“Regarding your score O Sacred Head”

Over the years, I’ve dabbled in doing some musical composition and arranging.

My largest work to date and perhaps most enduring has been my setting of the “Stations of the Cross.”  I first discovered the “Stations” when attending church in the late 70’s with my girlfriend in Annapolis, MD at St. Mary’s Church.  Since my Christian upbringing was mostly rooted in the Southern Baptist denomination, I knew little about the traditions of Roman Catholicism which included meditating on the “Via Crucis” or “Way of the Cross” or simply retracing the steps of Jesus from his trial before Pilate to his death on the Cross.  Over the years, artists had created depictions of each of the scenes which are usually placed in the main body of the Catholic churches.  The ones at St. Mary’s are especially beautiful and I remember being quite moved when we attended the “Stations” for my first time.  So moved that I was inspired to write some songs focusing on some of the characters you meet along the way.  It was during an extended several week long training class in Rochester, NY while with Eastman Kodak that I had decided to take some of my musical gear with me to stave off boredom in the off hours that I began in earnest the attempt to further develop the settings.  After sharing some of my work with a couple of the Redemptorist priests at St. Mary’s, I was encouraged to share it with the St. Mary’s community that upcoming Lent.  Then the pressure was on!  There would not be time to prepare for a ‘live’ presentation, so we decided to use some technology to aid us.  After I completed the compositions, I recorded the music tracks and then had some members of the St. Mary’s music ministry record the vocals for the characters.  We would present the “Stations” using a ‘live’ narrator and then play the songs from tape.  The positive comments afterward encouraged me to continue refining the work over the years.

Fast-Forward to roughly the year 2000, when my home parish (Yes, I ‘came home to Rome’ and joined the Catholic church) of St. Peter’s in Libertytown, MD asked that we present my “Stations” again.  St. Peter’s has some pretty beautiful “Stations” as well (which survived our church fire in 2004.) It was this time that I wanted to add more choral arrangements and had been toying with an arrangement of the great hymn, “O Sacred Head, Surrounded.”  It seemed to fit well within the construct of the “Stations.”  I split it into two sections for the use with the “Stations,” but I decided to ‘publish’ a full version on the Sibelius Music site.  I received several positive reviews of the setting from the Sibelius music community.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to find an email in my inbox entitled “Your score O Sacred Head by Hans L. Hassler arr. Doug Jackson on SibeliusMusic.com”

Upon opening it, I found a very nice note from Robert Miller:

Hello,My name is Robert Miller and I’m the arranger of The Brethren Brass (more info about us, below.)  Our latest CD will be titled ‘Hymn’ and will be unique modern arrangements of traditional hymns and Spirituals.  While searching for music for the project on SibeliusMusic, we were incredibly lucky to stumble upon your fine work!  I  purchased and arranged your beautiful “O Sacred Head” and we just finished recording it. Since SibeliusMusic’s message system doesn’t allow attachments, you can hear an MP3 (and see program notes) at:  http://www.brethrenbrass.com/hymn.htm

He went on with some additional details about their group and ministry.  I was most interested in how Robert might have arranged my arrangement for his Brass group, so I visited their site right away.  It was beautifully done.

Wow, what an honor to be recognized by a group of talented musicians.  I replied to Robert that he had my permission to use my arrangement as the basis for his and include their recording of his arrangement of my arrangement (Ah, I just love the music ‘biz’) on their upcoming CD.  And if he wouldn’t mind, could he send me a copy.

Well, the CD arrived today and the rest of the tracks are equally impressive.  Thanks,  “Brethren Brass,” and may God continue to bless your music ministry.

Oh, and my girlfriend and I celebrated our 29th Wedding Anniversary last April.