This Sunday at Trinity 

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) composed three sonatas for organ between 1937 and 1940. The Nazis had made an official boycott of performances of his music in 1934 because of his Jewish wife and his association with Jewish musicians. In 1935 he was made to take a leave of absence from his teaching position at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1938, and to New York in 1940. For over a decade he taught composition, harmony, and theory at Yale University.  In 1953 he moved permanently to Switzerland. Today’s prelude is the middle movement of his Second Sonata, which was premiered in London in 1938. The movement is a siciliano, a type of dance presumably of Sicilian origin usually pastoral in character and popular in the 18th century.

This morning anthem for mezzo-soprano soloist, chorus and   organ is Leo Sowerby's most popular choral work. Taking Psalm 121 as his text, the composer uses blues-influenced harmonies to produce a work that has remained a staple of church choirs for over 100 years. Early on, a publisher had purchased the anthem outright for a one-time payment of $10. Much to the composer's great regret after the fact, he would receive no royalties on what was destined to become a "best seller."

The text of today’s anthem:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:

He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

The Lord is thy keeper; thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil,

He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out

and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Amen.        -Psalm 121