Service Playing

Service Playing highlights, Our Savior's Lutheran, Milwaukee

After years of full-time music leadership (organ, choir, administration), settling into an organist-only role at Our Savior's Lutheran, Milwaukee, has had the advantage of better focus on one task of church music leadership: organ playing with congregational song. Good recording faclities were in place already, and after working with the sound people to get the whole sound of the whole assembly (not just the choir and organ in the balcony), it's become easier to assess the sound of the crowd in the pews. Listening to the weekly recordings is a good chance to enjoy and/or critique what's happening. Here are a few highlights.

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• O Day Full of Grace, no. 627 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship
  mp3 stream | mp3 download (right-click and save)
  A great hymn from the Scandinavian heritage, as sung on Pentecost 2008 at Our Savior's Lutheran, Milwaukee, with organ and congregation.
• Siyahamba/We Are Marching in the Light of God
  mp3 stream | mp3 download (right-click and save)
  The organ with drums? Sure, for something like this South African standard. A collaboration with 3AM's percussionists!
• Setting Five (chant style) from Evangelical Lutheran Worship
  mp3 stream mp3 download (right-click and save)
  live worship recording, Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI, February 24, 2008
  John Seboldt, organ Michael Barna, Senior Choir director
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  • Chant and Lutherans — There's certainly plenty of plainchant background to early Lutheran worship - German adaptations of Latin chants, chant IN the original Latin, etc. Here's our congregation singing Setting Five in the new Evangelical Lutheran Worship resource, based in turn on Setting Three of the hymnal before it, and before that on tunes found in the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal. How well do we know it? Should it be accompanied at all? These questions are open, but after only about the seventh time using it, it came off pretty well. Accompaniment is relatively light (for Lutherans!), ranging from warm 8' foundations to a maximum of Principals 8 through 2' with small reeds 16 and 8. Being Lent, you'll hear only the Kyrie, Holy, Lord's Prayer, and Lamb of God.
    The most controversial part of what you'll hear is our approach to keeping alive the congregation's sung part in the dialogue "The Lord be with you...." with a pastor who's very uncomfortable singing. With some discreet organ playing behind the presider's spoken parts, I think a certain lyrical feel is maintained.
    Also, you'll hear an "Offertory Sentence" that is quite familiar to many Lutherans: "Create in Me" by J.A. Freylinghausen, in the version revived in ELW at #188. On re-introduction at Our Savior's, it is a nice little gem that has worked well without organ, supported by the choir in parts. Coming out of a choir anthem accompanied by piano, a short intro on that instrument establishes pulse, cues folks to rise, and off we go - "look, Ma, no keyboard!"
• O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright, Lutheran Book of Worship,no. 76
  RealMedia stream (RealPlayer)
  live worship recording, Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI, January 14, 2007
  John Seboldt, organ Michael Barna, Senior Choir director
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  • Another great hymn, a translation of the great German chorale "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" by Philipp Nicolai. Stanzas 1, 2, 3, and 6 were sung (with verse 3 in unison by the choir). A great hymn in praise of Jesus Christ, with "light" and "morning star" images that connect it to some degree with Epiphany, and the Sundays after, where the beginnings of Jesus' ministry among us are celebrated.
• Evening and Morning, LBW 465, and Canticle, This Is the Feast of Victory, LBW Setting 2 RealMedia stream
  When Peace, Like A River, Attendeth My Way, LBW 346 RealMedia stream
  version with refrain as it appears in "Renewing Worship" resources
  live worship recordings, 8/7/05
  Built on a Rock, LBW 365 RealMedia Stream
  My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less, LBW 293 RealMedia stream
  live worship recordings, 8/21/05
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  • Summer singing — Some recordings that give you a taste of congregational song at Our Savior's Lutheran. From the classic German Lutheran tradition, Paul Gerhardt's "Evening and Morning"; one of the great Scandinavian Lutheran standards, "Built On a Rock"; and two contrasting favorites from 19th-century America — all sung by the worshipping assembly without an officially-gathered choir.

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