Photo by Doug Persons
Heritage Sunday - The First Church in Albany
The First Church in Albany is part of the Reformed Church in America, one of the oldest active denominations in North America with a continuous ministry since 1628. First Church was established in 1642.
The name Reformed comes from the Protestant Reformation which swept across Europe in the 1500s under the leadership of such people as Martin Luther and John Calvin. These Reformers insisted that the church was and is continually in need of being “reformed according to the Word of God.”
The Reformers, and especially Calvin, emphasized the centrality of the Word of God in worship. The Word not only directs worship, but is also very largely the content of worship. The Word is read and preached, and the Word is also sung and seen (in the Lord’s Supper). The worshiper meets God through the Word.
The Psalms, in Calvin’s view, were therefore the best songs for the Christian community to sing: “We shall not find better songs nor more fitting for the purpose, than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit spoke and made through him,” wrote Calvin. “When we sing them, we are certain that God puts in our mouths these, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory….There is no other book in which we are more perfectly taught the right manner of praising God.”
Music Notes
Until the early 1800s singing at First Church consisted almost exclusively of unaccompanied psalms. But in 1814, in response to Second Reformed Church having hired a string trio, the First Church consistory authorized the use of a string quartet to augment the singing of the psalms.
The instrumental trio in the prelude, by one of the most influential early baroque Dutch composers, Willem de Fesch, dates from the early 1700s. Fesch, was concertmaster at the Antwerp Cathedral in Holland, but, although he was a virtuoso musician and violinist, he was often in conflict with church authorities and was eventually fired for sloppiness, and not being able to get along. He moved his family to England where he eventually became concertmaster for Handel’s orchestra.
The opening hymn 457, I Greet Thee, is from one of the earliest Psalter collections, the Genevan Psalter of 1551. Calvin helped develop metrical psalmody so that ordinary people could sing the psalms. The Genevan psalter was published under his leadership. This text resembles some of the phrases and concepts in the Heidelberg catechism. The tune “TOULON” is adapted from the tune used for Psalm 124 in the Genevan Psalter. The tune feels so familiar now that we scarcely notice how dance-like and uneven it really is. Many successful hymn tunes were stolen dance tunes.
Singing the Psalms was and is an integral part of Reformed worship. The hymn following the sermon, Seeking Water, Seeking Shelter, is a paraphrase of Psalms 42 and 43 and the tune is one of the few tunes from the Genevan Psalter that has stayed in the American Reformed repertoire. We are more familiar with the tune as an advent hymn set to the words of Isaiah, “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People.”
The final hymn is by the 20th century Methodist minister and hymn writer Fred Pratt Green. His texts show a gift for contemporary language and a desire for the church to reach out and deal with the many issues of our time. The tune, WAREHAM, composed by the English hymnodist, William Knapp, in 1738, was named after the composer’s birthplace, Wareham, England. Interestingly by the 1800s most of the Dutch Psalm tunes were no longer being sung in Dutch Reformed churches. Just as English texts were pushing out the Dutch language, the hymn tunes had become almost exclusively the more strait-forward English tunes like WAREHAM.
Flowers and particularly tulips are part of the Dutch heritage. The offertory anthem, King Jesus Hath a Garden, is a Dutch “worship carol” popular in the 15th and 16th century. It reflects the integration of flowers and faith into Dutch life. A translation of “Heer Jesus heeft een hofken”, it uses flowers to represent the various virtues like chastity and humility and refers to us as “Christ’s garden plot, all trim and neat.”
The Shaker community was very active in this part of New York. The benediction response is a Shaker song, set by the American Composer Burton Burmgarner.
The postlude is by the seventeenth century Dutch organist and composer, J. P. Sweelinck, who was organist at Amsterdam’s Oude Kirke for over 40 years. Sweelinck had a magnificent pipe organ filled with colorful sounds. The organist was a civil servant employed by the city not the church.. Although the organ was not used during the Calvinist worship services the organist was expected to improvise on the psalms after the worship service, and play organ concerts twice a day for the local people.
The First Church in Albany is part of the Reformed Church in America, one of the oldest active denominations in North America with a continuous ministry since 1628. First Church was established in 1642.
The name Reformed comes from the Protestant Reformation which swept across Europe in the 1500s under the leadership of such people as Martin Luther and John Calvin. These Reformers insisted that the church was and is continually in need of being “reformed according to the Word of God.”
The Reformers, and especially Calvin, emphasized the centrality of the Word of God in worship. The Word not only directs worship, but is also very largely the content of worship. The Word is read and preached, and the Word is also sung and seen (in the Lord’s Supper). The worshiper meets God through the Word.
The Psalms, in Calvin’s view, were therefore the best songs for the Christian community to sing: “We shall not find better songs nor more fitting for the purpose, than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit spoke and made through him,” wrote Calvin. “When we sing them, we are certain that God puts in our mouths these, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory….There is no other book in which we are more perfectly taught the right manner of praising God.”
Music Notes
Until the early 1800s singing at First Church consisted almost exclusively of unaccompanied psalms. But in 1814, in response to Second Reformed Church having hired a string trio, the First Church consistory authorized the use of a string quartet to augment the singing of the psalms.
The instrumental trio in the prelude, by one of the most influential early baroque Dutch composers, Willem de Fesch, dates from the early 1700s. Fesch, was concertmaster at the Antwerp Cathedral in Holland, but, although he was a virtuoso musician and violinist, he was often in conflict with church authorities and was eventually fired for sloppiness, and not being able to get along. He moved his family to England where he eventually became concertmaster for Handel’s orchestra.
The opening hymn 457, I Greet Thee, is from one of the earliest Psalter collections, the Genevan Psalter of 1551. Calvin helped develop metrical psalmody so that ordinary people could sing the psalms. The Genevan psalter was published under his leadership. This text resembles some of the phrases and concepts in the Heidelberg catechism. The tune “TOULON” is adapted from the tune used for Psalm 124 in the Genevan Psalter. The tune feels so familiar now that we scarcely notice how dance-like and uneven it really is. Many successful hymn tunes were stolen dance tunes.
Singing the Psalms was and is an integral part of Reformed worship. The hymn following the sermon, Seeking Water, Seeking Shelter, is a paraphrase of Psalms 42 and 43 and the tune is one of the few tunes from the Genevan Psalter that has stayed in the American Reformed repertoire. We are more familiar with the tune as an advent hymn set to the words of Isaiah, “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People.”
The final hymn is by the 20th century Methodist minister and hymn writer Fred Pratt Green. His texts show a gift for contemporary language and a desire for the church to reach out and deal with the many issues of our time. The tune, WAREHAM, composed by the English hymnodist, William Knapp, in 1738, was named after the composer’s birthplace, Wareham, England. Interestingly by the 1800s most of the Dutch Psalm tunes were no longer being sung in Dutch Reformed churches. Just as English texts were pushing out the Dutch language, the hymn tunes had become almost exclusively the more strait-forward English tunes like WAREHAM.
Flowers and particularly tulips are part of the Dutch heritage. The offertory anthem, King Jesus Hath a Garden, is a Dutch “worship carol” popular in the 15th and 16th century. It reflects the integration of flowers and faith into Dutch life. A translation of “Heer Jesus heeft een hofken”, it uses flowers to represent the various virtues like chastity and humility and refers to us as “Christ’s garden plot, all trim and neat.”
The Shaker community was very active in this part of New York. The benediction response is a Shaker song, set by the American Composer Burton Burmgarner.
The postlude is by the seventeenth century Dutch organist and composer, J. P. Sweelinck, who was organist at Amsterdam’s Oude Kirke for over 40 years. Sweelinck had a magnificent pipe organ filled with colorful sounds. The organist was a civil servant employed by the city not the church.. Although the organ was not used during the Calvinist worship services the organist was expected to improvise on the psalms after the worship service, and play organ concerts twice a day for the local people.