Music Notes from Director of Music and Organist, Michael Latsko:

The prelude is a fanciful setting of a German Epiphany chorale “Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern” (“How bright appears the Morning Star, #497 in The Hymnal 1982) by German composer Max Drischner whose music I have featured throughout Advent and Christmas. The melody is obvious despite how Drischner moves it from left hand to right hand amidst the distraction of endlessly running sixteenth (and occasional thirty-second!) notes. The original tune is attributed to Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608), German Lutheran poet, composer and pastor; he also wrote a famous Advent chorale “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers awake, #61 in The Hymnal 1982).

The solo sung by Keith Perry incorporates the same tune (# 497 in The Hymnal 1982), played, in this rendition, by the organ while the soloist spins the tale of the Magi in an Eastern-inspired melody. “The Three Kings,” by German composer Peter Cornelius (1824-1874), was originally written for voice and piano. It was made popular by English organist Ivor Atkins’s arrangement for solo voice and choir included in the first volume of Carols for Choirs (the “green book”) compiled by David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques. Cornelius lived in Weimar and Vienna, composed operas, knew Richard Wagner, and gave advice about orchestration to Franz Liszt. His uncle was a famous painter through him he also met, among others, Felix Mendelssohn and the Brothers Grimm.

The postlude is a hymn setting for the five verses of “We Three Kings of Orient Are” (# 128 in The Hymnal 1982), words and music by Pennsylvania-born John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (1820-1891). While Hopkins wrote other carols, hymns and songs, it is this Christmastime favorite, composed in 1857, that will forever afford him a place in music history, while at the same time brand him a one-hit composer. I never was a particular fan of this carol since most often I heard it played liked a dirge. One Sunday when I was living in New York, I attended an Epiphany service at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, where Gerre Hancock presided over the music program. His rendition was anything but a dirge, and it quite literally brought the house down with its exuberance and energy. When I asked Gerre about his version, he whimsically remarked: “It was a caravan, and the kings were riding camels, through a hot desert, not riding in an air-conditioned posh limousine. It can’t have been terribly comfortable and most certainly was bouncy – have you ever ridden a camel?” His impressions forever transformed this carol for me. Listen for the “star of wonder…with beauty bright,” the biting sound of “myrrh’s bitter perfume…sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying” (verse 4) before a blaze of glorious “Alleluia’s” in the final verse.

Soloist: Keith Perry

Officiant and Homilist: The Rev. G. Miles Smith

Liturgical excerpts are from The Book of Common Prayer 1979