December 29, 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:

The First Noel - Charles Ore

Although no Christmas season would be complete without “The First Noel”, very little is known about its origin. It is believed to have had its rise in France during the fifteenth century. Noel is a French word originating from Latin meaning "birthday." The song is thought to have been brought across the channel to England before 1823 by the wandering troubadours. The carol under the English form, "Nowell," became a great favorite for Christmas Eve, especially in the west of England. This was when the entire village gathered for singing and celebrating the bringing in of the Yule log. At this time carols were thought of as popular religious songs meant to be sung outside the church rather than within.

"The First Noel" portrays in vivid narrative style the story of the birth of Christ. All stanzas are needed to complete the entire event when the hymn is sung. The sixth stanza, which has been omitted from our current hymnal, urges us to join together to sing praises to God for the marvels of His creation and for the salvation provided through Christ's shed blood and reminds us that Christ came to redeem the whole world. 

The First Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields as they lay, keeping their sheep, On a cold winter's night that was so deep.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Born is the King of Israel. (refrain)

They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far,
And to the earth it gave great light, And so it continued both day and night.

And by the light of that same star Three wise men came from country far;
To seek for a king was their intent, And to follow the star wherever it went.

This star drew nigh to the northwest, O'er Bethlehem it took it rest,
And there it did both stop and stay Right over the place where Jesus lay.

Then entered in those wise men three Full reverently upon their knee,
and offered there in his presence Their gold, and myrrh, and frankincense.

Then let us all with one accord Sing praises to our heavenly Lord;
That hath made heaven and earth of naught, And with his blood mankind hath bought.

In addition to being an accomplished organ recitalist, Dr. Charles Ore (b. 1936) composes organ and choral music, and is a leader in the use and development of improvisation in organ playing. He is organist at First Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Neb. 

Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes Sohn - J. S. Bach

"Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn" (Lord Christ, the Only Son of God) is a Lutheran hymn by Elisabeth Cruciger.  Printed in 1524 in the Erfurt Enchiridion, it is one of the oldest Lutheran hymns. The text combines Lutheran teaching with medieval mysticism. Apart that Elisabeth Cruciger's authorship has been ascertained, little or nothing is known about the genesis of "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn". The notion that it was modelled after the Christmas hymn "Corde natus ex parentis" ("Of the Father's Heart Begotten"), repeated, for instance, in Bach-scholarship, lost traction in hymnology.  The melody of Cruciger's hymn has some similarity with the tune of "Mein Freud möcht sich wohl mehren" ("My Joy Will Increase"), a secular love song known from the Lochamer-Liederbuch (1455).

"Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn" was first published in 1524, both in the Erfurt Enchiridion and in Johann Walter's choral hymnal Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn in Wittenberg. In the Enchiridion, the hymn appeared with 25 others, 18 by Martin Luther, three by Paul Speratus, one or two by Justus Jonas, one by Erhard Hegenwald, and one attributed to Jan Hus, making this the only hymn in the Enchiridion by a female author.  Titled "Eyn Lobsanck von Christo" (A song of praise of Christ) in the hymnal Enchiridion, the song is a praise of Jesus as the son of God and savior of man. The hymn text combines Lutheran teaching with medieval mysticism which the author experienced as a nun before she converted.  Cruciger writes in the third stanza, for example: "so, daß wir hier mögen schmecken dein Süßigkeit im Herzen und dürsten stets nach dir" (that we may here taste your sweetness in our hearts and constantly thirst for you). It was the first Protestant chorale to use mystical images, imitated in the Jesus mysticism of later generations. Philipp Nicolai referenced the hymn in his own hymn "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern"; both authors use the title "Morgenstern" (morning star) for Jesus.

Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God the Father from eternity,
sprung from his heart, as it stands written:
He is the morning star, who makes his radiance shine far beyond all other stars;

He was born for us as a man in the last period of time
so that we would not be lost from God for ever,
he has broken death for us, opened up heaven, brought back life.

Grant to us that in your love and knowledge we may increase,
that we may remain in the faith, serve you in spirit in such a way

that we may here taste your sweetness in our hearts and constantly thirst for you.

You creator of all things, you fatherly power.
rule for ever and ever mighty in your own strength.
Turn our hearts to you and turn us away from our sins so that we do not stray from you.

Kill us with your goodness, awaken us through your grace,
weaken the old man so that the new man may live
and here on this earth devote our minds and all our desires and thoughts to you.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period.  He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.  Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg concertos, the Mass in B minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier, two Passions, keyboard works, and more than 300 cantatas, of which nearly 100 cantatas have been lost to posterity.  His music is revered for its intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty.  Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognized as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the nineteenth century.  During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Bach was recognized by several prominent composers.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven,  Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn were among his admirers; they began writing in a more contrapuntal style after being exposed to Bach's music.  Beethoven described him as "Urvater der Harmonie", the "original father of harmony".  He is now generally regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque period and as one of the greatest composers of all time.  A highly devout Christian, Bach signed all of his compositions “soli Deo Gloria”  (to God alone be the glory).   

The Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book") BWV 599−644 is a collection of 46 chorale preludes for organ. All but three of them were composed during the period 1708–1717, while Bach was court organist at the ducal court in Weimar. The remaining three, along with a short two-bar fragment, were added in 1726 or later, after Bach's appointment as cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig.  The collection was originally planned as a set of 164 chorale preludes spanning the whole liturgical year. The chorale preludes form the first of Bach's masterpieces for organ with a mature compositional style in marked contrast to his previous compositions for the instrument. Although each of them takes a known Lutheran chorale and adds a motivic accompaniment, Bach explored a wide diversity of forms in the Orgelbüchlein. As such, the Orgelbüchlein  is a collection of organ music for church services, a treatise on composition, a religious statement, and an organ-playing manual.

About the Piano Music:

Angels We Have Heard on High

"Angels We Have Heard on High" is a Christmas carol of French origin in the public domain. The song commemorates the story of the birth of Jesus Christ found in the Gospel of Luke, in which shepherds outside Bethlehem encounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn child.  People began to chant the phrase "Gloria in excelsis Deo" in Christmas Eve worship services as early as 130 A.D. In medieval times, French shepherds had a Christmas Eve tradition of shouting "Gloria in excelsis Deo" to each other as they watched over their sheep flocks on their respective hills in southern France. A Latin chorale version may have inspired the traditional French Christmas carol 'Les Anges dans nos Campagnes,' which Edward Shippen Barnes used in the 1800s to arrange the first version of 'Angels We Have Heard on High'. The most common English version that was translated in 1862 by James Chadwick, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, northeast England.  'Angels We Have Heard on High' was first published in English as part of an 1862 book called Crown of Jesus Music. But the version that has become popular worldwide was published later, in 1916, in the book Carols Old and Carols New.

Angels we have heard on high sweetly singing o’er the plains,

And the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains,

Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Shepherds, why this jubilee?  Why your joyous strains prolong?

What the gladsome tidings be which inspire your heavenly song?

Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Come to Bethlehem and see Christ whose birth the angels sing;

Come adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

See him in a manger laid, whom the choirs of angels praise;

Mary, Joseph, lend your aid, while our hearts in love we raise.

Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Mary McDonald’s sacred music career spans over thirty-five years. More than eight hundred anthems, seasonal musicals and keyboard collections testify to her significant contribution to sacred literature. In 2000, Mary became the first ever woman President of the Southern Baptist Church Music Conference. In addition, she has served as accompanist for the Tennessee Men's Chorale since 1985. Her greatest desire is "to give God glory for the songs He has allowed me to compose. He alone, is the true Creator behind my pen."  In 2011, after serving as sacred music editor for The Lorenz Corporation in Dayton, Ohio for more than twenty years, Mary answered a new call. Now she takes her tremendous passion and love for music making directly to churches as an independent artist by holding Composer Weekend workshops. 

About the Choral Music:

Some of you noticed that one of the anthems that I posted for Christmas Eve was wrong.  That anthem is actually for Dec. 29:

Sanctus Noel - Patrick Liebergen

Based on the Sanctus from Franz Schubert’s German Mass, Liebergen has substituted a Christmas text.  He also incorporates a descant based on The First Noel.  Patrick M. Liebergen (b. 1949) was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He was educated at St. Norbert College, DePere, Wiconsin, and received his Masters degree in choral conducting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His Doctorate in the literature and performance of choral music was completed at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Liebergen currently serves as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Holy Child, Emmanuel;

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Praise the Lord! Noel!

Born a child of Mary, sent from God above;

Holy Lord eternal, King of peace and love.

Noel, noel, O sing we noel to the holy Child Emmanuel!

Noel, noel, O sing we noel!  Come priase the Lord, Emmanuel!

Sing with joy, give glory!  Sing, behold His holy name;

Light of God forever, Peace and love proclaim!

And this is the anthem that was on Christmas Eve:

Did the Stars Hold Their Breath? - Jay Rouse

Andra Ciura, violin

This Christmas anthem from Jay Rouse with text by Rose Aspinall is a meditation on how all of nature responded to the arrival of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Jay Rouse is one of the premier choral arrangers in Christian music. He has over three hundred and fifty compositions and arrangements published, including over thirty major sacred choral works, fifty best‑selling a cappella arrangements, a highly recognized hymn series for choir or piano and solo instrument entitled Piano Plus, and a number of best‑selling solo piano books and recordings. Mr. Rouse is a Dove Award winning producer and has logged many hours on the road traveling in the music ministry. He spent over ten years as musical director and accompanist for Sandi Patty. In addition to his work as a keyboard artist, composer, and arranger he has been the primary producer and conductor for all of the choral and instrumental publications from PraiseGathering Music Group and Gaither Music Company over the last two decades.

Did the stars hold their breath the night that You came?

The Divine wrapped in swaddling clothes?

Did they pause for a moment, Redeemer in flesh;

Did they weep while You made Yourself known?

Did the mountains all shiver a protest of fear when 

when you came and You entered our pain?

Did the demons all tremble the night You appeared?

Did they shrink at the sound of Your name?

Emmanuel has come!  God’s only Son.

Now by grace His Love is made known!

Oh mystery, our God with us, by grace His Love made known.

Oh mystery, our God with us.  Redemption to us is shown!

About the Hymns:

Go Tell it on the Mountain

The Fisk Jubilee Singers (drawing their name from Leviticus 25—the year of jubilee) were founded as a ten-member touring ensemble to raise funds for debt-ridden Fisk University. Taking the entire contents of the University treasury with them for travel expenses, they departed on October 6, 1871, from Nashville on their difficult, but ultimately successful eighteen-month tour, a triumph that is still celebrated annually as Jubilee Day on the campus. Though not the original repertoire of the group, by the time they reached New York in December of that year, their concerts grew to include more and more spirituals, until their program consisted primarily of choral arrangements of spirituals or, according to African American scholars C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya, “anthemized spirituals.”

They have been credited with keeping the Negro spiritual alive. Spirituals scholar Sandra Jean Graham places this development in context: “The students were at first reluctant ambassadors for the songs of their ancestors. As [Jubilee] singer Ella Sheppard recalled, ‘The slave songs were never used by us then in public. They were associated with slavery and the dark past and represented the things to be forgotten. Then, too, they were sacred to our parents, who used them in their religious worship . . . It was only through persuasion that the students sang their spirituals privately for [the University’s treasurer, George L.] White [who was a white man], and through White’s coercion that they sang them in concert.”

Taking the spiritual to white and black audiences in the United States and Europe earned the school and the spiritual an international reputation. The small ensemble of two quartets and a pianist grew to a full choral ensemble. Other historically black colleges eventually followed the same pattern, including Howard University (Washington, D.C.) and Tuskegee Institute (now University, Tuskegee, Alabama).

The earliest version of the spiritual appeared in in Religious Folk Songs of The Negro, as Sung on The Plantations, new edition (1909) with the heading “Christmas Plantation Song” with different stanzas and in slave dialect:

When I was a seeker
I sought both night and day.
I ask de Lord to help me,
An’ He show me de way.

He made me a watchman
Upon the city wall, [a reference to Isaiah 21:11-12]
An’ if I am a Christian
I am the least of all.

Chorus:

Go tell it on de mountain,
Over de hills and everywhere.
Go tell it on de mountain,
Dat Jesus Christ is born.

A few smaller and less broadly circulated versions use these stanzas or a variation, for example, “When I was a sinner . . ..”

African Canadian composer R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) added another harmonization and stanza in the volume he edited, Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro As Sung At Hampton Institute (1927). His stanza follows:

If you cannot sing like Angels,
If you cannot pray like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say he died for all.

Dett’s stanza, or some version of it, is now most commonly associated with the spiritual, “There is a balm in Gilead.”

John Wesley Work, Jr. (1872?-1925), along with his brother Frederick Jerome Work (1878?-1942), led the Fisk Jubilee Singers from 1898-1904. Baptist hymnologist William J. Reynolds cites recollections by John Wesley Work, Jr.’s son about the role of “Go, tell it” on the campus: “[John Wesley Work, III] took pleasure in recalling his early days as a child on the campus of Fisk University where his father was a teacher. Very early on Christmas morning, long before sunrise, it was then the custom for students to gather and walk together from building to building singing [“Go, tell it on the mountain].”

Concert arrangements of spirituals were published in Frederick Work’s New Jubilee Songs, as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1902), a collection that may have been co-edited by John Wesley Work, though his name does not appear in this collection. “Go, tell it” appears in another collection for solo voice and four-part choir edited by John Wesley Work, III (Work, Jr.’s son) in American Negro Songs and Spirituals: a Comprehensive Collection of 230 Folk Songs, Religious and Secular (1940).

Drawing on an adaptation of the Work brothers’ setting, The Pilgrim Hymnal (1958), edited by Hugh Porter (1897-1960), professor in the Sacred Music Department at Union Seminary (New York), was the first mainline hymnal to include the spiritual. John Wesley Work’s stanzas based on Luke 2:8-20 have become the standard versions in hymnals:

1. While shepherds kept their watching . . .
2. The shepherds feared and trembled . . .
3. Down in a lowly manger . . .

From this hymnal, versions of “Go, tell it” have spread to the point that it has become one of a “canon” of spirituals found in virtually every hymnal today.

John Wesley Work, Jr. (sometimes designated John Wesley Work II to distinguish him from his son) received his master’s degree from Fisk University, and after further study at Harvard, began teaching Latin and Greek at the University in 1898. He trained the Jubilee Singers and was a leader in preserving and performing African American spirituals. He taught at Fisk University until 1923 when he was relieved of his duties due to changing attitudes toward the spiritual. He then went on to be President of Roger Williams University in Nashville until his death in 1925.

The spiritual has inspired works in other media. Author James Baldwin’s (1924-1987) first major work and semi-autobiographical novel was titled Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). The novel discusses the role of the paradoxical church as experienced by African Americans, both as the incubator for repression and hypocrisy and as a foundation for hope, identity, and community. The ABC network produced a movie using this title in 1984.

In 1963, the musical team “Peter, Paul and Mary”, along with their musical director, Milt Okun, adapted and rewrote "Go Tell It on the Mountain" as "Tell It on the Mountain", their lyrics referring specifically to Exodus and using the phrase "Let my people go," but referring implicitly to the Civil Rights struggle of the early 1960s. According to Religious Studies professor and Civil Rights historian Charles Marsh, it was African American Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer who combined this song with the spiritual "Go Down Moses," taking the last line of the chorus, "Let my people go" and substituting it in the chorus of "Go Tell it on the Mountain". Marsh does not document this claim, but given that Hamer was highly active in Civil Rights work beginning in the 1950s, and that the use of the Exodus story and the singing of spirituals played a central role in her activities, this claim is compelling. The song was recorded by Yarrow, Stookey and Travers on their “Peter, Paul and Mary” album In the Wind and was also a moderately successful single for them.

Regardless of which version that is sung, “Go, tell it on the mountain” has become a truly American contribution to the telling of the Christmas story that is now sung around the world.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

The carol we now know as "Hark! the herald angels sing" did not start life as such, and required at least four people to bring it to its current form. Wesley's original, written as a Christmas Day hymn and first published in 1739, is made up of ten four-line verses, rather than the longer eight-line verses with refrain which we have now.  It is interesting to note that in the original version of Wesley's, the heavens ring with the phrase "Glory to the King of kings," echoing Luke's "Glory to God in the highest heaven."  George Whitfield, who had been a student with Wesley, changed this to "Glory to the newborn King" in 1753. His fairly revolutionary Calvinist position was not compatible with Wesley's gentler reforming approach, which eventually bore fruit in the Methodist movement that he and his brother John inspired, Whitfield maintained the four-line verses of Wesley's original, but changed the angels' emphasis: "Glory to the newborn King" means something slightly but significantly different from "Glory to the King of kings." In the Gospel account, the angels praise God, whereas in "Hark! the herald angels sing," they are inaccurately described as praising Jesus.  Furthermore, Luke does not say that the angels "sing," and so it may well be that this reinterpretation by Whitfield has emphasized the popular but unscriptural picture of angels singing the Gloria. ("While shepherds watched" also implies that they sang.)  Whitfield also cut the final verses, which are now largely forgotten:

Come, desire of nations, come,  Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman's conquering seed,  Bruise in us the serpent's head.

Now display thy saving power,  Ruin'd nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,  Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,  Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us thee, though lost, regain,  Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,  Form'd in each believing heart.

There is some real theological insight in these neglected verses. First of all we notice the Advent antiphon "Come, desire of nations, come," followed by a reference to the Fall, with the serpent bruising the heel of humanity and Adam bruising its head (Genesis 3:15). Wesley cleverly alters the meaning, asking that the serpent in us (sin) should be bruised (defeated) by Christ, the second Adam, who reinstates us as beloved sons and daughters of God. In the restoration of sinful humanity to a state of grace through the incarnation of Christ, the joining of divine and human nature is also achieved. Consequently, that which was lost (salvation) is gained and a new life is granted to all believers.

The familiar tune, MENDELSSOHN, is an adaptation of a melody from Felix Mendelssohn’s Festgesang for male chorus and orchestra.

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

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