January 19, 2020

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:

He remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Israel, as He promised to our forfathere, Abraham and his seed forever - Marcel Dupre

Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) was born into a musical family and was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and built an organ in the family house when Marcel was 14 years old. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1904.  In 1914, Dupré won the Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata, Psyché. In 1926, he was appointed professor of organ performance and improvisation at the Paris Conservatoire, a position he held until 1954.  Dupré became famous for performing more than 2000 organ recitals throughout Australia, the United States, Canada and Europe, which included a recital series of 10 concerts of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1920 (Paris Conservatoire) and 1921 (Palais du Trocadéro), both performed entirely from memory. The sponsorship of an American transcontinental tour by the John Wanamaker Department Store interests rocketed his name into international prominence. Dupré's "Symphonie-Passion" began as an improvisation on Philadelphia's Wanamaker Organ. In 1934, Dupré succeeded Charles-Marie Widor as titular organist at St. Sulpice in Paris, a post he held until his death in 1971.  From 1947 to 1954, he was director of the American Conservatory, which occupies the Louis XV wing of the Château de Fontainebleau near Paris. In 1954, Dupré became director of the Paris Conservatoire; but he held this post for only two years before the prevailing national laws forced him to retire at the age of 70. 

Aside from a few fine works for aspiring organists (such as the 79 Chorales op. 28) most of Dupré's music for the organ ranges from moderately to extremely difficult, and some of it makes almost impossible technical demands on the performer. Being a virtuoso of the highest order, he contributed extensively to the development of technique (both in his organ music and in his pedagogical works). A fair and objective critique of his music should take into account the fact that, occasionally, the emphasis on virtuosity and technique can be detrimental to the musical content and substance. However, his more successful works combine this virtuosity with a high degree of musical integrity, qualities found in works such as the Symphonie-Passion, the Chemin de la Croix, the Preludes and Fugues, the Esquisses and Évocation, and the Cortège et Litanie.

As well as composing prolifically, Dupré prepared study editions of the organ works of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schumann, César Franck, and Alexander Glazunov. He also wrote a method for organ (1927), 2 treatises on organ improvisation (1926 and 1937), and books on harmonic analysis (1936), counterpoint (1938), fugue (1938), and accompaniment of Gregorian chant (1937), in addition to essays on organ building, acoustics, and philosophy of music. As an improviser, Dupré was able to take given themes and spontaneously weave whole symphonies around them, often with elaborate contrapuntal devices including fugues.

Leoni - Frank Ferko

Myer Lyon (aka Leoni) (1751-1797) was a chazan (cantor) at the Great Synagogue, Duke’s Place, London, and became famous as an opera singer at Drury Lane, Dublin, and Covent Garden,London.   Subsequently he became the first qualified chazan of the English and German Synagogue in Jamaica.  

In the 12th century, Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides codified the 13 articles of the Jewish Creed. These articles of the Jewish faith were later shaped into the Yigdal around 1400 by Daniel ben Judah, a judge in Rome. In about 1770, Thomas Olivers heard cantor Meyer Lyon sing the Doxology of the Yigdal at Duke's Place Synagogue. The Sabbath-Eve service and the music so impressed Olivers that he wrote the Christian hymn “The God of Abraham Praise” based on the Yigdal.  Lyons transcribed the tune for Olivers following the service. Olivers named the tune LEONI in his honor.  John Wesley included it in his Sacred Harmony (1780), and the tune has been paired with Olivers' paraphrase ever since. 

Frank Ferko (b.1950) played piano from childhood, and worked as an organist and conductor in his teens. His first compositions were primarily liturgical in nature. He attended Valparaiso University, where he took particular interest in early music and the compositional and theoretical output of Olivier Messiaen.  He received a bachelor's from Valparaiso in 1972 in piano and organ performance, and then took his master's at Syracuse University in music theory. Ferko served as Director of Music at various midwestern churches before entering Northwestern University to pursue a PhD in composition. He is currently on the staff of the Archive of Recorded Sound at Stanford University.  As a composer, Ferko began receiving critical acclaim and commissions in the 1980s, including the Holtkamp Award from the American Guild of Organists in 1990 for the song cycle A Practical Program for Monks. He has also worked as composer-in-residence with the Dale Warland Singers.   

About the Piano Music:

The God of Abraham Praise - Larry Shackley

The roots of early Christian worship grew in the soil of the first-century Jewish synagogue service. In Scripture and psalm, in sermon and prayer, the gathered community celebrated what God had done—and anticipated God’s mighty acts yet to come. In light of this, the well-known hymn “The God of Abraham Praise” offers a glimpse of history.

Thomas Olivers (1725–1799), the hymn’s author, was born in Wales and orphaned at age 4. Apprenticed early to a shoemaker, he grew to adulthood a wild, rootless man. In his mid-twenties, however, Olivers was converted through the preaching of George Whitefield. Soon after, he became an evangelist with John Wesley. Olivers spent more than twenty years—end 100,000 miles—as an itinerant preacher. Later, he became co-editor of Wesley’s Arminian Magazine.

Tradition tells us that on a Friday evening in 1770, Olivers attended Sabbath worship at the Great Synagogue, Duke’s Place, London. There, as the “Yigdal” (traditional Hebrew doxology) was sung by cantor Meyer Lyon (d. 1796), Olivers was so moved that he approached the operatic vocalist personally. In the 12th century, Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides codified the 13 articles of the Jewish Creed. These articles of the Jewish faith were later shaped into the Yigdal around 1400 by Daniel ben Judah, a judge in Rome.  In the mid-eighteenth century, cantors had begun to use musical notations, and Lyon graciously provided Olivers with his tune (Leoni).  The Methodist preacher then adapted the text of the Jewish doxology (which was based on the Thirteen Articles of Faith stated by famous Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides in the twelfth century). The opening word, yigdal (Hebrew for “may He be magnified”), inspired Olivers’s free rendering. "The God of Abraham Praise" was first published as a leaflet titled "A Hymn to the God of Abraham" in 1772. It was later published nationwide by Wesley in the Methodist hymnal "Sacred Harmony". The hymn later made it to the United States after being published in Joshua Leavitt's "The Christian Lyre".

The God of Abraham praise, who reigns enthroned above;
Ancient of everlasting days, and God of Love;
Jehovah, great I AM! by earth and Heav’n confessed;
I bow and bless the sacred name forever blessed.

The God of Abraham praise, at whose supreme command
From earth I rise—and seek the joys at His right hand;
I all on earth forsake, its wisdom, fame, and power;
And Him my only portion make, my shield and tower.

The God of Abraham praise, whose all sufficient grace
Shall guide me all my happy days, in all my ways.
He calls a worm His friend, He calls Himself my God!
And He shall save me to the end, thro’ Jesus’ blood.

He by Himself has sworn; I on His oath depend,
I shall, on eagle wings upborne, to Heav’n ascend.
I shall behold His face; I shall His power adore,
And sing the wonders of His grace forevermore.

Tho’ nature’s strength decay, and earth and hell withstand,
To Canaan’s bounds I urge my way, at His command.
The watery deep I pass, with Jesus in my view;
And thro’ the howling wilderness my way pursue.

The goodly land I see, with peace and plenty blessed;
A land of sacred liberty, and endless rest.
There milk and honey flow, and oil and wine abound,
And trees of life forever grow with mercy crowned.

There dwells the Lord our king, the Lord our righteousness,
Triumphant o’er the world and sin, the Prince of peace;
On Sion’s sacred height His kingdom still maintains,
And glorious with His saints in light forever reigns.

He keeps His own secure, He guards them by His side,
Arrays in garments, white and pure, His spotless bride:
With streams of sacred bliss, with groves of living joys—
With all the fruits of paradise He still supplies.

Before the great Three-One they all exulting stand;
And tell the wonders He hath done, through all their land:
The listening spheres attend, and swell the growing fame;
And sing, in songs which never end, the wondrous name.

The God who reigns on high the great archangels sing,
And Holy, holy, holy! cry, Almighty King!
Who was, and is, the same, and evermore shall be:
Jehovah—Father—great I AM, we worship Thee!

Before the Savior’s face the ransomed nations bow;
O’erwhelmed at His almighty grace, forever new:
He shows His prints of love—they kindle to a flame!
And sound thro’ all the worlds above the slaughtered Lamb.

    The whole triumphant host give thanks to God on high;
    Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they ever cry.
    Hail, Abraham’s God, and mine! (I join the heav’nly lays,)
    All might and majesty are Thine, and endless praise. 

Larry Shackley (b. 1956) is a full-time composer and editor from Columbia, SC. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and his Master in Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the University of South Carolina. From 1995-2007, he taught and directed the music program at Columbia International University in Columbia, SC. Prior to that, he worked for several years at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, creating original music and producing radio programs for the Moody Broadcasting Network. He has been active in church music since his teens, and served as staff keyboardist for ten years at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL. Currently, Shackley is on the staff of Gateway Baptist Church in Irmo, SC. He has produced over twenty books of keyboard arrangements and more than one hundred choral anthems. He has won ASCAP standard panel awards every year since 1998, and has received commissions from churches, schools, and community choirs across America.

About the Choral Music:

On Eagle’s Wings - Douglas Wagner

Michael Joncas (b. 1951) was ordained in 1980 to the Roman Catholic priesthood, and has served since 1991 on the faculty of the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.  He has written three books, more than a hundred published articles, and has compiled more than 20 collections of liturgical music. Father Joncas was visiting a friend at the major seminary in Washington. One evening, Father Joncas’ friend got word that his father had suffered a fatal heart attack. Father Joncas wrote “On Eagle’s Wings” in the days that followed and it was was sung for the first time publicly at the friend’s father’s wake service.  The song is based on Psalm 91 and Isaiah 4031:, its lyrics drawing from the Scripture’s descriptions of God’s protection and providence.   

You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord who abide in His shadow for life,

Say to the Lord: “My refuge, my Rock in whom I trust!”

The snare of the fowler will never capture you, and famine will bring you no fear:

Under His wings your refuge, His faithfulness your shield.

You need not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day;

Though thousands fall about you, near you it shall not come.

For to his angels He’s given a command to guard you in all of your ways;

Upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn,

Make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand.

Douglas E. Wagner, a native of Chicago, Illinois, is an international recognized composer and arranger. With thirty years as a high school music educator and administrator behind him, Mr. Wagner now devotes all of his time and energy to writing, editing and their allied activities. He is an A.S.C.A.P. award-winning composer, an editor for a major publishing company, and has served several denominations as a church musician.  2,500 titles by Douglas E. Wagner have been published since 1973, included works for choir (sacred and secular), concert band, orchestra, handbell ensemble, organ, piano, instrumental solo, and voice. Fifteen million copies of his music have been sold to date.

About the Hymns:

Trust and Obey

This hymn was inspired in 1886 when the composer of the music, Daniel B. Towner (1850-1919), was the music leader during one of Dwight L. Moody’s famous revivals. Towner provided the following account cited by Moody’s musical partner, Ira D. Sankey, in his biography, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns:   “Mr. Moody was conducting a series of meetings in Brockton, Massachusetts, and I had the pleasure of singing for him there. One night a young man rose in a testimony meeting and said, ‘I am not quite sure—but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.’ I just jotted that sentence down, and sent it with a little story to the Rev. J. H. Sammis, a Presbyterian minister. He wrote the hymn, and the tune was born.”

Sammis is said to have composed the lines of the refrain upon receiving the letter:

             “Trust and obey—for there’s no other way
              To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” 

As is the case with most gospel songs, these lines provide the central theme around which all of the stanzas were written. The text and first Towner’s tune, TRUST AND OBEY, appeared in the 1887 collection, Hymns Old and New, and has been included in countless hymnals since. Methodist hymnals in the United States have carried it since 1897. 

Blessed Assurance

Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915), born in New York and died in Connecticut, wrote over 8,500 gospel hymns. In 1972, Hope Publishing Co. found over 1,000 unpublished manuscripts. Her work defined what it meant to be a successful writer of gospel hymns.  By the age of six weeks, Fanny Crosby was completely blind. She entered the New York School for the Blind at age twelve. She began writing hymns and poetry at age twelve.  Her collaborators in publishing gospel hymns included the most successful and popular composers of her day, including William Bradbury, William Doane, Robert Lowry, Ira Sankey, and William Kirkpatrick. Crosby used numerous pen names in publishing her songs, including: Ella Dale, Mrs. Kate Gringley and Miss Viola V. A.  She married blind musician Alexander Van Alstyne, and the British most often refer to her by her married name rather than Fanny Crosby.  She was a lifelong Methodist and her contributions to The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) include: “Blessed Assurance,” “Close to Thee,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory.”

Phoebe Knapp (1839-1908) was a composer of music for hymns and an organist.  Knapp was born in New York City. Her parents were Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe Worrall Palmer.  She married Joseph Fairchild Knapp, one of the founders and the second president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and he had a pipe organ installed in their apartment.  She and her husband were members of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. The hymn writer Fanny Crosby was also a member of that church and a friend of the Phoebe’s.  She wrote over 500 hymn tunes, the most familiar being the tune now called ASSURANCE for Fanny Crosby's lyrics “Blessed Assurance”. 

Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a large pipe organ installed. The organ was incomplete, so Mrs. Knapp, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. When Knapp asked Crosby, "What do you think the tune says?", Crosby replied, "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine."  The hymn appeared in the July 1873 issue of Palmer's Guide to Holiness and Revival Miscellany, a magazine printed by Dr. and Mrs. W. C. Palmer.  

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

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