April 29, 2018

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:

Emendemus in melius - Cristobal Morales

Emendemus is an ancient prayer, which was set by several composers Italy during the Renaissance. The text comes from Esther 13 and Joel 2.  Some of Esther appeared two centuries after the rest of the book, and not in Hebrew but in Greek.  This extra material was found in the Septuagint and then the Latin Vulgate, but it was expunged after the Reformation. 

Make us perfect, Lord.

Let us amend for the better in those things

in which we have sinned through ignorance;
we seek space for repentance and are not able to find it.
Hearken, O Lord, and have mercy: for we have sinned against thee.
Help us, O God of our salvation, and for the honor of thy name deliver us.

Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500-1553) was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He is generally considered to be the most influential Spanish composer before Tomás Luis de Victoria.  Cristóbal de Morales was born in Seville and, after an exceptional early education there, which included rigorous training in the classics as well as musical study with some of the foremost composers, he held posts at Ávila and Plasencia. Early Spanish popes of the Borja family held a long tradition of employing Spanish singers in the papal chapel’s choir. This had a significant effect on Morales' success. Starting in 1522, there are three different occurrences Morales was indicated to be an organist. is documented three times in Rome as ‘presbyter toletanus’ in May and December 1534. By 1535, he had moved to Rome, where he was a singer in the papal choir, evidently due to the interest of Pope Paul III who was partial to Spanish singers. He remained in Rome until 1545, in the employ of the Vatican; then, after a period of unsuccessfully seeking other employment in Italy, he returned to Spain, where he held a succession of posts, many of which were marred by financial or political difficulties. There is some evidence that he was a difficult character, aware of his exceptional talent, but incapable of getting along with those of lesser musical abilities. He made severe demands on thesingers in his employ, alienated employers, and likely came across as arrogant. In spite of this, he was regarded as one of the finest composers in Europe around the middle of the 16th century.  The Spanish theorist Juan Bermudo declared him “the light of Spain in music”, while in 1559, a Mexican choir – Spanish polyphony in particular was quick to reach the New World – sang his music at a service commemorating the death of Charles V the previous year. His fame held strong on into the 18th century when Andrea Adami da Bolsena, biographer of many papal musicians, praised him as the papal chapel’s most important composer between Josquin des Prez and Palestrina.

Reflection – Frank Asper

Frank Wilson Asper (1892-1973) was a Mormon Tabernacle organist for more than 40 years. During his impressive career, Asper performed approximately 5,000 organ recitals for Temple Square visitors and played for more than 1,000 network Choir broadcasts, plus he had his own weekly organ broadcast. Additionally, he published many volumes of organ compositions and, for more than 30 years, conducted the McCune Symphony Orchestra, which he founded. He was also the organist of the First United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The melodeon was Asper’s first instrument. His father had brought one across the plains in a covered wagon. By age seven, Frank was playing piano accompaniments, and by 12, he played his first organ solo in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. Asper studied at Stern’s Conservatory in Berlin, Germany, and later he graduated with honors from from Boston’s New England Conservatory. In 1938, Bates College awarded him an honorary doctor of music degree.  He was a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists.

Asper wrote lyrics or composed music for several LDS hymns. Seven of his hymns are included in the current LDS hymnbook, including “God Is in His Holy Temple,” “’Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love,” “O Thou, Before the World Began,” “Hear Thou Our Hymn, O Lord,” “This House We Dedicate to Thee,” “Rejoice! A Glorious Sound Is Heard,” and “Rise Up, O Men of God.”

Clarifica me Pater - William Byrd

“Clarifica me pater apud temetipsum, claritate quam habui, priusquam mundus fieret” is a Sarum antiphon which was originally sung at first Vespers on Palm Sunday.  The text is a prayer for perfection and is drawn from the Gethsemane prayer from John 17.  By the early 17^th century, this plainsong was no longer included in Catholic or Anglican liturgies.

Now, Father, it is time for you to glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world was.  I have made your name known to the men you took from the world to give me.  They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now at last they know that all you have given me comes indeed from you; for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have truly accepted this, that I came from you and have believed that it was you who sent me.

William Byrd (1540-1623) studied composition with Thomas Tallis at the chapel Royal, and served as assistant organist and choral accompanist.  In 1563, Byrd was appointed organist and choirmaster at the cathedral in Lincoln.  It seems that in order to secure his services, cathedral officials (the Chapter) offered him a rectory in Hainton, Lincolnshire, and a house (free of rent), as well as an impressive salary.  For reasons unknown, in 1570 Byrd was briefly suspended from his duties.  It has been suggested that, as Byrd was a Roman Catholic, his organ playing during services exceeded the acceptable Anglican limits as they concerned time and style. During this forced leave, he produced some of his most extensive keyboard fantasias. 

Byrd moved to London in 1572 to fill a post at the Chapel Royal left when composer Robert Parsons died.  Thus, he became known as a “Gentleman of the Chapel.”  Armed with letters from influential members of the nobility, he was able to convince the Lincoln Cathedral to keep sending him a portion of his former salary, retaining his old position to a degree while working at court.  This agreement, in which Byrd was obliged to continue providing music to Lincoln, was honored until 1581.  He continued to produce both sacred and secular works, including the keyboard pavans and galliards begun in the 1570s.

In London, Byrd formed important relationships with noblemen who later became his patrons.  Most were fellow Catholics, and political difficulties made these alliances somewhat unstable; the Earl of Northumberland, for example, was executed, and Thomas, Lord Paget, ended up having to leave England in the aftermath of a supposed pro-Catholic plot against Queen Elizabeth I.  The queen herself also contributed to Byrd’s career, conferring a twenty-one year patent and monopoly to Byrd and Tallis for music printing and for lined music paper.  Their first endeavor was a collection of their own motets, published as Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur. In spite of good intentions and a dedication to the queen, the book did not do well commercially.  Demand was generally lower than had been expected, printed music continued to be imported from sources abroad, regardless of the patent’s stipulations otherwise, and printing monopolies themselves fell under increasing criticism.

Though it is not known when William or his wife Julian became Catholics (there is no evidence that any of Byrd’s relatives were Catholic), it is certain that this affiliation had a significant effect on their lives.  Anti-Catholic sentiment was rising in England, and from 1577 on, Byrd, his wife, their children, and members of his household were frequently cited as recusants. Under Elizabeth’s law, recusants risked spiritual censure (exclusion) and fines, which were to be donated to charity. John Reason, a high-ranking servant and former musician in Byrd’s household, was imprisoned more than once for religious offenses, and probably died in the Gatehouse prison of the plague in 1603.  Byrd’s most subversive activities, however, took place in the context of his compositional choices. These included: Latin motets with texts specifically referring to those executed in the Catholic recusant cause and a setting of a poem that had gained infamy as a protest of the execution of three Jesuits.  Though Byrd was cited often as a recusant, he was considered to be loyal to the crown, and was protected from the harshest punishments because of the esteem he was held in by the queen and by his noble patrons.  The queen’s admiration was such that in 1588 she commissioned Byrd to set her poem “Look and bow down Thine ear, O Lord,” in celebration of the defeat of the Spanish Armada.  Byrd also protected himself by dedicating some of his printed scores to noted anti-Catholics, such as Queen Elizabeth I. Moreover he did not abandon composing for the Church of England, completing the Anglican Great Service sometime in the late 1580s.

Byrd retained the printing patent upon Tallis’ death in 1585, and as he gradually retired from active service in the Chapel Royal, he spent more time collecting and publishing his own works.  He may have already begun planning his withdrawal from the Chapel Royal at the time that he published Psalmes, sonets, & songs of sadnes and pietie (1588).  It is thought to be the third book of English songs ever printed, and its success led to Byrd’s next collection, Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589).  These collections included consort songs for voice and viols, and various arrangements of such songs, as well as anthems and other song forms.  Other collections from this period include Cantiones sacrae (1589), which anthologized Byrd’s motets for five voices (a second volume soon followed) and a manuscript of 1591 titled My Ladye Nevells Booke, in which a number of keyboard works are compiled.  In the 1590s, he also published three masses and corresponded with Philippe de Monte, the Kapellmeister of the Holy Roman Emperor, the two participating in a kind of compositional conversation through the texts of their successive, biblically-based motets. In 1605, the first of two volumes called Gradualia, ac cantiones sacrae appeared, containing sixty-three vocal compositions for Catholic worship, and dedicated to Catholic sympathizer Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton.  That same year, a plot by Catholics intending to kill King James I and to blow up the Houses of Parliament led to a resurgence of anti-Catholic activity.  This conspiracy against the Protestant government was known as the Gunpowder Plot, in which Guy Fawkes was famously involved.  Subsequently, Byrd had to withdraw the volume Gradualia I, and there is even evidence that someone found in possession of the music was arrested. But the book was re-released in 1610.

Byrd wrote three pieces based on “Clarifica me pater”. This third setting is in four-voice counterpoint, with 6 voices at the end.  Each repetition of the theme becomes more ornamented and altered, until the original plainsong has disappeared.  After reaching to the upper registers of the instrument, Byrd’s closing allows this profound and sonorous piece to sink calmly back to the lowest registers, a most satisfying effect that owes as much to the nature of the instrument and to the resonances in a large building as it does to musical ideas noted on paper. Neighbour places this movement “beside the best of Redford and Tallis among the finest things in English organ music”.

About the Choral Music:

A Solemn Supplication – Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by Christian Gottlob Neefe. During his first 22 years in Bonn, Beethoven intended to study with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and befriended Joseph Haydn. Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 and began studying with Haydn, quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. In about 1800 his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. He gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from this period.  His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 concertos for piano, 32 piano sonatas, and 16 string quartets. He also composed other chamber music, choral works (including the celebrated Missa solemnis), and songs.

          O God, thy grace doth reach so far as clouds may wander,

            And by thy grace, we walk in the light, as we Thy wondrous words do ponder.

            Almighty God, our refuge be.  Teach us to pray, believing in Thee.

            And in Thy mercy, grant that we may thy salvation see.

            Amen.

About the Hymns:

Great is Thy Faithfulness

A native of the small Kentucky town of Franklin, Thomas Obediah Chisholm (1866-1960) was born in a log cabin. He lacked formal education. Nevertheless, he became a teacher at age sixteen and the associate editor of his hometown weekly newspaper, the “Franklin Advocate”, at age twenty-one.  Though he was ordained a Methodist minister in 1903, he served only a single, brief appointment at Scottsville, Kentucky, due to ill health.  He wrote more than 1200 poems, 800 of which were published. They often appeared in religious periodicals such as the “Sunday School Times”, “Moody Monthly”, and “Alliance Weekly”. Many of these were set to music.

Chisholm had sent a number of his poems to the Rev. William H. Runyan (1870-1957), a musician with the Moody Bible Institute and one of the editors of Hope Publishing Company in Chicago.  Runyan wrote the tune FAITHFULNESS for the text and wrote this about the hymn: "This particular poem held such an appeal that I prayed most earnestly that my tune might carry over its message in a worthy way, and the subsequent history of its use indicates that God answered prayer.  It was written in Baldwin, Kansas, in 1923, and was first published in my private song pamphlets."  A phrase in Lamentations 3:22-23 provides a basis for the refrain: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  

George Beverly Shea (1909-2013), the famous Canadian-born singer of the Billy Graham Crusades, introduced this hymn to those attending the evangelistic meetings in Great Britain in 1954.  It immediately became a favorite.  This hymn appeared in many evangelical hymnals and song collections but was not chosen for an official Methodist hymnal until The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), even though the author was a Methodist.  It was a very popular hymn of the former Evangelical United Brethren Church and had been included in their hymnals.

According to Carlton Young, "Great is thy faithfulness" was second only to "In the garden" as the most requested hymn for inclusion in The United Methodist Hymnal. A survey conducted in 2000 by Dean McIntyre, Director of Music Resources, General Board of Discipleship, revealed that "Great is thy faithfulness" remains one of the favorite hymns among United Methodists.

I Need Thee Every Hour

Annie S. Hawks’ (1836-1918) poems first began appearing in newspapers when she was 14 years old. She married Charles H. Hawks in 1857. They lived in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the Hanson Place Baptist Church, where Robert Lowry was pastor. She wrote 400 hymns in her life, mostly for use in Sunday schools.

“I Need Thee Every Hour” was written by Hawks in 1872. She showed Lowry her poem, and he wrote the lyrics of the refrain and the tune NEED. The song was first sung publicly at the 1872 meeting of the National Baptist Sunday School Association in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its first publication was in 1873 in a Sunday School hymnbook compiled by Lowry and William H. Doane, Royal Diadem for the Sunday School.

When this hymn was first published in 1873, this Bible verse was included underneath the title: “Without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5 KJV). Each of the first four stanzas of this hymn dwells on a different facet of our dependence on God: our need for His peace, our inability to resist temptation alone, our need to find true meaning in life, and our desire to see God's promises fulfilled. The fifth stanza is an intense plea for God's presence.