June 22, 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:

What a Friend We Have in Jesus – Robert Hobby

Irish born Joseph M. Scriven (1819-1896) was 25 years old, in love and to be married. The day before his wedding his fiance died in a tragic drowning accident. Heartbroken, Joseph sailed from his homeland to start a new life in Canada. While in Canada working as a teacher, Joseph received word from Ireland that his mother was ill. He could not go to be with her, so he wrote a letter of comfort and enclosed one of his poems entitled “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”.

Many years later a friend was sitting with Joseph, as he was very ill. During this visit, the friend was very impressed when he ran across his poems, including “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. As a result of this visit, almost 30 years after his letter of comfort to his mother, Joseph's poems were published in a book called Hymns and Other Verses. Soon thereafter, noted musician Charles C. Converse (1834-1918) put music to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. Well-known musician and revivalist Ira D. Sankey (1840-1908) was a great admirer of Joseph Scriven. In 1875, Sankey came upon the music and words for “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and included it as the last entry in Sankey's Gospel Hymns Number 1.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

Robert A. Hobby (b. 1962) currently serves as Director of Music for Trinity English Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his responsibilities include playing for many of the worship services, overseeing the graded choral program, and managing the concerts the church offers. Numerous activities during his tenure include Trinity Church establishing a choral series with seventeen composers commissioned thus far, hosting a regional convention of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, producing four recordings, and expanding the opportunities for music ministry.

Song 13 – Eric Thiman

Orlando Gibbons composed SONG 13 in soprano and bass parts. Used as a setting for a text from the Song of Songs, the tune was published in George Withers' Hymnes and Songs of the Church (1623) as hymn number 13 (hence the tune name).  In hymnals, the melody is presented in a simplified isorhythmic (all equal rhythms) form; the more rhythmically varied original also had more notes and was better suited to solo singing.

Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892) wrote this text with the heading "Prayer for Inspiration." It was published in the Unitarian hymnal Hymns of the Spirit in 1864.  Like "O Come, O Come, Immanuel", this text is a catalog: it lists attributes of the Holy Spirit in successive stanzas. The text is a prayer that the application of the Spirit's attributes may result in more vibrant Christian living, which will then be manifest in discernment of God's will (st. 1), holiness and purity (st. 2), courageous servanthood (st. 3), obedience to God's rule (st. 4), peace and restfulness (st. 5), and the experience of joy (st. 6). The final stanza alludes to Numbers 21:17 ("song of the well") and to John 4:10 ("living water"). Note that this hymn addresses the Holy Spirit without any reference to the Trinity, a Unitarian position that should not, however, hamper its use.
Samuel Longfellow is not as famous as his brother, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, about whom he wrote a biography that was published in 1886. In his time, however, Samuel was well known as a Unitarian preacher and hymn writer. Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Divinity School, he became a minister in 1848 and served Unitarian congregations in Fall River, Massachusetts (1848-1851), Brooklyn, New York (1853-1860), and Germantown, Pennsylvania (1860-1883). With Samuel Johnson he compiled two hymnals: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1846) and Hymns of the Spirit (1864). He also published a number of his hymn texts in A Book of Hymns and Tunes (1860).

Holy Spirit, Truth Divine,
Dawn upon this soul of mine;
Word of God, and inward light,
Wake my spirit, clear my sight.

Eric Harding Thiman (1900 – 1975) was an English composer and organist. Largely self-taught, he was awarded an FRCO in 1921. From 1930 he was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music and later, from 1956 to 1962, was Dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of London. From 1958, having moved from Park Chapel (a Congregational Church in Crouch End, later to join with Ferme Park Baptist Church to form a Union Church in the same district, he was organist of the City Temple in London, a Congregational Church where he increased his renown as an improviser of great skill. He was a keen advocate of amateur music-making and in the 1960s was the conductor and Musical Director of the Purley Choral Society.  A prolific composer of small-scale works, he wrote much educational music for piano and other instruments, as well as accessible music for church choirs.

Recessional – Frank W. Asper

Frank Wilson Asper ((1892-02-09)1892-1973(1973-11-08)) was a Latter-day Saint composer and also Mormon Tabernacle organist beginning in 1925. Asper was a Tabernacle organist for more than 40 years. During his impressive career, he performed approximately 5,000 organ recitals for Temple Square visitors and played for more than 1,000 network Choir broadcasts, plus he had his own weekly organ broadcast. Additionally, he published many volumes of organ compositions and, for more than 30 years, conducted the McCune Symphony Orchestra, which he founded.

Asper came from a musically inclined family. The melodeon was his first instrument. His father had brought one across the plains in a covered wagon. By age seven, Frank was playing piano accompaniments, and by 12, he played his first organ solo in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square.

Besides being Mormon Tabernacle organist, Asper was the organist of the First United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City.

About the Choral Music:

Fight the Good Fight With All Thy Might – John Gardner

John Samuel Bewley Monsell, son of Thomas Bewley Monsell, Archdeacon of Londonderry, was born at St. Columb's, Londonderry, March 2,1811, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Taking Holy Orders in 1834, "he was successively Chaplain to Bishop Mant, Chancellor of the diocese of Connor, Rector of Ramoan, Vicar of Egham, diocese Worcester, and Rector of St. Nicholas's, Guildford. He died in consequence of a fall from the roof of his church, which was in the course of rebuilding, April 9, 1875. His prose works include Our New Vicar and The Winton Church Catechist. His poetical works are: Hymns and Miscellaneous Poems, 1837; Parish Musings, or Devotional Poems, 1850; Spiritual Songs for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. 1857; His Presence, not His Memory, 1855; Hymns of Love and Praise for the Church's Year, 1863; The Passing Bell; Ode to The Nightingales, and Other Poems, 1867; Litany Hymns, 1869; The Parish Hymnal after the Order of The Book of Common Prayer, 1873; Watches by the Cross, 1874; Simon the Cyrenian and Other Poems; and Nursery Carols. “Fight the Good Fight”, subtitled “Fight of Faith”, appeared in Hymns of Love and Praise in 1863.  It is based on Paul’s testimony in II Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

            Fight the good fight with all thy might,

            Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right;

            Lay hold on life, and it shall be thy joy and crown eternally.

            Run the straight race through God’s good grace,

            Lift up thine eyes and seek his face;

            Life with its way before us lies,

            Christ is the path, and Christ the prize.

            Cast care aside, lean on thy guide:

            His boundless mercy will provide;

            Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove

Christ is its life, and Christ is love.

Faint not, nor fear, his arms are near;

He changeth not, and thou art dear;

Only believe, and thou shalt see

That Christ is all in all to thee.  Amen.

John Gardner (1917-2011) was one of the English composers who defied the serialist tide of the 1950s and 60s, sustaining the romantic tradition still to be found in the music of Vaughan Williams, Gordon Jacob and William Walton. The urbane wit and impeccable craftsmanship of Walton in particular found an echo in Gardner's music.  There was a price to be paid for keeping faith with the style that suited him best: Gardner was viewed by the musical establishment as a prolific engineer of music that possessed little more than utilitarian or pedagogical value. However, his output of around 250 works, including three symphonies and six operas, is consistent in quality, and includes a number of works of real distinction. He wrote for nearly every medium, with some unusual combinations of instruments. 

Born in Manchester, Gardner was an only child, and his father, a doctor, was killed in action towards the end of the first world war. He grew up in Ilfracombe, Devon, and was educated at Wellington college, Berkshire, and Exeter College, Oxford, where he was organ scholar, studying with Sir Hugh Allen, Ernest Walker and RO Morris. Gardner then became director of music at Repton school, Derbyshire. After the second world war broke out, he joined the RAF in 1940 and was successively a dance-band pianist, warrant-officer bandmaster and aerial navigator.  After the war, he joined the staff of the Royal Opera House, and in 1947 completed his First Symphony, conducted at the 1951 Cheltenham festival by John Barbirolli, with great success. Two significant commissions came the following year: the oratorio Cantiones Sacrae, premiered at Hereford Cathedral for the Three Choirs festival, and the ballet Reflection for the Edinburgh festival a few weeks later.  However, these early successes were not sustained, and Gardner found himself marginalised by more radical, pan-European trends. In 1952, he joined the staff of Morley College, south London, eventually becoming its director (1965-69); for three decades from 1956 he was professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music; and from 1962 to 1975 he was director of music at St Paul's girls' school, west London.

His love of polyphony and its baroque development are apparent in his orchestral and instrumental pieces. A fascination with jazz rhythms and the style of the jazz pianist Bill Evans found its way into a number of his shorter pieces.  Gardner continued to compose well into his 80s, and indeed conducted the premiere of his Irish Suite a few days after his 80th birthday. In 1976 he was appointed CBE.

About the Hymns:

Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise

Walter Chalmbler Smith (1824-1908) pursued his theological studies at Edinburgh, and was ordained Pastor of the Scottish Church in Chadwell Street, Islington, London, Dec. 25, 1850. After holding several pastorates he became, in 1876, Minister of the Free High Church, Edinburgh. Moderator of his denomination in 1893, Smith was a man of wide interests. His poetry was published in some six volumes entitled Poetical Works (1902), and his hymn texts were published in Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life (1886).

Walter C. Smith based this text on 1 Timothy 1: 17: "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever." The six-stanza text was published in Smith's Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life (1867) and, after having been revised by Smith, in W. Garrett Horder's Congregational Hymns (1884). Further revisions were made by the Psalter Hymnal Revision Committee.
"Immortal, Invisible" is a strong text of praise to God, who created and sustains the lives of all his creatures. The text focuses on the Creator of the universe, the invisible God whose visible works in nature testify to his glory and majesty. "Light" is the prevailing image; our inability to see God is not because of insufficient light but because the "splendor of light hides [God] from view."

Open My Eyes, that I May See

Clara H. Fiske Scott (1841-1897) at­tend­ed, in 1856, the first Mu­sic In­sti­tute held in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois by C. M. Ca­dy. She went on to teach mu­sic at the La­dies Sem­in­a­ry, Ly­ons, Io­wa (1859). She mar­ried Hen­ry Clay Scott in 1861. Scott met and was great­ly en­cour­aged by Ho­ra­tio Palm­er, who helped pub­lish ma­ny of her songs. She is­sued three col­lect­ions be­fore her untim­e­ly death, in­clud­ing: The Roy­al An­them Book (1882), the first an­them col­lect­ion by a wo­man; Happy Songs, Truth in Song for Lov­ers of Truth Ev­er­y­where (1896); and Short An­thems (1897).

Psalm 119:18 is a prayer for spiritual insight.  It asks God, "Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law."  Reading that verse inspired Clara Scott to write the hymn "Open My Eyes."  The opening verse of the hymn asks, "Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me."  But Clara was not satisfied to pray for open eyes.  She also wrote, "Open my ears, that I may hear voices of truth thou sendest clear."  And she was not satisfied to ask God to receive blessings.  She also prayed that God would make her a blessing by helping her to speak to others about what God had revealed to her.  She wrote, "Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere." 

Blest Be the Tie that Binds

John Fawcett (1739 – 1817) was a British-born Baptist theologian, pastor and hymn writer.  An orphan at the age of twelve, John Fawcett (1739-1817) became apprenticed to a tailor and was largely self-educated. He was converted by the preaching of George Whitefield at the age of sixteen and began preaching soon thereafter. In 1765 Fawcett was called to a small, poor, Baptist country church in Wainsgate, Yorkshire. Seven years later he received a call from the large and influential Carter's Lane Church in London, England. Fawcett accepted the call and preached his farewell sermon. The day of departure came, and his family's belongings were loaded on carts, but the distraught congregation begged him to stay.  At the last minute he changed his mind, and remained at Wainsgate where his salary was £25 a year. In Singers and Songs of the Church (1869), Josiah Miller tells the story associated with this text:

This favorite hymn is said to have been written in 1772, to commemorate the determination of its author to remain with his attached people at Wainsgate. The farewell sermon was preached, the wagons were loaded, when love and tears prevailed, and Dr. Fawcett sacrificed the attraction of a London pulpit to the affection of his poor but devoted flock.

In 1777 a new chapel was built for him at Hebden Bridge, and about the same time he opened a school at Breasley Hall, his place of residence. In 1793 he was invited to become President of the Baptist Academy at Bristol, but declined. In 1811 he received a Doctor of Divinity from America.  Fawcett continued to serve in Wainsgate and in the nearby village of Hebden Bridge for the remainder of his active ministry.

Fawcett titled this hymn "Brotherly Love." It is essentially about the communion of saints, bound together in love (st. 1), united in worship (st. 2), sharing each other's burdens (st. 3), and encouraging each other with the hope of eternal life in glory, where will be reunited with departed friends and freed "from sorrow, toil, and pain and sin (st. 4-6).

He wrote most of his hymns to be sung by his congregation at the conclusion of the sermon. They were published in Hymns adapted to the Circumstances of Public Worship and Private Devotion (1782). In the preface to his collection Fawcett apologized to "persons of an elevated genius" for his "plain verses" but expressed the hope that they would edify "humble Christians."