July 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 Piano Music:

When I Can Read My Title Clear - C. E. Walz

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was the son of a schoolmaster and was born in Southampton. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin in his fourth year 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. In 1712, he accepted an invitation to visit Sir Thomas Abney, at his residence of Abney Park, and at Sir Thomas' pressing request, made it his home for the remainder of his life. He did not retire from ministerial duties, but preached as often as his delicate health would permit.

The number of Watts' publications is very large. His collected works, first published in 1720, include 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. Montgomery calls Watts "the greatest name among hymn-writers”.  His published hymns number more than eight hundred.

“When I can read my title clear” appeared in Watts’ Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines. It is headed "The Hopes of Heaven our Support under Trials on Earth." The text has undergone several alterations at the hands of Bickersteth in his Psalms & Hymns, 1833; Elliott in his Psalms & Hymns, 1835, and others. The most important is Bickersteth's rendering of stanza iv.:—

"There, anchor'd safe, my weary soul Shall find eternal rest,

Nor storms shall beat, nor billows roll, Nor fears assail my breast."

It is hard to see that this is an improvement upon Watts's original:—

"There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heavenly rest,

And not a wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast."

The original text of the whole hymn, as in the Hymnal Companion, is that most commonly used Miller (Singers and Songs, 1869, p. 140) points out that the opening lines of the hymn, "When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies,” are used by Cowper in his poem on Truth (published in 1782), in his comparison of the lot of "Voltaire and that of the poor and believing cottager, who:

”Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true—

A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew:

And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes,

Her title to a treasure in the skies.”

The tune PISGAH is a traditional American melody attributed to Joseph C. Lowry (18th/19th c.). It first appeared in either the 1816 or 1817 edition of Kentucky Harmony published by Ananias Davisson. It was also found in the 1819 Tennessee Harmony where it is credited to the publisher Alexander Johnson (1791-1832), who may have arranged it.  Lowry is identified as one of the "gentleman teachers" of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. It is possible that Lowry was acquainted with Johnson, who was also a singing school teacher in Tennessee in the early part of the nineteenth century. One theory is that Johnson may have learned the tune from Lowry or from the Kentucky Harmony, appropriated it for his own collection, and claimed it as his own, a common practice in those days. Another theory is that Lowry may have learned the tune from Johnson in Tennessee and carried it to Kentucky where Davisson inserted it in his collection and credited it to Lowry. Still another theory is that both men may have independently transcribed a genuine folk tune.

When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies,

I'll bid farewell to every fear, and wipe my weeping eyes.

Should earth against my soul engage, and fiery darts be hurled,

then I can smile at Satan's rage, and face a frowning world/

Let cares, like a wild deluge come, and storms of sorrow fall!

May I but safely reach my home, my God, my heaven, my all.

There I shall bathe my weary soul in seas of heavenly rest,

and not a wave of trouble roll across my peaceful breast.

C.E. (Carolyn) Walz was born and raised near Atlanta, Georgia, where, at age ten, she began piano lessons with Robert Fraumann, the minister of music at her church. By age twelve, Carolyn was playing piano solos for church services and accompanying children’s choirs.  Apart from her musical studies, Carolyn had a keen interest in teaching English and writing children’s books. She earned her Bachelor of Art Degree in Christian Education from Atlanta Christian College and her Master of Science Degree in Middle Grades Education from Georgia State University. She authored several books for children and became a full-time English teacher at Woodward Academy. In 2015, she retired as English Department Head of the Middle School after more than thirty years of service.

Since retirement, Carolyn has become an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a two-time national winner of the DAR’s American Heritage Instrumental Music Award. Today she continues to serve as a church musician, accompanist, and children’s choir director as she pursues her new interest: composing and arranging piano solos and choral anthems for Lorenz and other publishing companies.

How Great Thou Art - Larry Shackley

"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.

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

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

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.

When the Roll is Called Up Yonder - Mark Hayes

James Milton Black (1856-1938) was born in South Hill, New York. He acquired an early musical education in singing and organ playing and knew such famous songsters of his day as Daniel Towner and John Howard. Around 1881, he moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania where he carried on Christian work through the Methodist Episcopal church. Teaching music during the week, he was a song leader, Sunday school teacher and youth leader in his spare hours. In addition to all this work, he edited hymnals.

He loved young people and tried to win them for Christ. One day, as he passed through an alley, he met a ragged fourteen-year-old girl. She was the daughter of an alcoholic. He invited her to his Sunday school and youth group and she began to attend.  However, one day when he took roll, the girl did not respond. Each child had to say a Scripture verse when his or her name was called. James saw a lesson in her silence. "I spoke of what a sad thing it would be when our names are called from the Lamb's Book of Life, if one of us should be absent.”  He was not the kind of man to let the matter die with a moral lesson. After Sunday school, he went to his pupil's home to find out why she had not showed up for class. He found her dangerously ill and sent for his own doctor. The doctor said that she had pneumonia, and death was highly likely.

James returned home. He tried to find a song to fit the thought of a heavenly roll call but could not locate one. An inner voice seemed to say, "Why don't you write one." And that is what he did.  "I played the music just as it is found today in the hymn-books, note for note, and I have never dared to change a single word or a note of the song," he said.  The lyrics were first published in Songs of the Soul in 1894. They have been translated into over fourteen languages and sung around the world.

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,

and the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair;

when the saved of earth shall gather  over on the other shore,

and the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

On that bright and cloudless morning  when the dead in Christ shall rise,

and the glory of his resurrection share;

when his chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies,

and the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

Let us labor for the Master  from the dawn till setting sun,

let us talk of all his wondrous love and care;

then when all of life is over, and our work on earth is done,

and the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there. 

When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

Mark Hayes is an award-winning concert pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. His personal catalog, totaling over 1,000 published works, includes work for solo voice, solo piano, multiple pianos, orchestra, jazz combo, small instrumental ensembles, and choruses of all kinds.  Mark received a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude in Piano Performance from Baylor University in 1975. He has conducted the SWACDA and MCDA Community and Church Honor Choir, and served as guest conductor at Carnegie Hall, featuring his Te Deum and Magnificat. In 2010, Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies awarded Mark the Award for Exemplary Leadership in Christian Music. Mark arranged and orchestrated the music for Civil War Voices, which won six awards including "Best Musical" in the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York. He conducted the world premiere of his work for chorus, orchestra and narrator, The American Spirit, at Lincoln Center in May 2011 and the world premiere of his Requiem in Lincoln Center in May 2013.  Whether concertizing on the other side of the globe or composing at his home in Kansas City, Missouri, Mark is blessed to live out his mission "to create beautiful music for the world".

About the Vocal Solo Music:

Be Not Afraid – Taylor Davis

Taylor Davis (b. 1980) is currently the Director of Music and Worship at Holy Covenant United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. A 2003 graduate of Centenary College of Louisiana, Taylor earned a Bachelor of Sacred Music degree while studying conducting with Dr. Julia Brasher Thorn, as well as intensive courses with Dr. Sandra Willets, Dr. Ann Howard Jones, Paul Oakley, Alice Parker and Jane Marshall. He has also studied composition with Dr. Eric McIntyre, Ms. Parker, and Ms. Marshall. In 2004 he became a Fellow of Melodious Accord. In demand across the country, with commissions coming from a wide variety of groups, his music has been performed throughout the US, Europe, South America and South Africa by youth and adults.

“Be Not Afraid” is based on Isaiah 43:1-7.

    Be not afraid, for I have redeemed you. 

Be not afraid, I’ve called you by name.

    My love for you is everlasting, my love for you shall have no end.

    You are my child, and I’ll love you always. 

Just hold my hand, and I’ll lead you home.

When you feel lost, always remember: I am right here, just call my name.

When you pass through the waters, I will surround you,

    When you pass through the floods, they will not sweep o’er.

    When you walk through the fire, you will not be consumed.

     You are my child, you are so precious to me.

About the Hymns:

Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy

Joseph Hart (1712-1768) was never voted "most likely to become a minister" by the friends of his youth. Though raised among Christian influences, he was not serious about spiritual matters and soon fell into, as he put it, the "vanities and vices" of youth. But as an adult he began to feel a concern for his soul, running what he described as "an uneasy restless round of sinning and repenting." Frustrated by his inner turmoil, he looked for answers elsewhere; and listening to all the wrong voices of the age, fell captive to a doctrine that taught grace unfettered by any responsibility. Among his scholarly writings during this period was a scathing attack on John Wesley titled The Unreasonableness of Religion (1741), which reveals his adherence to the rationalist critics and to a certain extent to deism. But approaching the age of forty, he became convicted of the error of his beliefs and reformed his ways. Over the next few years he began in earnest to seek a truer path, and eventually became a minister to a Congregationalist body in London.

Hymns composed on various subjects (1759), which went through countless editions as "Hart's Hymns," was written during this period of deep soul-searching and repentance beginning around 1757. According to Hart, "They are published not only in the same order, but also in the same manner in which they were first written: for though they have since undergone a cursory revisal, and have been lightly retouched, the alterations I have made in them are neither very numerous nor material." His collection is therefore not only an anthology of his work, but a spiritual journal of this period in his life. And for a body of hymns so quickly got together, his work well stood the test of time. Augmented by his supplements of 1762 and 1768, "Hart's Hymns" became a staple in Calvinist circles.

"Come, ye sinners" is held by many to be Hart's greatest hymn. It is #100 in his original 1759 collection, and falls within the last group of hymns in that work, probably written in the spring of that year. These hymns as a group seem to look back in review of Hart's spiritual journey, though they still shows flashes of that "disorder and darkness of soul" that plagued him over his sins. Frequent themes are the assurance of salvation, our hopelessness without the atoning work of Christ, the majesty of Christ revealed in His humble sacrifice, and encouragement to the weak in faith.  To this extent, then, "Come, ye sinners" is as much autobiography as invitation.

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and pow'r:
He is able, He is able, He is willing: doubt no more.

Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance, Ev'ry grace that brings us nigh,
Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and buy.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and broken, full of sin;
If you tarry till you're better, You may never enter in:
Not the righteous, not the righteous; Sinners Jesus came to win.

Three additional verses are found in some hymnals by an unknown writer:

View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies; 

On the bloody tree behold Him;  Sinner, will this not suffice? 

Lo! th' incarnate God ascended,  Pleads the merit of His blood: 

Venture on Him, venture wholly,  Let no other trust intrude. 

Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream;

all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.

The chorus that follows each stanza, however, is by an entirely different hand:

      I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms;
      In the arms of my dear Savior, O! There are ten thousand charms.

Raymond Glover has identified this as a variant on one of the stanzas of Caleb Jarvis Taylor's "Don't you see my Jesus coming?" Caleb Jarvis Taylor (1763-1816) was a schoolteacher from Maryland who served as a fill-in preacher for Methodist churches in western Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1792 he moved to north central Kentucky, where he continued to teach school as his primary support, but preached wherever and whenever he could. Sometimes he preached as an official circuit rider sponsored by a Methodist association, but more often it was his willingness to fill vacancies for other preachers that kept him in the pulpit. He was the founder of the Mt. Gilead Methodist Church just north of Paris, Kentucky, also known as the Old Matheny Meeting House, probably the earliest Methodist congregation in that area northeast of Lexington. By 1795 he relocated to the vicinity of what is now Maysville, Kentucky, along the Ohio River.

The Mt. Gilead meeting house was less than ten miles from the famous Cane Ridge meeting house, so it was inevitable that Taylor was right in the thick of the Second Great Awakening. And though he was known to be a successful revivalist, he was noted by his contemporaries as well as by modern historians as one of the chief songwriters of this watershed moment in American religious history.

The earliest appearance of the tune RESTORATION in print appears to be that found in William Walker's Southern Harmony. As was typical of the old colonial singing-school music, Walker's arrangement places the melody in the tenor voice; he added a bass part below and a "treble" above. The Sacred Harp version has an alto part, added in later years, to fill out a more typical voicing. William "Singing Billy" Walker (1809-1875) was a Baptist song leader from Spartanburg, South Carolina. His Southern Harmony (1835) is one of the most important hymn publications in American history, because it preserved many of the melodies of the camp-meeting folk hymns at a time when the generation that created them was passing away. 

Jesus Calls Us

Cecil Frances Alexander (1823-1850) married William Alexander, an Anglican clergyman who later became the Anglican Archbishop for all of Ireland. Alexander was an outstanding young woman by virtue of ability, education, and service.  While still quite young, she and her sister operated a school for the deaf, and she also published a highly successful book of hymns for children––designating the profits for the benefit of the school. Her hymns are mostly for children, and were published in her Verses for Holy Seasons, with Preface by Dr. Hook, 1846; Poems on Subjects in the Old Testament, pt. i. 1854, pt. ii. 1857; Narrative Hymns for Village Schools, 1853; Hymns for Little Children, 1848; Hymns Descriptive and Devotional, 1858; The Legend of the Golden Prayers 1859; Moral Songs, N.B.; The Lord of the Forest and his Vassals, an Allegory, &c.; or contributed to the Lyra Anglicana, the S.P.C.K. Psalms and Hymns, Hymns Ancient & Modern, and other collections. She wrote 400 hymns during her lifetime –– mostly children's hymns––but "Jesus Calls Us" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful" are the best known.

Impressed by her hymns, her husband, Bishop Alexander, asked her to write a hymn for use during the coming Sunday worship on St. Andrew's Day based on the call of  Simon, Andrew, James, and John (Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-18).  She wrote this hymn, "Jesus Calls Us," for that occasion.  The first verse of this hymn begins, "Jesus calls us o'er the tumult of our life's wild, restless sea"––acknowledging the call of those first disciples by the Sea of Galilee.  A recurring theme is "Christian, love me more"––"Christian, love me more than these" ––"serve and love thee best of all."  Those words were inspired by John 21:15, where Jesus, after the resurrection, asked Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"  Her text was published in the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge's (SPCK) Hymns for Public Worship (1852). Though written for a relatively minor saint's day, this hymn quickly gained popularity. 

The tune GALILEE was written for this text by W. H. Jude in 1887.  William Herbert Jude (1851-1922) was an English composer and organist. He was a precocious child, and attended Wisbech Grammar School where records note that by age eight he was composing incidental music for school plays. He later attended Liverpool Organ School and Liverpool College of Music. By 1881, he was organist for the Blue Coat Hospital and Stretford Town Hall near Manchester, as well as being a lecturer and teacher. As a recitalist, he was asked to "open" over 1000 new organs across the UK, Ireland and Australia. He was frequently referred to as "the most brilliant organist of the day".  Christian texts and topics appear frequently in Jude's compositions. He was an admirer of the British evangelist Rodney "Gipsy" Smith, and published a collection of Gipsy Smith's Favourite Solos in 1903. Jude appears to have supported the temperance movement; "Fight the Drink", a song by Jude with lyrics by A Sargant, appears in a collection of his music with the note that it was "sung at the Crystal Palace Festival by 5000 people". Between 1890 and 1894, the composer embarked on a tour of Australia and New Zealand. Beginning in 1904, he served as editor for several musical periodicals, including Monthly Hymnal, Minister of Music, and Music and the Higher Life. He also compiled several hymnbooks: Mission Hymns in 1911 and Festival Hymns in 1916. 

First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas

A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus