Thursday, Oct. 19 8-8:45pm Mozart rehearsal; 8-9:30pm full Adult Choir rehearsal

Oct. 20-22 Round Robin Dinners

Sunday, October 22
Rev. Carlton Elliott Smith and Dr. Charlie Clements
Topic: "Ordinary Heroes" [The Legacy of the Rev. Waitstill and Martha Sharp, founders of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee]

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Beati quorum via, op. 38, no. 3 by Charles V. Stanford (1852–1924)
  Translation - Blessed are those who act with integrity, who walk according to the way of the Lord. Psalm 119: 1
  Notes - Stanford was the son of Irish musicians and made his name in England as an improvisatory organist. His three Latin motets were composed in 1905 during his first years in Cambridge. He began as the Organ Scholar of Queen's College, but by the time he was just twenty he was in the employ of Trinity, where he revolutionized the music-making of the college. Stanford also studied in Leipzig and Berlin; he became a professor at both the Royal College of Music and at Cambridge University for over forty years, was the main composition teacher of Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and is buried in Westminster Abbey next to composer Henry Purcell.
  Beati quorum via integra est, set in a rich six-part SSATBB, clearly pays homage to Brahms with its flowing lines, lingering suspensions and rich harmonic language.
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: Avinu malkeinu from the Sacred Service by Max Janowski
  Michael Prichard, cantor
  Translation - Hear our voice, O father, pity and be compassionate to us, and accept, with compassion and favour, our prayers. Traditional prayer for Yom Kippur
  Notes - Max Janowski (1912-1991) was born in Berlin, Germany. He was a prodigious 20th-century composer, conductor, and organist whose liturgical compositions have been performed in concert halls, synagogues, churches and colleges throughout the world. He emigrated to Japan and then to New York in 1937. He was the beloved music director, organist, and choir director at six Chicago-area synagogues and Unitarian congregations.
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

December 1 Arlington Philharmonic Chamber Chorus Concert

Sunday, December 3

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Tota pulchra es, op. 10, no. 2, by Maurice Duruflé
  Bogoroditse Devo, op. 37, no. 6, by Sergei Rachmaninoff
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: There Shall a Star (1846) by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, December 3 CONCERT at 3pm
Cantilena Women's Chorale, conducted by Kenneth Seitz

Monday, December 4 Alliance Holiday Party

Sunday, December 10 Winter Music Service

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music and Offertory: In Eccelsiis by Giovanni Gabrieli
• Anthem: Daniel Pinkham Christmas Cantata with brass
  I. Quem vidistis, pastores, dicite, annunciate nobis, in terris quis apparuit?
  Whom did you see, shepherds, tell us, proclaim to us: who has appeared on the earth?
  Natum vidimus et choros angelorum collaudantes Domino.
  We saw the newborn child and choirs of angels praising the Lord.
  II. O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum,
  O great mystery and admirable sacrament,
  ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in præsepio. Alleluia!
  that animals should see the newborn Lord lying in their manger. Rejoice!
  III. Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
  Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of goodwill.
  
  Daniel Pinkham, born 1923, is a graduate of Harvard and has studied under a distinguished roster of composers that includes Walter Piston, Aaron Copland, Artur Honegger, Samuel Barber, and Nadia Boulanger. His mastery of the keyboard owes much to his studies with Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord and E. Power Biggs on the organ. He was appointed director of the King's Chapel, Boston, a position he held until 2000; concurrently he also served as a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music. 

His Christmas Cantata, subtitled Sinfonia Sacra, a 20th century homage to the Baroque, recalls the brilliance of the Venetian school of chorus-and-brass music, particularly as embodied in the works of Giovanni Gabrieli. The Cantata is cast in the form of three contrasting short movements and is scored for chorus and double brass choir. The first movement, "Quem vidistis?" ("Whom did you see, shepherds?"), relates how the shepherds learned of the newborn Christ child. The text is drawn from the antiphon verses sung at Christmas Midnight Mass. The second movement, "O magnum mysterium" ("Oh great mystery"), tells how the animals in the stable observed Christ's birth, further extolling the mystery of the virgin birth. This text is drawn from one of the responses sung in monasteries at matins, or daybreak, on Christmas day. The final movement, "Gloria in excelsis Deo" ("Glory to God in the highest"), a hymn of praise which the angels sing, is derived in part from a passage in the gospel of Luke. It is sung or recited as part of the Proper of the High Mass. Pinkham's setting is particularly felicitous in its alteration of energetic brass sections with a cappella choral passages.

• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, December 10 CONCERT at 3pm
Arlington-Bemont Chorale & the Arlington Philharmonic Orchestra

Sunday, December 17 Intergenerational Service
Pageant

• Prelude:
• Pageant directed by Anne Goodwin
• Postlude:
• Hymns & Readings

December 22 Winter Solstice

Sunday, December 24, 5pm Christmas Eve Service

• Instrumental Prelude: Wendy Covell and guest soloists
• Anthem: Silent Night by David Conte (San Francisco Conservatory composer)
• Anthem: Twelfth Night by Samuel Barber
  Click here to practice this selection
• Videntes stellam by Francis Poulenc
  Click here to practice this selection
• Special Offering for Renewal House:
• Hymns & Readings:
• Recessional:
• Postlude:

Sunday, December 25 Christmas Morning

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:
• Offertory:
• Anthem: Ukrainian Bell Carol by Leontovich
• Musical Reflection:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, December 31

• Prelude: Organ
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings

Sunday, January 7

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Ose Shalom
  Translation - May God who makes peace in the heavens grant peace for all of us and for all of Israel, and we say amen.
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: The Sailor and Young Nancy by E. J. Moeran
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings

Sunday, January 14

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings
• Organ Show following the service (11:45-12:30pm), Wendy Covell, organ

Monday, January 15 MLK Holiday

Sunday, January 21 Mozart service

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem:
• Laudate Dominum by Wolfgang A. Mozart
• Sung Benediction: by Wolfgang A. Mozart
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings

Sunday, January 28

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

Sunday, February 4

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

Sunday, February 11

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: O, My Luv's Like a Red, Red Rose
  Click here to hear the text spoken with a proper Scottish accent
  Click here to read a discussion of the text
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings

Sunday, February 18

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

Spring Music:

• Rise Up, My Love (1929) by Healey Willan
  Click for here a biography of the composer
  R ise up my love, my fair one, and come away.
  For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
  The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come. Songs of Songs 2: 10-12
• O, pray for the peace of Jerusalem by Herbert Howells (peace topic)
• Trois Beaux Oiseaux du Paradis by Maurice Ravel (peace topic)
  Click here to practice this selection
• Miserere mei by Gregorio Allegri
• Music of Hildegard von Bingen, and Hymn #27
• A Gaelic Blessing by John Rutter
  Click here for a biography of John Rutter
  Text adapted from an old Gaelic rune:
  Deep peace of the running wave to you,
  Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
  Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
  Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
  Deep peace of the gentle night to you,
  Moon and stars pour their healing light on you,
  Deep peace of light, the light of the world to you.
• Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi by Sir Arthur Bliss
  Text - Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love;
  where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
  where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
  O Divine One, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
  to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love;
  for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
  and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
  
  Notes - Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO (1891-1975) was a British composer of American descent, his father having left New England to come and settle in London. Bliss’s mother, Agnes Kennard, was an accomplished pianist and his brothers all had musical abilities. He was educated at Rugby School and gained a considerable reputation at the school as a pianist. He received his BA from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and entered the Royal College of Music in 1913: here he studied composition with Charles V. Stanford and befriended Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. His musical studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in which he was wounded in the Battle of the Somme (1916) and gassed at Cambrai (1918). The tragic death in battle of his brother, Kennard, together with his own war experiences, had a profound and lasting impact on his life and in his music, and found expression most particularly in his choral symphony, Morning Heroes (1930). Vaughan Williams credited this work as the primary inspiration for his 1937 Dona nobis pacem, which in turn served as the main model for Britten's 1962 War Requiem.
  
  Bliss's early music shows the influence of Stravinsky and Debussy: a Concerto for [wordless] Tenor, piano and strings; and his Colour Symphony of 1922 which explores the idea of the musical associations of different colors. After the war, Bliss was offered a professorship at the Royal College of Music (even though he had never finished his graduate studies), but instead he accompaned his American father (who had retired in Santa Barbara, California) to the U.S. In California he met Gertude Hoffmann, whom he married and brought back to London in 1925. His music from the 1920s-30s focused on ballet commissions and six film scores. His Introduction and Allegro which was premiered in Philadelphia under Leopold Stokowski, and his Music for Strings debuted at the Salzburg Festival in 1935 under Sir Adrian Boult.
  
  During the first years of the Second World War, Bliss taught at the University of California - Berkeley. From 1941-44 he was Director of Music at the BBC; he spearheaded the division of British music broadcasting into categories after the war, such as the present day Radios 1 and 3. In 1950 he was knighted and in 1953 he was appointed to succeed Arnold Bax as Master of the Queen's Musick. In this capacity he composed numerous works and fanfares for royal occasions including the Investiture of the Prince of Wales (1969). Throughout the 1950s-60s, Sir Arthur Bliss recorded fine interpretations of several of his major works, but was often overshadowed by coincidentally similar large-scale works by Benjamin Britten and Witold Lutoslawski. 1970 brought the publication of Bliss’s autobiography, As I remember. The last of the composer’s masterpieces – the Cello Concerto written for the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the haunting Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi - date from his final years.
• (Buddhist topic) Hymne au Soleil (1912) by Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
  Click here for a biography of Lili Boulanger
  Text by Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843):
  Du soleil qui renaît bénissons la puissance.
  Avec tout l'univers célébrons son retour.
  Couronné de splendeur, il se lève, il s'élance.
  Le réveil de la terre est un hymne d'amour.
  Sept coursiers qu'en partant le Dieu contient à peine,
  Enflamment l'horizon de leur brûlante haleine.
  
  O soleil fécond, tu parais!
  Avec ses champs en fleurs, ses monts, ses bois épais,
  La vaste mer de tes feux embrasée,
  L'univers plus jeune et plus frais,
  Des vapeurs de matin sont brillants de rosée.
• Strawberry Fair by Donald James
• Circles by Dave Brubeck
  Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years,
  the circles of the seasons within the circles of the years,
  the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons,
  the circles of our reasons within the cycles of the moon.
  
  Again, again we come and go, changed, changing.
  Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy.
  The circles turn, each giving into each, into all.
  Only music keeps us here, each by all the others held.
  
  In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs, that joining joining each to all again.
  And then we turn aside, alone, out of the sunlight gone into the darker circles of return.
  -Wendell Berry
  
  Notes on the composer - David Warren Brubeck (1920- ) is a U.S. jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a genius in his field, he has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way." Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills. Much of his music employs unusual time signatures. His new choral piece Circles sets a text by Wendell Berry.
  After graduating from the University of the Pacific in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the army and served overseas in George Patton's Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge. He played in a band, quickly integrating it, and gaining both popularity and deference. After finishing his compositional studies at Mills College (Oakland, CA) under Darius Milhaud, Brubeck founded The Dave Brubeck Quartet (1951-67) with Paul Desmond on saxophone. The group maintained a long residency at San Francisco's Black Hawk nightclub, and in 1954 Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, the first jazz musician to be so honored. Brubeck converted to Catholicism in 1980, shortly after completing the Mass To Hope. Today, Brubeck continues to write new works, including orchestrations and ballet scores, and tours about eighty cities each year. Since his 85th birthday his area of focus is the US, where he still premieres new works, like the 2006 Cannery Row Suite.
  
  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.
• Closing Words (to accompany the Brubeck above):
  Antiphonal reading by Wendell Berry (P is the pulpit side; C is the choir side)
  P: Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years,
  C: the circles of the seasons within the circles of the years,
  P: the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons,
  C: the circles of our reasons
  P: within the cycles of the moon.
  Leader1: Again, again we come and go, changed,
  Leader2: changing. Hands join,
  P: un-join in love and fear, grief and joy.
  C: The circles turn, each giving into each,
  P: into all. Only music keeps us here,
  C: each by all the others held.
  P: In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs,
  C: that joining, joining each to all again.
  Leader2: And then we turn aside, alone,
  Leader1: out of the sunlight gone
  All: into the darker circles of return.

Additional Music and Anniversaries

• 2006 Marais, Marin (born 350 years ago)
• 2006 Shostakovich, Dmitri (born 100 years ago, Sept. 25)
• Shape-Note and Southern Mountains Music
• Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber
• En hiver and Verger by Paul Hindemith (Fall '06)
• Drömmarna by Jean Sibelius
• Esti Dal by Zoltan Kodaly
• The Lost Chord by Sir Arthur Sullivan
• Va Pensiero from G. Verdi's Nabucco
• Agnus Dei from the Missa Papae Marcelli of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
  Click here to practice this selection
• I Cannot Grow from Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia
  Click here for notes on this work
  Click here to practice
• By and By from A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett
  Click here for a biography of Sir Michael Tippett
  Click here for an interview with Sir Michael Tippett