Johann Krebs (1713-1780) is most famous for having been a pupil of J. S. Bach, and a good one, at that – and the lessons learned were put to excellent use in a set of chorale preludes for organ and ‘obligato’ [Italian; from the adjective for ‘fixed’] instrument. We hear two of them today – each based on Lutheran Hymn-tunes – and set in the same format: An organ trio texture [one voice for the right hand, one for the left, and one for the feet] with the tune singing, happily, in between…

Playing the ‘obligato’ today is Alex Rodiek, eldest son of Elaine and Roger, who is in Houston for the Summer. Having just graduated, cum laude, with a Bachelor of Music from Vanderbilt University [where he served as the Principal Trumpet (first chair) of the orchestra], Alex is headed for Graduate work at the North Carolina School of the Arts in the Fall. Also a superb right-handed pitcher, he is taking in as many Astros games as possible…

Thanks, also, to Robin Angly, for calling us to worship with a lovely song of Handel.

Jane Marshall’s ‘Bless the Lord, My Soul’ was written, on commission, from the University Methodist and University Presbyterian Churches of Austin, TX, in the 1988 and is remarkable in its clever interweaving of choir and organ, neither color ever quite gaining the upper hand, but nimbly tag-teaming their way to the final chord. You could teach a class in voice-leading and harmony with the quiet intricacies presented here…
The ‘Cantique de Jean Racine,’ the work of a nineteen-year-old Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), is an aural snapshot of 1864 Paris: sunny, decorous, proper, luxuriant and blissfully ignorant of the modernizing world at the doorstep. It was unthreatening enough to be awarded First Prize by a jury of his teachers upon graduation from the Ecole Niedermeyer. The text, ‘Verbe égal au Trés-Haut,’ is a paraphrase by Jean Racine of the Ambrosian-style [after Ambrose, a style of writing that was severe and given over to classical allusions…] hymn for Tuesday Matins, ‘consors paterni luminis,’ a hymn of thankfulness for the Light of Day – not only the sun, but also the Son of God. Copyright restrictions forbid the reprinting of the translation
We are singing the Fauré in French this morning, because:

We have a resident French coach, Matthew Dirst, and

It just sings better, and more smoothly in French, and

The unprintable translation is more than a little corny…

-Keith Weber