Last summer I polled the elders and deacons for their favorite hymns and psalms so that I could better understand “where we’re at,” musically speaking. Our church officers love singing our songs but are not (I think they’d admit) highfalutin musicians. So, I safely assume their input provides an accurate barometric reading of where we are regarding the Cantus Christi and how we use it.

After collecting all the responses, I developed a list of 70 favorite songs from the Cantus. Last fall, the lion’s share of our songs in worship were drawn from this list. But 70 songs (Christmas carols were excluded) is only the tip of the familiar-and-favorite iceberg. For example, well-known hymns Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, O Worship the King, and Come Thou Almighty King didn’t get any votes, nor did Psalms like The Lord Hear Thee in Troubled Times, In Every Time I’ll Always Bless the Lord, or David Erb’s Psalm 149. All these (and others) are in our wheelhouse and are ones we want to continue singing with gusto. My point is this: although we learn a lot of new music at Christ Church, we are committed to our favorites and desire that these favorite songs continue to encourage our faith and build up our fellowship as a community.

So why learn new music? A couple of reasons. First, we want to be faithful in the things we’ve received, namely in singing the 150 Psalms in the Bible. Since May of 2020, when we began using the new Cantus Christi, we’ve sung over 100 Psalms but only about 50 are favorite and/or familiar. And so, we have a ways to go in getting acquainted with the Psalter.

Second, we learn new music out of faithfulness to our Christian heritage. By this I mean we learn songs new to us even though those songs can be quite old. We are big on historic Protestantism and so we are interested in the patterns of worship enjoyed by our spiritual ancestors. When it comes to songs, many have been buried in the sandbox of time—some for good reason. (We bury dead people too. We don’t just leave them lying where we fell). What I have in mind are the many diamonds in the rough, forgotten not for their lack of virtue but rather for the lack of virtue in those that allowed them to be forgotten in the first place. Good songs of the past fed the faith of our predecessors and helped make them a resilient people. We want their songs to do the same for us.

You may agree with my argument so far but have concerns about the process and pace by which songs are introduced. So here’s the plan for the coming year.

1. We will continue touring the Psalms in the Cantus. Last year we covered Psalms 1-40. This year, 41-80. Some of the Psalms on the tour are already familiar; some are favorites. Others we don’t know from Adam. Ordinarily, we read these new songs at sight, if they’re easy, that is. (This is like speed dating with the Psalms. If the date went well, we get the contact info and plan another date later). If the Psalm is particularly thorny, we might have a hymn lesson on it. (I don’t have a clever relationships analogy for learning thorny Psalms. Arranged marriage?).
2. We also have hymns of the month. Once a new song of worth is identified, we put it up as a hymn of the month, taking 3-4 weeks to learn it. Our December HOTM is 729, Nunc dimittis. January’s is 87/88, Psalm 44. February’s is 95a-b, Psalm 48.
3. Another vehicle we use to teach and review music is our monthly/bi-monthly Psalm Sing. Folks have been showing up to these in record numbers in recent months. If you’ve never been to one, come on out. We always have a great time of singing and fellowship. And normally we have food afterward. Our next Psalm Sing will be on February 13. Location TBA.

Thank you for your commitment to worshiping the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Please let me know if you have questions about our music or about the music program generally. I am thrilled to serve as your music director and am more than happy to speak with you about what we’re up to.

Mark Reagan
Epiphany 2022

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For a while now the Tallis Nunc dimittis has been a regular staple in the weekly line up at Beer and Psalms. If you’ve never gone, and ladies, it’s safe to assume you haven’t, the guys sing it every week in parts. That’s an accomplishment. It’s taken them a while to learn it. But they’ve not been deterred and over time, they’ve come to love it and look forward to singing it each week. So I’m teaching it to the congregation for them. Well, at least I’ll teach the soprano line. You’re welcome, gents.

The Circs, the Sitch

The Nunc dimittis is the praise Simeon uttered (Luke 2:29-32) as he took the child Jesus in his arms and blessed God. Simeon awaited the coming of the Messiah, and God promised he would not die until he saw Him, and when Simeon finally does, he praises God, calling on God to let him die peacefully now that God has fulfilled His promise to him.

Light and vision are the subject of Simeon’s prayer. Imagine Simeon an old man, whose eyesight was undoubtedly weak, dimly seeing the LORD’S salvation before him. Though physically weak, Simeon sees the truth clearly: Jesus is the promised light to the Gentiles, the glory of Israel.

Historically the church has recognized Simeon’s prayer as a light shining in the darkness. Catholic monks would sing a Nunc dimittis at Compline: evening worship celebrated well after sunset, when final prayers were offered before turning in. In the contemplative life, the light of truth shines more acutely in the shroud of night. During the English Reformation, the Anglican church assimilated the Nunc dimittis into Evensong worship and many musical settings of this text were composed, no longer in Latin as before, but in English (even though the Latin title was retained. This is true for all the historic church canticles, including Mary’s song—Magnificat, its Latin title).

The common people did not know Latin and so vernacular language replaced it in many northern-European countries. But besides turning to the lingua franca, another feature of these songs is the use of homorhythm (literally “same rhythm”), or the simultaneous declamation of the words in all the parts. Before the Reformation, the musical vogue was polyphony in which all the parts are treated melodically. The result is an impenetrable wall of sound, glorious music, yes, but with the words lost in the jumble. To end the confusion composers began to write music in such a way that everyone in the choir sings the same words and syllables at the same time. Our Cantus hymns are conceived this way.

Composer Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) wrote his Dorian Service this way. Many Kirkers know Tallis’s Psalm 95 from the Dorian Service. This service is a complete set of traditional songs from morning and evening worship in English (not Latin) and set homorhythmically. The Nunc dimittis is the last song in the Dorian Service.

Why sing this song?

At Christ Church we revel in historic Christianity and Protestantism specifically. This includes celebrating faithful music of the past. The Cantus Christi consists not of one kind of music, but many, drawing from ancient music (The Lord’s Prayer is “very ancient”), medieval songs, Lutheran chorales, Reformed Psalms, 18^th century hymns of Watts, Wesley, and Newton, on down to songs less than five years old. The English Reformation is part of our spiritual heritage and so we sing not only Tallis but the songs All People That on Earth Do Dwell and Let Israel Now Say in Thankfulness, two examples of songs from that tradition.

As we embark upon Tallis’s Nunc dimittis some may object saying it’s too difficult. True. It is difficult. This is because it’s choir music, not congregational music. It’s congregational insofar that we can understand the words sung, but not congregational in how difficult it actually is to sing.

So why sing it?

A lot of our favorite songs in the Cantus Christi are not congregational songs either. Fuging tunes, for example, are not congregational and never really were intended for congregational use. It may be the case that fuging tunes (e.g. Before Thee Let My Cry Come Near) were never intended even for corporate worship. Fuging tunes were written for devotional use especially among the young folks of the church as a wholesome mid-week activity. They would gather in singing schools under a singing master (Irving’s Ichabod Crane was one) where they’d learn how to sing and read music. The singing master would challenge his students with tricky songs such as fuging tunes to test their skill and give them an added challenge.

I cite fuging tunes to demonstrate that a song’s difficulty is not a reason for rejecting it, and in fact, may be a reason for taking it on.

I don’t expect that the Nunc dimittis will be an immediate sensation, or even favorite once the congregation has gotten used to it. Nevertheless, it is a very beautiful piece and worthy of our attention. Because of its focus on light, the plan is to close our services with it throughout that season of light, Epiphany, in which the Gentiles come to the light of Christ, and kings (i.e. the Magi), to the brightness of His rising.

Tidings of comfort and joy!

Mark Reagan
Christmas 2021

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