Feb. 16, 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:




My Lord, What a Morning – Johannes Matthias Michel

The 1790 U.S. census reported over 700,000 African-American slaves. The majority embraced Christianity with its promise of a life beyond suffering and hate. As a result, they created and performed songs, particularly the spiritual, combining European chromatic-scale melody lines with African rhythms and harmonies.  Thus, the spiritual is among the most important, vibrant, and enduring elements of American culture andis our first wholly American musical form. 

Slaves held informal, possibly secret, prayer meetings. Recalled former slave Wash Wilson: “Sometimes us sing and pray all night.” The spirituals sung in these meetings drew from hymns, the Bible, sermons, and African styles of singing. Most slaves could not read, so the spirituals helped to teach them the Bible. 

The spiritual “My Lord, What a Morning!”  proclaims that Jesus will return, just as he left, in his physical bodily form, on a cloud, and “wake the nations underground”—the dead—in supreme victory over the bitter cruelty of the grave (Acts 1:1-11) and was essentially derived from the hymn “Behold the Awful Trumpet Sounds.”  The original hymn, first published in Richard Allen’s 1801 hymnal, show where the slave composer received his inspiration:

Behold the awful trumpet sounds,
The sleeping dead to raise,
And calls the nations underground:
O how the saints will praise! …
The falling stars their orbits leave,
The sun in darkness hide:
The elements asunder cleave,
The moon turn’d into blood! …

Although the original hymn lies forgotten, the spiritual has maintained its popularity, with its uplifting view of a new world to come.

My Lord what a morning,
When the stars begin to fall
You'll hear the trumpet sound,
To wake the nations underground,
Look in my God's right hand
When the stars begin to fall.

Johannes Matthias Michel (b. 1962) is a German conductor and organist who gained first musical experience with his father, the composer and church musician Josef Michel.  He is director of church music at the Christuskirche Mannheim, regional cantor of Mannheim and state cantor of Nordbaden, where he leads the Bachchor Mannheim and the Kammerchor Mannheim.  Johannes-Matthias Michel teaches organ at the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik in Heidelberg, as well as the Staatlichen Hochschule für Musik in Mannheim. Apart from extensive concert activity, he has participated in numerous broadcast and TV and CD recordings.

Abide with Me – Dale Wood

Henry Lyte (1793-1847)  wrote this hymn as he was dy­ing of tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. He fin­ished it the Sun­day he gave his fare­well ser­mon in the par­ish he served for ma­ny years. The next day, he left for Ita­ly to re­gain his health, but died in route in Nice, France, three weeks af­ter writ­ing these words.

The tune was written by William Henry Monk (1823-1889).  His wife related the story: “This tune was writ­ten at a time of great sor­row—when to­ge­ther we watched, as we did dai­ly, the glo­ries of the set­ting sun. As the last gold­en ray fad­ed, he took some pa­per and pen­ciled that tune which has gone all over the earth.”

For over a cen­tu­ry, the bells of his church at All Saints in Low­er Brix­ham, De­von­shire, have rung out “Abide with Me” daily. The hymn was sung at the wed­ding of King George VI, at the wed­ding of his daugh­ter, the fu­ture Queen Eliz­a­beth II, and at the funeral of Nobel peace prize winner Mother Teresa of Calcutta in1997.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide 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 (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.

About the Hymns:

My Hope is Built

"My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" was written by Edward Mote (1797-1874), a pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church in Horsham, West Sussex. The hymn "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" was published anonymously in several hymn collections before first being attributed to Edward Mote in a collection of approximately 100 of his hymns published in 1837 under the title Hymns of Praise, A New Selection of Gospel Hymns, Combining All the Excellencies of our Spiritual Poets, with Many Originals.  Mote's original title was "The Immutable Basis for a Sinner's Hope" in this collection.  The refrain of "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" refers to the Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders and builds around the metaphor of Christ as a rock with a firm basis (1 Corinthians 10:4).

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand

 God Will Take Care of You

Walter Stillman Martin (1862-1935) was born in Massachusetts and attended Harvard University, where he studied for the ministry and was later ordained as a Baptist minister. His wife, Civilla Durfee Holden (1866-1948), was born in Canada.  Civilla wrote many hymn texts for which he produced the tunes, including their very popular, "God Will Take Care of You".

The Martins were visiting a Bible school in New York, where Walter was to preach.  Civilla became ill and was unable to attend.  Due to her illness, Walter wanted to cancel, but their nine year old son said, "Father, don't you think that if God wants you to preach today, He will take care of Mother while you are away?" He kept his appointment and when he returned he found his wife greatly improved. Mrs. Martin had written a new hymn based on her son's faithful remark earlier that day.  Civilla related, “When he returned I gave the words to him. He immediately sat down to his little Bilhorn organ and wrote the music. That evening he and two of the teachers sang the completed song. It was then printed in the songbook he was compiling for the school.” It was first published in 1905 in "Songs of Redemption," compiled by Martin and John A. Davis.

How Firm a Foundation

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.   The anonymous tune “Foundation” first appeared in Joseph Funk's  A Compilation of Genuine Church Music (1832) as a setting for this text. The tune was also published  in Southern Harmony and Sacred Harp.