Save the date: Linking Legacies concert next Sunday, May 14th
Be sure to join us in the UUCC Sanctuary at 1:00 p.m. next Sunday, May 14th for Linking Legacies, a free concert celebrating the music of Black composers and performers with a connection to Northeast Ohio. Click here for more information about this very special musical event!
Music Notes – Sunday, May 7th:
This week’s musicians are violinist Mary Beth Ions, The Chancel Choir, The Women’s Ensemble, and UUCC Music Director Mike Carney
About Sunday’s guest musician:
For over twenty years, violinist Mary Beth Ions has been one of Cleveland’s most active musicians. She plays in the Opera Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Trinity Cathedral Chamber Orchestra, and for numerous Playhouse Square productions of touring Broadway shows. She regularly provides back-up music for touring musicians, including Mannheim Steamroller, Barry Manilow, Rod Stewart, Smokey Robinson, Sarah Brightman, and many others. During the summer she performs as Principal Second Violin with the Blossom Festival Orchestra.
Mary Beth will play special pre-service music this Sunday beginning at 10:00. Come early to church this week for a musical treat!
Opening Hymn: #128 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 lyrics.
Centering Music, Offertory, and Postlude: Selections from Requiem – Fauré
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was a highly influential and respected French composer and educator who helped to bridge the gap from 19th century Romanticism to the musical Impressionism of the early 20th century. Some of Fauré’s best-known works are his Pavane, Sicilienne, piano Nocturnes, and of course, his setting of the Requiem Mass. Fauré composed his Requiem between 1887-1890, and likely created it as a tribute to his father and mother, who passed away in 1885 and 1887, respectively. Many other composers had already written Requiem settings before Fauré’s time, most famously including Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz, and Brahms. However, Fauré’s setting of the traditional Catholic funeral mass differed from all of its predecessors in both form and mood. Fauré’s Requiem was originally scored for two vocal soloists and a choir of about 40 voices, accompanied by a solo violin, organ, and small orchestra that was intended to support the voices with a gentle and flowing accompaniment, with none of the brass and percussion-filled bombast that was popular across Europe at the time. Fauré intended his Requiem to be tender and reflective, with no mention of Judgement Day or God’s wrath. Fauré was a self-described religious skeptic, so his Requiem setting was not so much an extension of his own beliefs as it was a musical tribute to his departed parents. This Sunday, our musicians will sing and play three of the seven movements from Fauré’s Requiem.
Our Centering Music will be the fourth of the Requiem’s seven movements, “Pie Jesu”. In traditional settings of the Requiem, “Pie Jesu” (Dearest Jesus) is heard immediately after the “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath). Instead of using his “Pie Jesu” to balance the frightening imagery of Judgement Day, Fauré uses it as a standalone movement, with music to match the language of God’s redeeming love. Fauré’s “Pie Jesu” is typically sung by a soprano soloist, but in our service this Sunday, the melody will be played by violinist Mary Beth Ions, accompanied on the organ by Mike Carney.
Sunday’s Offertory will be “Sanctus” (Holy), movement three of Fauré’s Requiem. “Sanctus” is built around a gently moving choral melody in call-and-response style which is built around groups of just three notes and accompanied by harp and violin in the original score. This Sunday, Fauré’s “Sanctus” will be sung by UUCC’s Women’s Ensemble, accompanied by Mike Carney on the organ and Mary Beth Ions on violin.
Our service will conclude with the final movement of Fauré’s Requiem, “In Paradisum” (In Paradise), played and sung as Sunday’s Postlude. The text for this movement is not from the ordinary of the Catholic Requiem, but instead comes from the Order of Burial, and translates roughly as “May angels lead you to Paradise”. Fauré’s original scoring was for rising arpeggiated chords in the organ and orchestra supporting a gently moving soprano melody that resolves into harmony provided by the other voice parts. This Sunday, you’ll hear Fauré’s “In Paradisum” played by Lucy Carney on the organ and Mary Beth Ions on violin, and sung by our Chancel Choir.
Closing Hymn: #318 We Would Be One – Sibelius/Wright
This Sunday’s closing hymn will be #318 “We Would Be One”, one of two hymns in Singing the Living Tradition built around the Finlandia melody, borrowed from a 1900 tone poem of the same name by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). The words you’ll singing this Sunday were written by Unitarian minister Samuel Anthony Wright (1919-2016) for Unitarian and Universalist youth at their Continental Convention of 1953-54. Matching the sentiment of the hymn, that event resulted in the youth of our two parent faiths merging to become the Liberal Religious Youth of the United States and Canada, nearly 10 years before the official creation of the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director