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.
Come,
Thou Long-Expected Jesus – Edward Broughton
Charles Wesley wrote this Advent hymn and printed it in
his Hymns for the Nativity of our Lord (1744). Like so many of
Wesley's texts, "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" alludes to one or
more Scripture passages in virtually every phrase. The double nature of Advent
is reflected in this text, in which we remember Christ's first coming even
while praying for his return. Stanzas 1 and 2 recall Advent prophecies in the
Old Testament; stanza 3 speaks of Christ's birth and kingdom, and stanza 4 is a
prayer for Christ's rule in our hearts.
We express longing when we sing the words of Charles
Wesley’s beautiful Advent hymn, for though we know that Christ goes with us and
before us every day, we long for the day when we are with Him in all of the
fullness and glory He will bring. We long for the day when we are with Him in a
New Heaven and New Earth, when all things are made new. And just as a
four-year-old crawls into his father’s arms after an extended absence, so too
we long for the day when we will be at rest in Christ, enfolded in the embrace
of our Savior.
Edward
Broughton is a pseudonym of Lani Smith, an organist best known for his church music compositions. He served
as an editor, composer, and arranger on the Lorenz Publishing editorial staff between 1967 and 1982. During this time,
he received composing and arranging credits for over 1000 works. Many
composers on the staff at Lorenz wrote under more than one name, sometimes
corresponding to particular styles.
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming – James Mansfield
"Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" ("A rose has
sprung up"), most commonly translated to English as "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" or
"A Spotless Rose", is
a Christmas carol and Marian Hymn of German origin. The text is thought to be penned by an anonymous author, and the piece first
appeared in print in the late 16th century. The English translation "Lo, How a Rose
E'er Blooming" was written by Theodore Baker in 1894.
"Es ist ein Ros entsprungen," may date back to
the fifteenth century. However, the earliest manuscript containing the text,
found in St. Alban's Carthusian monastery in Trier and preserved in
the Trier municipal library, is dated
around 1580. It was first published with twenty-three stanzas in Alte
catholische geistliche Kirchengesiinge (Cologne, 1599). Originally
stanza 2 interpreted the "rose" as being Mary,
mother of Jesus, but in Musae Sionae (1609) Michael Praetorius changed the
interpretation to point to Christ as the rose in accord with actual biblical
imagery.
James Mansfield has a Ph.D. in Music
Composition from the University of Iowa and is a retired staff composer/editor
from Lorenz Music Publishing. Many composers
on the staff at Lorenz wrote under more than one name, sometimes corresponding
to particular styles.
Prepare
the Way – James Mansfield
Bereden väg för Herran is a Swedish hymn with lyrics written by Frans Michael Franzén in 1812. It was first published in Ars Psalmbok (1819). Franzén
(1772-1847) was educated at the University of Abo, where he became
Librarian and Professor of Literary History. He was subsequently Minister at
Kumla, Orebro, Sweden, and then of Santa Clara, in Stockholm. He was
consecrated Bishop of Hernosand, in 1841.
The melody was taken from a Swedish folk song from the mid-sixteenth
century. The text was translated into English by Augustus Nelson (1863-1949)
Prepare the way, O Zion!
Ye awful deeps, rise high;
Sink low, ye towering mountains,
The Lord is drawing nigh;
The righteous King of glory,
Foretold in sacred story.
Ye awful deeps, rise high;
Sink low, ye towering mountains,
The Lord is drawing nigh;
The righteous King of glory,
Foretold in sacred story.
O blest is He that came
In God the Father’s name.
In God the Father’s name.
About the Choral Music:
The
Advent of Hope, from “God With Us” – Tom Fettke
“The Advent of Hope” combines two hymns: “Of the
Father’s Love Begotten” and “Come, Thou long expected Jesus”.
Of the Father’s love begotten, Ere
the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the
Source, the Ending He.
Of the things that are, that have
been, And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.
Come Thou, long expected Jesus, born
to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us;
let us find our rest in Thee.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Fill our hearts with heaven’s
peace.
Hymn and chant and high
thanksgiving, and unending praises be!
Honor, glory, and dominion, and
eternal victory.
Alleluia! Alleluia! These we render unto Thee.
Jesus comes, the heavens adoring, comes
with peace from realms on high.
Jesus comes to win redemption, lowly
comes on earth to die.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Make a way, the Lord is nigh.
O ye heights of heaven adore Him;
angel hosts, His praises sing’;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him
and extol our God and King.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Every voice in concert ring.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise and
glorify the King!
About the Hymns:
Hail
to the Lord’s Annointed
James Montgomery (1771-1854) was a Moravian minister and
writer. In addition to his religious
writings and hymns, he was the editor and a writer for a newspaper, The Sheffield Iris. As such, he was
imprisoned twice, first for reprinting therein a song in commemoration of
"The Fall of the Bastille," and the second for giving an account of a
riot in Sheffield. The editing of his paper, the composition and publication of
his poems and hynms, the delivery of lectures on poetry in Sheffield and at the
Royal Institution, London, and the earnest advocacy of Foreign Missions and the
Bible Society in many parts of the country, gave great variety to his life.
After his death, a statue was erected to his memory in the Sheffield General
Cemetery, and a stained glass window in the Parish Church. A Wesleyan chapel
and a public hall are also named in his honor.
As a writer of hymn,s he ranks in popularity with Wesley,
Watts, Doddridge, Newton, and Cowper. Of
Montgomery's 400 hymns (including his versions of the Psalms) more than 100 are
still in common use. His finest lyrics
are "Angels from the realms of glory," "Go to dark
Gethsemane," "Hail to the Lord's Anointed," and "Songs of
praise the angels sang." “Hail to
the Lord’s Annointed” is Montgomery's best psalm rendering. It is based on
Psalm 72 and was written in eight stanzas for, and included in, a Christmas Ode
which was sung at one of the Moravian settlements, perhaps Fulneck, in the
United Kingdom, Christmas, 1821. It was published in the following year in the
Evangelical Magazine and entitled "Imitation of the 72d psalm (Tune:
Culmstock)."
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
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 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.”
Grace Greater than our
Sin
"Grace Greater Than Our Sin" is dated 1910, and the tune (Moody) was composed that same year by Daniel Brink Towner (1850-1919), the director of the music department at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, IL The first appearance of "Grace Greater Than Our Sin" seems to have been in Towner’s Hymns Tried and True, published in 1911 by the Bible Institute Colportage Association of Chicago.
This “marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe,” finds a scriptural basis in Paul’s teaching of justification by faith in Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
Paul continues in verses 14-16, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift of grace. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.”
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
Of the Father's Love Begotten is a Christmas carol based on the Latin poem Corde natus by the Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius, from his Liber Cathemerinon (hymn no. IX) beginning "Da puer plectrum" The ancient poem was translated and paired with a medieval plainchant melody Divinum mysterium. Divinum mysterium was a "Sanctus trope" - an ancient plainchant melody which over the years had been musically embellished. An early version of this chant appears in manuscript form as early as the 10th century, although without the melodic additions, and "trope" versions with various melodic differences appear in Italian, German, Gallacian, Bohemian and Spanish manuscripts dating from the 13th to 16th centuries. Divinum mysterium first appeared in print in 1582 in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones, a collection of seventy-four sacred and secular church and school songs of medieval Europe compiled by Jaakko Suomalainen and published by Theodoric Petri. In this collection, Divinum mysterium was classified as "De Eucharistia" reflecting its original use for the Mass.
The text of the Divinum mysterium was substituted for Prudentius's poem when it was published by Thomas Helmore in 1851. In making this fusion, the original meter of the chant was disturbed, changing the original triple meter rhythm into a duple meter and therefore altering stresses and note lengths. A later version by Charles Winfred Douglas corrected this using an "equalist" method of transcription, although the hymn is now found in both versions as well as a more dance-like interpretation of the original melody.
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
Faber was born an Anglican and reared a strict Calvinist. After attending Oxford, he took orders as an Anglican priest and began his ministry as a rector. Influenced by his friend John Henry Newman (1801-1890) who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, Faber also converted to Catholicism that same year.
Drawing inspiration from the hymns of John Newton, William Cowper and the Wesleys during his Anglican youth, he recognized that Roman Catholics lacked a tradition of more recent metrical hymnody in English. He took it upon himself to remedy this. By the time he died, he had contributed 150 hymns, all composed after his conversion to Roman Catholicism.
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” originally had eight stanzas and appeared under the title “Come to Jesus” in Faber’s Oratory Hymns (1854). In a later collection, the hymn expanded to 13 stanzas, beginning with “Souls of men, why will ye scatter/ Like a crowd of frightened sheep?” That version was included in a posthumous collection, Hymns Selected from F. W. Faber (1867).
Two omitted stanzas expand on the theme of God’s unfathomable mercy in a manner that, according to UM Hymnal editor Carlton Young, “demonstrates Faber’s affinity with eighteenth-century evangelical writers such as Charles Wesley”:
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.
There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.
British hymnologist J. Richard Watson notes that, “Faber’s emotionalism, and his uninhibited use of . . . imagery, demonstrate his love of a sentiment that comes close to sentimentality.
But his sentiment, however excessive it may seem, touches a tender spot: Faber is cheering on the soul, recognizing the troubles of life, and holding out the promise of a final homecoming.”
The ultimate theme of this hymn is based on the premise and paradox that a sovereign God, unlike earthly rulers, demonstrates welcome, kindness, grace and mercy. All we need to do is have a simple faith that “rest[s] upon God’s word.”
No comments:
Post a Comment