June 9, 2019 - Pentecost

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:

Improvisation on “Veni Creator Spiritus” - John Cook

Veni Creator Spiritus ("Come Creator Spirit") is a hymn believed to have been written by Rabanus Maurus in the 9th century. When the original Latin text is used, it is normally sung in Gregorian Chant. As an invocation of the Holy Spirit, in the practice of the Roman Catholic Church it is sung during the liturgical celebration of the feast of Pentecost (at both Terce and Vespers). It is also sung at occasions such as the entrance of Cardinals to the Sistine Chapel, when electing a new pope, as well as at the consecration of bishops, the ordination of priests, when celebrating the sacrament of Confirmation, the dedication of churches, the celebration of synods or councils, the coronation of kings, the profession of members of religious institutes and other similar solemn events.

Since the English Reformation in the 16th century, there have been more than fifty English language translations and paraphrases of Veni Creator Spiritus. The version included in the 1662 revision of the Book of Common Prayer retained the Latin title and was written by Bishop John Cosin for the coronation of King Charles I of Great Britain in 1625. The same words have been used at every coronation since, and is sung by the choir after the singing of the Creed, while the sovereign is dressed in a white alb and seated in the Coronation Chair, prior to the Anointing.

Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest, and in our souls take up Thy rest;

come with Thy grace and heavenly aid to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry, O heavenly gift of God Most High,

O fount of life and fire of love, and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known; Thou, finger of God's hand we own;

Thou, promise of the Father, Thou Who dost the tongue with power imbue.

Kindle our sense from above, and make our hearts o'erflow with love;

with patience firm and virtue high the weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread, and grant us Thy peace instead;

so shall we not, with Thee for guide, turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow the Father and the Son to know;

and Thee, through endless times confessed, of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son, Who rose from death, be glory given,

with Thou, O Holy Comforter, henceforth by all in earth and heaven.

Amen. 

John Ernest Cook (1918-1984) was born at Maldon, Essex. After leaving St. John's School, Leatherhead, he entered Christ's College, Cambridge as an organ scholar. A conscientious objector to the second World War, he left his Cambridge studies prematurely to drive an ambulance during the Blitz of London.  Following the War, Cook spent three years at The Old Vic Theatre in London as an assistant to Herbert Menges. He also worked as a copyist for Ralph Vaughan Williams on the score of the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic and with Benjamin Britten on his chamber opera Albert Herring.

In 1949 Cook was appointed as Organist and Choirmaster at Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon where he served for five years before accepting a similar post at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Ontario. It was during this time that he joined the teaching faculty of the University of Western Ontario and commenced his nine-year association with the Stratford Festival as resident conductor and composer.  Cook left Ontario in 1962 to claim the coveted post of Organist and Choirmaster at Church of the Advent in Boston—a landmark Episcopal church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. Having established himself as a gifted organist, conductor and composer, he joined the faculties of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Partita on "Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord": Toccata - Kevin Hildebrand

For centuries, "Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" ("Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord") has been the prominent hymn (Hauptlied) for Pentecost in German-speaking Lutheranism.  The hymn inspired composers from the Renaissance to contemporary to write chorale preludes and vocal compositions. The first stanza is a translation of the Latin antiphon for Pentecost "Veni Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium" (Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful) from the 11th century.

Martin Luther added two more stanzas, keeping not only the meter and the tune, but also the structure, with acclamations at the beginning of lines 1 and 5, and the final Halleluja. In his stanzas, the group of "deiner Gläubigen" (your believers) is speaking directly, stating "wir" and "uns" ("we" and "us"). Luther alludes to several of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to Isaiah 11:2: wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. He also drew on Galatians 4:6 ("because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts"), Matthew 23:8-10 ("for one is your Master"), and Romans 8:26 ("the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities"). In the second stanza, Luther uses the attributes "heiliges Licht, edler Hort" (holy light, precious refuge) and words the request "protect us from strange doctrines / so that we may never look for any teacher / except Jesus in true belief". In the last stanza, the Spirit's "ardent love" and "sweet consolation" are named, asking for help "always to remain joyful and comforted / in your service" and "so that we may bravely struggle / through life and death to reach you!" 

The hymn appeared first in 1524 in Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn (de), (booklet of spiritual song), collected by Johann Walter.  The same year it appeared also in Eyn Enchiridion in Erfurt, titled "Der gesank Veni sancte spiritus".   It has been translated, for example by Catherine Winkworth as Come, Holy Spirit, God and Lord! in 1855, and has appeared in hymnals of various denominations.

Come, Holy Spirit, Lord God, fill with the goodness of your grace

The heart, spirit and mind of your believers,

Kindle in them your ardent love!

O Lord, through the spendour of your light you have gathered in faith

People from all the tonuges of the world; so that in your praise Lord, 

May there be sung Halleluja! Halleluja!

You holy light, precious refuge, let the word of life enlighten us

And teach us to know God truly, to call him father from our heart!

O Lord, protect us from strange doctrines so that we may never look for any teacher

Except Jesus in true belief and may trust him wholeheartedly! Halleluja! Halleluja!

You sacred warmth, sweet consolation, now help us always to remain joyful and 

And comforted in your service; do not let sorrow drive us away!

O Lord, through your power make us ready and strengthen the feebleness of our flesh

So that we may bravely struggle through life and death to reach you! Halleluja! Halleluja!

Kevin Hildebrand (b. 1973) has served in the Music Department at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, since 2002, and currently serves as Kantor. He directs the Seminary Kantorei and Schola Cantorum, plays the organ for daily chapel, and instructs students in liturgics and church music courses. He teaches the annual organ workshops at the seminary and serves as the co-director of The Good Shepherd Institute. Hildebrand is Kantor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, where he directs the Youth Choir.  Hildebrand is a graduate of Concordia University Chicago and holds master’s degrees in Music and Theology from the University of Michigan and Concordia, respectively.  He has been a workshop leader and instructor for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Commission on Worship, as well as frequent organ recitalist and hymn festival presenter across the United States and Canada.

About the Piano Music:

Spirit of God, Descend upon my Heart - Mark Hayes

The words of this sung prayer are among the most passionate in the history of hymnody.  This masterpiece of Christian devotional poetry is the work of George Croly (1780-1860), an Anglican minister born in Dublin, Ireland, but whose ministry took place in London. Having served a small parish in Ireland, he moved to London to pursue a literary career where he wrote in several mediums including poetry, novels, history and biography.  In 1835, Croly accepted the challenge to reopen a church in one of the worst slum areas of London, that had been closed for over a century. He was known among his peers as thoroughly conservative in theology with no tolerance for liberal views. Through personal charisma and dynamic preaching, he attracted large crowds to St. Stephen’s Church.  Croly prepared a new hymnal in 1854 for his congregation and published it as Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship. “Spirit of God, Descend upon my Heart” first appeared in that hymnal under the title “Holiness Desired.” It is the only hymn by Croly to have survived. 

George Croly was born in Dublin, Aug. 17, 1780, and educated at the Dublin University. After taking Holy Orders, he laboured in Ireland till about 1810, when he took up his residence in London, and devoted himself to literature. In 1835 he succeeded to the united benefices of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and St. Benet Sherehog, retaining the same till his death, which occurred suddenly in the public street, Holborn, Nov. 24, 1860. His prose publications, in addition to contributions to Blackwood's Magazine, were numerous, and dealt with biographical, historical, and scriptural subjects. His hymns were published in Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship. Written and compiled by the Rev. George Croly, LL.D. London Kendrick, 1854.

This hymn is an intense, personal prayer for the working of the Holy Spirit (st. 1), for illumination (st. 2), for more fervent love for Christ (st. 3), for greater holiness in our walk with the Lord (st. 4), and for the fullness of the Spirit (st. 5). 

MORECAMBE was composed in 1870 by Frederick C. Atkinson (1841-1896) as a setting for Henry Lyte's "Abide with Me". It was first published in G. S. Barrett and E.J. Hopkins's Congregational Church Hymnal (1887). The tune is named for a coastal town on Morecambe Bay near Lancaster, England, a town not far from Bradford, where Atkinson served as organist. As a boy Atkinson was a chorister and assistant organist at Norwich Cathedral. In 1867 he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from Cambridge and then served as organist and choirmaster in St. Luke's Church, Manningham, Bradford. He also held that position at Norwich Cathedral and at St. Mary's Parish Church in Lewisham. Atkinson wrote hymn tunes, anthems, and complete Anglican services, as well as songs and piano pieces.

The text of the first line was changed to “descend upon my heart.”  The original Croly text follows:

Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart,
wean it from sin, through all its pulses move. 

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as you are,
and make me love you as I ought to love. 

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
no sudden rending of the veil of clay,
no angel visitant, no opening skies;
but take the dimness of my soul away. 

Did you not bid us love you, God and King,
love you with all our heart and strength and mind?
I see the cross there teach my heart to cling.
O let me seek you and O let me find! 

Teach me to feel that you are always nigh;
teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
teach me the patience of unceasing prayer. 

Teach me to love you as your angels love,
one holy passion filling all my frame:
the fullness of the heaven-descended Dove;
my heart an altar, and your love the flame. 

Mark Hayes is an award-winning concert pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. His personal catalog, totaling over 1,000 published works, includes work for solo voice, solo piano, multiple pianos, orchestra, jazz combo, small instrumental ensembles, and choruses of all kinds.  Mark received a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude in Piano Performance from Baylor University in 1975. He has conducted the SWACDA and MCDA Community and Church Honor Choir, and served as guest conductor at Carnegie Hall, featuring his Te Deum and Magnificat. In 2010, Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies awarded Mark the Award for Exemplary Leadership in Christian Music. Mark arranged and orchestrated the music for Civil War Voices, which won six awards including "Best Musical" in the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York. He conducted the world premiere of his work for chorus, orchestra and narrator, The American Spirit, at Lincoln Center in May 2011 and the world premiere of his Requiem in Lincoln Center in May 2013.  Whether concertizing on the other side of the globe or composing at his home in Kansas City, Missouri, Mark is blessed to live out his mission "to create beautiful music for the world".

About the Choral Music:

Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit - William Dawson

It is not always possible to find the story behind a song.  Songs classified as African-American spirituals, like this one, were typically created by slaves living in the southern United States in the pre-Civil War era.  The tunes and words were passed down for generations before even being written.  Some people consider Galatians 4:6 as the verse of inspiration for the song.  Words of spirituals often had multiple meanings also.  Multi-layered meanings were readily understood by the target audience.  For example, the line in Every Time I Feel the Spirit that reads, “There ain’t but one train on this track; It runs to heaven…” is likely referring to the Underground Railroad and the escape to freedom, a message easily recognized and of comfort to those enduring slavery.  Likewise, references to rivers often advised them to cross or wade in water to escape the pursuing dogs.  At the same time, it is an uplifting song celebrating the movement of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives.

African American composer, performer, and music educator William Levi Dawson (1899-1990) used the rich vitality of his musical heritage as a basis for all types of music, including arrangements of folk songs and original compositions. Dawson was born in Anniston, AL. At the age of 13 he entered Tuskegee Institute and graduated in 1921 with first honors. A graduate of the Horner Institute of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Music, William Dawson later studied at the Chicago Musical College with professor Felix Borowski, and then at the American Conservatory of Music where he received his master's degree. Early in his career he served as a trombonist both with the Redpath Chautauqua and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (1927–1930). His teaching career began in the Kansas City public school system, followed by a tenure with the Tuskegee Institute from 1931–1956. During this period, he appointed a large number of faculty members who later became well known for their work in the field. Additionally, Dawson also developed the Tuskegee Institute Choir into an internationally renowned ensemble; they were invited to sing at New York City's Radio City Music Hall in 1932 for a week of six daily performances.

Dawson began composing at a young age, and early in his compositional career his Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano was performed by the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. Besides chamber music, he is also known for his contributions to both orchestral and choral literature. His best known works are arrangements of and variations on spirituals. His Negro Folk Symphony of 1934 garnered a great deal of attention at its world premiere by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The symphony was revised in 1952 with added African rhythms inspired by the composer's trip to West Africa. Dawson said that the composition was an attempt to convey the missing elements that were lost when Africans came into bondage outside their homeland. His most popular spirituals include "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel", "Jesus Walked the Lonesome Valley", "Talk about a Child That Do Love Jesus" and "King Jesus Is a-Listening”.  Dawson's arrangements of traditional African-American spirituals are widely published in the United States and are regularly performed by school, college and community choral programs. According to Dominique-Rene de Lerma of Lawrence University, in notes to "The Spirituals of William L. Dawson" produced by The St Olaf Choir in 1997, "What is even more striking than the richness of Dawson's textures is the lushness of his sonorities, exhibiting his remarkable insight into vocal potentials.”

Ev’ry time I feel the spirit, moving in my heart, I will pray.

Upon the mountain my Lord spoke, Out of His mouth came fire and smoke;

Looked all around me, It looked so fine, till I asked my Lord if all was mine.

Jordan river is chilly an’ cold, It chills the body, but not the soul;

There ain’t but one train upon this track, It runs to heaven an’ right back.

About the Hymns:

Spirit of Faith, Come Down

Exploring the hymns of Charles Wesley (1707-1788) is like examining a trove of treasures excavated from the pages of his writings. While the church has preserved many of these treasures intact within its hymnals, sometimes a single gem is lost or forgotten. When such a jewel is recovered, it provides fresh color to the hymn as newly shed light streams through it and dances across the page. One such gem is the excised third stanza of “Spirit of Faith Come Down.”

“Spirit of Faith Come Down” by Charles Wesley was first published in Hymns of Petition and Thanksgiving for the Promise of the Father (1746) and is also found in the collection Whitsunday [Pentecost] Hymns (1746). The original hymn is composed of five stanzas, though in most hymnals today, there are only four, sometimes three, stanzas. This is due to the long lasting editorial change made by John Wesley when he included the hymn in his famous Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780). As observed by Carlton Young in the Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal, John Wesley removed the original third stanza and slightly altered the second line of the original fourth stanza.

The hymn is filled with references to Scripture. Charles Wesley directly quotes both 1 Corinthians 12:3 and John 20:28 in the second stanza. His construction of this stanza makes it clear, using Scripture as the basis, that one desperately needs the Spirit to have the faith required to fully accept Jesus and redemption through him.  Wesley’s theology of atonement also plays a key role in the text of this hymn, infusing the entirety of the hymn. The first stanza quickly delivers a statement of the ongoing process of redemption, pleading (possibly demanding) that the “Spirit of faith come down” to “reveal the things of God” so to “give us eyes to see who did for every sinner die, hath surely died for me.” In their Companion to Hymns and Psalms, Richard Watson and Kenneth Trickett note that Wesley often uses the expression, “Tis thine the blood to apply,” as he does in the first stanza, fifth line. This phrase is a poetic manifestation of Charles Wesley’s belief that the Spirit’s mission is to the individual person. Salvation is encountered through the Spirit and is delivered as an intimate gift, given through faith. This first stanza is a condensed teaching of Wesleyan redemption. Indeed, the entire hymn is written as a proclamation on the extraordinarily active and vital role the Spirit plays in giving, sustaining, and nurturing faith so one might believe and accept Jesus as the Redeemer.

While the hymn as we know it contains the Wesleyan standard of attention to Scripture and theological depth, the words of the original third stanza enrich the hymn as a whole and fulfill a role that stanzas currently available cannot hope to do.  The text of the individual stanza as it appears in the original 1746 hymnal is as follows:

I know my Savior lives, He lives who died for me,

My inmost Soul his Voice receives Who hangs on yonder Tree:

Set forth before my Eyes Ev’n Now I see Him bleed,

And hear his Mortal Groans and Cries While suffering in my stead.         

                                                          

Here, in the original third stanza, is a vivid depiction of Jesus’ act of redemption and victory over death.  The stanza opens with a paradox of life and death and then moves on to a brutally vivid and deeply personal vision of the crucifixion.  In light of the vivid scene (known by the poetic device, hypotyposis) just painted in the original third stanza, to claim Jesus’ redemption as deeply personal gives a rather stirring and evocative opening statement. The words do not inspire a general claim or reality, but one that is intimately personal, which a person cannot help but share with the world. By omitting the third stanza, the hymn loses a key turning point in the journey through the hymn as well as a climactic follow up to the second stanza. The second stanza ends, “Thou art my Lord, my God,” and then the third stanza depicts in a shockingly graphic manner the one whom the individual is claiming as Lord and God. Stanza four then affirms that indeed, the one who is “my Lord and God…who hangs on yonder tree” truly and surely is “My dear atoning Lamb.”

Holy Spirit, Truth Divine

Orlando Gibbons composed SONG 13 in soprano and bass parts. Used as a setting for a text from the Song of Songs, the tune was published in George Withers' Hymnes and Songs of the Church (1623) as hymn number 13 (hence the tune name).  In hymnals, the melody is presented in a simplified isorhythmic (all equal rhythms) form; the more rhythmically varied original also had more notes and was better suited to solo singing.

Samuel Longfellow (b. Portland, ME, 1819; d. Portland, 1892) wrote this text with the heading "Prayer for Inspiration." It was published in the Unitarian hymnal Hymns of the Spirit in 1864.  Like "O Come, O Come, Immanuel" (328), this text is a catalog: it lists attributes of the Holy Spirit in successive stanzas. The text is a prayer that the application of the Spirit's attributes may result in more vibrant Christian living, which will then be manifest in discernment of God's will (st. 1), holiness and purity (st. 2), courageous servanthood (st. 3), obedience to God's rule (st. 4), peace and restfulness (st. 5), and the experience of joy (st. 6). The final stanza alludes to Numbers 21:17 ("song of the well") and to John 4:10 ("living water"). Note that this hymn addresses the Holy Spirit without any reference to the Trinity, a Unitarian position that should not, however, hamper its use.

Samuel Longfellow is not as famous as his brother, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, about whom he wrote a biography that was published in 1886. In his time, however, Samuel was well known as a Unitarian preacher and hymn writer. Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Divinity School, he became a minister in 1848 and served Unitarian congregations in Fall River, Massachusetts (1848-1851), Brooklyn, New York (1853-1860), and Germantown, Pennsylvania (1860-1883). With Samuel Johnson he compiled two hymnals: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1846) and Hymns of the Spirit (1864). He also published a number of his hymn texts in A Book of Hymns and Tunes (1860).

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

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