July 12, 2015

Each week, you may find information here about the music 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:

God’s Time is Best – J. S. Bach

Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the very best time), BWV 106, also known as Actus Tragicus, is a sacred cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Mühlhausen.  Although Bach's manuscript is lost, the work is agreed to be one of the earliest Bach cantatas, probably composed during the year he spent in Mühlhausen 1707/1708 as organist of the Divi Blasii church.  Bach was probably only 22 years old when he composed the opening sonatina, in which two obbligato alto recorders mournfully echo each other over a sonorous background of viola da gambas and continuo. The cantata ranks among his most important works. Inspired directly by its biblical text, it exhibits a great depth and intensity. Alfred Dürr called the cantata "a work of genius such as even great masters seldom achieve... The Actus Tragicus belongs to the great musical literature of the world".  The quotation from Acts in the opening chorus is taken from Paul’s speech before the Council of the Areopagus.  The text, taken from both the Old and New Testaments, reminds us that all things in life and in death occur in God’s time and not our own, and that, whether waiting or grieving, God’s time is always best.

            God’s time is the very best time.

            In Him we live, move and are, so long as He wills.

            In Him we die at the right time, when He wills.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period.  He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.  Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg concertos, the Mass in B minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier, two Passions, keyboard works, and more than 300 cantatas, of which nearly 100 cantatas have been lost to posterity.  His music is revered for its intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty.  Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognized as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the nineteenth century.  During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Bach was recognized by several prominent composers.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven,  Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn were among his admirers; they began writing in a more contrapuntal style after being exposed to Bach's music.  Beethoven described him as "Urvater der Harmonie", the "original father of harmony".  He is now generally regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque period and as one of the greatest composers of all time.  A highly devout Christian, Bach signed all of his compositions “soli Deo Gloria” (to God alone be the glory).  

Ich hab’ mein sach’ Gott heimgestellt – J. S. Bach

Johannes Leon (c.1530-1597) was an army chaplain, then in 1557, pastor at Königsee (Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt), in 1560 at Gross-Muhlhausen, and in 1575 at Wolfis, near Ohrdruf. Leon's hymns appeared principally in his  Handbüchlin, , 1566, and  Trostbüchlein., 1588.  The only hymn ascribed to him which has passed into English is “Ich hab mein Sach Gott heimgestellt”, with 18 5-line stanzas found in  Trostbüchlein. This hymn has been translated as “My Life I now to God resign”, “My all I to my God commend”, and “My cause is God's, and I am still”.

Bach incorporated this chorale in his cantata, “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” at the end of the second movement.  He later used this melody in three organ chorale preludes.

            I have left all that concerns me up to God.

            Let Him do whatever He wants with me.

            If I continue to live on here still longer,

            Without striving against Him.

            I will surrender myself to His will.

            My time and hour will be when God wills;

            I do not dictate to Him any bounds.

            My each and every hair is numbered,

            Both great and small;

            Not a single one falls without His will.

About the Handbell Music:

Canon in D – Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel (1653 – 1706)  was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era. Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, as well as the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard variations.

Pachelbel's Canon is the name commonly given to a canon by the German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel in his Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo, sometimes referred to as Canon and Gigue in D or simply Canon in D. It is his most famous composition. It was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue. Both movements are in the key of D major.  Like most other works by Pachelbel and other pre-1700 composers, the Canon remained forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered only in the 20th century. Several decades after it was first published in 1919 the piece became extremely popular.  It is frequently played at weddings and included on classical music compilations.

You may be wondering why it is called “canon” when there is no canon.  The original setting contained a true canon at the unison in the three violin parts. It also has elements of a chaconne, which is a set of variations over a ground bass.  It has frequently been arranged and transcribed for many other instruments.  All of these transcriptions retain the chaconne; however, few contain the canon.

About the Hymns:

My Hope is Built

Edward Mote (1797-1874) falls into the rare category of hymn writers who grew up without religious training and whose parents were pub owners. He was apprenticed at a young age by his parents to a cabinetmaker, but found faith when he heard the preaching of John Hyatt at the Tottenham Court Road Chapel in London at age 15. Living in Southwark near London, he established a successful cabinet-making enterprise and became a Baptist minister in 1852, at 55 years of age. He ministered for 21 years at Strict Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex.

Singing hymns was of great interest to him. The master cabinetmaker became a prolific hymn writer, composing more than 100 hymns. 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.  Hymnologists note that this is the first time the now common term “gospel hymn” appears. 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).

‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

From her childhood, the call to missionary service was the guiding motivation for Louisa M. R. Stead (c. 1850-1917). Born in Dover, England, and converted at the age of nine, Stead came to the United States in 1871, living in Cincinnati. She attended a camp meeting in Urbana, Ohio, where she dedicated her life to missionary service. Ill health prevented her from serving initially. She married in 1875, and the couple had a daughter, Lily. Hymnologist Kenneth Osbeck describes a major turning point in the family’s life:

“When the child was four years of age, the family decided one day to enjoy the sunny beach at Long Island Sound, New York. While eating their picnic lunch, they suddenly heard cries of help and spotted a drowning boy in the sea. Mr. Stead charged into the water. As often happens, however, the struggling boy pulled his rescuer under water with him, and both drowned before the terrified eyes of wife and daughter. Out of her ‘why?’ struggle with God during the ensuing days glowed these meaningful words from the soul of Louisa Stead.”

 The hymn, “’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” was inspired by this personal tragedy.

 Soon after, Lousia and Lily left for the Cape Colony, South Africa, where Louisa worked as a missionary for fifteen years. She married Robert Wodehouse, a native of South Africa. Because of her health, the family found it necessary to return to the United States in 1895. Wodehouse pastored a Methodist congregation during these years until, in 1900, they returned to the mission field, this time to the Methodist mission station at Umtali, Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). Kenneth Osbeck records a message sent back to the United States shortly after her arrival in Southern Rhodesia:

“In connection with the whole mission there are glorious possibilities, but one cannot, in the face of the peculiar difficulties, help but say, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ But with simple confidence and trust we may and do say, ‘Our sufficiency is of God.’”

While the exact date of the composition is not known, Lousia Stead’s hymn was first published in Songs of Triumph (1882).  The hymn might be described as a mantra on the name of Jesus. Indeed, “Jesus” is sung twenty-five times if one sings all four stanzas and the refrain.

He Leadeth Me

Although Joseph Gilmore (1834-1918) became a distinguished university and seminary professor, an author of several textbooks in Hebrew and English literature, and a respected Baptist minister, he is best remembered today for this one hymn, hurriedly written when he was just twenty-eight. Gilmore scribbled down these lines in 1862, while visiting with friends after preaching about the truths of the 23^rd Psalm at the Wednesday evening service of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. He left this account:

At the close of the service we adjourned to Deacon Watson’s pleasant home, where we were being entertained. During our conversation the blessedness of God’s leading so grew upon me that I took out my pencil, wrote the text just as it stands today, handed it to my wife, and thought no more of it.

Without telling her husband, Mrs. Gilmore sent the verses to the “Watchman and Reflector Magazine”, where it first appeared the following year. Three years later Joseph Gilmore went to Rochester, New York, as a candidate to become the pastor of Second Baptist Church. He recalls:

Upon entering the chapel I took up a hymnal, thinking—I wonder what they sing here. To my amazement the book opened up at “He Leadeth Me,” and that was the first time I knew that my hurriedly written lines had found a place among the songs of the church.

William Bradbury, an important American contributor to early gospel hymnody, added two additional lines to the chorus: “His faithful foll’wer I would be, for by His hand He leadeth me.”