Music Notes - September 21, 2025

Welcome back to Music Notes! Each week I offer brief notes and historical context for the music we hear in worship as well as highlighting upcoming events.

Our opening hymn at the 10:30 a.m. service is A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, chosen by the Rev. Laura Palmer and sung at her ordination service. Just as the hymn proclaims victory through Christ over sin, death, and fear, so too ordained ministry is grounded in reliance upon God’s grace, equipping leaders to guide, comfort, and inspire the people of God with confidence and humility. I wish Laura every success in her new role, in which I know she will flourish, drawing strength from the God who is our fortress and offering that same assurance of faith and hope to those she serves. It has been a joy to work with Laura over the past couple of years and I thank her for her deep and sincere support of our music and arts ministries.

Our service opens with the lyrical second movement from Alexandre Guilmant’s Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 42—a work composed around 1874 that quickly became part of the standard Romantic organ repertory. Guilmant (1837–1911) was a central figure in the French Romantic organ school: a noted recitalist and teacher who served long church appointments in Paris and later taught at the Conservatoire.

At the Offertory, the choir sing Dear Lord and Father of Mankind the familiar prayer-poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. In many hymnals the text is paired with Sir Hubert Parry’s setting of a melody he adapted from his oratorio Judith (1888); in the United States the text is often paired with Frederick C. Maker’s tune “Rest.” Parry’s sublime harmonies and melodic writing give Whittier’s words a quiet dignity and sincere beauty,

For the Communion Anthem, the Choir offers Moses Hogan’s Hear My Prayer—one of the composer’s expressive arrangements that helped re-popularize the spiritual in modern choral life. Moses Hogan (1957–2003), born in New Orleans, became internationally known for his energetic, idiomatic settings of spirituals and for founding the Moses Hogan Chorale; his career included important studies and teaching that shaped his pianistic and choral craft. 

The organ postlude is Rev. Laura's all-time favorite piece of organ music: Widor’s Toccata (the finale of his Symphony for Organ No. 5, Op. 42, No. 1); the brilliant, movement many of us know and love from Easter Sunday. Widor composed the Fifth Symphony in 1879 (with later revisions), and its Toccata has become one of the most frequently performed and recorded staples of the organ repertory. 

Did you know? Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937) was appointed (initially “provisionally”) to the post at Saint-Sulpice in January 1870, and he remained the church’s principal organist until the end of 1933—a tenure of nearly 64 years that made the instrument and its Cavaillé-Coll voicing central to his compositional imagination. 

Fun Fact: I studied at St. Sulpice, Paris during my postgraduate degrees at the Royal College of Music, and just three weeks ago I gave my Paris debut recital at the very same church, opening the concert with the first movement of Widor's Symphony No. 6. To play Widor on his instrument in public performance was thrilling!

Cantate Domino!

— Tyrone Whiting, Director of Music & Arts