Worship for August 30, 2020
Please view the embedded video of our service below by clicking on the grey arrow in the middle of the image.
About the Music:
Prelude: Percy William Whitlock (1 June 1903 – 1 May 1946) was a famed English cinema organist and post-Romantic composer who studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams and served in St. Stephen's Church, Bournemouth, for several years. One of his many short character pieces, "Fidelis" (Always Faithful), dating from 1833, beautifully highlights the softer stops of the organ.
Both the hymn and anthem this Sunday use variations of the words from the appointed reading from the Gospel of Matthew, "Take up your cross and follow me".
Hymn 675, "Take up your cross" is a poem written in 1833 by 19 year old Charles William Everest who later became an Episcopal Rector in Connecticut. It is sung to the American shape note tune Bourbon named for Bourbon County Kentucky where the distilling process of bourbon whiskey was invented by Baptist minister, Rev. Elijah Craig.
The anthem, "Take Up Your Cross" is written by well know composer of contemporary Catholic liturgical music, David Haas ,using the the words from the Gospel of Matthew. While current Diocesan guidelines only allow for using one singer at a time, the father/daughter duo of Jason Kolowski and Poppy Markus seems an appropriate exception.
Postlude: Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810–1876), the son of the composer and organist Samuel Wesley, grandson of the hymn-writer Charles Wesley and great nephew of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, held various positions as organist in English cathedrals. Choral Song (1842), the first half of his Choral Song and Fugue, is one of his most successful organ works. He is the composer of the hymn tune "Aurelia", sung to the words "The Church's One Foundation".