November 24, 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:

Fanfare to Christ the King - Charles Callahan

“Christ is the King! O Friends, Rejoice!” was written by English Anglican priest George Kennedy Allen Bell (1883-1958) - originally for use on the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude (28 October).

Bell was an Anglican theologian, Dean of Canterbury, Bishop of Chichester, member of the House of Lords and a pioneer of the ecumenical movement.  Bell was elected as a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School in 1896. From there he was elected to a scholarship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a First in Classical Moderations in 1903 and a Second in Literae Humaniores ('Greats') in 1905. He won the Newdigate Prize for English verse in 1904 for his poem, ‘Delphi'.  After Oxford he attended Wells Theological College (first being influenced by ecumenism at the latter) and was ordained deacon at Ripon Cathedral in 1907. He went on to work as a curate for three years in the industrial slums of Leeds. His role there was the Christian mission to industrial workers, a third of whom were Indians and Africans from the British Empire. During his time there he learned much from the Methodists, whose connection between personal creed and social engagement he saw as an example to the Church of England.

Bell's early career was shaped by his appointment in 1914 as chaplain to Archbishop Randall Davidson, one of the key figures in twentieth century church history. Bell received a special commission for international and inter-denominational relations. In this office he ensured in 1915 that the Lutheran Indians be allowed to continue the work of the Leipzig and the Goßner missions in Chota Nagpur in India, after the missions' German missionaries had been interned. Until the end of the First World War, he also worked for the Order of Saint John, a supra-confessional group working to help those orphaned by the war and - together with the Swedish Lutheran archbishop Nathan Söderblom, one of his closest lifelong friends - for the exchange of prisoners of war. In this work, he came to see internal Protestant divisions as more and more insignificant.

After the war, Bell became an initiator and promoter of the still-young ecumenical movement. In 1919, at the first postwar meeting of the World Council of Churches in the Netherlands, he successfully encouraged the establishment of a commission for religious and national minorities. At the world churches conference in Stockholm in 1925, he helped in the realization of the "ecumenical advice for practical Christianity (Life and Work)".  From 1932 to 1934 he was the president of "Life and Work" at the ecumenical council in Geneva, at whose Berlin conference at the start of February 1933 he witnessed the Nazis' seizure of power at first hand.

After 1933, Bell became the most important international ally of the Confessing Church in Germany. In April 1933 he publicly expressed the international church's worries over the beginnings of the Nazis' antisemitic campaign in Germany, and in September that year carried a resolution protesting against the "Aryan paragraph" and its acceptance by parts of the German Evangelical Church (Deutsche Evangelische Kirche, or DEK). In November 1933, he met Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was in London for two years as representative of the foreign churches - the two became close friends, and Bonhoeffer often informed Bell of what was going on in Germany. Bell then made this information (and thus what was really happening in Germany) known to the public of Europe and America, for example through letters to The Times.  In1934 he signed the Barmen Declaration, the foundational manifesto of the Confessing Church - it proclaimed that Christian belief and National Socialism were incompatible, and condemned pro-Nazi German Christianity as "false teaching", or heresy.  Bell used his authority as a leader in the Ecumenical Movement and since 1938 as Lord Spiritual to influence public opinion in Britain and the Nazi authorities in Berlin, and back those persecuted by the Nazi regime.  A supporter of Protestant ecumenism, Bell hoped after the war for a Europe united by common Christian values.  He continued to be an activist, helping those who were expelled from Soviet bloc countries and other religious and ethnic refugees and working to prevent nuclear proliferation and the spread of atomic weapons during the Cold War.

The Welsh-born American church musician, composer, and teacher, David McKinley Williams (1887-1978) wrote the tune CHRISTUS REX.  He was organist and choirmaster of St. Bartholomew's Church, New York. He was also head of the organ department of the Juilliard School of Music and a member of the faculty of the School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary. He also served as a member of the Joint Commission on Church Music and the Joint Commission on the Revision of the Hymnal that produced The Hymnal (1940) (Episcopal).

Christ is the King! O friends, rejoice; brothers and sisters, with one voice
let the world know he is your choice. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

Oh magnify the Lord, and raise anthems of joy and holy praise
for Christ's brave saints of ancient days. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

They with a faith forever new followed the King, and round him drew
thousands of faithful servants true. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

O Christian women, Christian men, all the world over, seek again
the way disciples followed then. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

Christ through all ages is the same: place the same hope in his great name,
with the same faith his word proclaim. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

Let love's unconquerable might your scattered companies unite
in service to the Lord of light. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

So shall God's will on earth be done, new lamps be lit, new tasks begun,
and the whole church at last be one. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

Charles Callahan (b. 1951) is one of America’s leading organist-composers.  A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and Catholic University of America.  In recognition of his service to the church and his commissioned compositions for Papal visits to the U.S., he was awared the Papal Honor of Knighthood in the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in 1999.  In addition to compositions and performances, Charles Callahan is a noted educator and author whose two books on American organ-building have become standard reference works.

About the Handbell Music:

Jubilation – Fred Gramann

Jubilation Ringers

A native of Washington state, Gramann began his early organ studies with Dr. Edward Hansen of Seattle, winning the student organ competition sponsored by the Seattle Chapter of the American Guild of Organists while still in high school. While earning a bachelor's degree in organ performance at Syracuse University, he won first prize in the 1972 Ft. Wayne National Organ Competition and was awarded the Arthur Poister Prize for outstanding organist in the Syracuse University School of Music for four consecutive years. He earned a master's degree in organ performance at the University of Michigan in 1976, and became Director of Music at the American Church in Paris, the oldest nongovernmental American institution abroad.  Mr. Gramann started a handbell program at the American Church in 1981 thanks to a gift of two octaves of handbells. The program has since grown to include three handbell choirs performing on five octaves of Schulmerich handbells, four and a half octaves of Malmark handbells, four octaves of Petit and Fritsen handbells, five octaves of Choirchimes, and a growing set of Whitechapel handbells. Fred has had numerous choral anthems and handbell works published in the US and is Honorary Associate Director of the Raleigh Ringers.

How Great Thou Art - Cynthia Dobrinski

Jubilation Ringers

"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 the Cross, my burden 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 there proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

Cynthia Dobrinski (b. 1950) received her undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. A Fulbright Scholar, she studied organ and harpsichord at Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik, Cologne, and organ performance at Northwestern University. She taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for 15 years.  She has written over 175 pieces for handbells and led over 350 workshops and festivals internationally.  Her creative compositional techniques have made her the leading handbell arranger and composer in the country.

About the Choral Music:

Autumn Carol - Russell Schulz-Widmar

John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-1875), L.L.D., was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A. 1832, LL.D. 1856). Taking Holy Orders in 1834, "he was successively Chaplain to Bishop Mant, Chancellor of the diocese of Connor, Rector of Ramoan, Vicar of Egham, diocese Worcester, and Rector of St. Nicholas's, Guildford. He died due to a fall from the roof of his church, which was being rebuilt. His prose works include Our New Vicar, 1867; The Winton Church Catechist, &c. His poetical works are Hymns and Miscellaneous Poems (1837); Parish Musings, or Devotional Poems (1850); Spiritual Songs for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year (1857);  His Presence, not His Memory (1855); Hymns of Love and Praise for the Church's Year (1863); The Passing Bell, Ode to The Nightingales, and Other Poems (1867); Litany Hymns (1869); The Parish Hymnal after the Order of The Book of Common Prayer (1873); Watches by the Cross (1874); Simon the Cyrenian, and Other Poems; and Nursery Carols.  Dr. Monsell’s hymns are as a whole bright, joyous, and musical; but they lack massiveness, concentration of thought, and strong emotion. Of nearly 300, only about one-fourth are in common use.

In simple, vivid language derived from biblical images in the second half of Psalm 65, this text thanks the Lord for the harvest and offers to God the harvest of our lives. Written by John S. B. Monsell in four stanzas, this text was published in Monsell's Hymns of Love and Praise in 1866.

This tune was originally a love song composed in 1575 by Johann Steurlein (1546-1613) as a setting of "Mit Lieb bin ich umfangen." Steurlein studied law at the University of Wittenberg. From 1569 to 1589 he lived in Wasungen near Meiningen, where he served as town clerk as well as cantor and organist in the Lutheran church. From 1589 until his death he lived in Meiningen, where at various times he served as notary public, mayor, and secretary to the Elector of Saxony. A gifted poet and musician, Steurlein rhymed both the Old and New Testaments in German. A number of his hymn tunes and harmonizations were published in Geistliche Lieder (1575) and Sieben und Zwantzig Neue Geistliche Gesenge (l588). His tune WIE LIEBLICH IST DER MAIEN gets its name from its original use as a setting for Martin Behm's hymn text that began with those words in 1581; text and tune were published together in Gregor Gunderreitter's David's Himlische Harpffen. The Steurlein tune was later set to Monsell's text in W. Garrett Horder's Worship Song in 1905 and popularized through the 1954 anthem by Healey Willan.

Dr. Russell Schulz-Widmar (b. 1944) was Professor of Liturgical Music at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, and a composer, author, and conductor. For much of his career he lived in Austin, Texas and upon retirement he has divided his time between Berlin, Germany and Dallas, Texas.

Sing to the Lord of harvest, sing songs of love and praise.

With joyful hearts and voices your alleluias raise.

In God the rolling seasons in steadfast order move.

Sing to the Lord of harvest a joyous song of love.

The clouds break forth with raining, the deserts bloom and spring,

The hills leap up in gladness, the valleys laugh and sing.

God fills them with abundance and nature’s gifts increase.

The year is crowned with goodness, with plenty and with peace.

Bring to this sacred altar the gifts God’s goodness gave,

The golden sheaves of harvest, the souls Christ died to save.  

Your hearts lay down in offering as at his feet you fall.

With holy lives adore him who gave his life for all.

About the Hymns:

Rejoice, the Lord is King

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.

“Rejoice, the Lord is King” was first published in John Wesley's Moral and Sacred Poems (1744) and is currently found in 484 hymnals.  The text rejoices in the kingship of Christ whose rule extends "o'er earth and heaven". All will bow the knee to Christ when he returns in glory to judge "the living and dead". The refrain line based on Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice,” is the keynote of the entire text.

Composed by John Darwall (1731-1789), DARWALL'S 148TH was first published as a setting for Psalm 148 in Aaron William's New Universal Psalmodist (1770) with only soprano and bass parts. The harmonization dates from the nineteenth century.  The son of a pastor, Darwall attended Manchester Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford, England (1752-1756). He became the curate and later the vicar of St. Matthew's Parish Church in Walsall, where he remained until his death. Darwall was a poet and amateur musician. He composed a soprano tune and bass line for each of the 150 psalm versifications in the Tate and Brady New Version of the Psalms of David (l696). In an organ dedication speech in 1773 Darwall advocated singing the "Psalm tunes in quicker time than common [in order that] six verses might be sung in the same space of time that four generally are.”

All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name

Edward Perronet (1726-1792) was born in England, the grandson of a French immigrant. His father, Vincent, was a clergyman in the Church of England and a close friend and associate of John and Charles Wesley. Though Edward had planned to follow his father into Anglican ministry, the influence of the Wesleys prevailed, and he became a traveling Methodist preacher.  “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” was written by Perronet while he served as a missionary in India and first appeared in the November, 1779 issue of the Gospel Magazine.

The hymn is often called the "National Anthem of Christendom”.  The best-known tunes used for the hymn are "Coronation" (Oliver Holden, 1793),  "Miles Lane" (William Shrubsole, 1779), and "Diadem" (James Ellor, 1838).  

An interesting story is told about this hymn.  Rev. E. P. Scott was a missionary in India who had been urged not to go near a certain barbarous tribe, whom he wished to evangelize. But he went forth with high courage, never wavering in his duty, and trusting in God to protect him. When at last he reached their country among the hills, he came upon a company of these savages.  Imme-diately, they surrounded him, pointing their spears at him with threatening scowls.  He had nothing but his violin; and so, closing his eyes, he began to play and sing, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” When he opened his eyes he expected to be killed instantly, but his life had been spared through the singing of the hymn. Their spears had dropped, and they received him first with curiosity and interest, and then later with eagerness, as he told them the gospel story and won their hearts to the will of Jesus Christ.

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus

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