March 20, 2016 Palm Sunday

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:

Lift Up the Gates of Praise – E. S. Lorenz

Mary E. Servoss (1849-1906) wrote over 100 hymns, many of which are found in I. D. Sankey’s Sacred Songs & Solos (1881) and the Sunday School Union Voice of Praise (1887).  “Lift Up the Gates of Praise” was first published in Gates of Praise, by Isaiah Baltzell & Edmund S. Lorenz (1884).  The text is based on Isaiah 60:18

Lift up the gates of praise, That we may enter in,
And o’er salvation’s walls proclaim That Christ redeems from sin.

God’s works reveal His might, His majesty and grace;
But not the tender Father’s love That saves a dying race.

Then let the voice of praise To heav’nly courts ascend,
Till with the songs the angels sing Our hallelujahs blend.

To Him that hath redeemed Our souls from sin’s dark maze;
The hope and Savior of mankind, Be everlasting praise.

Refrain

The stars may praise the hand That decks the sky above,
But man alone can tell the power Of Christ’s redeeming love.

The Lorenz family were Adventists, and emigrated from Messer, Russia (near Saratow), to America, and lived in Dayton, Ohio. Edmund Simon (1854-1942) attended Otterbein University, Union Biblical Seminary, Yale Theological Seminary, and the University of Leipzig. He served as pastor of the High Street United Brethren Church in Dayton, Ohio (1884-86), and as president of Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania (1886-88). He later founded the Lorenz and Company music publishing house in Dayton, Ohio.  He wrote 195 hymn texts, 40 hymn tunes, and published 22 hymnals and books on church music.

Christe, du Lamm Gottes – J. S. Bach

"Christe, du Lamm Gottes" (Christ, you Lamb of God) is a Lutheran hymn, often referred to as the German Agnus Dei. Martin Luther derived the words as a translation of the Latin Agnus Dei from the liturgy of the mass, and the tune from an older model. The hymn was first published in 1528. It has been the basis for several musical settings by composers such as Bach, Mendelssohn and Hessenberg. It appears in the current German hymnals, both the Protestant Evangelisches Gesangbuch  and the Catholic Gotteslob.  When Luther introduced the Reformation, he tried to keep the much of the order of the mass, but in German. He published in 1526 Deutsche Messe, an alternative liturgy for a Gottesdienst (church service) in German, which was first sung in Advent of 1525. The hymn appeared with the tune first in in Bugenhagen's Braunschweig order of church service, printed in Wittenberg in 1528.

Ah! do not pass by; You, the salvation of all mankind,

have indeed appeared, to serve the invalid and not the healthy.
Therefore even I take my portion of Your power; I behold You upon this path,
upon which I was meant to be placed, even in my blindness.
I seize You and release You not without Your blessing.

All eyes wait, Lord, O all-powerful God, for You,
especially my own. Give them strength and light,
do not leave them forever in the darkness!
In the future Your sign alone shall be the darling pupil of all their doings,
until one day through death You shall consider closing them again.

Christ, Lamb of God, You who bear the sin of the world, have mercy on us!
Christ, Lamb of God, You who bear the sin of the world, have mercy on us!
Christ, Lamb of God, You who bear the sin of the world, grant us Your peace. Amen.

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).  

Vexilla Regis – Healey Willan

The "Vexilla Regis" is a Latin hymn in long metre by the Christian poet Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers. Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c. 530–c. 600/609) was a Latin poet and hymnodist in the Merovingian Court, and a Bishop of the early Catholic Church. He was never canonised (no saint was canonised till Saint Ulrich of Augsburg in 993), but he was venerated as Saint Venantius Fortunatus during the Middle Ages. 

Venantius Fortunatus wrote eleven surviving books of poetry in Latin in a diverse group of genres including epitaphs, panegyrics, georgics, consolations, and religious poems. A major genre of Fortunatus’ poetry is the panegyric. He wrote four major panegyrics to four Merovingian Kings: Sigibert and Brunhild, Charibert, Chilperic,  and Childebert II and Brunhild. The first was also his debut into the Merovingian Court in Gaul, at Metz, in honour of the marriage of Sigibert and Brunhild. Fortunatus wrote panegyrics and other types of poems, including praise, eulogies, personal poems to bishops and friends alike,^] consolations and poems in support of political issues. His verse is important in the development of later Latin literature, largely because he wrote at a time when Latin prosody was moving away from the quantitative verse of classical Latin towards the accentual meters of medieval Latin. His style sometimes suggests the influence of Hiberno-Latin, in learned Greek coinages that occasionally appear in his poems.

His hymns are used extensively in the Hymnal 1982 of the Episcopal Church. One of his hymns was set to music by the modern composer Randall Giles. Another hymn as translated from the Latin (Welcome, happy morning! age to age shall say) celebrates Easter with music by Sir Arthur Sullivan.  Fortunatus is best known for two poems that have become part of the liturgy of the Catholic Church, the Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis ("Sing, O tongue, of the glorious struggle"), a hymn that later inspired St Thomas Aquinas's Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium.  He also wrote Vexilla Regis prodeunt ("The royal banners forward go"), which is a sequence sung at Vespers during Holy Week. This poem was written in honour of a large piece of the True Cross, which explains its association also with the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The relic had been sent from the Byzantine Emperor Justin II to Queen Radegund of the Franks, who after her husband Chlotar I's death had founded a monastery in Poitiers. The Municipal Library in Poitiers houses an 11th-century manuscript on the life of Radegunde, copied from a 6th-century account by Fortunatus. The hymn was first sung in the procession (November 19, 569) when a relic of the True Cross, sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justin II from the East at the request of St. Radegunda, was carried in great pomp from Tours to her monastery of Saint-Croix at Poitiers. The splendour and triumph suggested by the first stanza can be appreciated fully only by recalling the occasion when the hymn was first sung--the triumphant procession from the walls of Poitiers to the monastery with bishops and princes in attendance and with all the pomp and pageantry of a great ecclesiastical function. "And still, after thirteen centuries, how great is our emotion as these imperishable accents come to our ears!" (Pimont). There are about forty translations into English verse.

Its original processional use is commemorated in the Roman Missal on Good Friday, when the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession from the Repository to the High Altar. Its principal use however, is in the Divine Office, the Roman Breviary assigning it to Vespers from the Saturday before Passion Sunday daily to Maundy Thursday, and to Vespers of feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14), and in pre-Vatican II breviary also for the feast of the Finding (May 3), and of the Triumph of the Holy Cross (July 16).  Originally the hymn comprised eight stanzas. In the tenth century, stanzas 7 and 8 were gradually replaced by new ones ("O crux ave, spes unica", and the doxology, "Te summa Deus trinitas"), although they were still retained in some places. In the seventeenth century the correctors of the Breviary under Urban VIII revised the whole hymn in the interest of classical prosody. The Commission on Plain Chant under Pius X restored the ancient form of the text. The Graduale Romanum (1908) gives only the ancient form of the hymn, while the Antiphonary (2012) gives only the revised form. The Processionale (1911) gives both forms.

The Royal Banner forward goes, The mystic Cross refulgent glows:
Where He, in Flesh, flesh who made, Upon the Tree of pain is laid.

Where deep for us the spear was dyed, Life’s torrent rushing from His side,
To wash us in that precious flood, Where mingled water flowed, and blood.

Fulfilled is all that David told In true prophetic song of old,
Amidst the nations, God, saith he, Hath reigned and triumphed from the tree.

O tree of beauty, tree of light! O tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast Those holy limbs should find their rest.

Blest tree, whose chosen branches bore The wealth that did the world restore,
The price of humankind to pay, And spoil the spoiler of his prey.

O Cross! all hail! sole hope, abide With us now in this Passion-tide:
New grace in pious hearts implant, And pardon to the guilty grant.

Thee, mighty Trinity! One God! Let every living creature laud;
Whom by the Cross Thou dost deliver, O guide and govern now and ever! Amen.

Healey Willan (1880-1968) was an Canadian organist and composer.  He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano, but is best known for his religious music.  Willan was born in England, and he began musical training at age eight, with studies at St. Saviour's Choir School in Eastbourne.  He earned, by examination in organ playing, harmony, counterpoint, history and orchestration, the Royal College of Organists' Associateship in 1897 and Fellowship in 1899. The Anglo-Catholic Tractarian movement led to an Anglican revival of plainsong, and in 1910, Willan joined the London Gregorian Association (which strove to preserve and revive "plain-chant").  In 1913, Willan emigrated to Canada.  In 1921, he became Precentor of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Toronto), where he remained until his death.  St. Mary Magdalene, under Willan, became a North American mecca for choral and Anglican church musicians.  In 1920, the Toronto Conservatory (now the Royal Conservatory of Music) appointed Willan Head of its Theory Department.  In 1934, he founded the Tudor Singers, which he conducted until it disbanded in 1939.  From 1937 to 1950, Willan was University of Toronto Professor of Music and Organist. When the Order of Canada was established in 1967, it named Willan a Companion. In Britain, it was customary for the Archbishop of Canterbury to occasionally grant very distinguished English cathedral musicians the Lambeth Doctorate, Mus. D Cantaur; in 1956, Willan, "the Dean of Canadian composers", became the first non-English church musician to be so honored.  People who remember Willan from his time at St Mary Magdalene's like to moderate his somewhat dourly pious public image by quoting him: "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption."

About the Choral Music:

Hosanna, Loud Hosanna – Joel Raney

Like "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" (375/376), this text is based on Christ's triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. However, "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna" focuses more on the children's role in that event. The text was written by Jeannette Threlfall (1821-1880) in an "idle moment" (as she says she wrote all of her hymns, all others of which have been forgotten). Undoubtedly, Threlfall had Mark 11 in mind when she wrote this text, but she also alludes to Jesus' welcoming of the children in Mark 10:13-16.   Threlfall's life was extremely difficult: she was orphaned at an early age, and two serious accidents caused her to be an invalid for life. But she bore her misfortune with grace and fortitude and maintained a ministry to many people who came in contact with her. Threlfall wrote devotional verse, which was published anonymously in various periodicals and later collected in Woodsorrel, or Leaves from a Retired Home (1856) and Sunshine and Shadow (1873), which included "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna."

Joel Raney’s (b. 1956) taste for gospel music began in a rural Baptist church in Alabama, an influence that shows strongly in his work to this day. Joel's interest in music of all kinds has led to everything from classical and jazz performance to pop vocal arranging. He has conducted Broadway productions, and has been honored for outstanding musical direction of theater in both Chicago and Los Angeles. Since 1988 he has worked as a composer and producer of commercial music in Chicago and has written soundtracks for more than 2000 television and radio commercials, plus numerous scores for short films.  Joel is a choral and keyboard clinician, and performs throughout North America as a piano soloist and in duo-concert with organist Jane Holstein.  He has over 200 titles in print, including choral anthems, musicals and cantatas, handbell compositions, piano solos, and instrumental works. 

            Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang:

            Through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang:

            To Jesus, who had blessed them, close folded to his breast,

            The children sang their praises, the simplest and the best.

            Hosanna in the highest, hosanna to the King!

            Hosanna in the highest, let loud hosannas ring!

            Sing hosanna, hosanna to the King!

            Sing hosanna, let loud hosannas ring!

            O may we ever praise him with heart and life and voice,

            And in his blissful presence eternally rejoice!

            Hosanna in the highest, let loud hosannas ring!

About the Hymns:

All Glory, Laud, and Honor

Theodulf of Orleans (760-821) was originally from Spain. Muslim conquests of Iberia drove him to leave, and he was brought to France by Charlemagne. In addition to serving as a kind of poet laureate, he was a scholar, church reformer, secretary of education, theological advisor to the king.  His writings included sermons and theological treatises on baptism and the Holy Spirit. He opposed the use of icons and revised the text of the Bible. He became Bishop of Orleans about 785, and soon afterwards also Abbot of Fleury. After Charlemagne died, Louis the Pious accused Theodulf of joining Bernard of Italy (a royal nephew) in a conspiracy against the throne. Theodulf protested his innocence, but in 818, he was deposed from his influential posts and imprisoned at Angers, where he died in 821.  While imprisoned, he wrote the words to the Latin hymn "Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit Rex Christe, Redemptor " or "All Glory, Laud and Honor To thee Redeemer King."  More than a thousand years later, an English translation of his hymn remains a favorite for Palm Sunday.

Tell Me the Stories of Jesus

William Henry Parker (1845-1929) was an English businessman who taught Sunday school at Chelsea Street Baptist Church in Nottingham.  Early in life, he had written verses and this led him to compose hymns for use in Sunday School.  Thinking of the children in his classes who were always asking him to “tell us another story”, he wrote this text in 1885.  The melody was added when a publisher ran a contest to find an appropriate tune for it. 

Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service

Albert F. Bayly (1901-1984) was ed­u­cat­ed at Lon­don Un­i­ver­si­ty and Mans­field Coll­ege, Ox­ford.  Be­gin­ning in the late 1920’s, he served at four Cong­re­ga­tion­al church­es in North­um­ber­land, Lan­ca­shire and East York­shire; in 1962, he be­came pas­tor in Thax­ted, Es­sex.  Af­ter re­tir­ing in 1971, he moved to Spring­field, Chelms­ford, and was ac­tive in the local Unit­ed Re­formed Church.  He wrote sev­er­al pa­geants on mis­sion themes, and li­bret­tos for can­ta­tas by W. L. Lloyd Web­ber (father of Andrew). 

Bayly wrote this text in response to a Hymn Society of America search for new hymns on social welfare. It was chosen as the theme hymn for the Second National Conference on the Churches and Social Welfare held in Cleveland, Ohio, October 23-27, 1961. The Hymn Society published the text in Seven New Social Welfare Hymns (1961).