March 31, 2019

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:

My Song is Love Unknown - Ralph Vaughan Williams

Seventeenth-century devotional poetry provided a nurturing environment that enriched hymnody in the days before such 18th-century hymn writers as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley.
Congregational singing beyond metrical psalms was not widely practiced during the 17th century. Though devotional poetry during this era was not typically written to be sung by congregations, verse from this century found its way into hymnals later on.

Samuel Crossman (1624-1684), an Anglican minister, received a bachelor of divinity at Penbroke College, Cambridge. He then served both an Anglican parish at All Saints, Sudbury, and a Puritan congregation. Crossman sympathized with the Puritan cause as a dissenting religious body within the context of the Anglican Church of England. He participated in the 1661 Savoy Conference, which attempted to revise the Book of Common Prayer so that it could serve both Puritans and Anglicans. The Conference was unsuccessful, and the 1662 Act of Uniformity expelled some 2,000 Anglican ministers, including Crossman. He recanted and was soon ordained in 1665, becoming a royal chaplain. He was called to a position in Bristol in 1667 and became Dean of Bristol Cathedral in 1683.

This poignant meditation of the Passion of Christ was published just before Crossman’s ordination, in The Young Man’s Meditation (1664). This short book of poems was reprinted in 1683, and the poem appeared for the first time as a hymn in the Anglican Hymn Book in 1686, just two years after the author’s death.  The original poem has seven stanzas, taking the singer from Palm Sunday through the crucifixion. But its purpose is not simply to retell the events of the Passion. From the beginning we find that this is a love song—sung to the Savior who demonstrated pure love, even to the “love-less” so that they might be “love-ly.” 

RHOSYMEDRE is the name of a hymn tune written by the 19th-century Welsh Anglican priest John David Edwards. Edwards named the tune after the village of Rhosymedre in the County Borough of Wrexham, Wales, where he was the vicar from 1843 until his death in 1885.

My song is love unknown, my Savior's love to me,
love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.
O who am I that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh and die?

He came from his blest throne salvation to bestow,
but men made strange, and none the longed-for Christ would know.
But O my friend,  my friend indeed, who at my need, his life did spend.

Sometimes they strew his way, and his strong praises sing,
resounding all the day  hosannas to their King.
Then "Crucify!" is all their breath, and for his death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run, he gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these themselves displease, and 'gainst him rise.

They rise, and needs will have my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet steadfast he to suffering goes, that he his foes from thence might free.

Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine:
never was love, dear King, never was grief like thine.
This is my friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1982-1958) is arguably the greatest composer Britain has seen since the days of Henry Purcell. In a long and extensive career, he composed music notable for its power, nobility and expressiveness, representing, perhaps, the essence of ‘Englishness’.

Vaughan Williams was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. Later he was a pupil of Stanford and Parry at the Royal College of Music, after which he studied with Max Bruch in Berlin and Maurice Ravel in Paris. Vaughan Williams volunteered to serve in the Field Ambulance Service in Flanders for the 1914-1918 war, during which he was deeply affected by the carnage and the loss of close friends such as the composer George Butterworth. For many years Vaughan Williams conducted and led the Leith Hill Music Festival, conducting Bach's St Matthew Passion on a regular basis. He also became professor of composition at the Royal College of Music in London. Vaughan Williams received the Order of Merit in 1938.  His ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey, near Purcell.

At the turn of the century he was among the very first to travel into the countryside to collect folk-songs and carols from singers.As musical editor of The English Hymnal he composed several hymns that are now world-wide favorites (For all the Saints, Come down O love Divine). Later he also helped to edit The Oxford Book of Carols.  In a long and productive life, his compositions included nine symphonies, five operas, film music, ballet and stage music, several song cycles, church music and works for chorus and orchestra.

Allegro Moderato - Thomas Dupuis

Thomas Sanders Dupuis, Mus. Doc. (1733–1796) was a composer and organist of French extraction, born in London. He succeeded William Boyce at the Chapel Royal, and was regarded as one of the best organists of his day.

Dupuis was brought up as a chorister in the Chapel Royal under Bernard Gates and John Travers and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Musicians.  By 1773, Dupuis was organist of the Charlotte Street Chapel (now St. Peter's Chapel), near Buckingham Palace, and on the death of Boyce, he was elected organist and composer to the Chapel Royal. Dupuis earned the degrees of Mus.Bac. and Mus.Doc. at Oxford. In the same year he originated a sort of musical club, known as the Graduates' Meeting.  His published work includes Nine Voluntaries for the Organ, performed before their Majesties at the Chapel Royal, St. Paul's Cathedral, etc.

About the Piano Music:

It’s You I Like - Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers was the creator of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as well as the host of all 895 episodes, the composer of its more than 200 songs, and the puppeteer who imagined 14 characters into being. More importantly, he changed the face of children’s television and transformed the way we think about the inner lives of young children.

Fred McFeely Rogers (1928-2003) earned his bachelor's degree in music composition at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 1951. While a college senior studying music composition at Rollins College, Fred arrived home to see this wonderful new technology in his family’s living room. He instinctively understood the power of the new medium and especially how it could be used to serve children, rather than the slapstick and nonsense that was on the air. From that moment, he knew what he was called to do.

Immediately upon graduation, he was hired by NBC television in New York as an assistant producer for “The Voice of Firestone” and later as floor director for “The Lucky Strike Hit Parade”, “The Kate Smith Hour”, and the “NBC Opera Theatre”. Rogers was married in 1952 to Joanne Byrd, a concert pianist and fellow Rollins graduate.

In November, 1953, at the request of WQED Pittsburgh, the nation's first community-sponsored educational television station, Rogers moved back to Pennsylvania. The station was not yet on the air, and Rogers was asked to develop the first program schedule. One of the first programs he produced was THE CHILDREN'S CORNER. It was a daily, live, hour-long visit with music and puppets and host Josie Carey. Rogers served as puppeteer, composer, and organist. In 1955, THE CHILDREN'S CORNER won the Sylvania Award for the best locally produced children's program in the country. It was on THE CHILDREN'S CORNER that several regulars of today's MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD made their first appearances -- among them, Daniel Striped Tiger. X the Owl, King Friday XIII, Henrietta Pussycat, and Lady Elaine Fairchilde.

During off-duty hours, Rogers attended both the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Child Development. He graduated from the Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963 with a charge to continue his work with children and families through the mass media. Later that year, Rogers was invited to create a program for the CBC program in Canada, which the head of children's programming there dubbed MISTEROGERS. It was on this series that Rogers made his on-camera debut as the program's host. When he and his wife and two sons returned to Pittsburgh in 1966, he incorporated segments of the CBC into a new series which was distributed by the Eastern Educational Network. This series was called MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD. With graduate studies in child development as well as his divinity degree, Fred was well-prepared to speak directly to his pre-school audience.  “I’ll never forget the sense of wholeness I felt when I finally realized, after a lot of help from a lot of people, what, in fact, I really wasn’t. I was not just a songwriter or a language buff or a student of human development or a telecommunicator, but someone who could use every talent that had ever been given to me in the service of children and their families.” 

In 1968 it was made available for national distribution through the National Educational Television (NET) which later became Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).  In 1969, he famously testified before a Senate subcommittee that was considering cutting funding for public television. Senator John Pastore was in charge of the proceedings, and after two days of hearings, he remained distinctly unimpressed. Then Fred spoke.

In 1968, Rogers was appointed Chairman of the Forum on Mass Media and Child Development of the White House Conference on Youth. Besides two George Foster Peabody Awards, Emmys, "Lifetime Achievement" Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the TV Critics Association, Fred Rogers received every major award in television for which he is eligible and many others from special-interest groups in education, communications, and early childhood. In 1999, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. His life and work have been the subject of feature articles in national publications, including LIFE, Reader's Digest, Parents, Esquire, Parade, and TV Guide. In 2002, President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, recognizing his contribution to the well-being of children and a career in public television that demonstrates the importance of kindness, compassion and learning. On January 1, 2003, in his last public appearance, Fred Rogers served as a Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade, and tossed the coin for the Rose Bowl Game.

Fred Rogers was the composer and lyricist of over 200 songs, the author of numerous books for children.  His last book, The Mister Rogers Parenting Book, was praised by Publishers Weekly for the "qualities of warmth and attentiveness that translate very well into this brief yet thorough parenting guide.”  Fred Rogers received more than 40 honorary degrees from colleges and universities, including Yale University, Hobart and William Smith, Carnegie Mellon University, Boston University, Saint Vincent College, University of Pittsburgh, North Carolina State University, University of Connecticut, Dartmouth College, Waynesburg College, and his alma mater, Rollins College.

Fred was chairman of Family Communications, Inc. the nonprofit company that he formed in 1971 to produce MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD and that has since diversified into non-broadcast materials that reflect the same philosophy and purpose: to encourage the healthy emotional growth of children and their families. MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD is the longest- running program on public television. Today Family Communications, Inc. is called The Fred Rogers Company in honor of its founder. 

It’s you I like, It’s not the things you wear,

It’s not the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like

The way you are right now, the way down deep inside you,

Not the things that hide you.

Not your toys, They’re just beside you.

But it’s you I like, every part of you,

Your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new.

I hope that you’ll remember, even when you’re feeling blue,

That it’s you I like.  It’s you yourself.

It’s you.  It’s you I like.

About the Choral Music:

In the Shadow of Your Wings - John Leavitt

John Leavitt (b. 1956) is a composer, conductor, teacher, and church musician. He received the Doctorate of Musical Arts from The Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Dr. Leavitt is a lifetime member of the American Choral Directors Association and is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, from which he has received annual recognition for his achievements in composition.  Currently, Dr. Leavitt serves on the faculty of MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, KS as professor of music and director of choirs. In 2010, Dr. Leavitt was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts’s American Masterpieces which partnered with the Kansas Arts Commission and the Kansas Music Educators Association. He was commissioned by them to write a new choral work in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the State of Kansas.

This text is based on Psalm 57:

Gracious God be merciful.  My soul is crying out to you.

My only refuge, Lord, is you, God most high.

In the shadow of your wings, ‘neath the shadow of your wings,

My soul finds rest from my deep distress.  

My heart hides there till this darkness passes by.

I cry to God on high whose purpose is fulfilled for me.

He reaches down to save and reproaches him who threatens me.

Gracious God be merciful.  My soul finds love and truth in you.

No other place of safety Lord but you.  In the shadow of your wings I hide.

O my God most high.

About the Hymns:

Jesus, United by Thy Grace

Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley.  As a hymn-writer Charles Wesley was unique. He is said to have written no less than 6500 hymns, and though, of course, in so vast a number some are of unequal merit, it is perfectly amazing how many there are which rise to the highest degree of excellence. His feelings on every occasion of importance, whether private or public, found their best expression in a hymn. His own conversion, his own marriage, the earthquake panic, the rumors of an invasion from France, the defeat of Prince Charles Edward at Culloden, the Gordon riots, every Festival of the Christian Church, every doctrine of the Christian Faith, striking scenes in Scripture history, striking scenes which came within his own view, the deaths of friends as they passed away, one by one, before him, all furnished occasions for the exercise of his divine gift.  The saying that a really good hymn is as rare an appearance as that of a comet is falsified by the work of Charles Wesley; for hymns, which are really good in every respect, flowed from his pen in quick succession, and death alone stopped the course of the perennial stream.  All of Wesley's hymns are biblical. They convey the big themes of our faith: forgiveness, love, and charity.

John B. Dykes (1823-1876) composed ST. AGNES for “Jesus the Very Thought of Thee”. Dykes named the tune after a young Roman Christian woman who was martyred in A.D. 304 during the reign of Diocletian. St. Agnes was sentenced to death for refusing to marry a nobleman to whom she said, "I am already engaged to Christ, to Him alone I keep my troth." The tune was published in John Grey's Hymnal for Use in the English Church (1866).

Many Gifts, One Spirit

Reverend Alvin Allison "Al" Carmines, Jr. (1936-2005) was a key figure in the expansion of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s. Carmines attended Swarthmore College, majoring in English and philosophy, and then Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, earning a Bachelor of Divinity in 1961 and a Master of Sacred Theology in 1963.  Carmines was hired by Howard Moody as an assistant minister at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square Park, New York, to found a theater in the sanctuary of the Greenwich Village church in conjunction with playwright Robert Nichols. He began composing in 1962 and acted as well. His Bible study group grew into the Rauschenbusch Memorial United Church of Christ, with Carmines as pastor.  

Carmines was commissioned by the United Methodist Women to write “Many Gifts, One Spirit” for their General Assembly in 1974.