May 22, 2016

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.  

2016 is our church's Year of Jubilee!  Join us in our 3-week celebration as we burn our mortgage.  Our church is now debt free. 

About the Organ Music:

Psalm XIX – Benedetto Marcello

Born in Venice, Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) was a member of a noble family and his compositions are frequently referred to as Patrizio Veneto. Although he was a music student of Antonio Lotti and Francesco Gasparini, his father wanted Benedetto to devote himself to law. Benedetto managed to combine a life in law and public service with one in music. In 1711, he was appointed a member of the Council of Forty (in Venice's central government), and in 1730, he went to Pola as Provveditore (district governor). Due to his health having been "impaired by the climate” of Istria, Marcello retired after eight years in the capacity of Camerlengo to Brescia, where he died of tuberculosis.  Benedetto Marcello was the brother of Alessandro Marcello, also a notable composer. Benedetto Marcello married his singing student Rosanna Scalfi in a secret ceremony, because as a nobleman, his marriage to a commoner was unlawful.  After Marcello's death the marriage was declared null by the state, and Rosanna was unable to inherit his estate.  She filed suit in 1742 against Benedetto's brother Alessandro Marcello, seeking financial support.  Marcello composed a variety of music including considerable church music, oratorios, hundreds of solo cantatas, duets, sonatas, concertos and sinfonias.

About the Choral Music:

Praise the Lord – Douglas Wagner

Douglas E. Wagner, a native of Chicago, Illinois, is an international recognized composer and arranger. With thirty years as a high school music educator and administrator behind him, Mr. Wagner now devotes all of his time and energy to writing, editing and their allied activities. He is an A.S.C.A.P. award-winning composer, an editor for a major publishing company, and has served several denominations as a church musician.  2,500 titles by Douglas E. Wagner have been published since 1973, included works for choir (sacred and secular), concert band, orchestra, handbell ensemble, organ, piano, instrumental solo, and voice. Fifteen million copies of his music have been sold to date.

            Praise the Lord, bless His name, all who stand in the house of the Lord.

            Praise the Lord.  Bless the Lord.  Sing praise to His name.

Renew Your Church – Lloyd Larsen

Lloyd Larson (b. 1954) is an active composer and arranger for several major publishing companies of church and school music. His compositions and arrangements include well over 1,000 published works—including choral anthems, numerous extended Christmas, Easter and non-seasonal works, keyboard collections, vocal solo and duet collections, instrumental works for solo and ensembles, orchestrations, and handbell settings. It is Lloyd's work in his local church that continues to be the catalyst for much of his writing. He currently directs the adult choir in his home church in addition to being involved in worship planning and leadership.

“Renew Your Church” is based on the hymn All is Well  from the Sacred Harp collection of 1844 and is a call for revival.

            Renew Your church, our ministries restore: both to serve and adore.

            Make it again as salt throughout the land, and as light from a stand.

            Mid somber shadows of the night, where greed and hatreds spread their blight,

            O send us forth with power endued; help us, Lord, be renewed.

            Teach us Your Word, reveal its truth divine, on our path let it shine;

            Tell of Your works, Your mighty acts of grace, from each page show Your face.

            As You have loved us, send Your Son, and our salvation now is won,

            O let our hearts with love be stirred; help us, Lord, know Your Word.

            Teach us to pray, for You are ever near, Your still small voice, Lord, let us hear.

            Our souls are restless till they rest in You, this the goal we pursue.

            Before Your presence keep us still that we may find Your will.
            We’ll seek Your guidance every day; Lord, teach us how to pray.

            Teach us to love, with strength of heart and mind, each and all, humankind;

            Break down old walls of prejudice and hate, leave us not to our fate.

            As You have loved and given Your life to end hostility and strife,

            O share Your grace from heaven above; teach us, Lord, how to love.

            Amen, amen!

About the Hymns:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" is a hymn based on Joachim Neander's German chorale Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, published in 1680. John Julian, in his A Dictionary of Hymnology, calls the German original "a magnificent hymn of praise to God, perhaps the finest creation of its author, and of the first rank in its class."  Neander wrote this particular hymn while dying and it says much about his faith. While contemplating the words to go along with the melody, he reflected on Psalm 103 with its claim that everything within us should praise the Father’s holy name.  It was the favorite hymn of King Frederick William III of Prussia, who first heard it in 1800.  In the Neander original, first the singer calls himself (my beloved soul) to praise God, then calls for a larger group to join the praise with musical instruments as well as song.  John Julian‍‍ '​‍s A Dictionary of Hymnology lists more than ten English translations of "Lobe den Herren" printed in various nineteenth century hymnals.

The melody used by Neander, first published in 1665, is probably based on a folk tune. The common name given to this melody is "Lobe den Herren". Several variants were published with various secular texts between 1665 to 1680, when Joachim Neander published his German hymn, Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren, using its meter. The text paraphrases Psalm 103 and Psalm 150.  

One interesting piece of history is the later use of Neander’s name. He often taught in a valley near the Düssel river, and over 100 years after his death the valley was named after him. It was in that valley that bones were later found, from which we get the name “Neanderthal.”

Forward Through the Ages

Frederick Lucian Hosmer (1840-1929) was a Harvard-trained Unitarian minister. Known for his interest in hymns and worship, he served congregations in Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri and California. The Thought of God in Hymns and Poems (1918) contains 50 of his hymns.  Eminent British hymnologist John Julian noted in 1896: “Amongst Unitarian hymn writers of the last twenty years Mr. Hosmer is the most powerful and original known to us.”  Though he displayed an aptitude for poetry at a young age, most of Hosmer’s hymns were written after he turned 40.  He wrote the hymn in 1908 for the installation of a minister for the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, Calif.  It is typical of the social gospel hymns which were the product of the turn-of-the-20th-century theology that expressed optimism and the evolving perfection of humanity. Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) solidified the social gospel in his volume Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907). By the 1930s the social gospel hymn had become the marching song of liberal Protestantism in the United States.

To God Be the Glory

Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915), born in New York and died in Connecticut, wrote over 8,500 gospel hymns. In 1972, Hope Publishing Co. found over 1,000 unpublished manuscripts. Her work defined what it meant to be a successful writer of gospel hymns.  By the age of six weeks, Fanny Crosby was completely blind. She entered the New York School for the Blind at age twelve. She began writing hymns and poetry at age twelve.  Her collaborators in publishing gospel hymns included the most successful and popular composers of her day, including William Bradbury, William Doane, Robert Lowry, Ira Sankey, and William Kirkpatrick. Crosby used numerous pen names in publishing her songs, including: Ella Dale, Mrs. Kate Gringley and Miss Viola V. A.  She married blind musician Alexander Van Alstyne, and the British most often refer to her by her married name rather than Fanny Crosby.  She was a lifelong Methodist and her contributions to The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) include: “Blessed Assurance,” “Close to Thee,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory.”
Frances Jane Crosby’s hymns have historically been among the most popular songs sung by Methodists.  “To God be the glory” was included in William Doane’s Songs of Devotion in 1870.  Ira Sankey probably saw the hymn in Doane’s collection and incorporated it into the first edition of his Sacred Songs and Solos (1875).  Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey helped to establish the hymn’s popularity during their revivals in Great Britain in the late 19th century.  It also appeared in some British hymnals including the Methodist Hymn Book (1933).

However, it was not until the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade in Nashville that Cliff Barrows introduced this song to congregations in the United States.  Mr. Graham and Mr. Barrows had learned the song during the 1952 revivals they had conducted in Great Britain.  Hymnologist William J. Reynolds, writing in his hymnal companion Hymns of Faith (1964), documented the return of this hymn to the USA: “It is most extraordinary that this long-forgotten American gospel song should have been imported from England and become immensely popular during the last decade.” 

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) chaired the committee that wrote the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, The Book of Common Worship of 1906. In 1908–09 Dr. van Dyke was an American lecturer at the University of Paris. By appointment of President Wilson, a friend and former classmate of van Dyke, he became Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received many other honors.  Among his popular writings are the two Christmas stories, The Other Wise Man (1896) and The First Christmas Tree (1897). Various religious themes of his work are also expressed in his poetry, hymns and the essays collected in Little Rivers (1895) and Fisherman’s Luck (1899).

"The Hymn of Joy" (often called "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" after the first line) is a poem written by Henry van Dyke in 1907 with the intention of musically setting it to the famous "Ode to Joy" melody of the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's final symphony, Symphony No. 9.   Van Dyke wrote this poem in 1907 while staying at the home of Williams College president Harry Augustus Garfield. He was serving as a guest preacher at Williams at the time. He told his host that the local Berkshire Mountains had been his inspiration. The lyrics were first published in 1911 in Van Dyke's Book of Poems.  Van Dyke wrote of this hymn: “These verses are simple expressions of common Christian feelings and desires in this present time—hymns of today that may be sung together by people who know the thought of the age, and are not afraid that any truth of science will destroy religion, or any revolution on earth overthrow the kingdom of heaven. Therefore this is a hymn of trust and joy and hope.”  This hymn is generally considered by hymnologists to be one of the most joyous expressions of hymn lyrics in the English language.