Don’t forget that Good Company’s fall concert is this weekend: Sunday, November 13th at 3:00 p.m. at Lakewood Presbyterian Church (14502 Detroit Road), with special guest composer Sarah Quartel. Click here for more information about this event.
Music Notes for November 13th, 2022
This Sunday’s musician is UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley.
Opening Hymn: #159 This Is My Song – Sibelius/Stone
“This Is My Song” (#159 in Singing the Living Tradition) is a favorite hymn of many UUs. The music famously comes from Finlandia, a 1900 tone poem which is the best-known work of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). In 1934, American poet Lloyd Stone (1912-1993) set Sibelius’s distinctive melody to “This Is My Song”, intending the hymn to become an international song of peace. Fittingly, Stone’s setting of the Finlandia melody appears today in hymnals of dozens of faith traditions around the world.
Centering Music: Freedom – Brickman
Offertory Music: Hero’s Dream – Brickman
Postlude: Glory – Brickman & Benoit
Shaker Heights native Jim Brickman (b. 1961) is a pianist, songwriter, arranger, and syndicated radio host known primarily for pop and new age music. He has enjoyed great commercial success, with six of his original albums certified Gold or Platinum by the Recording Institute Association of America and over 30 songs reaching the top 20 in Billboard Magazine’s Adult Contemporary Charts. Throughout his career, Brickman has collaborated with numerous other well-known artists, including Johnny Mathis, Martina McBride, Carly Simon, and Lady Antebellum and has twice been nominated for a Grammy Award. “Freedom” is from Brickman’s 1999 album Destiny, “Hero’s Dream” was first released on Brickman’s 1997 album Picture This, and “Glory” comes from Brickman’s 2008 release Unspoken.
Hymn: #160 Far Too Long, By Fear Divided – Storey
“Far Too Long, By Fear Divided” is hymn #160 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal. The tune, originally known as “Lobt Den Herrn, Die Morgensonne” (‘Praise the Lord, the Morning Sun’), is credited to German minister, author, and musician Johann Samuel Patzke (1727-1787), and is most commonly set in Lutheran hymnals as “Hark! The Church Proclaims her Honor”. In Singing the Living Tradition, this old German tune is set to the words of a 20th-century British UU Minister, author, and hymnist John Andrew Storey (1935-1997). Storey’s text calls for peace, understanding, and unity between people and between nations.
Closing Hymn: # 1021 Lean on Me
First released in 1972, “Lean on Me” was the first and only number one hit for R&B legend Bill Withers (1938-2020). In 1987, a remake by the reggae band Club Nouveau won Withers a Grammy Award for Best Song and made “Lean on Me” one of only a handful of songs to have reached #1 both in its original form and then later as a cover version. The song was notably performed by Mary J. Blige at the concert celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009, and is included in our Singing the Journey hymnbook as #1021.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director