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:
Since we are in a sermon series, The Gospel According to TED, using excerpts from TED talks to illustrate topics relevant to today’s Christians, we will join in by celebrating some of the “Teds” of the organ world.
Pastorale - Theodor (Ted) Kullak
Theodor Kullak (1818-1882) was a German pianist, composer, and teacher. Prince Anton Radziwill took an interest in him when he was eight.. This early ability to attract noble patronage was an art he continued to deploy to advantage for many years to come. In 1829, the prince used his influence to secure a Berlin court concert. The usually undemonstrative King Frederick William IV was delighted. Prince Radziwill then saw to a rounded education for Kullak, sponsoring his school fees in Sulechów (now in Poland). Kullak eventually lost Radziwill's patronage and from the age of thirteen to eighteen had to make do with just occasional access to a piano. At age nineteen, a new aristocratic friend, Ingenheim, provided a small stipend which allowed him music studies. In 1842 a Frau von Massows interceded on his behalf in the right places, and Frederick William IV placed 400 thaler at Kullak's disposal, specifically for piano studies. He went to Vienna where he was able to study with Liszt and Czerny.
In 1843, he returned to Berlin where he became the pianoforte instructor to Princess Anna, the daughter of Prince Karl. Kullak seemed subsequently to make a speciality of teaching princes and princesses of the Royal house, as well as the offspring of many upper-class families who became aware of his excellent professorial qualifications, connections and, presumably, his unimpeachable manners.
In 1844, Kullak founded the Tonkünstler-Verein in Berlin and presided over it for many years. Two years later, at the age of twenty-eight, he was made Pianist to the Prussian Court, and four years after that founded the Berliner Musikschule (also known as the Kullak Institute) in partnership with Julius Stern and Adolf Bernhard Marx. However, due to dissension in the ensuing five years, Kullak retired from his institute, which then became known as the Stern Conservatory. In 1855, Kullak established a new school, the Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, which proved a lasting success and was affectionately referred to as "Kullak's Academy." It specialised in the training of pianists and became the largest private music school in Germany. By the time of its twenty-fifth anniversary it boasted a hundred teachers and eleven hundred students. Kullak was made Professor in 1861 and was also elected to honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music in Florence.
Grand Chorus - Theodore (Ted) Dubois
François-Clément Théodore Dubois (1837-1924) was a French composer, organist, and music teacher, and is probably the most famous “Ted” of the organ world. Théodore Dubois studied at the Paris Conservatoire. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861. In 1868, he became choirmaster at the Church of the Madeleine, and in 1871 took over from César Franck as choirmaster at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde. In 1877, Dubois returned to the Church of the Madeleine, succeeding Camille Saint-Saëns as organist there.
From 1871 he taught at the Paris Conservatoire. Dubois was director of the Conservatoire from 1896-1905, continuing his predecessor's intransigently conservative regime. The music of Auber, Halévy and especially Meyerbeer was regarded as the correct model for students, and old French music such as that of Rameau and modern music, including that of Wagner were kept rigorously out of the curriculum. Dubois was unremittingly hostile to Maurice Ravel who, when a Conservatoire student, did not conform to the faculty's anti-modernism, and in 1902 Dubois unavailingly forbade Conservatoire students to attend performances of Debussy's ground-breaking new opera, Pelléas et Mélisande. In June 1905 he was forced to bring his planned retirement forward after a public scandal caused by the faculty's blatant attempt to stop Ravel winning the Prix de Rome. Gabriel Fauré was appointed to succeed Dubois as director, with a brief from the French government to modernize the institution.
Although he wrote many religious works, Dubois also wrote opera, ballets, oratorios and three symphonies. His best known work is the oratorio Les sept paroles du Christ ("The Seven Last Words of Christ" [1867]), which continues to be given an occasional airing; his Toccata in G (1889), for the organ, is a recital staple, by no means solely in France. The rest of his large output has almost entirely disappeared from view. He has had a more lasting influence in teaching, with his theoretical works Traité de contrepoint et de fugue (on counterpoint and fugue) and Traité d'harmonie théorique et pratique (on harmony) still being sometimes used today.
About the Piano Music:
How Great Thou Art - Larry Shackley
"How Great Thou Art" is a based on a Swedish poem written by Carl Gustav Boberg (1859–1940) in Sweden in 1885. “O Store Gud” (O Great God) is a paraphrase of Psalm 8 and has nine verses. It was sung in the underground church in Sweden in the late 1800s when the Baptists and Mission Friends were persecuted. Boberg himself gave the following information about his inspiration for this hymn:
It was that time of year when everything seemed to be in its richest colouring;; the birds were singing in trees and everywhere. It was very warm; a thunderstorm appeared on the horizon and soon thunder and lightning. We had to hurry to shelter. But the storm was soon over and the clear sky appeared. When I came home I opened my window toward the sea. There evidently had been a funeral and the bells were playing the tune of “When eternity’s clock calling my saved soul to its Sabbath rest”. That evening, I wrote the song, “O Store Gud”.
Boberg first published "O Store Gud" in the “Mönsterås Tidningen” (Mönsterås News) on 13 March 1886.The poem became matched to an old Swedish folk tune and sung in public for the first known occasion in a church in the Swedish province of Värmland in 1888. It was soon published in additional hymn collections and was translated into German and Russian.
British Methodist missionary Stuart Wesley Keene Hine (1899-1989) heard the Russian translation of the German version of the song while on an evangelistic mission to the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, near the Polish border, in 1931. Upon hearing it, Hine was inspired to create his English paraphrase known as “How Great Thou Art". According to Michael Ireland, "Hine and his wife, Edith, learned the Russian translation, and started using it in their evangelistic services. Hine also started re-writing some of the verses --- and writing new verses (all in Russian) --- as events inspired him." Hine finalized his English translation in 1949
When the Billy Graham team went to London in 1954 for the Harringay Crusade, they were given a pamphlet containing Hine's work. They worked closely with Hine to prepare the song for use in their campaigns. They sang it in the 1955 Toronto campaign, but it didn't really catch on until they took it to the Madison Square Garden in 1957. According to Cliff Barrows (Dr. Graham's longtime associate), they sang it one hundred times during that campaign because the people wouldn't let them stop.
George Beverly Shea's recording of the beloved hymn ranks number 204 on the top recordings of the 20th century according to the Recording Industry Association of America. It was voted the United Kingdom's favourite hymn by BBC's Songs of Praise.[2] "How Great Thou Art" was ranked second (after "Amazing Grace") on a list of the favorite hymns of all time in a survey by Today's Christian magazine in 2001.
Evangelist Billy Graham indicated: “The reason I like 'How Great Thou Art' is because it glorifies God. It turns Christian’s eyes toward God, rather than upon themselves. I use it as often as possible because it is such a God-honoring song.”
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on a Cross, my burdens gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
Larry Shackley (b. 1956) is a full-time composer and editor from Columbia, SC. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and his Master in Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the University of South Carolina. From 1995-2007, he taught and directed the music program at Columbia International University in Columbia, SC. Prior to that, he worked for several years at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, creating original music and producing radio programs for the Moody Broadcasting Network. He has been active in church music since his teens, and served as staff keyboardist for ten years at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL. Currently, Shackley is on the staff of Gateway Baptist Church in Irmo, SC. He has produced over twenty books of keyboard arrangements and more than one hundred choral anthems. He has won ASCAP standard panel awards every year since 1998, and has received commissions from churches, schools, and community choirs across America.
About the Hymns:
For the Beauty of the Earth
Folliott Piermont (1835-1917) was born in Bath, England and was a lay member of the Anglican Church. Following his graduation from Queen's College, Cambridge, he taught the classics for a time at Somerset College, later becoming a freelance writer. During his 82 years of life, Pierpoint published seven volumes of poems and hymn texts, many of them showing his love for nature. He is most remembered for this beautiful hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth.
Piermont was about 29 years old when he wrote the text for this joyful hymn. It was a lovely day in late spring. While enjoying the surrounding area of his native city of Bath, in England, he was inspired by the beautiful countryside with its winding cool and peaceful river, Avon, in the distance. The tuneful songbirds, the wind whispering over a vibrantly colored hillside, all seemed to be praising the Creator with their unrestrained gladness and peace. Overwhelmed with emotion, he expressed his feelings of gratitude in the penning of this sacred song. The text was inspired by Hebrews 13:15: "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name." It first appeared in 1864 in a book of Eucharistic hymns and poems entitled Lyra Eucharistica, Hymns and Verses on The Holy Communion, Ancient and Modern, with other Poems with the title "The Sacrifice of Praise".
An early form of the tune DIX was composed by Conrad Kocher (1786-1872). Trained as a teacher, Kocher moved from Germany to St. Petersburg, Russia, to work as a tutor at the age of seventeen. But his love for the music of Haydn and Mozart impelled him to a career in music. He moved back to Germany in 1811, settled in Stuttgart, and remained there for most of his life. The prestigious Cotta music firm published some of his early compositions and sent him to study music in Italy, where he came under the influence of Palestrina's music. In 1821 Kocher founded the School for Sacred Song in Stuttgart, which popularized four-part singing in the churches of that region. He was organist and choir director at the Striftsckirche in Stuttgart from 1827 to 1865. Kocher wrote a treatise on church music, Die Tonkunst in der Kirche (1823), collected a large number of chorales in Zions Harfe (1855), and composed an oratorio, two operas, and some sonatas. William H. Monk created the current form of DIX by revising and shortening Conrad Kocher's chorale melody for “Treuer Heiland, wir sind hir,” found in Kocher's Stimmen aus den Reiche Gottes (1838). Monk's tune was published in the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, of which Monk was music editor.
Blessed Assurance
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.”
Phoebe Knapp (1839-1908) was a composer of music for hymns and an organist. Knapp was born in New York City. Her parents were Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe Worrall Palmer. She married Joseph Fairchild Knapp, one of the founders and the second president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and he had a pipe organ installed in their apartment. She and her husband were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. The hymn writer Fanny Crosby was also a member of that church and a friend of the Phoebe’s. She wrote over 500 hymn tunes, the most familiar being the tune now called Assurance for Fanny Crosby's lyrics “Blessed Assurance”.
Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a large pipe organ installed. The organ was incomplete, so Mrs. Knapp, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. When Knapp asked Crosby, "What do you think the tune says?", Crosby replied, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine." The hymn appeared in the July 1873 issue of Palmer's Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany, a magazine printed by Dr. and Mrs. W. C. Palmer.
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