Hello members and friends of UUCC, 

As I count my blessings this Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for all of the choir members and instrumentalists who have given so generously of their time and talent to provide music for our online services this year. Thank you to everyone who has sang, played, or otherwise made music possible at UUCC this year, and I wish all of you a happy and safe Thanksgiving! 

Please tune in this Sunday, November 29th for our weekly online service, which will feature music from UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley, from me, and from Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble. This Sunday will also mark the online debut of UUCC’s YoUUth Choir, who are back by popular demand – and of course, by the dedication of Alicia Burkle, Molly Watkins and our wonderful and talented youth!

Read on for this week’s Music Notes…

Music Notes for November 29th, 2020

Music 1: I Walk the Unfrequented Road – Traditional/Hosmer 

“I Walk the Unfrequented Road” (#53 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal) is a setting of words from Unitarian minister Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929), who served as minister of our congregation from 1878-1892. Hosmer’s text describes the beauty of journeying down the proverbial ‘road less traveled’ on an Autumn day. The hymn tune (known as “Consolation” or Morning Song”) first appeared in 1813 in Repository of Sacred Music, although it is likely years or even decades older than its first publication. The exact origins of the tune are uncertain, but it is often attributed to Presbyterian minister and hymn writer Elkanah K. Dare (1782-1826). The tune has appeared in well over 100 hymnals, most frequently set as “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns” and “O Holy City, Seen of John”. This Sunday, UUCC Music Director Mike Carney will lead “I Walk the Unfrequented Road”. 

Music 2: Down to the Earth – Carney/Thoreau 

“Down to the Earth” is a 2020 composition for men’s voices by UUCC Music Director Mike Carney. The text for “Down to the Earth” comes from journal entries by the American transcendentalist author and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), considered to be one of the forefathers of American environmentalism. “Down to the Earth” uses rhythmic ostinatos and harmonic elements from modern classical, blues, and jazz to reflect Thoreau’s text with an American sensibility. A short contrasting middle section features a tenor soloist and triplet rhythms in a slower tempo before the original rhythmic ostinato and melodic material returns to close the piece. Thoreau’s text is as follows:

In as many places as possible, 
I will get my feet down to the earth. 
The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass.  
It is a body—has a spirit—is organic—and fluid to the influence of its spirit—and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.  

This Sunday’s performance of “Down to the Earth” is by the men of Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble featuring Corey Sees, tenor soloist. 

Music 3/Offertory: I Walk with Joy Through the Green Forest – Gustav 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. 

Postlude: May the Road Rise to Meet You – Turner

“May the Road Rise to Meet You” is a 1995 setting of the traditional Irish blessing of the same name. The musical setting you’ll be hearing Sunday was written by Florida native Lee Turner, who is best known as a pianist, composer and arranger of sacred music and as the co-founder of his own publishing company TurnerSong. UUCC’s own YoUUth Choir, directed by Alicia Burkle and Molly Watkins, will be leading the song this Sunday.