When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast
I could never keep my hold
Through life’s fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast

Chorus:
He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast

Includes original mp3 files of reference recording plus trax in original key and two optional keys

MARCH 26, 2019 5 AM
Vangelis, the Oscar-winning composer of “Chariots of Fire” and “Blade Runner” lives in Paris — unless he lives in London, or his native Athens. He won’t say exactly.

As nebulous as the clouds of electronic notes for which he’s known, Vangelis is also elusive when it comes to romantic relationships or anything else to do with his personal life.

“I don’t give interviews, because I have to try to say things that I don’t need to say,” he said by phone from Paris, in an exclusive interview with The Times. “The only thing I need to do is just to make music — and that’s it.”

The occasion for the conversation was the release of his album “Nocturne,” a departure from the bank of synthesizers that normally surrounds the composer. It’s a collection of new works for mostly solo piano, with a little synthy accompaniment here and there.

“Maybe it’s a little bit strange,” he said of the stripped-down approach. “But almost every day I play my piano. See, mainly my life is quite simple. I jump from one thing to another. We say that [there are] too many styles and differences in music — but, for me, music is one.”

Vangelis leaves the impression that he would be content never releasing another record but that he’s coaxed into doing so by the industry, which he doesn’t hold in the highest regard.

“I always said to the record companies, for years, ‘One day you’re going to be in big crisis, because the way you do it is wrong,’” he said, noting what he sees as insatiable greed. “They say, ‘Oh, you are an artist; you understand nothing.’ ”

The Dean of Westminster, John Hall accompanied by Hawking's first wife Jane Hawking and son and daughter Tim and Lucy Hawking, presides over the interment of the ashes
Tributes have been paid to renowned physicist Prof Stephen Hawking in a Westminster Abbey memorial service.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Hawking in a BBC drama, and astronaut Tim Peake were among those giving readings at the ceremony.

Prof Hawking died in March, aged 76, after a long battle with motor neurone disease.

His ashes are being buried alongside other great scientists like Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. //

To mark the occasion, the European Space Agency beamed Prof Hawking's words towards the nearest black hole to Earth. The transmission, which was sent from a big radio dish in Spain, was backed by an original score from composer Vangelis. //

Stephen Hawking said that science would take us on a path to "the mind of God". By that he meant that we would know everything that God would know, with the caveat, "if there were a God, which there isn't. I'm an atheist."

On the face of it, the religious ceremony at Westminster Abbey was at odds with Prof Hawking's personal views. But hearing the choral works of Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Elgar - and, of course, Holst's The Planets - filling the vast halls of the Gothic Abbey, one's mind was lifted beyond Earthly matters towards the ethereal. And that is what he did through his work - unravelling the mysteries of the Universe.

I decided to write this article because of something that I heard on Canada's CBC radio network a number of years ago. The host of the show, the late Bob Kerr, had just played a recording of the beautiful old organ at Marienhafe, in Germany, which I had listened to with immense pleasure. As an organbuilder, I am always entranced by these ancient instruments. The magic of their sound has less to do with sheer antiquity than with the musical principles they embody--not least their tuning system, or temperament. But during his commentary Mr. Kerr confessed that very idea of temperament was a mystery to him.

He was certainly not the first music lover to feel this way; yet temperament is not so arcane as it is often made out to be. That it is obscure even to most educated musicians points to a gap in their training, rather than to any difficulty inherent in the subject. Far from being esoteric, temperament is a down‑to‑earth matter, concerned with a practical problem for fixed‑pitch instruments.

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O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner—O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Sheet music, Beethoven Symphony No. 9

IMSLP stands for International Music Score Library Project and started on February 16, 2006. It is a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores based on the wiki principle; it is also more than that. Users can exchange musical ideas through the site, submit their own compositions, or listen to other people's composition; this makes IMSLP an ever-growing musical community of music lovers for music lovers.

Is IMSLP legal?

As the IMSLP servers are physically hosted in Canada, IMSLP has to follow Canadian copyright law. There is also a legally unaffiliated US-located server that can only be contributed to by admins and offers out-of-copyright files in the US only. All scores submitted to IMSLP either belong to the public domain, or permission has been granted by the copyright holder to host them here. The copyright status of every file is marked, and it is clearly indicated if it is not legal to download a file in the EU.

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Q:

Other than the fact that its relatively new compared to other orchestral instruments (e.g. the violin), why is the saxophone (any of them from the family, alto, baritone, tenor etc) not more prevalent in classical repertoire? Are there historical reasons? Is the timbre incompatible (and if so why?). I would prefer objective reasons for the latter if its true (and not subjective statements like "it just does not sound orchestral"). //

A:

I think the main reason is much more simple. The saxophone was fifty years too late. The symphony orchestra in its present form was complete by 1800. The fact that this combination still exists today, almost unchanged, shows how perfect it had become. There was no musical or acoustical reason to introduce a new instrument.

Christians need to understand that relying on screens and other technology is not leading to better worship, it’s ruining it. //

Hymnals are a wonderful legacy of Western Christianity. They’ve been housed in pew racks in church sanctuaries for centuries. Since they first appeared in the United States during the 1830s, hymnals have been indispensable for worship—objects of treasure both in the sanctuary and in households. //

the appeal of worship screens is easily explained. The downside is that as we eliminate hymnals from the worship life of the church, we lose everything they contain and represent.

It becomes difficult to teach new songs on a worship screen, primarily because there are no notes. Screens only work when worshipers already know the melodies. Worship “playlists” at contemporary services are often meager because the same songs tend to be sung over and over. //

As hymnals fade, theology also suffers. The rich repository of religious wisdom contained in hymns will be lost. The old-fashioned language of hymns may strike some as unusual, but their text teaches the Christian faith far better than most of the praise choruses that dominate contemporary services. Old hymns were carefully crafted with theology at the forefront. Traditional hymns present doctrine clearly and beautifully convey the gospel story of saving grace. //

Screens represent a move away from permanence to the transitory. The words contained in a hymnal were printed in a book that was published with care. Inked on the paper accompanied by notes and staffs, hymnals were real. The words on the screens may look like the words in the book, but they lack substance. They’ll disappear the moment the switch is flipped off. //

Those who wish to see the Christian faith prosper, however, should consider the long-term effects that replacing hymnals with screens will have on worship and faith itself. What technology giveth, technology taketh away. The musical and theological repertoire of the church will be constricted. Even marginally unfamiliar hymns will slide out of the public consciousness, forgotten forever—and worship will be impoverished for it.

Classical music, 24/7

Moritz Moszkowski
Piano Concerto In E Major (Op.59)

Piano Concerto in E, Op 59