Music Notes: Palm Sunday - Year C

As Jesus continues his journey and enters the City of Jerusalem, so do we continue our journey together into Holy Week this Palm Sunday.

A special addition to this Palm Sunday will be a performance by Philadelphia-based Positive Movement Drumline starting at 10:15am, whose “sole focus is to encourage and inspire young people and adults so they may find a safe haven through drumming, while simultaneously spreading a positive community message, showing leadership, and raising awareness to decrease gun violence in Philadelphia.” I am very grateful to them for their performance this Sunday and if you are able, please do support the Music Fund to help fund them and all the musicians we engage including our Brass for Easter Day. All contributions are gratefully received and acknowledged.

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This performance combined with our choral and organ music during the Holy Eucharist will help us transition from Lent, into Passiontide, Holy Week, and then to the miracle of the Easter Story. Music this week comes from the very beginnings of Church music with our plainsong Introit and Psalm, to the modern day with Barber’s Adagio for Strings as our Postlude.

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[Repost from the Seventh Sunday of Epiphany] A Knight of the British Empire, Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941) had a prolific career as organist, composer, educator, Royal Air Force Officer, radio presenter, and Master of the Kings music (succeeding no less than Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1937)!)… to name but a few of his jobs! Oh, he also taught Leopold Stokowski, the conductor of the famous Disney classical music animation, Fantasia.

His vast output for much larger forces than 4-part choir somewhat shadow his God be in my Head and yet the latter remains one of his most well-known works, first published in 1910. Its text is taken from French in the frontispiece the Book of Hours (1514) and was translated to English in 1558.

Walford Davies was taught by Charles Villers Stanford at the Royal College of Music. He was for a short time Organist at St. Anne’s Church, Soho, London, which today is one of London’s most liberal and progressive churches (to learn more, when you see me, ask me about Lady Lambrini!).

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I am going to have to say it… I truly think that O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded is one of the finest harmonisations J. S. Bach (1685-1750) ever wrote! Originally a secular melody (Herzlich tut mich verlangen) by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) with text from the Middle Ages, we hear it this Sunday as our Communion Motet. His ingenious use of harmonic progression to further illustrate the text allows us to deepen the meaning of this beautiful hymn, particularly in the context of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion from which this is taken, while also being found in many of this other works. The Danish composer Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) composed a set of variations for string quartet on this tune.

Cool Fact: J. S. Bach’s influence extends well into the 20^th century and the present day as can be heard here in Paul Simon’s American Tune which uses the same melody and some of the harmonic progressions as Bach’s arrangement in this secular pop song from the 1970s!

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Used at Franklin Delano Roosevelt's funeral and in a performance to an empty hall by the National Symphony Orchestra after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Samuel Barber’s (1910-1981) Adagio for Strings has been coined as the piece that did for the North American music traditions what Elgar’s Nimrod Variations did for the British music traditions. In 1938, Barber sent a score of the piece to Arturo Toscanini who returned the work without comment. Despite this apparent rudeness, Toscanini had supposedly memorized the piece and had no use for the score ahead of him conducting its first performance later that year!

From its first fragile B-flat that seems to hang, suspended in time, to the penetrating climax, and resulting calm of hope, one can almost map the journey of Holy Week through each and every note… Use this moment of quiet at the end of our Palm Sunday service this year as a way to prepare your hearts and minds for the Holy Week ahead.

Take a Listen: Barber’s famous string orchestra work can be heard performed in a beautiful arrangement with voices in a setting of the Agnus Dei, as heard here in a recording by the incredible vocal group, Voces8.

Cantate Domino!

Tyrone Whiting
Director of Music
[email protected]

Tyrone Whiting

Director of Music & Arts
412 587 0178

[email protected]

As Director of Music & Arts at St. Martin's, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (he/him) oversees all our music and arts ministries, outreach, and education. Tyrone says: "With a robed adult choir supported by four professional section leaders, a children’s choir Chorister program, and a robust series of concerts throughout the year, St. Martin’s is an incredibly musically active church, whose mission and outreach are at the heart of the music program. I am proud and grateful to all who participate and support our music ministries."

Winner of multiple prizes, organist, pianist, and conductor, Tyrone Whiting began his formal studies as a teenager with Nigel McClintock at Croydon Parish Church (now Croydon Minster) in London, UK. Five years later, in the summer of 2011, he was awarded the Associateship diploma of the Royal College of Organists (ARCO).

Tyrone previously graduated from the Royal College of Music (RCM) as a scholar from the Postgraduate Diploma in Performance Science course, where he was generously funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentship and supported by the Douglas and Hilda Simmonds Award. Returning to the RCM in 2016, Tyrone received a distinction in the one-year fast-track Master of Music degree course, achieving an ‘excellent’ category distinction grade in his final organ recital, and receiving the renowned Harold Darke Prize in 2017. Tyrone studied organ with both David Graham and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, conducting with Peter Stark and Howard Williams, and has also undertaken historical performance projects with Jane Chapman and Lawrence Zazzo.

He has performed at venues across the UK, Europe, and the USA including Westminster Abbey and the Royal Albert Hall (UK); St. Sulpice, Paris (France); and the Palau de la Música de València (Spain). Pre-pandemic, Tyrone had taken tours to play organs in Mexico City & Puebla, Mexico, and future performances include the Episcopal Cathedral of Philadelphia; Christ Church, Philadelphia; Occidental College in LA for the LAAGO; and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, NYC. In November, Tyrone will also conduct Fauré’s Requiem with orchestra at St. Martin’s.

Graduating in 2012 with a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he studied organ performance with William Whitehead, Daniel Moult, and Ann Elise Smoot, Tyrone was three times winner of the Geoffrey Singleton Prize for Organ Performance (2010, 2011 & 2012), and twice winner of the Cardnell Organ Prize for ‘talents as an organist’ (2011 & 2012). Throughout the degree, Tyrone trained as a pianist under the direction of the renowned Phillip Fowke and continues to perform piano alongside his organ work. Tyrone also studied at Trinity’s Junior Department where he was awarded the Hambourg Award for Improvisation.

In September 2017, Tyrone was appointed Director of Music at Grace Church in Newark, New Jersey, USA and began working there in February 2018. At Grace Church, Tyrone extended the Chorister Choir School program, developed and expanded the adult choir, and founded a brand-new adult chamber choir, Brick City Chorus, as well as significantly raising the profile of music at Grace Church and the Arts in Newark, NJ.

Prior to Tyrone’s arrival in the USA, he was Director of Music at St. Mary’s Parish Church, Battersea from 2012 to early 2018. At St. Mary’s, Tyrone established a biennial recital series as well as a new fully-funded choral scholarship program, and conducted several large-scale concerts including Mozart and Fauré’s requiems, J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion, and Stainer’s Crucifixion. Collaborative work included conducting a recent commission by prominent British composer Simon Bainbridge written for the Choir of St. Mary’s, as well as working as accompanist for the Philharmonia Chorus under conductors Stefan Bevier and Yaron Traub.

Passionate about teaching, Tyrone was awarded the Licentiateship diploma of Trinity College, London (LTCL) in Instrumental/Vocal Teaching with a high distinction and worked in and around London as a teacher of organ, piano, and theory. He was formerly Head of Music at Elmhurst Independent School for Boys for many years and worked as an animateur in London schools and with the London Mozart Players.

Click here to visit Tyrone's website