May 26, 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:

Come Ye Faithful, Rise the Strain - Wayne Wold

“Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain” is a Greek Resurrection hymn written by John of Damascus (c. 675-749) in the 8th century. Around 730, John gave away everything he had and retired to the monastery of St. Sabas, where he was ordained a priest. During this time John wrote works containing a justification for orthodox faith, including his Foundation of Knowledge. John was among the greatest and most important of the Greek hymn writers. He wrote many canons, a new form of hymnody during his time, for important festivals. Canons, usually sung during monastic office of Lauds and based primarily on nine Canticles, are usually divided into nine odes. An ode is composed of short dramatic strophes in which the climax occurs in the last line. Each strophe has the same number of lines and syllables.

Organized Greek hymnody began, at the earliest, in the 7th century. From 700-900 many Canons were written that contained long odes usually in reference to the Resurrection or at least linked with Easter. The publication of John Mason Neale’s Hymns of the Eastern Church, a collection of Greek Canons from the 5th to the 11th centuries in English poetic form, contributed to a renewed interest in early Christian and Byzantine hymnody. When translated into English, these poems tended to be awkward for singing. John Mason Neale’s translations are in metrical patterns that are more accessible for English singers while remaining true to the original ideas of the Greek. 

“Come, Ye Faithful” is the first ode from the Canon for St. Thomas’s Sunday and is based on the canticle “The Song of Moses” from Exodus 15. A clear connection can be seen in the hymn from Exodus 14 and 15 through the vivid language used.  The main theological theme of this hymn is deliverance. Stanza one discusses the joy the Israelites had after being delivered from Pharaoh across the Red Sea. This stanza provides an easy link to Moses and his song.  The next three stanzas transfer the focus to Jesus. They discuss Jesus’ resurrection and the deliverance brought to humankind from their sins through this action. The hymn serves as praise to God for continuing to deliver God’s people throughout history. 

Come, you faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness!
God has brought forth Israel into joy from sadness,
loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke Jacob’s sons and daughters;
led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.

’Tis the spring of souls today: Christ has burst his prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death as a sun has risen.
All the winter of our sins, long and dark, is flying
from the Light to whom we give laud and praise undying.

Neither could the gates of death, nor the tomb’s dark portal,
nor the watchers, nor the seal, hold you as a mortal:
but today, among your own, you appear, bestowing
your deep peace, which ever more passes human knowing.

Alleluia! Now we cry to our Lord immortal,
who, triumphant, burst the bars of the tomb’s dark portal;
Alleluia! With the Son, God the Father praising;
Alleluia! Yet again to the Spirit raising.

Wayne L. Wold (b. 1954) is active as a teacher, church musician, composer, author, performer, and clinician. He serves as Associate Professor of Music and College Organist at Hood College in Frederick, Md. Over 200 of his compositions are published by fourteen different companies in the U.S. and Australia and include twenty volumes of works for organ and instruments with organ, 30 choir anthems, a children's musical, a recorder suite, and several hymn tunes. He is the author of numerous hymn and anthem texts, articles in professional journals, and two books -- Tune My Heart to Sing: Devotions for Choirs Based on the Revised Common Lectionary and Preaching to the Choir: The Care and Nurture of the Church Choir.

Toccata - Wilhelm Ernst Bach

Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (1759-1845) was the eldest son of Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach and the only grandson of Johann Sebastian Bach to gain fame as a composer. He was music director to Frederick William II of Prussia. He said, "Heredity can tend to run out of ideas.”

Ernst Bach received training in music from his uncle, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and from another uncle in England, Johann Christian Bach. He was in London when Johann Christian Bach died there on New Year's Day, 1782. Ernst Bach remained in England until 1784 before returning via Holland to Germany. He held a few positions, namely those of Kapellmeister of Minden in 1786, and from 1788 to 1811 as Kapellmeister in Berlin with the blessing of King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Ernst Bach retired from his position after prince Heinrich, the brother of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III granted him a pension.

Ernst Bach married twice. He had two daughters by his first wife, who died young, and a son by his second wife. When his only son died in infancy, the event served to extinguish the long line of musical Bachs.

At the unveiling of the Bach Monument in Leipzig on 23 April 1843, Ernst Bach met Robert Schumann. Schumann later described Ernst Bach as "a very agile old gentleman of 84 years with snow-white hair and expressive features.”

One of Ernst Bach's most remarkable compositions was Dreyblatt, a concerto for piano involving six hands. He wrote it in such a way in that it was to be performed with one large male in the middle with a petite female on either side of him. Ernst Bach indicated that the man was to stretch his arms around the ladies to play the outside parts, while the ladies performed the middle parts.

About the Piano Music:

O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee - Laura Wasson

In the years following the Civil War and the birth of the Industrial Revolution, the social gospel emerged. Washington Gladden (1838-1918) was one of the most distinguished clergymen of his era and a leader in the social gospel movement. Gladden was a native of Pennsylvania, and served churches in New York and Massachusetts before accepting a call to First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio, a parish he served for 32 years. Educated at Owego Academy and Williams College, he was the moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches from 1904-1907. He served as one of the editors of the Pilgrim Hymnal (1904). As editor of the Independent, he made important contributions to the cause of social justice. While a pastor in Massachusetts, Gladden began preaching about labor-management problems, encouraging cooperation between employers and employees. This theme aroused opposition from those who felt the role of a minister was “to save souls, not to regulate business.” Furthermore, he challenged the idea that the Bible was inerrant in matters of science and history. Albert Bailey notes that “he found his fellow-clergymen without courage to follow him, for heresy trials were beginning in the Congregational Church.” From the Ohio pulpit, Gladden found willing listeners to his message at the State University of Columbus. He received invitations to deliver lectures at a number of universities including the Yale Divinity School. His tracts, Social Facts and Forces (1897) and Organized Labor and Capital (1904), were very influential.

Perhaps this hymn is a paradox. Few realize that behind the relatively peaceful words of Gladden’s poem, sung to a placid Victorian melody, one can find the witness of a champion for social justice. This hymn was published in 1879 in three eight-line stanzas in Sunday Afternoon, a magazine prepared by the author, under the title “Walking with God.” C.H. Richards discovered the poem and included it in his 1880 hymnal, Christian Praise.

After various tunes had been set to this text, Gladden insisted on the use of MARYTON. Composed by H. Percy Smith (b. Malta, 1825; d. Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, 1898), the tune was originally published as a setting for John Keble's "Sun of My Soul" in Arthur S. Sullivan's Church Hymns with Tunes (1874).  Henry Percy Smith (1825-1898) was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, England, and ordained a priest in the Church of England. He served five churches, including St. Michael's York Town in Farnborough, Great Barton in Suffolk, Christ Church in Cannes, France, and the Cathedral in Gibraltar. MARYTON is his only tune found in contemporary hymnals and is thought to be the only tune he published.

O Master, let me walk with Thee in lowly paths of service free;
tell me Thy secret; help me bear the strain of toil, the fret of care.

Help me the slow of heart to move by some clear, winning word of love;
teach me the wayward feet to stay, and guide them in the homeward way.

Teach me Thy patience, still with Thee in closer, dearer company,
in work that keeps faith sweet and strong, in trust that triumphs over wrong.

In hope that sends a shining ray far down the future's broad'ning way;
in peace that only Thou canst give, with Thee, O Master, let me live.

The second section is a setting of  “Bist du bei mir” (If you are with me, I go with joy).  In 1717–18, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel was for a short time court Kapellmeister in Bayreuth. There his opera Diomedes, a.k.a. Die triumphierende Unschuld (the triumphant innocence), was premiered on 16 November 1718. Apart from a few arias the music of this opera is lost. A version for soprano, strings and continuo of its aria "Bist du bei mir" survives in an 18th-century manuscript owned by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin.

In 1725, Johann Sebastian Bach started the second notebook for his second wife Anna Magdalena. A version for voice and continuo of "Bist du bei mir" is among the pieces Anna Magdalena wrote down in that notebook. That version, No. 25 in the notebook, is known as BWV 508. In an essay in the Bach-Jahrbuch 2002, Andreas Glöckner speculates that Anna Magdalena either obtained the song from the inventory of the Leipzig Opera that had gone bankrupt in 1720, or that it was simply a favorite known to nearly everyone in Leipzig that was particularly suitable for Hausmusik.

There is no biographical information available on Laura Wasson.

About the Choral Music:

On the Day of Resurrection - Mark Sedio

Michael Peterson composed the text for “On the Day of Resurrection” in 1985, as part of a class taught by hymn writer Gracia Grindal at Luther Northwestern (now Luther) Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. Mark Sedio, a well-known Lutheran composer and organist, immediately set the text to music. 

The hymn begins by exploring Luke 24:13-35, the post-resurrection narrative on the road to Emmaus. The Risen Christ, unrecognized, joins Cleopas and another follower and asks them what they are discussing. Cleopas responds, “Are you the only person who doesn’t know what happened in Jerusalem recently?” They offer a brief account of Christ’s encounter with the chief priests and rulers, his crucifixion and the report of the women at the tomb. Christ responds, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” Christ continues to explain all that the Scriptures had to say about him. 

As they approach a village, the followers invite Jesus to join them for the evening since it is so late. Then follows one of the most poignant passages in the New Testament: “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.”  These were the same actions—taking the bread, giving thanks (blessing), breaking it and giving it to others at the table—that Christ’s followers had seen before. The feeding narratives of the 4,000 and 5,000 found in Mark 6:39-41, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:1-14 also record those actions. Of course, the “Last Supper” narratives found in the Gospels of Matthew (26:26-29), Mark (14:22-25) and Luke (22:14-20), as well as Paul’s account in I Corinthians 11:23-26, also cite the ritual. 

The hymn places us in the middle of this narrative: “Jesus comes to us, unknown.” In four short stanzas we are pulled closer and closer to the action. Stanza two ends: “Jesus walks with us, unknown.” Stanza three: “Jesus speaks to us, unknown.” Stanza four: “Jesus stays with us, unknown.”  In stanza five, the action changes as “the guest becomes the host” and “Jesus is himself made known.” The final stanza assumes that we, like those earlier followers, will want to share the news of the risen Christ: “Jesus is through us made known.”

Michael Peterson is a native of New Auburn, Wis. He received degrees in voice, music education, and theater arts from Winona State University, Winona, Minn., and then continued his study at Luther Seminary. He has served congregations in Shawana and Menomonie, Wis.

On the day of resurrection to Emmaus we return;

while confused, amazed, and frightened, Jesus comes to us, unknown.

Then this stranger asks a question, “What is this which troubles you?”

Meets us in our pain and suffering; Jesus walks with us, unknown.

In our trouble, words come from him; burning fire within our hearts,

tells to us the scripture’s meaning.  Jesus speaks to us, unknown.

Then we near our destination, then we ask the stranger in,

and he yields unto our urging; Jesus stays with us, unknown.

Day of sorrow is forgotten when the guest becomes the host.

Taking bread and blessing, breaking, Jesus is himself made known.

Opened eyes, renewed convictions, journey back to scenes of pain;

telling all that Christ is risen.  Jesus is through us made known.

About the Hymns:

I Love to Tell the Story 

"I Love to Tell the Story" is a well-known hymn which was written as a poem by an English evangelist, Katherine Hankey (1834-1911). Hankey was the daughter of a wealthy banker and was associated with the Clapham sect of William Wilberforce, a group of prominent evangelical Anglicans from the Clapham area. This group helped to establish the British and Foreign Bible Society, promoted the … abolition of slavery, and was involved in improving the lot of England's working classes. Hankey taught Bible classes for shop girls in London, visited the sick in local hospitals, and used the proceeds of her writings to support various mission causes. Her publications include Heart to Heart (1870) and The Old, Old Story and Other Verses (1879).

Hankey had a serious spell of sickness while in a mission in Africa. During her long days of convalescence, she wrote a long on the life of Jesus in 1866 in two parts. The first part was a poem of fifty stanzas, titled "The Story Wanted" (dated January 29, 1866) and second part titled "The Story Told" (dated November 18, 1866). Certain verses were taken from Part I. by Dr. W. H. Doane in 1867 to make the popular and familiar hymn beginning, "Tell me the old, old story". From Part II. certain verses were selected to make the hymn, "I Love to Tell the Story".

Apart from the context of the larger poem, some of the couplets of this text appear rather shallow or repetitious; thus the Psalter Hymnal includes only the original stanzas 1, 3, and 4. But the entire original poem provides a fine autobiographical testimony to Hankey's evangelical fervor, which she expressed in her writings and in her support of foreign and home missions (she taught church school classes to the rich and poor of London). The text simply affirms the Christian's zeal to "tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love" to the unsaved as well as to the saved, here on earth and in glory.

The tune HANKEY was composed by William G. Fischer and appeared in Fischer's Joyful Songs, Nos. 1 to 3 published in 1869 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Methodist Episcopal Book Room. Fischer also added a refrain to the original text. The tune set to Hankey's text was published in Joyful Songs (1869) and in many gospel hymnals. The hymn was popularized through its use in the Ira D. Sankey and Dwight L. Moody crusades.

In his youth, Fischer (1835-1912) developed an interest in music while attending singing schools. His career included working in the book bindery of J. B. Lippencott Publishing Company, teaching music at Girard College, and co-owning a piano business and music store–all in Philadelphia. Fischer eventually became a popular director of music at revival meetings and choral festivals. In 1876 he conducted a thousand-voice choir at the Dwight L. Moody/Ira D. Sankey revival meeting in Philadelphia. Fischer composed some two hundred tunes for Sunday school hymns and gospel songs.

He Lives

Alfred H. Ackley (1887-1960) was the son of a Methodist preacher and musically gifted man, who gave Alfred his foundation in music at an early age. Ackley studied cello, harmony, and composition in New York and London. Ackley went on to graduate from Westminster Theological Seminary in Maryland, and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He served as pastor in several states of the United States, and worked for a few years with evangelist Billy Sunday and the Rodeheaver Music Company. Ackley's musical endeavors were so appreciated that he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Sacred Music degree by John Brown University in Arkansas.

One particular morning, Easter Sunday in 1932, Rev. Ackley was preparing for his services of the day. As he was shaving, he tuned in to the radio in time to hear a special Easter broadcast.  “Good morning!” The well-known preacher began. “It’s Easter! You know folks, it really doesn’t make any difference to me if Christ be risen or not. As far as I am concerned His body could be as dust in some Palestinian tomb. The man thing is, His truth goes marching on!”  Rev. Ackley was furious. “It’s a lie!” he shouted at the radio set, forgetting that the speaker could not hear him. Mrs. Ackley did hear him, however, and questioned, “Why are you shouting so early in the morning?”   “Didn’t you hear what that good-for-nothing preacher said?” he replied. “He said it didn’t matter whether Christ be risen or not!”

Rev. Ackley, in telling the story later, said that he preached that Easter Sunday quite differently than he had ever preached before, but at the end of the day, still felt that he had not yet said everything he wanted to say.  His wife said, “Listen here, Alfred Ackley, it’s time you did that which you can do best. Why don’t you write a song about it and then maybe you’ll feel better. You’ll have something that will go on telling the story.”  That night, Rev. Alfred Ackley wrote the words and composed the melody.  The hymn first appeared in Triumphant Service Songs, a hymnal published by the Rodeheaver Company in 1933.