And the beat goes on

For Sunday’s service, we enjoyed the participation of a talented teenager in the parish who plays flute.  One of the choir’s anthems was John A. Behnke’s Now All the Vault of Heaven, which is a strophe-by-strophe arrangement of Lasst uns erfreuen;  there is a supplemental handbell part, which we purchased, and parts for brass quintet, which we did not (I do not foresee hiring a brass quintet anytime soon, though I wish we might).  So I drew up our own flute part to go along with it.

By the time of the scripture readings, the choir’s “heavy lifting” was done.  The first reading was the story of David and Goliath, and the phrase five smooth stones from the wadi began immediately to play upon my imagination.  At the end of the service, I thanked Marissa (the young flutist) for all her participation through the year;  and I advised her mum that I planned to write a piece for Marissa, Barbara (our organist) and myself to play together.  I began writing it Sunday afternoon (before I headed up to Nashua for Michael Joseph’s recital), and I finished last night after I got home from the office.

At Michael Joseph’s recital, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the music director for a church in Chester, NH (east of Manchester), and I have passed some music on to him.  The conversation is ongoing.

It was highly gratifying this year that Triad sang both the Gloria and Agnus Dei from my Mass.  In thinking what I want to offer Triad next season, and consistent with my practice of changing the tone of the Henningmusick from Triad season to season, I’ve decided to act on a plan I formulated, I think, in December.  An old friend from the St Paul’s choir days, Mara, has a daughter (Emma) who improvised a song as a cunning means of delaying being sent to bed.  Mara posted the lyrics, and I thought they would make a dynamite choral piece.  I’ve decided to set it for three-part men’s choir . . . there is a musical idea which I have batting around in my inner ear, and I started work on MS. paper this morning while (what else?) riding in to Boston on the bus.  The title is It Might Happen Today.