Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

February 16, 2014

The two musical pieces we hear during the offering today are the basis for this week’s blog.  At the 8:15 service, the handbell choir will perform an arrangement of the joyful hymn In Thee Is Gladness.  Later, at the 10:30 service, the Sunday School children will sing Arise, Shine, for your Light has come, a simple song that states Isaiah 60:1.

We encounter the hymn In Thee Is Gladness twice during the early service.  The handbell arrangement emphasizes the ebullience of the hymn through the constant eighth note motion that rambles throughout the entire piece.  Later, the hymn itself (ELW 867) should make you get up and dance!  That’s because it has its musical origins in the light dance rhythms of a late Renaissance genre known as the balleto, or “little dance.”  An Italian, Giacomo Gastoldi, was the primary composer of this gracious style, which features repeated musical phrases, simple harmonies, and a lightness of rhythm that often included the singing of “fa la la’s.”  A contemporary German church musician, Johann Lindemann, adapted this balleto by adding the text of his own hymn, In dir is Freude.   What’s my point for revealing the dance origins of this great hymn?  That the character of the music and the text we sing to it are often remarkably well suited for each other.  The unabashed joy of the hymn text demands that we get up and dance in celebration! 

In thee is gladness, amid all sadness, Jesus, sunshine of my heart.  By thee are given, the gifts of heaven, thou the true redeemer art.

An interesting local connection with this hymn:  the arrangement found in the hymnal is by Jan Bender, 20^th century church musician extraordinaire, who taught at Gustavus for several years (and was well known to many at FLC, including David Fienen.)  I will endeavor to remain true to Bender’s harmony for at least the first stanza of the hymn!

This simple song Arise, Shine emerged out of a movement that calls itself Music That Makes Community.  The goal of this movement is to generate “paperless” music – that is music that can be learned by heart and sung together in worship.  One connection with our local context I’ve talked about with the Sunday School kids is the large blue and white banner that hangs in our nave during the season of Epiphany.  Of course, the text on the banner is the first phrase of the song.  Since this song is meant to encourage community, the kids will invite the congregation to sing along!