Her archives are located here in Baltimore, at the Peabody Conservatory.
At the offertory, we hear O Love, by American composer Elaine Hagenberg. Hagenburg’s flowing, melodic setting utilizes poetry of 19th-century Scottish clergyman George Matheson. The poem was written on the eve of his sister’s wedding.
Today’s communion motet is from a collection of short choral works by Anton Bruckner. Bruckner is perhaps best known for his symphonies, which are large-scale and redolent of late Romanticism. The choral works are distillations of his style, capturing the curious twists and turns he achieves through sequencing through melodic snippets and adding in chromatic surprises. The text is a setting of a portion of today’s Philippians reading, which is heard also on Good Friday. (You can hear this work again at our Music for Good Friday offering on March 26.)
Regarding the closing voluntary, Doug Buchanan writes: “When I was at my first post as a music director/organist, I hadn’t had much experience improvising. However, one learns pretty quickly to adapt and to realize ideas on the fly. I started to become comfortable with brief improvisations, like one might hear during communion. The first toccata-like piece that I improvised was on the tune King’s Weston. The gestures and ideas I used way back in 2011 when I first put this together have stayed under my fingers, and I like to revisit them when we sing that hymn. It’s always interesting to see what my fingers and toes decide to do differently each time.”
9•20•26 | The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20)
Holy Manna, by David Cherwein (b. 1957)
Holy Manna, arr. William Moore (1790-1850)
Draw us in the Spirit’s Tether, by Saunder Choi (b. 1988)
Panis angelicus, by Caesar Franck (1822-1890)
Fugue, by Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
Today’s introit comes from the shape note tradition of singing. “Shape notes” were a method of teaching music literacy in 19th century America. Many tunes from this tradition – like Holy Manna and What wondrous love is this – have made it into modern hymnals. Because these tunes emphasized a communal, come-one-come-all ethos, the performance practice for these songs often leans into a boisterous, folk-inflected feeling. The melody (which we will sing communally later in the service) appears first in the tenor voice, a common practice in shape note arrangements. The poet of Holy Manna, originally from Ireland, was a preacher in the Baltimore Conference who died in Frederick, Maryland.
Our offertory anthem is by Filipino-Chinese composer Saunder Choi. His welcoming setting of Draw us in the Spirit’s Tether is a fitting message as we continue to welcome back our fall programs. Based in California, Choi is a professional choral singer as well as a composer mentor and conductor.
Caesar Franck has had an enduring presence in organ and choral repertoire, with Panis Angelicus being one of his most-performed choral works. Beginning with a soprano solo – sung today by Zoë Chessa, our newest member of the Schola, the professional core of singers in the St. David’s Choir – this setting of the penultimate stanza of Thomas Aquinas’ eucharistic hymn Sacris solemnis (“Our solemn feast”) later blossoms into lush choral accompaniment.
9•13•26 | The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19)
Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne, by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal, arr. Alice Parker (1925-2023)
Light of a Clear Blue Morning, by Dolly Parton, (1946-2026), arr. Craig Hella Johnson (b. 1962)
Ego sum panis vivus, by William Byrd (c. 1540-1623)
Carillon de Longpont, by Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
As we welcome back the Chancel Choir, it is a perfect opportunity to not only learn about the music we are hearing today, but also to mention how each piece of music functions in the course of the service.
Our opening voluntary is an active, bubbling prelude by J.S. Bach’s idol, Dietrich Buxtehude. Though C Major is sometimes thought of as a “simple” key because it has no sharps or flats, this particular work counters this notion by weaving together rapid scales, a miniature fugue, and finally a grand dance which ushers us into our worship.
The term “voluntary” originated in 15th century England, being a type of improvisatory piece that was “volunteered” prior to a service. Now, it refers to a composition (typically for organ) that is used to open or close the service.
Following the voluntary is an introit. In the Roman rite (the liturgical practice of the Roman Catholic Church) introits have a specific formula drawn from psalms and liturgical poetry, intended to reflect on the day’s readings and to accompany the entrance of the ministers. Outside the Roman rite, the introit’s preparatory function remains the same, but the content is more flexible: in addition to traditional introit chants, we often will sing Lutheran chorales, free compositions, or—as we hear today—music from the American “shape-note” tradition. Today’s introit is a setting of the American hymn tune Invitation, to the text of Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal, arranged by Alice Parker. Parker was a prolific composer and tireless conductor. She and famed conductor Robert Shaw worked closely together; his choruses recorded a great deal of her music.
After the opening hymn and Gloria, we hear a chanted psalm. Psalm-chanting is a practice that is several millennia old; the specific type of chant we typically hear in the Episcopal Church — Anglican chant — is relatively young, only 500 or so years old. In Anglican chant, a text is sung to sets of 10 chords, which are sometimes combined with each other. Contrast this with plainsong chant, as heard in the Alleluia verse, (the verse preceding the Gospel) which is made of only a single line without accompanying chords. (Because Anglican chant can be used for any unmetered text, some musicians get cheeky — search online for the King’s Singers intoning a weather report, or Director of Music Douglas Buchanan conducting Anglican chant celebrations of the Orioles and the Ravens.)
After the homily and the prayers is the offertory anthem. The word “anthem” is derived from “antiphon,” which is a response; in this case, one can view it as a response to the Priest’s offertory sentence. (Compare this with the fraction anthem, which we sing in response to the breaking — the fractioning — of the bread.) In the Anglican choral tradition, anthems were typically accompanied by the organ, but here we use the term more loosely. As a case in point, today’s anthem — a choral setting of Dolly Parton’s Light of a Clear Blue Morning — is only lightly accompanied, with much of it being unaccompanied (i.e., a cappella, literally “for the chapel”). Recorded in 1977, Parton described the composition as her “song of deliverance” following the painful legal battle that resulted from her leaving Porter Wagoner’s (her former business partner’s) band.
During communion, the choir sings a motet. Like “anthem” and “introit,” “motet” had a specific meaning which has now become a little more flexible. The term originates with the French word “mot,” meaning “word.” In Medieval France this referred to a musical setting of a text. The French motet evolved to be hyper-complex (piling multiple texts in multiple languages, sung simultaneously—the ultimate mash-up) before coming to refer simply to an unaccompanied work for voices (though you’ll hear plenty of instances of accompanied Communion music here). Today’s motet, William Byrd’s Ego sum panis vivus, evokes the classic sounds of Anglican polyphony: imitative entrances, thoughtful dissonance control, and careful text-setting that illumines the scriptural setting.
Following the final hymn is a closing voluntary, bookending the service with organ music. Today we hear Louis Vierne’s Carillon de Longpont. Vierne studied with Charles-Marie Widor (whose Toccata, excerpted from his Fifth Symphony, is often heard on Easter Day), and eventually served as organist at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris from 1900 until his death in 1937. In this piece, Vierne uses a recurring pattern based upon four notes, heard most often in the pedals. This pattern is adapted from the bells he heard being rung when he visited the commune of Longpont in northern France on August 15, 1913. (While he visited, he participated in a grand procession, playing a harmonium balanced upon a cart pulled by two donkeys. It’s enough to make an organist rethink their primary mode of transportation.)