Jan. 19, 2014

Each week, you may find information here about the organ music and hymns in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas.  Some of this information is original; much of it is "borrowed" from other sources such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org.  It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.  

About the Organ Music:

Pastorale (Savior, like a Shepherd lead us) – Dale Wood

A pastorale is a piece which evokes images of the peaceful green hills where sheep are grazing under the watchful eye of the shepherd.  Dale Wood has written this setting of “Savior, like a Shepherd lead us” in a pastorale form.

The text of "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us" first appeared in Hymns for the Young, 1830, which was edited by Dorothy Ann Thrupp (1779-1847). Although no author's name appears with the text, it is thought that Thrupp wrote it, since she often published hymns anonymously, under the pseudonym "Iota," or simply using her initials “DAT”.   The tune we sing today was written by William Bradbury expressly for this text and appeared in his Sunday School collection, Oriola, 1859. Bradbury was a protege of the great music educator, Lowell Mason. Bradbury sang in Mason's Bowdoin Street Church choir and Boston Academy of Music as a youth, and later started similar church and school music programs in New York where he served as organist at First Baptist Church. Beyond his work as an educator and church musician, Bradbury studied composition in Europe, founded the Bradbury Piano Company with his brother, and edited a number of music books. Bradbury is probably most famous for writing the music to "Jesus Loves Me."

Dale Wood (1934-2003) was a prominent composer, organist, choral director, and clinician.  He was honored many times by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for his “very important contribution towards the creation and development of contemporary American church music”.  He wrote many collections of organ works, most of which are based on both old and new hymn tunes.  Over eight million copies of his publications have been purchased in over 50 countries.

Savior, like a shepherd lead us, Much we need Thy tender care;
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, For our use Thy folds prepare:
Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are;
Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.

We are Thine, do Thou befriend us, Be the guardian of our way;
Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, Seek us when we go astray:
Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus, Hear, O hear us when we pray;
Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus, Hear, O hear us when we pray.

 

Nobody Knows the Trouble I See – Carlton R. Young

This is a beautiful old spiritual whose slow, sad music conveys the pain of hardship. The origins of spirituals remain obscure, but this musical genre dates back to the beginnings of African-American sacred folk traditions. From 1788, when the First African Church in Savannah, Georgia, became the earliest independent African-American congregation in the country, worship services incorporated the spirituals. In addition to singing traditional Protestant hymns, African-American churches embraced this other form of song, described by slaves as "spiritual himes" to distinguish them from the Biblical songs of the European tradition. Spirituals originated as singers added new words to existing melodies, often varying the lyrics with each performance. Syncopated handclapping and foot stamping served as the usual accompaniments in a time when laws in the deep South prohibited slaves from "keeping drums, horns or other loud instruments which might call together or give sign or notice to one another."  A yearning for freedom and hope for redemption informed the text of spirituals.

In 1871, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, used the school's last forty dollars on a concert tour which they hoped would ward off bankruptcy for the five-year-old school. During the next eight years, the group of nine singers, seven of them former slaves, raised $150,000-enough to save the university and erect its Jubilee Hall, the South's first permanent structure for the education of black students. The success of the Jubilee Singers derived mainly from the public's fascination with spirituals, the first authentic African-American music which most whites had ever heard.

Nobody knows the trouble I see, nobody knows but Jesus.
Nobody knows the trouble I see, glory hallelujah

Sometimes I’m up,  sometimes I’m down,  oh yes Lord,
sometimes I’m almost to the ground,  oh yes Lord.

Sometimes I'm up,  sometimes I'm down,  oh yes Lord,
but all the time I'm heavenly bound,  oh yes Lord.

If you get there before I do, oh yes Lord,
tell all my friends I'm coming too,  oh yes Lord.

Carlton R. Young (b. 1926), was born in Hamilton, Ohio and served in the Air Force during World War II. A teacher, editor, composer and conductor, has the unique distinction of serving as editor of two revisions of hymnals for Methodists: The Methodist Hymnal, 1966; and The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989. Dr. Young, known to his friends as "Sam", has served on the faculties and directed graduate studies in church music at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University; and Scarritt College; and is emeritus Professor of Church Music at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He is a Past-President and Fellow of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and the first American to be named an honorary member of The British Methodist Church Music Society. He is the author of  Music of the Heart: John and Charles Wesley on Music and Musicians (1995).  Founder of the Agape catalog for Hope, he has a choral series of anthems (The Carlton Young Choral Series) to his credit and continues to write and compose.

Toccata – Franklin Ashdown

A toccata (from Italian toccare, "to touch") is a virtuoso piece of music, typically for keyboard, featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise rapid passages or sections.  This toccata is part of a suite of pieces, each based on a verse of “How Firm a Foundation.”  The toccata is inspired by the 4^th verse:  “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.”

In 1787, Dr. John Rippon published A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors as a supplement to Isaac Watts’ classic Psalms and Hymns. The book was an immense success, partly due to the large number of original hymns first printer there.  Among these original hymns was the title “How Firm a Foundation.”  Rippon attributed the authorship simply to “K-.”   He says in the preface that such attributions meant either that the author was unknown or that the hymn had undergone significant revisions for publication.  Later studies have revealed that “K” almost certainly referred to R. Keene, who was at one time a song leader in Dr. Rippon’s church and is also known to have authored the hymn’s melody.

Franklin Ashdown is a composer and a medical doctor, and has pursued dual careers for the past three decades. Born in 1942, he was recruited to play the organ for a local congregation at age 13.  He is a widely published composer of organ and choral music.  A resident of Alamogordo, NM, Dr. Ashdown enjoys a full life as an internist, composer, and organist-choir director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

About the Hymns:

I Sing the Almighty Power of God

 Isaac Watts (1674-1748), often labeled the “Father of English-language hymnody,” believed that hymns were a formative tool in the Christian education of children.  Watts’ Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language, for the Use of Children (1715) was one of the most popular collections published in its day. Poems from this hymnal were used to instruct many English children in Watts’ day and for decades after his death.   In his preface,” Watts cites a biblical precedent for teaching songs to children for educational value: “The children of Israel were commanded to learn the words of the song of Moses, Deut. xxxi 19, 50, and we are directed in the New Testament, not only to sing ‘with grace in the heart, but to teach and admonish one another by hymns and songs,’ Ephes. v. 19.”  Of the four reasons he gives for learning these songs, he states that these songs “will be a constant furniture of the minds of children, that they may have something to think upon when alone, and sing over to themselves. This may sometimes give their thoughts a divine turn, and raise a young meditation. Thus they will not be forced to seek relief for an emptiness of mind, out of the loose and dangerous sonnets of the age.”

“I Sing the Almighty Power of God,” originally published as “Praise for Creation and Providence,” is now the only song that remains in common usage from this children’s hymnal. Expanding on the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2, Watts’ Calvinistic theology comes to the fore.  For Watts, God is an all-powerful and sovereign being who knows every “plant or flower” and controls all of nature.  This sovereign God of the Calvinist Watts was also an omnipresent judge and ruler.  While not specifically a hymn based on the Apostles’ Creed according to the preface, any child of Watts’ day who sang the hymn would likely think of it as a theological amplification of the first article of the Creed: “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” Even the opening line of the hymn cites the “almighty power of God,” echoing the beginning of the Creed.

 

Precious Lord, Take my Hand

Thomas Dorsey (1899-1993) has been called “The Father of Gospel Music”. Thomas loved music. As a young man,  he played piano in Vaudeville and jazz clubs and became known as “Georgia Tom”.   In 1921, at the age of 22, Thomas gave his life to Jesus. Almost immediately he left the jazz clubs and began writing Gospel music.  Little by little his reputation grew, not only as a songwriter but as a church music director.  In 1932,  while the now Reverend Dorsey was leading a church service, a man came to the platform to hand him a telegram - his wife had just died in childbirth. Within 24 hours his newborn baby died also. Thomas quickly spiraled downward into the depths of grief, doubting the goodness of God and determining never to write another hymn.  A week later, Thomas was sitting alone at a piano in a friend’s home, and he began to feel at peace.  He began to play, and the hymn, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” came to him and lifted him from his despair.  “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” has been translated into more than 40 languages, has been recorded by many gospel musicians, including Mahalia Jackson and Elvis Presley, and was Dr. Martin Luther King's favorite hymn.

Standing on the Promises

R. Kelso Carter became an ordained Methodist minister (1887) at the age of 38. A year earlier, he was a professor at the Pennsylvania Military Academy, where he wrote the hymn, "Standing On the Promises," after reading Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians I: 20:  "For all the promise of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us."  I was published in Songs of Perfect Love, one of two hymns compiled by Carter.  The drum-beating, military march style of the music reflects the influence of the military academy life that surrounded Carter when it was written.  Carter was active in the Methodist Camp-Meeting movement, and “Standing on the Promises” was widely used in evangelistic crusades well into the 20^th  century and is still found in many hymnals.  It is a reminder of the Christian’s daily dependence on the promises of God.