July 6, 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:

Prelude on “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies” – Charles Callahan

In 1893, at the age of thirty-six, Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to teach a short summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, and they found their way into her poem “Pikes Peak”, including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the "White City" with its promise of the future contained within its alabaster buildings; the wheat fields of America's heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding on July 16; and the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Zebulon's Pikes Peak.

On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original Antlers Hotel. The poem was initially published two years later in The Congregationalist, to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public's fancy. Amended versions were published in 1904 and 1913.

The music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward (1847-1903). The tune came to him while he was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City, after a leisurely summer day in 1882, and he immediately wrote it down. He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked fellow passenger friend Harry Martin for his shirt cuff to write the tune on. He composed the tune for the old hymn "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem", retitling the work "Materna". Ward's music combined with Bates' poem were first published together in 1910 and titled, America the Beautiful.

Original poem (1893)

America. A Poem for July 4.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the enameled plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

Till souls wax fair as earth and air

And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought

By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale

Of liberating strife,

When once or twice, for man's avail,

Men lavished precious life!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

Till selfish gain no longer stain,

The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

Till nobler men keep once again

Thy whiter jubilee!

Charles Callahan (b. 1951) is one of America’s leading organist-composers.  A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and Catholic University of America.  In recognition of his service to the church and his commissioned compositions for Papal visits to the U.S., he was awarded the Papal Honor of Knighthood in the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in 1999.  In addition to compositions and performances, Charles Callahan is a noted educator and author whose two books on American organ-building have become standard reference works.

 Oh, that I had a Thousand Voices – Paul Manz

Johann Mentzer (1658-1734) was a student of theology at Wittenberg, where the Protestant Reformation began in 1517.  He was a pastor at various churches in Germany during his life. He wrote a large number of hymns, over 30 of which appeared in the various hymnbooks of his time. The only one in English common use is 0 dass ich tausend Zungen hatte, first published in Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch, 1704.

Johann Balthaser König (b. Waltershausen, near Gotha, Germany, 1691; d. Frankfurt, Germany, 1758) composed this tune, which later became associated with Johann Mentzer's hymn "O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte" (Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices).  A chorister in the Kapella of Frankfurt at a young age, König was a student of the famous Georg Philipp Telemann, who later became godfather to König's son. He succeeded Telemann as director of municipal music and became director of music at the Barfiisserkirche and at St. Catherine's Church, all in Frankfurt. In 1727 he also assumed the directorship of the Frankfurt Kapella.

Mainly interested in congregational singing, König presented a document to the Frankfurt city council in which he stated the problems of and solutions for the state of singing in the church.  He edited the largest eighteenth-century German collection of hymns, Harmonischer Lieder-Schatz (1738), which also included O DASS ICH TAUSEND. This collection consisted of over nineteen hundred tunes with figured bass, including the 125 Genevan tunes set to Lobwasser's German translation of John Calvin's psalter. In accord with the style of his day, König "straightened out" (made all quarter notes) the original lively rhythms of many tunes in this significant hymnal.

This text was the inspiration for Charles Wesley’s “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”.

               Oh that I had a thousand voices

                To praise my God with thousand tongues!

               My heart, which in the Lord rejoices,

               Would then proclaim in grateful songs

                To all, wherever I might be,

               What great things God hath done for me.

Paul Manz (1919 – 2009), was an American composer for choir and organ. His most famous choral work is the Advent motet "E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come", which has been performed at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge. His most famous organ works are his volumes of neo-Baroque chorale preludes and partitas. Paul Manz long served the church as recitalist, composer, teacher and leader in worship. He was the director of the newly established Paul Manz Institute of Church Music, and was Professor Emeritus of Church Music at Christ Seminary Seminex at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Paul Manz concertized extensively in North America.  As a performer, Manz was most famous for his celebrated hymn festivals. Instead of playing traditional organ recitals, Manz would generally lead a "festival" of hymns from the organ, in which he introduced each hymn an organ improvisation based on the hymn tune in question. The congregation would then sing the hymn with his accompaniment. Many volumes of these improvisations have been written out and published and are played by church organists throughout the world.

The esteem and respect with which Paul Manz is regarded can be seen in the many honors he received. He was twice named one of the “Ten Most Influential Lutherans,” served as National Councilor of the American Guild of Organists and is listed as one of the “101 Most Notable Organists of the 20th Century.”  The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago presented him with the distinguished "Confessor of Christ Award"; The Chicago Bible Society presented him with the “Gutenberg Award; and the Lutheran Institute of Washington, DC honored him with the first “Wittenberg Arts Award.”

Variations from Organ Concerto, Set 1, Op. 4, No. 1 – G. F. Handel

Georg Friederich Handel (1685-1759) became a musician and composer despite objections from his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer. Handel studied music with Zachau, organist at the Halle Cathedral, and became an accomplished violinist and keyboard performer. He traveled and studied in Italy for some time and then settled permanently in England in 1713. Although he wrote a large number of instrumental works, he is known mainly for his Italian operas, oratorios (including “Messiah”, 1741), various anthems for church and royal festivities, and organ concertos, which he interpolated into his oratorio performances. He composed only three hymn tunes, one of which still appears in some modern hymnals. A number of hymnal editors, including Lowell Mason, took themes from some of Handel's oratorios and turned them into hymn tunes.

Handel wrote twelve concerti for chamber organ and orchestra: 6 in Op. 4 and 6 in Op. 7.  The organ concertos in Op 4, HWV 289–294, were composed in London between 1735 and 1736 and published in 1738. Written as interludes in performances of oratorios in Covent Garden, they were the first works of their kind for this combination of instruments and served as a model for later composers.  Handel's prowess as an organist had already been demonstrated in Rome in 1707 in a contest with the composer Domenico Scarlatti, when his playing on the organ was rated higher than Scarlatti's playing on the harpsichord; his reputation as a great organist had already been established during his one year position as cathedral organist in Halle in 1702. Handel's organ concertos thus have a special place in his oeuvre. They paved the way for Mozart and Beethoven, who like Handel achieved fame in their lifetimes as composers and performers of their own concertos.

In the sinfonias of some of his cantatas, Johann Sebastian Bach had already introduced concerto movements for organ and orchestra. However, Bach's organs in both Weimar and Leipzig were large organs with double keyboards and pedals, powerful instruments that could only dominate a baroque orchestra. Bach's organ writing in the sinfonias lacks the complexity of his writing for solo organ; it is in two parts, as if for harpsichord, with the bass line doubling the continuo. The small English chamber organs at Handel's disposal, with a single keyboard and no pedals, produced a softer sound that could be properly integrated with a small orchestra, making possible a unique form of concerto close to chamber music.

Handel completed Alexander's Feast in January 1736. A choral work in two parts, it was a setting of the ode Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Musick by John Dryden. It was first performed at Covent Garden on 19 February 1736 as a celebration of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of Music. In its original form it contained three concertos: a concerto in B flat major in 3 movements for "Harp, Lute, Lyrichord and other Instruments" HWV 294 for performance after the recitative Timotheus, plac'd on high in Part I; a concerto grosso in C major in 4 movements for oboes, bassoon and strings, now known as the "Concerto in Alexander's Feast" HWV 318, performed between Parts I and II; and an organ concerto HWV 289 in G minor and major in 4 movements for chamber organ, oboes, bassoon and strings performed after the chorus Let old Timotheus yield the prize in Part II.  The last movement is a minuet and variations expanded from the Trio Sonata in F, Op.5, No.6.  Here it has been transcribed for organ alone.

July – John Tasker Howard

The “Calendar Suite” by John Tasker Howard is a set of twelve short pieces, each named for a month of the year.  “July” is based on the “Federal March” by Alexander Reinagle for the July 4^th celebration held in Philadelphia in 1788 to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution. 

John Tasker Howard (1890-1964) was an early American music historian, radio host, writer, lecturer, and composer. His Our American Music, published in 1931, was an early general history of music in the United States.  Howard was also the curator of the New York Public Library from 1940 to 1956.


For a complete account of the celebration in Philadelphia, see http://www.scribd.com/doc/58677535/THE-GRAND-FEDERAL-PROCESSION-July-4th-1788-Continental-Army-series

About the Hymns:

God, Whose Love is Reigning O’er Us

“God, Whose Love Is Reigning O’er Us” was written at the request of Susan Jane Grove and Douglas Alan DeJarnett and used as a processional hymn for their wedding in November 1980.  United Methodist Bishop William Boyd Grove (b. 1929), Susan’s father, penned his first hymn for this occasion. The hymn found its way into the Upper Room Worshipbook (1985) and then into the United Methodist Hymnal (1989).

Bishop Grove was born in Johnstown, Pa., and received his education at Bethany College (1951), Drew University (1954) and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (1978). He served as a pastor in congregations in the Western Pennsylvania Conference, and was consecrated bishop of the West Virginia Conference in 1980. After 12 years of service in this conference, he served for four years in the Albany (N.Y.) Area before retiring from the active episcopacy in 1996. Throughout his ministry, Bishop Grove has championed the ecumenical connections of the broader church, serving as a member of the executive committee of the Consultation on Church Union (1988-2000), the ecumenical officer of the denomination’s Council of Bishops (1996-2000) and president of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns.

You Satisfy the Hungry Heart

This hymn unites the work of composer, Robert Kreutz, and hymn text writer, Omer Westendorf.  It was among 200 texts submitted for possible use at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. "You Satisfy the Hungry Heart" was selected as the official hymn of that gathering.  First embraced by Roman Catholics, this hymn has since become well-known and a favorite in many denominations.  The hymn was first published in We Celebrate with Song (1979).

Where Charity and Love Prevail

Omer Westendorf (1916-1997) was one of the leading composers following the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.  Beginning at age 20, he received his master’s degree in music at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and for most of his professional musical career served as organist and choirmaster at St. Bonaventure Church in Cincinnati. Under his direction the Bonaventure Choir sang concerts and recorded sacred music for several decades.  One of his greatest achievements was the founding of the World Library of Sacred Music in 1950 and World Library Publications in 1957. These organizations have been primary distributors of music for the Mass in the United States and beyond.

Westendorf was also known for his lectures and seminars on sacred music, consultations on liturgical music and as a hymn writer.  Westendorf’s People’s Mass Book, 1964, was the first vernacular hymn and service book to implement the Catholic liturgies decreed by Vatican Council II. He wrote Music Lessons for the Man in the Pew to teach the art of sight reading choral music.

“Where charity and love prevail” (1961) provides an English hymn version of a 9th-century Latin hymn, “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est” (Where there is charity and love, God is there) based on 1 John 4:16. Traditionally, this is the final hymn on Maundy Thursday, called in the Latin tradition Mandatum novum (New Commandment), referring to the act of washing of the disciples’ feet initiated by Jesus.

Scholar H. Myron Braun comments on this ancient ritual: “[The Latin chant] is said to date from the ninth century . . . with its emphasis on community within the faith, on Christians holding one another in love and concern . . . It is appropriate for . . . [Maundy Thursday] when we note the “new commandment” that we love one another, and also several times in Eastertide when the lectionary leads us to reading on love from the Gospel and the epistles of John.”

The text draws directly on John 13:34, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” This version appeared first in Westendorf’s People’s Mass Book (1976). Before the publication of The UM Hymnal in 1989, the hymn appeared in the Supplement to the Book of Hymns (1982) with a plainsong melody.