Music Notes from Music Director and Organist, Michael Latsko:
According to Weddingwire.com, June is among the top 5 most popular months for weddings. We haven’t had many weddings at Grace Church for quite some time because the building was closed for most of 2019, and so far in 2020 we haven’t been in our beloved building since March. So, in honor of a recent wedding (and, selfishly, to make sure yours truly doesn’t get rusty), this week I feature music popular at weddings.
The prelude is “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” which is the most common English title of a piece of music derived from a chorale setting of the cantata “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” ("Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life"), composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1723 and catalogued as the 147thwork in the catalog of Bach’s works (referred to commonly as the “BWV” number). The tune is lovely as is the flowing accompaniment. How this work became associated with weddings is unknown to me, although based on how popular the musical selections played at the 1981 wedding of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer became, it’s likely it was featured at a “royal wedding” and entered the nuptial vernacular.
The Postlude is also by a German composer who is single-handedly responsible for reviving the music of Bach. By the 1840’s Bach and his music were largely forgotten except to historians. Felix Mendelssohn rediscovered and arranged for a performance of Bach's “St Matthew Passion” following which Bach’s extraordinary body of work has been omnipresent ever since.
Often used as a wedding recessional, the “Wedding March” from Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 61 was first played at a wedding in 1847, but it was Victoria, the Princess Royal and Queen Victoria’s daughter, who made it popular during a wedding ceremony by having it accompany her own wedding in 1858. It was Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm IV who commissioned Mendelssohn to compose incidental music for many pieces that were based upon Greek mythology and tragedy in order to revive the genre of literature and performance. Among his commissions was Mendelssohn’s 1843 composition of a setting for William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (twelve musical selections and a finale). Of course, the plot of Shakespeare's play focuses on a pagan god and goddess and is filled with fairies, magic, and fantasy. Due to the piece's pagan inspirations, some church leaders and musicians — particularly in Roman Catholic churches — have found the piece to be inappropriate for a Christian religious ceremony. Nevertheless, it’s a delightfully energetic and festive work. Enjoy!
Officiant and Homilist: Fr. Miles Smith
The liturgical excerpts are from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.