December 14, 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 the Bleak Midwinter – Frank Eddings

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti written before 1872 in response to a request from the magazine Scribner's Monthly for a Christmas poem. It was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904.    In verse one, Rossetti describes the physical circumstances of the Incarnation in Bethlehem. In verse two, Rossetti contrasts Christ's first and second coming. The third verse dwells on Christ's birth and describes the simple surroundings, in a humble stable and watched by beasts of burden. Rossetti achieves another contrast in the fourth verse, this time between the incorporeal angels attendant at Christ's birth with Mary's ability to render Jesus physical affection. The final verse shifts the description to a more introspective thought process. The poem became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst.  In this setting, Frank Eddings has chosen an alternate tune written by Harold Darke.  The Darke setting, written in 1909 while he was a student at the Royal College of Music, is more advanced and each verse is treated slightly differently, with solos for soprano and tenor (or a group of sopranos and tenors) and a delicate organ accompaniment. This version is favoured by cathedral choirs, and is the one usually heard performed on the radio broadcasts of Nine Lessons and Carols by the King's College Choir. Darke served as conductor of the choir during World War II.

In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk, And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel Which adore.

Angels and archangels May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air -
But only His mother In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss.

What can I give Him, Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him - Give my heart.

Franklin Eddings (1933 – 2014), an accomplished composer and music teacher, was a fixture in Utah music circles for 60 years. Franklin Eddings brought the gift of music to thousands of piano, organ, and at one time, accordion students along the Wasatch Front. At least 35 of his top students were first place winners in statewide, BYU, and national performance competitions. He produced over 250 compositions and arrangements in his career.  A favorite student of Tabernacle organist Dr. Alexander Schreiner, Franklin Eddings' works have been performed by Mormon Tabernacle organists and shared with musicians all around the world.   Eddings has been a devoted member of the LDS Church all his life, a specialist in genealogy, and early in his career, an employee of the LDS Church Genealogy Department.

Echo Noel – Louis-Claude D’Aquin

Louis-Claude D’Aquin (1694-1772) was born in Paris, to a family originating from Italy (where their name was D'Aquino). One of his great-uncles was a professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France. D’Aquin was a musical child prodigy who performed for the court of King Louis XIV at the age of six. At the age of 12, he became organist at the Sainte-Chapelle, and in the following year took a similar post at the church of the Petit St. Antoine.  Claude D’Aquin never lacked for work as an organist. In 1727, he was appointed organist at the church of St. Paul in Paris, ahead of Jean-Philippe Rameau who was also a candidate. Five years later, he succeeded his teacher Louis Marchand as organist at the Église des Cordeliers. In 1739, he became organist to the king. In 1755, he was made titular organist at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.  By reputation a dazzling performer at the keyboard, D’Aquin was courted by the aristocracy, and his great expertise at the organ drew large crowds to hear him. He was known for his "unfaltering precision and evenness" at both the harpsichord and organ.

D’Aquin wrote twelve Noëls based on old French carols.  The tenth, originally titled “Noël Grand jeu et Duo”, is based on the carol “Bon Joseph, écoutez-moi”  (Listen to me, good Joseph), which dates from the 15^th or 16^th century.  The original lyrics of this carol have been lost.

About the Choral Music:

Gloria, from “God Is With Us” – Tom Fettke

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678- 1741) was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He is known mainly for composing many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.

Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with expensive stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, expecting employment at court. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died less than a year later in poverty.

After his death, Vivaldi's music slid into obscurity until a vigorous revival in the 20th century. Today, he ranks among the most popular and widely recorded of Baroque composers, second perhaps only to Johann Sebastian Bach who himself was deeply influenced by Vivaldi's work.

Antonio Vivaldi wrote at least three settings of the hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo, whose words date probably from the 4th Century and which is an integral part of the Ordinary of the Mass. Two survive: RV 588 and RV 589. A third, RV 590, is mentioned only in the Kreuzherren catalogue and presumed lost.   RV 588 and RV 589 were written at the same time, while he was serving at the Pietà.  RV 589 is the better known setting of the Gloria, simply known as the “Vivaldi Gloria" due to its outstanding popularity.  Fettle has incorporated the opening chorus of the Gloria in his cantata.

Tom Fettke has taught music in both public and Christian schools and has served as a church choir director and minister of music in churches large and small for over 30 years. He is a composer, arranger, clinician, and producer of Christian music recordings.  Fettke was the creator and senior editor of the Hymnal for Worship and Celebration (1986). 

Gloria, Gloria, in excelsis Deo.

How He Loves – John Mark McMillan

"How He Loves" is a song by independent artist John Mark McMillan (b. 1979) for his second studio album, The Song Inside the Sounds of Breaking Down.  McMillan wrote "How He Loves" following the death of his best friend, Stephen Coffey. Coffey was a youth minister for MorningStar Ministries. On November 1, 2002, during a church prayer meeting, Coffey prayed out loud "I'd give my life today if it would shake the youth of the nation." That very night, he was in a multi-car accident and died of serious injuries. Meanwhile, McMillan was recording in a studio in Jacksonville, FL when he received a call that two of his friends had been critically injured in a car accident. Later that evening, he received another call from his father who informed McMillan that Coffey had died. The next day, McMillan wrote "How He Loves" as a tribute to Coffey and out of a need "to have some sort of conversation with God" where he could speak to his frustrations and emotions over his best friend's death.

According to McMillan, the love that he's singing about in "How He Loves" is not a pretty, "Hollywood hot-pink" love. It is a kind of love that is willing to love even when things are difficult and messy. He says, "This song isn't a celebration of weakness and anger. It's a celebration of a God who would want to hang with us through those things, who would want to be a part of our lives through those things, and, despite who we are, He would want to be a part of us, our community, and our family."

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If his grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about the way...

He loves us, oh,
Oh, how He loves us,
How He loves us all.

Jesus, Light of the World – Mark Patterson

          God’s Project

This is the opening movement of the Christmas cantata “Light of the World,” which will be presented by God’s Project on Christmas Eve.  “Light of the World” combines original songs and familiar carols from around the world to tell the Christmas story.  Dr. Mark Patterson (b.1969) is a composer, conductor and teacher.  He is the Director of Music at Salisbury Presbyterian Church in Midlothian, Virginia.  Currently he has over 300 choral works in print as well as a solo piano collection, various musicals and choral compilations, and several volumes of vocal solos. 

            Jesus, light of the world, hope and salvation for all the earth,

            Jesus, light of the world, from every nation we come to celebrate your birth.

            Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo.

            For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given;

            Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, the Prince of Peace.

About the Hymns:

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel is a Christian hymn for Advent. While it is most commonly known by that English title, it is in fact a translation of the original Latin, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel; translations into other modern languages (particularly German) are also in widespread use. The 1861 translation from Hymns Ancient and Modern is the most prominent by far in the English-speaking world, but other English translations also exist.  The hymn is a metrical paraphrase of the O Antiphons, a series of plainchant antiphons attached to the Magnificat at Vespers over the final days before Christmas.  The words and the music of "O come, O come, Emmanuel" developed separately. The Latin text is first documented in Germany in 1710, whereas the tune most familiar in the English-speaking world has its origins in 15th-century France. 

The pre-history of the text stretches back to the origins of the O Antiphons, which were in existence by, at the latest, the eighth century.  They were paraphrased extensively by the English poet Cynewulf in a poem written before the year 800.  While "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is often linked with the 12th century, the earliest surviving evidence of the hymn's text is in the seventh edition of Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, which was published in Cologne in 1710. That hymnal was a major force in the history of German church music: first assembled by Jesuit hymnographer Johannes Herringsdorf in 1610 and receiving numerous revised editions through 1868, it achieved enormous impact due to its use in Jesuit schools.

The text of the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum version is essentially expanded, rather than altered, over the subsequent centuries. That version exhibits all of the hymn's characteristic qualities: it is strophic and metrical, and the order is altered so that the last of the O Antiphons (the titular "Veni Emmanuel") becomes the first verse of the hymn. Each stanza consists of a four-line verse, which adapts one of the antiphons, and a new two-line refrain ("Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel \ nascetur pro te, Israel," i.e. "Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel \ Shall come to thee, O Israel"), which provides an explicitly Advent-oriented response to the petition of the verse.

The familiar tune called Veni Emmanuel was first linked with this hymn in 1851, when Thomas Helmore published it in the Hymnal Noted, paired with an early revision of Neale's English translation of the text. The volume listed the tune as being "From a French Missal in the National Library, Lisbon."  The pairing of the hymn text with the Veni Emmanuel tune was an extremely significant combination. The hymn text was embraced both out of a Romantic interest in poetic beauty and medieval exoticism and out of a concern for matching hymns to liturgical seasons and functions rooted in the Oxford Movement in the Church of England. The Hymnal Noted, in which the words and tune were first combined, represented these goals. This hymnal consisted entirely of versions of Latin hymns, designed for use as Office hymns within the Anglican Church despite the fact that Office hymns had no part in the authorized liturgy. The music was drawn chiefly from plainchant, as was the case with the Veni Emmanuel tune for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

Emmanuel, Emmanuel

“Emmanuel, Emmanuel” was written by Bob McGee in 1976.