Music Notes – Sunday, March 15th:
This Sunday’s musicians are Ellen Putman, Hallie Horowitz, The Chancel Choir, and UUCC Music Director Mike Carney
About Sunday’s guest musicians:
Hallie Horowitz is a graduate of the Philadelphia Musical Academy, with education from Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She was with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra for 27 years, and a popular solo recitalist and violin instructor in and around San Diego County before retiring to East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
Hallie’s sister Ellen Horowitz Putman, a current member of UUCC, holds degrees in piano from Juilliard and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins, has taught at Peabody Preparatory and privately, and has worked as a performer and accompanist in the many different towns that she and her late husband Bill’s pet rats said they wanted to live in.
Centering Music: Allegro molto (I) from Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major – Schubert
Postlude: Allegro vivace (III) from Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major – Schubert
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer who wrote in both Classical and Romantic styles during his lifetime. Schubert composed symphonies, operas, piano and chamber music and over 600 lieder (art songs for solo voice and piano) during his brief career. Schubert was an accomplished violinist and began composing for the instrument at a young age. Sunday’s service will be bookended by two movements from his Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Major (Op. 137, D 384), composed in 1816 when Schubert was just 19 years old, but not published until 1836, several years after his death.
Song: Just as Long as I Have Breath – Ebeling/Carpenter
#6 in Singing the Living Tradition, “Just as Long as I Have Breath” is a song based on Johann Ebeling’s (1637-1676) traditional hymn tune “Nicht So Traurig” (“Not So Sad”), with words by UU songwriter and activist Alicia S. Carpenter (1930-2021). Carpenter authored no fewer than 10 of the songs in our ‘big’ hymnal, including “Here We Have Gathered” (#360), We Celebrate the Web of Life” (#175), and “With Heart and Mind” (#300).
Special Music: O nobilissima viriditas (O Most Noble Greenness) – Hildegard von Bingen
Hildegard von Bingen (ca. 1098-1179), also known as St. Hildegard or Sybil of the Rhine, was a Medieval musician, abbess, mystic, writer, linguist, philosopher, and healer who was undisputedly one of history’s most remarkable women. Theologically, Hildegard managed to bridge the gap between Benedictine Catholicism and earth-centered mysticism, which is no easy feat in our modern world, let alone in the European society of nearly 1000 years ago when Hildegard was alive. Her music was far ahead of its time, employing large melodic leaps and complex melismatic passages, as well as dramatic mirroring of music to lyrics. Hildegard’s compositions are also remarkable in the fact that she wrote her own original texts rather than setting Psalms or other Biblical verses, and that she composed sacred music for women’s voices, both of which were highly unusual practices during the 12th century. “O nobilissima viriditas” comes from Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly Revelations), a collection of 77 original lyric poems, each set to music by Hildegard herself, believed to have been written between 1140-1160 C.E. The English translation of the original Latin text is below.
O most noble Greenness, rooted in the sun,
And who shines in bright serenity upon the wheel,
Nothing on earth can comprehend you,
You are encircled in the arms of divine mysteries.
You are radiant as the dawn and burn as the flame of the sun.
Offertory music: A Pawnee Prayer – Shaw/Traditional Native American
Dr. Kirby Shaw (b. 1942) is an internationally known choral composer, arranger, educator, and conductor with over 2,000 published works to his name. His compositions have received commissions from dozens of choral groups, including the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and earned him numerous awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). In the composer’s own words: “’A Pawnee Prayer’ emphasizes our deep connection to the web of life on this planet”. The song, which is based on a traditional Native American prayer, was first published in 2005.
Song: For All That Is Our Life – Rickey/Findlow
#128 in Singing the Living Tradition, “For All That Is Our Life” has been a favorite UU hymn for many years. The song resulted from a collaboration between composer Patrick Rickey (b. 1964), a California-based songwriter and church musician, and Rev. Bruce Findlow (1922-1994), a British author, educator and UU Minister who wrote the song’s lyrics.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director