July 2, 2023

The prelude has 5 short settings of the hymn, "The king of love my shepherd is" (645 in our hymnal), presumably one for each verse, although our rendition has 6 verses.  The composer is Edwin T. Childs, who has his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and resides, teaches, and composes in the Chicago area.

"Christ for the world we sing" (537) is the processional hymn, although most people know the hymn as "Come thou, Almighty King" (365).  The same tune ("Moscow") is used for hymn 371, "Thou, whose almighty word".  You will note that this Sunday's text is by Samuel Wolcott (19th c.); the popular tune is from the 18th c., with newer harmonization.

The Gospel hymn, 537, is, I think, loved by all-- "I love thy kingdom, Lord",  from the 18th c.   You might note that it is another harmonization by Lowell Mason, 19th c. American, who also happened to write over 1600 hymn tunes, many still sung today.

We will again sing a hymn together during the offertory, and it will be the popular "Alleluia", 178 -- all 20th c.!

During communion we will sing "Day by day" (654), which we rarely sing because it is so short;  As you may note, the text is attributed to Richard of Chichester.  The second hymn is the Finnish folk melody "Nyland" , using the text, "O Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end".  

Everyone knows the closing hymn (296), melody by the well known Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), text written in the 20th c.-- "We know that Christ is raised and dies no more".

The postlude is a setting of the tune "Azmon", which we know as "O for a thousand tongues to sing" (493).  It is by Barbara Harbach, who was my contemporary and classmate in just about all my music classes as an undergraduate-- in fact we actually often "went out" together.  She is incredibly talented as an organist and harpsichordist and has written a huge amount of music in many genres; she is now teaching at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.