Save the date – outdoor concert after the service next Sunday, July 9th!
Be sure to pack a lunch and a lawn chair and stay after the service next Sunday, July 9th. After Freecycle, there will be a free outdoor concert on UUCC’s east lawn at 1 p.m., featuring Brazilian jazz guitarist Moises Borges and friends. Click here for more details about this very special event!
Music Notes – Sunday, July 2nd:
This week’s musician is UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley
Opening Hymn: When the Summer Sun Is Shining – American folk song/Knight
The American hymn tune most commonly known as “Holy Manna” was first published in Columbian Harmony, an 1829 shape-note tune book compiled by William Moore, and the melody is usually attributed to him. Today, the tune appears in nearly every Christian hymnal (its most popular modern lyric setting is “God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens”) and is found in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal as the melody of #66 “When the Summer Sun Is Shining”, with words by British Unitarian minister and author Sydney Henry Knight.
Centering Music: Venus (from The Planets) – Holst
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was an English composer, musician, and teacher, famous for composing symphonies, operas, ballets, symphonies, choral works, and vocal pieces. Without question, Holst’s most famous work is his 1916 orchestral suite The Planets (op. 32). Holst was introduced to astrology in 1913 and developed a fascination with the subject, and it was astrology (not astronomy or mythology) that inspired Holst to compose The Planets. Each of the seven movements of The Planets corresponds with a planet of our solar system, and each section of the larger work is meant to reflect the astrological influence of a particular planet on the human psyche. The Planets was immensely popular and singlehandedly served to make Holst a household name in England and around the world.
Offertory: Clusters of Crocus/Come to my Garden – Simon/Norman
This Sunday’s offertory music comes from the 1989 musical The Secret Garden, written (book and lyrics) by Marsha Norman (b. 1947) with music by Lucy Simon (1940-2022, sister of pop music icon Carly Simon). The Secret Garden was based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical was fairly successful commercially, running for almost 2 years on Broadway, and was critically acclaimed, receiving 3 Tony Awards among other honors.
Closing Hymn: Rising Green – McDade
Written in 1983, “Rising Green” is #1068 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook. The song was written by Carolyn McDade (b. 1935), a self-described songwriter, spiritual feminist, and social activist, who is also the composer of three other UU favorites: “Spirit of Life”, “Come, Sing a Song with Me”, and “We’ll Build a Land”. About “Rising Green”, the composer shares these words: “Earth shakes out a mantle of green—each blade of grass true to the integrity within, yet together with others is the rise of spring from winter’s urging. Our coming is with the grass—the common which persists, unexalted, but with the essence of life. Our humanness, our rhythms and dreams, the faith which nurtures our ardent love and hope for life—all this we share with earth community, of which we are natural and connected beings.” (from uua.org)
Postlude: I Walk with Joy Through the Green Forest – Mahler
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was a composer, conductor, and pianist who became one of the most important figures in European music during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Bohemia, Mahler was the second of twelve children. He showed musical ability from a young age and graduated from the Vienna Conservatory at the age of 18. “I Walk with Joy Through the Green Forest” is from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn), a song cycle for voice and piano based on German folk poems, first published in 1892. This Sunday, you’ll hear this piece adapted for solo piano and performed by UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director
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