I didn’t get a chance last weekend to write about some of the other music we did for Transfiguration, because we have been so busy with a kitchen renovation. But I did want to say something about last Sunday’s opening hymn which was a concertato by Carl Crosier on “Oh wondrous type! o vision fair.” The setting was published by GIA Publications in the mid-1980s, and the words are slightly different from the text printed in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, so we had the choir write in the changes to match. It combines the famous trumpet fanfare (The Agincourt Hymn) from John Dunstable (1390-1453) and has a recurring handbell refrain between each verse. I even used the zimbelstern on the last verse.

I did a Google search on “Carl Crosier, O wondrous type!” and was delighted to find that the piece was sung by St. Barnabas Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN. The choir director, Jeff Whitmill, wrote an entire column about this piece in their newsletter, and called it “marvelous.”

For the Hymn of the Day, we sang Mark Sedio’s inspiring “Jesus on the mountain peak” which I think is one of my most favorite hymns of all time. We have known Mark for years and years through our membership in the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Mark is the cantor/organist of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN.

I also asked Georgine Stark if I could record her rendition of the spiritual “He’s got the whole world in his hands” from the afternoon’s funeral for Ruth Ann Johnson, so here it is. The arrangement is by Margaret Bond, and Carl Crosier is at the piano. The first time Georgine sang it at LCH for the prelude, a four-year-old in the front row exclaimed in a loud whisper, upon hearing it, “WOW!”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_1LhK76AdY&w=480&h=360]