Elke Jahns, excellent flutist will play our prelude, offeratory, and postlude in Sunday Morning Services. Elke’s playing is divine. We hope you can come hear her play.

Our choir, let by Thom Whittemore and accompanied by Joe Turbessi, will sing Cecil Frances Alexander’s setting of “All Creatures Great and Small.”

Here are the musical notes for this Sunday’s service music:

“We are blessed to have flautist Elke Jahns with us today.

The prelude and postlude today are from La Flute de Pan, sonatas for flute and orchestra by Jules Mouquet (1867-1946). Like many other French composers at the turn of the century, Mouquet favored subjects from Greek mythology, as a sort of neoclassical reaction against the fervent treatments of Norse legend in Wagner’s operas. In Greek mythology, Pan is the god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. He is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.

The Native Americans believe that their flutes, being made of wood, have a spirit, and with their breath they are breathing life into that spirit.

The ocarina, or vessel flute, is one of the oldest known musical instruments. It has been dated back to 3000 BC, and found in cultures around the world, including the Mayans, Egyptians, Chinese, Italians, Sub-Saharan Africans, Javanese, and Pakistani. It has been played in Buddhist ceremonies, rain forest hunting rituals, and Ocarina Orchestras. It comes in many shapes and sizes, but it is always made of clay – its sound literally the music of the earth.

“I Greet You, Sure Redeemer” is a well-known Reformation Hymn often attributed to John Calvin, a major player in the Protestant Reformation. The original French text, “Je te salue, mon certain Redempteur”, was published in the 1545 Strasbourg Psalter during Calvin’s ministry in Strasbourg, France. Though Calvin edited the psalter, his authorship of the hymn is not likely.

Today’s anthem is a setting of the familiar hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” by Cecil Frances Alexander. The hymn was first published in Alexander’s Hymns for Little Child­ren in 1848. The modern arrangement sung by the choir today is by noted English composer and conductor John Rutter.”