It’s Super Bowl/Valentine’s Day/Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday Weekend!

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we honor our 16th president, on the anniversary of his birth (in 1809), with an hour of monumental selections.

We’ll begin with David Diamond’s setting of the Gettysburg Address as “On Sacred Ground,” a work for mixed chorus, children’s chorus, baritone solo and orchestra. The piece was given its first performance two days before the centenary of Lincoln’s actual delivery of the Address, which he presented on November 19, 1863.

After that, as a bit of a palate-cleanser, we’ll enjoy Paul Turok’s buoyant “Variations on an American Song: Lincoln and Liberty,” also composed in 1963. The song is based on a traditional Irish fiddle tune, “Rosin the Bow,” which was outfitted with new lyrics for use in Lincoln’s 1859 presidential campaign:

“Then up with our banner so glorious,
The star-spangled red-white-and-blue,
We’ll fight till our Cause is victorious,
For Lincoln and Liberty, too!”

Finally, we’ll return to Gettysburg and music by American composer Roy Harris, also born on this date, though 89 years later. Harris was born in a log cabin in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. If that doesn’t fill one with a sense of destiny, I don’t know what will!

In his day, Harris was regarded as one of America’s greatest composers, particularly renowned for his symphonies. His Symphony No. 3 is his most famous work; we’ll be hearing the Symphony No. 6, subtitled “Gettysburg.”

Each movement bears a superscription taken from the Gettysburg Address.

I. Awakening (“Fourscore and seven years ago…”);

II. Conflict (“Now we are engaged in a great civil war…”);

III. Dedication (“We are met on a great battlefield of that war…”);

IV. Affirmation (“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…).

I hope you’ll join me for this memorial to Lincoln, on “Lincoln Portraits,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

And remember, if the game runs long, the show will be posted as a webcast at the WWFM website for you to enjoy later. It would make a fine soundtrack for any Presidents Day hootenanny.