February 13, 2025

6th Sunday After Epiphany

This Sunday’s themes of trust, hope and dependence on the Holy One are profoundly comforting at any time, but especially in our world filled with turmoil and strife, and much of it caused by people we should be able to trust. Knowing that in Christ we find all meaning, hope and comfort is vital to remember!

The Choir’s Prelude sets one of my favorite poems “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree”. The poem’s first known publication, beginning The Tree of Life My Soul Hath Seen, was in London's Spiritual Magazine in August, 1761. This credits "R.H." as the submitter and presumed author. R.H. has been shown most likely to refer to Rev. Richard Hutchens, a Calvinist Baptist clergyman then in Northamptonshire. Another early printing, which cannot be dated and could be earlier, is an English broadsheet which uses the term "Methodists," which certainly places it after about 1730, when the term first came into use at Oxford University, and probably substantially later, when the religious movement had spread.

The song may be an allusion to both the apple tree in Song of Solomon 2:3, which was the text of 4th Sunday Prelude “I Sat Down” by Bairstow:  "As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste" This text has long been interpreted as a metaphor representing Jesus, and to his description of his life as a tree of life in Luke 13:18–19 and elsewhere in the New Testament. While I love each verse, the words of verse 3 strike home for each of us who could lament wasted energies and wasted youth: “For happiness I long have sought, and pleasure dearly I have bought. I missed of all, but now I see ‘tis found in Christ, the apple tree.” 

A number of composers subsequently set the poem to music, but the best known of these settings is by British composer Elizabeth Poston (1905-1987).  She concerned herself throughout her career with the integrity of British folk-music heritage as well as its possibilities when woven into Western musical forms. Her musical vision for the poem, published in 1967, starts with a lovely, single-line melody in folk style – a melody she had published six years earlier in a book of children’s songs. The subsequent verses grow richer in choral harmony, but also draw back at times, giving the lines a pulsating feeling of gently louder, then softer, drama. Elizabeth Poston was much interested in folk song, hymns and carols, not least through her close friendship with Peter Warlock and her early study with Ralph Vaughan Williams. A tremendously energetic musician, she was highly regarded as a pianist, scholar, broadcaster and composer of concert, radio and TV music.

The choir’s Anthem continues our exploration of modern settings of great African-American Spirituals, with Gerald Near’s “There is a Balm in Gilead”. His is a tender and moving setting of this familiar spiritual, alternating between flowing accompanied statements of the refrain and a cappella settings of the verses. Gerald Near is considered one of the finest composers of church music writing today, and his lovingly-crafted works have formed the backbone of my organ and choral repertoire for decades. Near served as organist/choirmaster and Canon Precentor at Sant Matthew's Cathedral in Dallas during the 1980s, and he lived across the street from my mentor Richard DeLong on Wildgrove Lane at the intersection of Loving Avenue. He currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he serves as Choral Director and Cantor at Holy Faith [“Santa Fe”] Episcopal Church and devotes a great deal of his time to composing.

My Communion Music is a new setting of the Spiritual “Here’s One” by Evelyn Larter, which won Second Place in the “2025 Woman Composer Sunday” composition contest held by the American Guild of Organists Task Force for Gender Equity. Woman Composer Sunday is celebrated on March 9th this year, and I will perform two of the other winning compositions that day. Evelyn Larter was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and is an honors graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in concert piano and general music education. Since September 2003, Larter has been the Director of Music at historic Deerfield Presbyterian Church, South Jersey. As a composer, Larter writes anthems for her small church choir, and hymn arrangements for instrumental and vocal solo, and for small ensembles. There is no recording of this work since it was just announced and sent to AGO Members 5 days ago, so I am thrilled to be able to play it this week. If you aren’t familiar with this touching Spiritual, you can hear Mark Hayes’ atmospheric setting of it here.

It is my prayer that we find strength in the words we sing so that we are empowered to be Christ’s to our world every moment of every day.

With a Grateful Heart,

Kenton