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:
I Am a Child of God - Franklin Eddings
“I Am a Child of God" is a Latter-day Saint hymn and song for children. The lyrics were written in 1957 by Naomi W. Randall and set to music by Mildred Tanner Pettit. The song has been translated into over 90 languages. Randall composed the first three verses of "I Am a Child of God" at the request of the general board of the Primary Association, of which she was a member. The board wanted a song that could teach children about LDS Church teachings on the nature of a child's relationship with God. Randall described how she composed the song:
I got down on my knees and prayed aloud, pleading that our Heavenly Father would let me know the right words. Around 2:00 a.m., I awakened and began to think again about the song. Words came to my mind. … I immediately got up and began to write the words down as they had come to me. Three verses and a chorus were soon formed. I gratefully surveyed the work, drank of the message of the words, and returned to my bedroom where I knelt before my Father in Heaven to say "Thank you!"
Randall mailed the lyrics to her friend Mildred T. Pettit in California, who wrote the accompanying music.
I am a child of God, And he has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home With parents kind and dear.
I am a child of God, And so my needs are great;
Help me to understand his words Before it grows too late.
I am a child of God. Rich blessings are in store;
If I but learn to do his will, I'll live with him once more.
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do To live with him someday.
Franklin Eddings (1933-2014), an accomplished composer and music teacher, was a fixture in Utah music circles for 60 years. Franklin Eddings brought the gift of music to thousands of piano, organ, and at one time, accordion students along the Wasatch Front. At least 35 of his top students were first place winners in statewide, BYU, and national performance competitions. He produced over 250 compositions and arrangements in his career. A favorite student of Tabernacle organist Dr. Alexander Schreiner, Franklin Eddings' works have been performed by Mormon Tabernacle organists and shared with musicians all around the world. Eddings has been a devoted member of the LDS Church all his life, a specialist in genealogy, and early in his career, an employee of the LDS Church Genealogy Department.
March of the Priests - Felix Mendelssohn
We continue to march back to school with the “War March of the Priests”, which was originally composed as part of a larger set of incidental music for the stage production “Athalia”, which premiered in 1845. Athalia is a 1691 play, the final tragedy of Jean Racine, and has been described as the masterpiece of "one of the greatest literary artists known” and the "ripest work" of Racine's genius. It tells the story of Athalia, who was queen consort of Judah as the wife of King Jehoram, a descendant of King David, and later queen regnant c. 841–835 BCE.
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family. He was brought up without religion until the age of seven, when he was baptized as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognized early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalize on his talent. Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, where he also revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in his travels throughout Europe. He was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist, and his ten visits there – during which many of his major works were premiered – form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes, however, set him apart from many of his more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. TheLeipzig Conservatoire (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig), which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook.
Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet. His Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has now been recognised and re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.
About the Piano Music:
Nowhere to Go But Up, from “Mary Poppins Returns” - Marc Shaiman
Marc Shaiman (b.1959) is an American composer and lyricist for films, television, and theatre, best known for his collaborations with lyricist and director Scott Wittman. He wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics for the Broadway musical version of the John Waters film Hairspray. He has won a Grammy, an Emmy and a Tony, and been nominated for seven Oscars. He wrote the music for Mary Poppins Returns, and co-wrote the lyrics with Scott Wittman.
Shaiman grew up in New Jersey, where he left school at 16, got his GED, and went to New York to work in theatre. Shaiman started his career as a theatre/cabaret musical director. He started working at SNL as an arranger/writer and also became vocal arranger for Bette Midler, eventually becoming her musical director and co-producer of many of her recordings. Shaiman has earned five Academy Award nominations, a Tony Award and a Grammy Award for his work on the musical Hairspray, and an Emmy Award for co-writing Billy Crystal's Academy Award performances. He has also been Grammy-nominated for his arrangements for Harry Connick Jr.'s recordings When Harry Met Sally... and We Are in Love as well as Hairspray and Smash and Emmy-nominated for his work on Saturday Night Live and Smash. In 2002, he was honored with the "Outstanding Achievement in Music-In-Film" award at The Hollywood Film Festival, and in 2007 he was honored with ASCAP's Henry Mancini Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements and contributions to the music of film and television. He is the first recipient of the Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Comedy Feature Film.
Life’s a balloon that tumbles or rises depending on what is inside.
Fill it with hope and playful surprises, and, oh, dearie ducks, then you’re in for a ride.
Look inside the balloon, and if you hear a tune, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Choose the secret we know before life makes us grow.
There’s nowhere to go but up.
If your selection feels right, well then, dearie, hold tight.
If you see your reflection, your heart will take flight.
If you pick the right string then your heart will take wing,
And there’s nowhere to go but up.
Now I feel like that boy with a shiny new toy, and there’s nowhere to go but up.
Just one day at the fair has me waltzing on air! And there’s nowhere to go but up.
Now my heart is so light that I think I just might start feeding the birds,
and then go fly a kite!
With your head in a cloud only laughter’s allowed,
and there’s nowhere to go but up.
We’re zigging and zagging, out feet never dragging.
We might take a ride to the moon!
All this bobbing and weaving all comes from believing
the magic inside the balloon.
The past is the past; it lives on as history, and that’s an important thing.
The future comes fast, each second a mystery,
for nobody knows what tomorrow may bring.
Up here in the blue it’s a marvelous view! Side by side is the best way to fly.
Once I just looked above, but now I am part of the lovely London sky!
When the clouds make a muss, well, I won’t make a fuss, but I’ll polish the stars.
Give a lift to a foe, for you reap what you sow.
And there’s nowhere to go but up!
If your day’s up the spout, well, there isn’t a doubt there’s no where to go but up.
And if you don’t believe, just hang onto my sleeve.
Well, there’s nowhere to go but up.
As you fly over town it gets harder to frown,
And we’ll all hit the heights if we never look down.
Let the past take a bow; the forever is now,
And there’s nowhere to go but up!
About the Choral Music:
The Lord is My Shepherd - Allen Pote
Allen Pote (b. 1945) was born in Halstead, Kansas, and educated at Texas Christian University, where his diploma was in Church Music. A Fulbright Scholar, he studied in Brussels, Belgium, and took advanced work at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. For twenty-two years he served as a full-time Director of Music in churches in Texas and Florida. He is currently a full-time composer living in Pensacola, Florida, where, with his wife Susan, he is co-director of the Pensacola Children's Choir, an organization of over 200 singers which has achieved national recognition.
The Lord is my shepherd. Nothing shall I want.
My shepherd makes me lie in fields of green, leads me beside still waters.
The Lord is my shepherd, who restores my life.
Leads me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of the Lord’s name.
And even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and staff will comfort me.
You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And in the house of my God I will live forever.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
About the Hymns:
This is a Day of New Beginnings
Brian Arthur Wren (b. 1936) is Emeritus Professor of Worship, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He is a writer, preacher, worship and workshop leader, and internationally published hymn-poet, with entries in most recent denominational hymnals in North America, Britain and Australia. Some of his hymn-poems have been translated into Finnish, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and Korean. Brian holds undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Oxford University. He is a Minister of the United Reformed Church (UK). Wren provides an account of the composition of this text in notes provided in one of the collection of his texts, Faith Looking Forward (1983). The hymn was “written for a New Year’s Day service [1978] at Holy Family Church, Blackbird Leys, Oxford. In itself, the new year is an arbitrary convention, its newness a mere mark on the calendar. The recurrent awakening of life in nature is not a strong enough foundation for hope of real change. Yet by faith in the really new events of the Christian story, a day, or a month, or an hour can become charged with promise, and be a springboard to a changed life.”
As one of the leading hymnwriters of our time, Dr. Wren has contributed more hymns to the UM Hymnal (1989) than any other hymnwriter currently living. This text is supported by a melody composed by Dr. Young (b. 1926), one of the leading tune writers of this day.
Over My Head
The powerful musical legacy of the African American church is not an accident in this nation. It is a living response to the evils of slavery, injustice and racial hatred both historical and current. Soulful singing, in the manner of the spirituals, is an expression of hope of God's justice when human beings are unjust. Spirituals aren't just songs, they are prayers, they are lamentations, they are the bursting forth of a cry that must be let loose in the world. They are the sufferings of a people rendered beautiful and offered up in the certain faith that God is listening. What we now call "the African-American spiritual" is a tradition that began in the vocal lamentations of a people torn from their countries, their lands, their gods, their families and their human dignity. Giving due respect to the songs of the slaves, then, is more than an exercise in curiosity or musical appreciation. In looking more closely at these songs which have been part of our cultural wallpaper for so long, we are helping to recover an entire culture that was decimated by the slave trade. Spirituals composed by slaves functioned as lamentation, resistance, and prayer – but they also preserved the worldview, culture, morals and values that slaves were forbidden to transmit in the ways a society usually transmits its values. Spirituals are the oral tradition of a people trying to preserve their humanity against almost impossible odds and in the midst of tremendous psychological and physical trauma.
Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope – a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence… by fateful chance the African-American folk-song – the rhythmic cry of the slave – stands today not simply as truly American music, but as the most beautiful expression of the human experience born this side of the seas. Although slavery has been long abolished, the quest for freedom continues, the constant challenge to honestly confront injustice and hate wherever we find them. But always remembering that the spirituals – the sorrow songs – are also songs of faith and hope.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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