December 10, 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:

Mit Fried und Freud ihr fahr dahin – J. S. Bach

This text and melody were composed by Luther in the spring of 1524. Later in the same year, it was published in Wittenberg in Johann Walter's Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn (Wittenberg hymnal), but was not included in the Erfurt Enchiridion. Originally a song for Purification, Luther included it in 1542 in Christliche Geseng ... zum Begrebniss. 

It is based on the Nunc dimittis, the canticle of Simeon. Luther expanded the thoughts of each of the four verses to a stanza of six lines. The first stanza expresses accepting death in peace (Luke 2:29), the second gives as a reason the meeting with the Saviour (Luke 2:30), the third accents his coming for all people (Luke 2:31), the fourth the coming as a light for the heathen and glory for Israel.(Luke 2:31) The lines are of different length, meter 8.4.8.4.7.7, stressing single statements. Luther, a former monk, was familiar with the Latin Nunc dimittis from the daily night prayer (compline).

With peace and joy I go on my way in God’s will.

            My heart and mind are comforted, peaceful and calm.

            As God promised me, death has become my sleep.

            This is the work of Christ, God’s true son, the faithful savior,

            Whom you, Lord, have allowed me to see and made known

            That He is our life and salvation in trouble and in dying.

            You have set him before everybody with great mercy,

            That to his kingdom the whole world may be called and invited

            Through your precious healing Word that has resounded everywhere.

            He is salvation and a blessed light for the gentiles,

            To enlighten those who do not know you, and to give them pasture.

            For your people Israel He is their reward, honor, joy, and delight.

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).  

Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers! – Lani Smith

Laurentius Laurenti (1660-1722) son of Herr Lorenz, or Laurenti, a burgess of Husum, in Schleswig, entered the University of Rostock in 1681, and after a year and a half spent there, went to Kiel to study music. In 1684, he was appointed cantor and director of the music at the cathedral church at Bremen. Laurenti was one of the best hymn-writers of the Pietistic school. His hymns are founded on the Gospels for Sundays and Festivals, and they draw out the bearing on the Christian life of the leading thoughts therein contained. They are of noble simplicity; are Scriptural, fervent, and often of genuine poetical worth. In Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch, 1704 and 1714, no less than 34 are included, and many of these, with others by him, are still in extensive German use. They appeared in his Evangelia Melodica, das ist: Geistliche Lieder,und Lobgesange, nach den Sinn der ordentlichen Sonn-und Festages Evangelien, , 1700, with 148 hymns on the Gospels, and two others.

Rejoice, rejoice, believers, and let your lights appear;
the evening is advancing, And darker night is near.
The Bridegroom is arising and soon is drawing nigh.
Up, pray and watch and wrestle; at midnight comes the cry.

The watchers on the mountain proclaim the Bridegroom near;
go forth as he approaches, with alleluias clear.
The marriage feast is waiting; The gates wide open stand.
Arise, O heirs of glory; The Bridegroom is at hand.

See that your lamps are burning; Replenish them with oil;
Look now for your salvation, The end of sin and toil.
The watchers on the mountain Proclaim the Bridegroom near,
Go meet him as he cometh, With alleluias clear.

O wise and holy virgins, Now raise your voices higher,
Until in songs of triumph Ye meet the angel choir.
The marriage-feast is waiting, The gates wide open stand;
Up, up, ye heirs of glory! The Bridegroom is at hand.

The saints, who here in patience their cross and sufferings bore,
shall live and reign forever when sorrow is no more.
Around the throne of glory The Lamb they shall behold;
in triumph cast before him their diadems of gold.

Palms of victory are there; There, radiant garments are;
There stands the peaceful harvest, Beyond the reach of war.
There, after stormy winter, The flowers of earth arise,
And from the grave's long slumber Shall meet again our eyes!

Our hope and expectation, O Jesus, now appear;
arise, O Sun so longed for, o'er this benighted sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted we plead, O Lord, to see
the day of earth's redemption that sets your people free!

Lani Smith (1934-2015) is an organist best known for his church music compositions. He has been composing for nearly fifty years, and his compositions include choral, organ and piano pieces. He is a regular contributor to the Lorenz Corporation’s keyboard magazines The Church Pianist, The Organist, The Organ Portfolio, and The Sacred Organ Journal, as well as the choral magazines The SAB Choir and The Volunteer Choir.  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.

About the Handbell Music:

Carol of the Bells – Douglas Wagner

"Carol of the Bells" is a popular Christmas carol composed by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1914 with lyrics by Peter J. Wilhousky. The song is based on a Ukrainian folk chant called "Shchedryk". 

Conductor of the Ukrainian Republic Choir Oleksander Koshyts (also spelled Alexander Koshetz) commissioned Leontovych to create the song based on traditional Ukrainian folk chants, and the resulting new work for choir, "Shchedryk", was based on four notes Leontovych found in an anthology. The original folk story related in the song was associated with the coming New Year, which, in pre-Christian Ukraine, was celebrated with the coming of spring in April. The original Ukrainian title translates to "the generous one" or is perhaps derived from the Ukrainian word for bountiful (shchedryj), and tells a tale of a swallow flying into a household to proclaim the bountiful year that the family will have.

With the introduction of Christianity to Ukraine and the adoption of the Julian calendar, the celebration of the New Year was moved from April to January, and the holiday with which the chant was originally associated became Malanka (Ukrainian: Щедрий вечір Shchedry vechir), the eve of the Julian New Year (the night of 13–14 January in the Gregorian calendar). The songs sung for this celebration are known as Shchedrivky.

The song was first performed by students at Kiev University in December 1916, but the song lost popularity in Ukraine shortly after the Soviet Union took hold. It was introduced to Western audiences by the Ukrainian National Chorus during its 1919 concert tour of Europe and the Americas, where it premiered in the United States on October 5, 1921 to a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall. The original work was intended to be sung a cappella by mixed four-voice choir. Two other settings of the composition were also created by Leontovych: one for women's choir (unaccompanied) and another for children's choir with piano accompaniment. These are rarely performed or recorded.

Wilhousky rearranged the melody for orchestra with new lyrics for NBC radio network's symphony orchestra, centered around the theme of bells because the melody reminded him of hand bells, which begins "Hark! How the bells". It was first aired during the Great Depression, and Wilhousky copyrighted the new lyrics in 1936 and also published the song, despite the song having been published almost two decades earlier in the Ukrainian National Republic. Its initial popularity stemmed largely from Wilhousky's ability to reach a wide audience as his role as arranger for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. It is now strongly associated with Christmas because of its new lyrics, which reference bells, caroling, and the line "merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas".  An alternate English version, "Ring, Christmas Bells", featuring Nativity-based lyrics was written by Minna Louise Hohman in 1947. Two other versions exist by anonymous writers: one from 1957 titled "Come Dance and Sing" and one from 1972 that begins "Hark to the bells".

Hark! how the bells, Sweet silver bells, All seem to say "throw cares away."
Christmas is here, Bringing good cheer To young and old, Meek and the bold.

Ding, dong, ding, dong, That is their song With joyful ring; All caroling.
One seems to hear Words of good cheer From ev'rywhere, Filling the air.

Gaily they ring While people sing Songs of good cheer; Christmas is here.
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas.

On, on they send, On without end, Their joyful tone To ev'ry home.
Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong.

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.

About the Choral Music:

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus – Austin Lovelace

Charles Wesley wrote “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” 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.

Austin C. Lovelace (1919-2010) was called by many the Dean of American Church music. Over many years he worked at a number of Methodist and Presbyterian churches in Colorado, North Carolina, Illinois, and Nebraska. He also worked at Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C. and Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. He traveled widely as a Director of Music for general conferences, lecturer, and consultant. He was the organist for the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1954. He was a prolific writer and composer with over 700 compositions for church in print, as well as numerous articles and books on church hymnody.

     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. 
     Israel's Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth thou art; 
     Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart. 

     Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King, 
     born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring. 
     By thine own eternal spirit rule in all our hearts alone; 
     by thine all sufficient merit, raise us to thy glorious throne. 

About the Hymns:

Hail to the Lord’s Anointed

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 hymns, 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 hymns, 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 Anointed” 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)."

Published in a chapel hymnal for the Duke of Würtemberg (Gesangbuch der Herzogl, 1784), ELLACOMBE (the name of a village in Devonshire, England) was first set to the words "Ave Maria, klarer und lichter Morgenstern." During the first half of the nineteenth century various German hymnals altered the tune. Since ELLACOMBE's inclusion in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern, where it was set to John Daniell's children's hymn "Come, Sing with Holy Gladness," its use throughout the English-speaking world has spread.

I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light

Kathleen Thomerson (b. 1934) is Organist and Music Director at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas. She was born in Tennessee and grew up in Mississippi, California, and Texas. College music study was at the Universities of Colorado and Texas, the Flemish Royal Conservatory in Antwerp, and privately in Paris. Before retirement in Austin, she lived in Collinsville, Illinois, when her husband was a biology professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Her best-known hymn text is "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light", set to her hymn tune HOUSTON.  It was written as a scriptural meditation and prayer. It was inspired by many Bible verses, including Genesis 1:17, Isaiah 60:19, Psalm 75:16, Psalm 139:12, Ephesians 3:17, Ephesians 5:8, Galatians 4:6, Hebrews 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:5, 2 Peter 1:19, 1 John 1:5-7, and Revelation 21:23.