Yesterday was a triple-header Sunday as I played three big services — two in the morning at St. Andrew’s Cathedral and one last night at St. Alban’s Chapel for Iolani School’s Baccalaureate. Except for the communion and postludes in the morning services, none of the hymns or any of the music was repeated.
The 8:00 am service I played at the Cathedral commemorated Queen Lili‘uokalani‘s baptism and confirmation and much of the service was in the Hawaiian language. It opened with “Hawai’i Aloha,” considered a patriotic hymn by the native Hawaiian people. I was so surprised that when I Googled this song, the Wikipedia article gave as a link the recording by The Rose Ensemble, a Minneapolis-based choral group! You may remember when I wrote about John Graham visiting Hawaii for John McCreary’s funeral, he in fact gave us a copy of this very recording!
Carl Crosier conducted the Cathedral Choir at the 10:30 am service in John Renke’s absence, and as I wrote in a previous post, it was a little like old times with him doing the hand-waving and me on the organ. The choir opened the service with the carol, Twas in the year that King Uzziah died, then I played an extended chorale prelude on Holy, holy, holy as the introduction to the hymn. I can’t tell you how much fun and how much of a blast it was to play the Cathedral organ, with its 32′ reed stops and festival trumpets. I know that in a previous post, I said how easy it was to make music on this instrument but I didn’t want you to get the idea that people who play this organ are any less musically-skilled. The situation is in fact quite to the contrary — and if you were one of the people who erroneously got this impression from my post, I am sorry.
As I reported earlier, I played a number of pieces by Bach: from the Great Eighteen, Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehre, BWV 662 and BWV 663; from the Orgelbüchlein, Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend, BWV 632; and from the Clavierübung, Kyrie, Gott Vater, BWV 672 and Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott, BWV 680 as the postlude. To me, the music of Bach and Trinity Sunday just go together!
I continued the Bach repertoire at Iolani Baccalaureate last night, and played another piece from the Great Eighteen, Komm, Gott, Schöpfer, heilige Geist, BWV 667, as the processional of the 2013 Senior Class. I also played several grand pieces by David N. Johnson (1922-1987), Processional in C and Processional in D. During the candlelighting ceremony, I played (as I have for many years) the theme from Jupiter by Gustav Holst (hymntune: THAXTED), followed by the Alma Mater (hymntune: FINLANDIA).
Dean Walter Brownridge gets the prize for being at all three services I played yesterday! Of course, he presided at both morning services but he was also at Iolani School baccalaureate last night, as his son is graduating. If you would like to see the order of service, you can click here. John Bickel from LCH was the featured faculty speaker and did an outstanding job.
I can happily report that throughout the day there were no glitches and no train wrecks!