March 22, 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.   

Good morning, Cyberchurch!  This is music in on-line worshp this morning.  

About the Organ Music:

Wo soll ich fliehen hin - Friedrich Zachau

"Wo soll ich fliehen hin" (Where should I flee) is a hymn in seven stanzas by the German Baroque poet, Lutheran minister and hymn-writer Johann Heermann (1585-1647). It was first published in 1630 during the Thirty Years' War. It is a penitential hymn for Lent.  Heermann, the hymn's poet, was influenced by the tract Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (Book of the German poetry) by Martin Opitz's, published in 1624, which defended German poetry and set guidelines on how German poetry should be composed.

Heermann lived in Köben, Silesia, when he wrote the hymn, an area which suffered under the war. The town was plundered four times. Several times, he lost his possessions and had to flee for his life. Nonetheless, in 1630 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), Silesia, he published a volume of hymns, Devoti musica cordis, Hauss-und Herz-Musica (Latin, German: "music for a devout heart, house and heart music"), including "Wo soll ich fliehen hin". The volume also contained the Passion hymn "Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen". These hymns have been described as "the first in which the correct and elegant versification of Opitz was applied to religious subjects, ... distinguished by great depth and tenderness of feeling, by an intense love of the Saviour, and earnest but not self-conscious humility”.

Where should I fly from here since I am burdened with many great sins?  Where can I find rescue?  

         If all the world came to help, they would not take away my anguish.

Oh Jesus, full of mercy, at your command and counsel my troubled soul comes

to your great kindness: on my conscience let a little drop of your mercy fall.

I, your troubled child, cast all my sins, that are fixed so many within me and

frighten me so fiercely, into your deep wounds where I have always found salvation.

Through your innocent blood, that beautiful red stream, wash away all my sins,
wíth comfort unite my heart, and no more think of them, let them sink deep in the sea.

It is you who consoles me since you have set me free.  The sins I have committed
you have buried in the grave. When you want to shut it up then so it must remain.

Although my wickedness is great, yet I shall get rid of it if I can grasp your blood
and rely on that.  When anyone meets with you, all their anxiety soon disappears.

I do indeed lack many things but what I want to have is all for my advantage,
obtained with your blood: with this I overcome death, the devil, hell and sin.

and if Satan’s army all came against me I would not despair, with you I can defeat them.
I only have to show them your blood, then their defiance must at once fall silent.

your blood, the noble liquid, has such strength and might that even a tiny little drop
could make the whole world pure, yes, even from the Devil’s wrath can make us free, released, liberated

Therefore on you alone, Lord Christ, I rely.  Now I cannot be ruined, I must inherit your kingdom: 

        for you have obtained it for me, since you died for me. 

Guide, Lord, my heart and mind through your spirit so that I may avoid everything
that can separate me and you, and in your body may I always remain a member.

Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow or Zachau (1663-1712) was a German musician and composer of vocal and keyboard music.  As Kantor and organist of Halle's Market Church in 1684 he succeeded Samuel Ebart. During his time at Halle he became particularly renowned as a composer of dramatic cantatas. In 1695, he was criticized by the pietists because of his excessive long and elaborate music, that could be only appreciated by cantors and organists. Zachow was influenced by Johann Theile in Merseburg and the poetry of Erdmann Neumeister, pastor in the nearby Weissenfels, and his criticism on pietism.  

Zachow was George Frideric Handel's first music teacher. He taught Handel how to play the violin, organ, harpsichord, and oboe as well as counterpoint. Zachow's teaching was so effective, that in 1702 at the age of seventeen, Handel accepted a position as organist at the former Dom in Halle. It is said that after Zachow died in 1712, Handel supported his widow and children in gratitude for his teacher's instruction.  Handel continued to use Zachow's compositions in his own works, not simply quoting, but also in terms of instrumental color; for example the cantata Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe, which is unique in having a harp solo in the German cantata repertoire, was copied by Handel, taken to London, and may have influenced the instrumentation of Saul and Esther.

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross - Wilbur Held

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was the son of an English schoolmaster. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin at age four, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Independent Church, Berry St., London. In 1702, he became pastor. 

The number of Watts' publications is very large. His collected works, first published in 1720, embrace sermons, treatises, poems and hymns. His Horae Lyricae  was published in December, 1705. His "Hymns" appeared in July, 1707. The first hymn he is said to have composed for religious worship, is "Behold the glories of the Lamb," written at the age of twenty. It is as a writer of psalms and hymns that he is best known. Some of his hymns were written to be sung after his sermons, giving expression to the meaning of the text upon which he had preached. His published hymns number more than eight hundred.

The Lutheran Hymnal Handbook includes this little narrative about the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross:” “With regard to the practical application of the final stanza, Father Ignatius of St. Edmund’s Church in London is reported to have blurted to his congregation: ‘Well, I’m surprised to hear you sing that. Do you know that altogether you put only fifteen shillings in the collection bag this morning?’”  While Watts might not have been talking explicitly about money in the last line of his text, there is the expectation that we dedicate ourselves entirely to God, for God demands not just a piece of who we are, but “our soul, our life, our all.” This can be an incredibly difficult line to sing with any sense of honesty. Devotional author Jerry Jenkins writes in his book Hymns for Personal Devotions, “Perhaps it’s the distance between where Watts encourages me to be and where I truly am that makes this hymn so hard to sing. It’s a lofty and worthy spiritual goal to say that ‘Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all,’ but how short I fall!”  And so as we sing this hymn of love and awe, we must sing it with a prayer in our hearts, asking God to enable us each day to live our life wholly for him.

Edward Miller (1735-1807) adapted ROCKINGHAM from an earlier tune, TUNEBRIDGE, which had been published in Aaron Williams's A Second Supplement to Psalmody in Miniature (c. 1780). ROCKINGHAM has long associations in Great Britain and North America with Isaac Watts' "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross". The tune title refers to a friend and patron of Edward Miller, the Marquis of Rockingham, who served twice as Great Britain's prime minister.

Miller's father had made his living laying brick roads, and the young Edward became an apprentice in the same trade. Unhappy with that profession, however, he ran away to the town of Lynn and studied music with Charles Burney, the most prominent music historian of his day. A competent flute and organ player, he was organist at the parish church in Doncaster from 1756 to 1807. Miller was active in the musical life of the Doncaster region and composed keyboard sonatas and church music. His most influential publications were The Psalms of David for the Use of Parish Churches (1790), in which he sought to reform metrical psalmody (and which included ROCKINGHAM), and David's Harp(1805), an important Methodist tunebook issued by Miller with his son.

When I survey the wondrous cross  On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ my God!

All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown? 

Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Wilbur C. Held (1914-2015) was born in Des Plaines, Illinois, and received his B.M. and M.M. degrees at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. He then attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he earned his S.M.D. A member of the Episcopal Church, for many years Dr. Held was Professor of Organ and Church Music at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.  He remained in this position for over 30 years, and for most of that time was also organist-choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio.  Dr. Held started composing little pieces for the organ because he felt there was a lack of teaching material aimed at developing style and registration, especially for the romantic use of the instrument.  Having written several suites primarily for pedagogical use, he turned his attention to broadening the repertoire for church use, continuing to stress modest technical requirements and flexibility of registration. To date he has published 325 organ works. He has served on the national councils of both the AGO and the Hymn Society of America, and has appeared as recitalist at their national conventions.

About the Piano Music:

I Surrender All - Lynette Maynard

"I Surrender All" is a Christian hymn, with words written by American art teacher and musician Judson W. Van DeVenter (1855–1939), who subsequently became a music minister and evangelist. It was put to music by Winfield S. Weeden (1847–1908), and published in 1896.Van DeVenter said of the inspiration for the text:

For some time, I had struggled between developing my talents in the field of art and going into full-time evangelistic work. At last the pivotal hour of my life came, and I surrendered all. A new day was ushered into my life. I became an evangelist and discovered down deep in my soul a talent hitherto unknown to me. God had hidden a song in my heart, and touching a tender chord, He caused me to sing. 

Following his decision to surrender his life to the Divine, Van DeVenter traveled throughout the United States, England, and Scotland, doing evangelistic work. Winfield S. Weeden, his associate and singer, assisted him for many years. Toward the end of his life, Van DeVenter moved to Florida, and was professor of hymnology at the Florida Bible Institute for four years in the 1920s. After his retirement, he remained involved in speaking and in religious gatherings. Van DeVenter published more than 60 hymns in his lifetime, but "I Surrender All" is his most famous.

All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.

All to Jesus I surrender, humbly at His feet I bow,

Worldly pleasures all forsaken; take me Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender, make me, Savior, wholly Think;

Let me feel Thy Holy Spirit, truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee;

Fill me with Thy love and power, let Thy blessing fall on me.

All to Jesus I surrender; now I feel the sacred flame.

Oh, the joy of Thy salvation!  Glory, glory to His name!

I surrender all, I surrender all.

All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

Lynette Maynard is organist and pianist at Woodinville Community United Methodist Church, Woodinville, Washington.

About the Hymns:

How Great Thou Art

"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.

To God Be the Glory

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.”

Frances Jane Crosby’s hymns have historically been among the most popular songs sung by Methodists.  “To God be the glory” was included in William Doane’s Songs of Devotion in 1870.  Ira Sankey probably saw the hymn in Doane’s collection and incorporated it into the first edition of his Sacred Songs and Solos (1875).  Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey helped to establish the hymn’s popularity during their revivals in Great Britain in the late 19th century.  It also appeared in some British hymnals including the Methodist Hymn Book (1933).

However, it was not until the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade in Nashville that Cliff Barrows introduced this song to congregations in the United States.  Dr. Graham and Mr. Barrows had learned the song during the 1952 revivals they had conducted in Great Britain.  Hymnologist William J. Reynolds, writing in his hymnal companion Hymns of Faith (1964), documented the return of this hymn to the USA: “It is most extraordinary that this long-forgotten American gospel song should have been imported from England and become immensely popular during the last decade.” 

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

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