From the Choir Director -
Bernard Wiseman



The choir is on hiatus for the summer. Special music guests will add to the worship services:



From the Organist -
Dr. Rudolf Zuiderveld

Music for
Sunday, June 29

Prelude:
Canon in D ............................................................ Johann Pachelbel

Offertory:
A Wedding Tune for Ann
.......................... Ralph Vaughan Williams

Postlude:
Trumpet Voluntary ................................................. Jeremiah Clarke

Music note :
During the month of June, it is appropriate to hear some of the delightful music often heard at weddings. No doubt, in the last 30 years, Pachelbel's Canon has become an all-time favorite at weddings, particularly as part of the processional preceeding the entrance of the bride: it is a long piece, but can be cut short at anytime. On the organ it must be played as an arrangement, since the original is only possible with three violins (to perform the "canon" or round). S. Drummond Wolff did this, preserving the constantly repeating bass with harmonies (making it a "ciacona"), and melodic fragments and rhythmic motives from the Canon's violin parts.

Vaughan Williams is best known for his organ prelude on Rhosymedre (see No. 534 Blue for a new hymn for weddings: The grace of life it theirs), but today we hear a charming tune that we wrote as a wedding gift in 1943 — a beautiful folksong-like melody.

Trumpet Voluntary by Jeremiah Clarke is the most used wedding processional of our time. Originally a march composed for the entrance of Hamlet in Shakespeare's play (The Prince of Denmark's March), Clarke's noble tune can be given a grand treatment is heard in the postlude. Clarke was music director of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and composed over 20 fine anthems. Sadly he shot himself after finding the organ Diapason flat one Sunday, prompting a commentator to remark that by removing himself to the next life, perfect harmony was possible.