INDEPENDENCE DAY MUSIC

A Special Celebration

Sunday July 6

On Sunday, 6 July, the presentation of the gifts at the11:00 Eucharist will be handled a bit differently to accommodate the observance of a tradition, which was at one time common throughout the Episcopal world. At Morning Prayer, which was at one time the common Sunday liturgy in the Church, an offering was taken up, after the sermon and a choir anthem. In order to give the congregation something to do, and in order to give them a vocal role in the presentation of the alms, it became the custom to sing a “doxology”, that, is a song of praise. There are all kinds of doxologies around the church, but the one that eventually became known as The Doxology was the fourth verse of the hymn Old One Hundredth:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise him all creatures here below.
Praise him above ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

In many places, it was felt that the church needed a patriotic gloss to the liturgy, and so it became the custom to follow the doxology with the fourth verse of America, “My country, ‘tis of thee.” The verse runs: “Our Fathers God, to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing. Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light; protect us by thy might, Great God our King”.

This moment became a time when organists would show off their improvisational abilities. The doxology was sung with rich accompaniment and suitable dynamics. It was really a song of praise. Then, because America is in a different key, the organist would move directly into a modulation, that is, a musical decoration designed to enable him to change from one key to another. These modulations, and what followed, became one of the standard ways of judging the skills of an organist. Some of them were florid, elaborate, and contained little anticipatory fragments of the music that was to follow.

Then, the whole elaborate event was wrapped up with “Our Fathers’ God to Thee” which continued with florid accompaniment and improvisation.

Because we are doing this at a Eucharist rather than at the office, and we need more music to cover all the movement of the offertory procession, the incensation of the altar and the gifts and the incensation of the people, Gordon King will play all the verses of America, rather than just the last one. Nonetheless, you should have something of the feel and flavor of the way the church worshipped a couple of generations ago, and that is worth doing indeed.