May 21, 2017

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:

I’ll Ever Love Thee, Strength and Stay – Sigfrid Karg-Elert

Ich will dich lieben, meine Stärke is a hymn by Angelus Silesius, first published as the tenth hymn in Book 1 of his Heilige Seelen-Lust of 1657. Verses from the hymn were translated into English by both John Wesley and Catherine Winkworth: both translations begin Thee will I love, my strength, my tower.

Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) was the son of a Polish nobleman, and his true name was John Scheffler; but he adopted the name Angelus from a Spanish mystic of the 16th century--John ab Angelis--and added the name Silesius, because of his own country. He studied medicine, and obtained his degree of M.D. at Padua. While physician to the Duke Sylvius Nimrod, he had a conflict with the Lutheran clergy, and in 1653 entered the Roman Catholic Church. Subsequently he was physician to the Emperor Ferdinand III., but at length entered the priesthood and retired to the Jesuit monastery of S. Matthias. His hymns were mostly written before he joined the Catholic Church, and were intended for private devotion.

Translation by John Wesley:

Thee will I love, my strength, my tower; Thee will I love, my joy, my crown;
Thee will I love, with all my power, In all thy works, and thee alone:
Thee will I love, till the pure fire Fills my whole soul with chaste desire.

Ah, why did I so late thee know, Thee, lovelier than the sons of men!
Ah, why did I no sooner go To thee, the only ease in pain!
Ashamed, I sigh, and inly mourn, That I so late to thee did turn.

In darkness willingly I stray'd; I sought thee, yet from thee I roved;
Far wide my wandering thoughts were spread; Thy creatures more than thee I loved:
And now if more at length I see, 'Tis through thy light, and comes from thee.

I thank thee, uncreated Sun, That thy bright beams on me have shined;
I thank thee, who hast overthrown My foes, and heal'd my wounded mind;
I thank thee, whose enlivening voice Bids my freed heart in thee rejoice.

Uphold me in the doubtful race, Nor suffer me again to stray;
Strengthen my feet with steady pace Still to press forward in thy way;
My soul and flesh, O Lord of might, Fill, satiate, with thy heavenly light.

Give to mine eyes refreshing tears ; Give to my heart chaste, hallow'd fires ;
Give to my soul, with filial fears, The love that all heaven's host inspires;
That all my powers, with all their might, In thy sole glory may unite.

Thee will I love, my joy, my crown, Thee will I love, my Lord, my God;
Thee will I love, beneath thy frown, Or smile, thy sceptre, or thy rod:
What though my flesh and heart decay, Thee shall I love in endless day!

Sigfrid Karg-Elert (November 21, 1877 – April 9, 1933) was a German composer of considerable fame in the early twentieth century.  The cultural climate in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was very hostile to the internationally oriented, French-influenced Karg-Elert; and although his works were admired outside Germany, especially in the U.K. (the Organ Music Society of London held a ten-day festival in his honour in 1930) and in the U.S.A., in his home country his music was almost completely neglected.  Karg-Elert regarded himself as an outsider. Notable influences in his work include composers Johann Sebastian Bach (he often used the B.A.C.H. motif in Bach's honour), Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, Max Reger, Aleksandr Scriabin, and early Arnold Schoenberg. In general terms, his musical style can be characterised as being late-romantic with impressionistic and expressionistic tendencies. His profound knowledge of music theory allowed him to stretch the limits of traditional harmony without losing tonal coherence.

His favorite instrument to compose for was the Kunstharmonium, a versatile reed organ that allowed him the range of colors he preferred.  He created one of the most significant and extensive catalogs of original works for this instrument. Encouraged by the organist Paul Homeyer, he reworked several of these harmonium compositions for organ.  He also composed many works for organ, piano and small chamber ensembles.

God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale – Timothy Albrecht

Jaroslav Vajda (1919-2008) was one of the leading hymn writers in the 20th century and arguably the preeminent Lutheran hymn writer of his day.  Vajda (pronounced vaheeduh) was born in Lorain, Ohio, the son of a Lutheran pastor of Slovak descent. Thoroughly Lutheran, he was educated at Concordia College and Concordia Seminary, and he pastored several bilingual parishes (German and English) in Pennsylvania and Indiana. Jary (as his friends call him) served as the editor of several Lutheran magazines and retired as a book editor from Concordia Publishing House.

Vajda began translating classical Slovak poetry at the age of 18, and his work was published in the United States and Europe. He wrote his first hymn at age 49, followed by more than 225 original and translated hymns that now appear worldwide in more than 60 hymnals. He served Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregations between 1945 and 1976. In 1963, he became the editor of the This Day magazine and later served as book developer/editor for Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis. He served on the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship that prepared the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), one of the most important later twentieth-century hymnals. Elected a Fellow of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada in 1988, Vajda has received numerous honorary doctorates validating his contributions to hymn singing.

“God of the sparrow God of the whale” was written as a result of a commission from Concordia Lutheran Church in Kirkwood, Mo., “to compose a hymn text that would provide answers from the users of the hymn as to why and how God’s creatures (and children) are to serve him. The Law of God demands perfect love from every creature; the love of God and the Gospel coax a willing response to live as an expression of gratitude.”  A noticeable feature of this hymn is its lack of punctuation and rhyme. To the singer this creates a sense of openness—a text that is not bound by the conventional patterns of poetry. Each of the six stanzas is perfectly balanced: the first two lines of each stanza offer a glimpse into the actions of God in the world and the bond God has with God’s creatures. The last two lines of each stanza ask two rhetorical questions: “How does the creature... ” The lack of a question mark gives one the sense that these questions are not so much expecting an answer as making a statement of profound wonder about the relationship between the Creator and the Creator’s creatures. 

God of the sparrow God of the whale God of the swirling stars
How does the creature say Awe
How does the creature say Praise

God of the earthquake God of the storm God of the trumpet blast
How does the creature cry Woe
How does the creature cry Save

God of the rainbow God of the cross God of the empty grave
How does the creature say Grace
How does the creature say Thanks

God of the hungry God of the sick God of the prodigal
How does the creature say Care
How does the creature say Life

God of the neighbor God of the foe God of the pruning hook
How does the creature say Love
How does the creature say Peace

God of the ages God near at hand God of the loving heart
How do your children say Joy
How do your children say Home

Dr. Timothy Albrecht spent his childhood in Los Angeles and Wisconsin.  He received his Bachelors in organ from Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory, and his masters and doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, where he won the Performer’s Certificate. Shortly after graduation, he represented the United States at the Sixth International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. He has spent two sabbaticals at Cambridge University in England, which has conferred on him Life Membership.  At Emory University, Albrecht holds a joint faculty appointment as Professor of Music at Candler Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 1982, and in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Music  He also serves as University Organist. Albrecht has authored twelve published volumes of organ music and has recorded nine solo compact discs, including several Bach CDs and recordings of his own compositions.

Trumpeting – Dale Wood

Dale Wood (1934-2003) was a prominent composer, organist, choral director, and clinician.  He was honored many times by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for his “very important contribution towards the creation and development of contemporary American church music”.  He wrote many collections of organ works, most of which are based on both old and new hymn tunes.  Over eight million copies of his publications have been purchased in over 50 countries.

About the Choral Music:

Prayer of St. Francis – Rene Clausen

The Prayer of Saint Francis, also known as Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace, is attributed to the thirteenth-century Saint Francis of Assisi. The prayer in its present form cannot be traced back further than 1912, when it was printed in Paris in French, in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell), published by La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The Holy Mass League). The author's name was not given, although it may have been the founder of La Ligue, Fr. Esther Bouquerel.

A professor at the University of Orleans in France, Dr. Christian Renoux, published a study of the prayer and its history in French in 2001.  Summarizing the Renoux book on the prayer, an article by Egidio Picucci on the 19–20 January 2009 issue of L'Osservatore Romano says that the earliest record of the prayer is its appearance, as "a beautiful prayer to say during Mass" in the December 1912 number of the small devotional French publication La Clochette, "the bulletin of the League of the Holy Mass". In 1915, Marquis Stanislas de La Rochethulon, president of the Anglo-French association Souvenir Normand, which called itself "a work of peace and justice inspired by the testament of William the Conqueror, who is considered to be the ancestor of all the royal families of Europe", sent this prayer to Pope Benedict XV.

The Pope had an Italian translation published on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano of 20 January 1916. It appeared under the heading, "The prayer of Souvenir Normand for peace", and with the explanation: "Souvenir Normand has sent the Holy Father the text of some prayers for peace. We have pleasure in presenting in particular the prayer addressed to the Sacred Heart, inspired by the testament of William the Conqueror". On 28 January 1916, the French newspaper La Croix reprinted, in French, the Osservatore Romano article, with exactly the same heading and explanation. La Rochethulon wrote to the newspaper to clarify that it was not a prayer of Souvenir Normand, but he chose not to mention La Clochette, the first publication in which it had appeared. Because of its appearance on L'Osservatore Romano and La Croix as a prayer for peace during the First World War, this prayer then became widely known.

The prayer has been known in the United States since 1927 when its first known translation in English appeared in January of that year in the Quaker magazine Friends' Intelligencer (Philadelphia), where it was attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.   Cardinal Francis Spellman and Senator Albert W. Hawkes distributed millions of copies of the prayer during and just after World War II.

René Clausen (b. 1953) is an American composer, conductor of The Concordia Choir, and professor of music at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.  Clausen's compositional style is varied and eclectic, and put to sacred as well as secular texts.  He has created compositions and arrangements that range over many artistic media including choral, orchestral, wind ensemble, film, video, and solo voice.  Clausen's most popular harmonies are mostly based on close dissonances such as the major and minor second.  These chords based on dissonance are also called "tone clusters".  His style is sometimes classified as Neo-Romantic but this term can mean many things.  All of his works are unmistakably tonal yet they push the boundaries of chordal language.  The traditional functions of choral progression are blurred by his use of tone clusters.

Standing in the Need of Prayer – African-American spiritual

          God’s Project

"Standing in the Need" is an African American spiritual, and, like many folk songs, its origin is unknown. Both text and tune became well known after their publication in The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925), compiled by James Weldon Johnson and his brother,]. Rosamond Johnson.

This is an old spiritual, barely sung anymore, that captures the essence of a heart’s cry to God. “It’s me, it’s me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” What a hard word, sometimes, to say. To admit.Many people are in need of prayer, but at the end of the day, one thing stands out clearly: we all need prayer. And, we all need to pray.  To stand in the need, to just stand in that place where you know you need God, whatever else happens.

            It’s me, It’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

            It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

            Not my mother, not my father, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

                Not my brother, not my sister, but  it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

About the Hymns:

Christ for the World We Sing

Samuel Wolcott (1813-1886) was the pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Cleveland, Ohio when the local branch of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) asked to hold a meeting in his sanctuary.  Wolcott not only agreed to allow their meeting, but also made it a point to attend.  As he listened to the speakers, he couldn't help but notice the large banner that the YMCA sponsors had hung over the pulpit to announce the theme of the rally.  The banner read, "Christ for the World and the World for Christ."  Wolcott was very much in sympathy with that motto, having served as a missionary for several years.  He knew the need that existed in other countries, but he also thought of Cleveland and the other cities of this country as part of the world that needed Christ.  Wolcott had tried his hand at hymn-writing on a previous occasion, and was surprised when “Christ for the World We Sing” was published in 1869.  Wolcott wrote two hundred hymns during his lifetime, but this is the only one in common usage today.

This is the Day

Based on Psalms 118:24, “This Is the Day” celebrates God’s mighty acts of redemption (originally referring to the Passover before the Exodus), hailing “the day” as a special day of the Lord.  Paraphrased by Leslie Norman Garret (b. New Zealand, 1943), it was first published in his collection Scripture in Song (1967). Les Garret became a pastor after graduating from the Word of Faith Bible School. Currently he ministers at the Christian Family Center in Maddington (Perth), Australia. He is also a lecturer at Hebron Bible College and has traveled throughout the world speaking at conventions and churches. Garret promotes the singing of Scripture choruses in books such as Scripture in Song.

Go Make of All Disciples

Leon McKinley Adkins (1896-1986) was a Methodist pastor, serving congregations between 1921-1955, and an administrator, serving at the Board of Education of the Methodist Church in Nashville from 1955-1966.  His hymn, “Go Make of All Disciples” was first sung at the commissioning of teachers and church school officials during Christian Education Week, 1955, at University Methodist Church, Syracuse, where the author was pastor.  The hymn was printed in the February 1956 issue of Church School and first appeared in a hymnal in the 1966 Book of Hymns.  This hymn begins with the Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:19-20, KJV)