Jan. 26, 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:

In Heavenly Love Abiding – Dale Wood

Anna Laetitia Waring was a child prodigy, born in Wales in 1823. She learned Hebrew as a child and read the Old Testament in its original language daily. Although raised a Quaker, she joined the Anglican Church of England as an adult.  She published two works that contained dozens of her hymns, Hymns and Meditations in 1850 (in which “In Heavenly Love Abiding” appears) and Additional Hymns in 1858. She was also involved in prison ministry and the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society.  Her hymn texts, particularly for “In Heavenly Love Abiding”, express strength and faith in times of struggle.

In Heavenly Love abiding, No change my heart shall fear,
And safe is such confiding, For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me, My heart may low be laid,
But God is round about me, And can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me, No want shall turn me back;
My Shepherd is beside me, And nothing can I lack.
His wisdom ever waketh, His sight is never dim, —
He knows the way He taketh, And I will walk with Him.

Green pastures are before me, Which yet I have not seen;
Bright skies will soon be o'er me, Where the dark clouds have been.
My hope I cannot measure, My path to life is free,
My Savior has my treasure, And He will walk with 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 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.

Blessed Assurance – Daryl Hollinger

Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915), born in New York and died in Connecticut, wrote over 8,500 gospel hymns. In 1972, Hope Publishing Co. found over 1,000 unpublished manuscripts. Her work defined what it meant to be a successful writer of gospel hymns.  By the age of six weeks, Fanny Crosby was completely blind. She entered the New York School for the Blind at age twelve. She began writing hymns and poetry at age twelve.  Her collaborators in publishing gospel hymns included the most successful and popular composers of her day, including William Bradbury, William Doane, Robert Lowry, Ira Sankey, and William Kirkpatrick. Crosby used numerous pen names in publishing her songs, including: Ella Dale, Mrs. Kate Gringley and Miss Viola V. A.  She married blind musician Alexander Van Alstyne, and the British most often refer to her by her married name rather than Fanny Crosby.  She was a lifelong Methodist and her contributions to The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) include: “Blessed Assurance,” “Close to Thee,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory.”

Phoebe Knapp (March 9, 1839 – July 10, 1908) was a composer of music for hymns and an organist.  Knapp was born in New York City. Her parents were Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe Worrall Palmer.  She married Joseph Fairchild Knapp, one of the founders and the second president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and he had a pipe organ installed in their apartment.  She and her husband were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. The hymn writer Fanny Crosby was also a member of that church and a friend of the Phoebe’s.  She wrote over 500 hymn tunes, the most familiar being the tune now called Assurance for Fanny Crosby's lyrics “Blessed Assurance”.

Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a large pipe organ installed. The organ was incomplete, so Mrs. Knapp, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. When Knapp asked Crosby, "What do you think the tune says?", Crosby replied, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine."  The hymn appeared in the July 1873 issue of Palmer's Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany, a magazine printed by Dr. and Mrs. W. C. Palmer. 

Mr. Hollinger’s arrangement expresses life’s experience in its tone-painting.  At the beginning, the assurance of God’s love is happy-go-lucky; then hard times come, but the music gradually lifts as God’ love is constant, and the ending is triumphant. 

Daryl Hollinger is a worship consultant, composer and author.  He recently was the Dean of the Chapel, Organist and adjunct faculty member at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He served as the Minister of Music at St. Peter's United Church of Christ, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and has been active as a church musician for over thirty years.  

 

To God be the Glory – Don Hustad

 

Frances Jane Crosby’s hymns have historically been among the most popular songs sung by Methodists.  “To God be the glory” was included in William Doane’s Songs of Devotion in 1870.  Ira Sankey probably saw the hymn in Doane’s collection and incorporated it into the first edition of his Sacred Songs and Solos (1875).  Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey helped to establish the hymn’s popularity during their revivals in Great Britain in the late 19th century.  It also appeared in some British hymnals including the Methodist Hymn Book (1933).

However, it was not until the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade in Nashville that Cliff Barrows introduced this song to congregations in the United States.  Mr. Graham and Mr. Barrows had learned the song during the 1952 revivals they had conducted in Great Britain.  Hymnologist William J. Reynolds, writing in his hymnal companion Hymns of Faith (1964), documented the return of this hymn to the USA: “It is most extraordinary that this long-forgotten American gospel song should have been imported from England and become immensely popular during the last decade.”

Don Hustad (1918-2013) was one of the giants of Christian music of the 20th century. Hustad had a distinguished ministry and a life-long profession as a recording artist, composer, arranger, teacher, conductor, hymnal editor, and author.  He began work as staff musician of Chicago's WMBI in the early 1940s, worked with soloist George Beverly Shea on a weekly broadcast called "Club Time," and served for some 20 years as organist for a popular radio broadcast "Songs in the Night." He taught at Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, Illinois from 1946 to 1950, at which time Hustad was appointed director of the Sacred Music Department at Moody Bible Institute—a position he held until 1961.  During his 11-year tenure at Moody he developed the Moody Chorale into a superior choral ensemble that achieved fame nationally and internationally.   In 1961 he became Crusade organist for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and directed the Crusader Men Choir in the "Hour of Decision" broadcasts.  His publications include over 100 articles and five books

 

 

 

 

About the Hymns:

Holy, Holy, Holy

Reginald Heber  (1783-1826) wrote this text for Trinity Sunday, the day for which lectionary in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer prescribes the reading of Revelation 4. Using reverent and apocalyptic language, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" alludes to Revelation 4:6-11; 5:13; 15:2-4; and Isaiah 6:1-3 to sing the great majesty of the triune God. Note the cosmic scope of the text: human beings (st. 1), saints and angels in glory (st. 2), and all creation (st. 4) praise the name of the Lord. Though God's holiness, love, and purity are cloaked in mystery, we can still experience God's mercy and mighty power, and we can participate in praising God.  It references the Sanctus, which is often called the "Holy holy holy" in English. The name is a tribute to the First Council of Nicaea which formalized the doctrine of the Trinity in 325.

It was first published in the third edition (1826) of  A Selection of Psalms and Hymns for the Parish Church of Banbury  and was also published posthumously in Heber's Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Services of the Year (1827). The unusual single rhyme (all on the "ee" sound) and the uneven number of syllables in some lines have not detracted from the hymn's popularity.  It was soon adopted by hymn-book compilers, and is the best known and most widely used of the author's hymns.

 

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

“The King of Love My Shepherd Is” is an Anthony G. Petti (1932-1985) adaption of the 1868 Sir Henry W. Baker (1821-1877) paraphrase of Psalm 23. Baker took Holy Orders in the Church of England in 1844. He was closely associated with hymnody in the Church. Besides writing, translating, and composing a number of hymns, his most notable role was as Ed­it­or-in-Chief of the first edition of Hymns An­cient and Mo­dern (1861) which sold over 60 million copies.  “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” has proven to be his most enduring work. It is said that as he lay dying his final words were those of the 3rd stanza: "Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, but yet in love he sought me; and on his shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me." It is sung to the tune: St. Columba, a traditional Irish melody.

 

Trust and Obey

This hymn was inspired in 1886 when the composer of the music, Daniel B. Towner (1850-1919), was the music leader during one of Dwight L. Moody’s famous revivals. Towner provided the following account cited by Moody’s musical partner, Ira D. Sankey, in his biography, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns:   “Mr. Moody was conducting a series of meetings in Brockton, Massachusetts, and I had the pleasure of singing for him there. One night a young man rose in a testimony meeting and said, ‘I am not quite sure—but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.’ I just jotted that sentence down, and sent it with a little story to the Rev. J. H. Sammis, a Presbyterian minister. He wrote the hymn, and the tune was born.”

Sammis is said to have composed the lines of the refrain upon receiving the letter:
             “Trust and obey—for there’s no other way
              To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
As is the case with most gospel songs, these lines provide the central theme around which all of the stanzas were written. The text and tune first appeared in the 1887 collection, Hymns Old and New, and has been included in countless hymnals since. Methodist hymnals in the United States have carried it since 1897.