[Magdalen] Temporarily Lutheran

[James Oppenheimer]

Bach did a MARVELOUS job on the Wachet Auf cantata -- another of my
favorites.  However, the treatment he gives Luther's greatest hit is just
(literally:) amazing.  Not only is it contrapuntal within the voices, but
it plays in canon between the Baroque (gimme a heart attack please) Trumpet
and the basso. It's just so powerful.

And then he does a lyrical kind of 6/8 version for one verse.  I am
generally more interested in real early music, but in these cases, Bach
does a (literally:) spectacular job.

We had an annual gig to sing Christ Lag on Easter afternoon at Holy Cross
Monastery, but everybody got tired of it, so now we have a service of what
we call lessons and dirges.  I'm trying to get the group interested in
doing Ein' Feste for the local German church every year.  So far, no luck...

but as our former rector (now the new bishop's hitman) used to say, "We
live in hope..."

James W. Oppenheimer
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 9:08 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> In a message dated 9/16/2014 1:33:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com writes:
>
> Never  will forget the Reformation Sunday, a few years ago, when a pickup
> choir  did Bach's Cantata (what else could we do on Reformation
> Sunday?)>>>
>
> In the olden days prior to Vatican-2, you could get an idea of the
> churchmanship (high/low) of an Episcopal parish via whether they
> observed either Reformation Sunday (low church) or Christ the King
> (high church) on the last Sunday of October.
>
> Observance of Christ the King in Episcopal parishes was considered
> almost sinfully high church, actually.  It's a johnny-come-lately  feast
> with political overtones from 1925.
>
> Vatican-2, of course, moved Christ the King to what had been the
> Sunday Next Before Advent, and the feast found itself listed in  TEC
> calendar.
>
> Bach's "Wachet Auf" cantata was written for the Sunday Next Before  Advent,
> which had scripture and Proper that was anticipatory of The Coming  even
> though not in Advent.
>
>
> David Strang - who remembers attending a "Solemn High Mass of the
> Reformation" [!] at an especially high church Lutheran parish in St. Paul,
> MN.
>
>
>