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:
Ar hyd y nos - Sam Batt Owens
Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was born into a wealthy, educated family. He was a bright youth, translating a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven, entering Oxford at 17, and winning two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation he became rector of his father's church in the village of Hodnet near Shrewsbury in the west of England where he remained for 16 years. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and worked tirelessly for three years until the weather and travel took its toll on his health and he died of a stroke. Most of his 57 hymns, which include "Holy, Holy, Holy," are still in use today.
This is a case of a famous tune, AR HYD Y NOS, having inspired several texts in the last two centuries. The original Welsh song, meaning “the livelong night,” was first published in Edward Jones’ Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1784) as a song for solo voice and harp, with one verse each of Welsh and English words and five variations on the accompaniment. Reginald Heber was inspired by this tune to write his hymn “God that madest earth and heaven.” The story behind the hymn was relayed by D.R. Thomas, vicar of Meifod, in an article for Collections Historical and Archaeological Relating to Montgomeryshire, “Southey and Heber in Powysland,” (1881), relating to Heber and his close friend and fellow poet, Robert Southey (1774–1843):
They were the fellow-guests of the Right Hon. C.W. Williams-Wynn, for so long a period the representative of this county in the House of Commons, and, at that time, a member of the Cabinet. … The interesting old hall at Llangedwyn, with its beautiful surroundings, in the valley of the Tanat, was Mr. Wynn’s country residence; and here it was that Robert Southey and Reginald Heber, while they formed a mutual friendship, enjoyed his genial hospitality, and made their first acquaintance with Powysland. … In an “Ode on Bishop Heber’s portrait,”…
Southey thus alludes to the occasion:
Ten years have held their course since last I looked upon that living countenance, when on Llangedwyn’s terraces we paced together to and fro; partaking there its hospitality, we with its honoured master spent well pleased the social hours.
It was during this visit that Heber, after hearing the old Welsh air of “Ar hyd y nos” played upon the harp, and while the tune was still ringing in his ears, composed to its music his well-known Evening Hymn, “God that madest earth and heaven.”
The words were set to AR HYD Y NOS in the choir book arranged by Heber’s sister before 1822 for use at Hodnet Church, Shropshire. The rector at the time was Richard Hugh Cholmondeley (1828–1910). The current location of this MS is unknown. The hymn was eventually published, without music, in The Manchester Courier, 31 March 1827, then in his posthumous Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year (1827).
God, who made the earth and heaven, Darkness and light:
You the day for work have given, For rest the night.
May your angel guards defend us,
Slumber sweet your mercy send us,
Holy dreams and hopes attend us, All through the night.
And when morn again shall call us To run life's way,
May we still whate'er befall us, Your will obey.
From the pow'r of evil hide us,
In the narrow pathway guide us,
Never be your smile denied us All through the day.
Guard us waking, guard us sleeping, And, when we die,
May we in your mighty keeping All peaceful lie.
When the trumpet's call shall wake us,
Then, O Lord, do not forsake us,
But to reign in glory take us With you on high.
Holy Father, throned in heaven, All holy Son,
Holy Spirit freely given, Blest Three in One:
Grant us grace we now implore you,
Till we lay our crowns before you
And in worthier strains adore you While ages run.
Sam Batt Owens (1928-1998) enjoyed a long career as a well-known organist, composer, and church musician. He received a B. Mus. in organ performance, from the Birmingham Conservatory of Music, a M. Mus. in organ performance and composition from Birmingham- Southern College, and a D.M.A. in organ performance and musicology from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Owens taught at Birmingham Conservatory of Music, Birmingham Southern College, Vanderbilt University, Fisk University, Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal School, and Christ School for Boys in Arden, N.C. He held his fIrst position as an organist at age 12, and began solo organ performances at age 16. He wrote more than 200 choral, organ, instrumental and solo vocal compositions. He was one of the Episcopal Church's leading musicians. He was President of the Association of Anglican Musicians from 1989-1991. In 1996, he had left his position at St. Andrew's on-the-Sound in Wilmington, N.C., to become a consultant for parishes and dioceses in artistic matters and a crusader for fair compensation and recognition of church musicians. In his later years he taught congregations in smaller parishes how to be full participants in corporate worship, presenting "music in liturgy and how music upholds and supports corporate worship.”
Liebster Jesu, wir sind hir - Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Essentially a prayer asking for illumination by the Holy Spirit as the Christian community gathers around the Lord's Word, "Blessed Jesus" is a pre-sermon hymn by Tobias Clausnitzer (1619-1684). It was first published in the Altdorffisches Gesang-Buchlein (1663) and first attributed to Clausnitzer in the Nüremberg, Germany, Gesangbuch (1676). Catherine Winkworth translated the text and published it in English in her Lyra Germanica (2nd series, 1858).
Clausnitzer graduated from the University of Leipzig and became a chaplain in the Swedish army. He preached two sermons at memorable occasions: when Queen Christina ascended the Swedish throne in 1645 and when the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War, was celebrated in 1648. Clausnitzer became a pastor in Weiden in 1648, where he remained until his death.
The tune was written by Johann Rudolph Ahle (1625-1673), who was born in Mühlhausen, Thuringia. In 1648 he published the Compendium per tenellis, a theoretical treatise on choral singing which was reprinted several times during his lifetime and for a last time 50 years later by his son Johann Georg. In 1654 Ahle assumed the post of organist at the Church of St. Blasen/Blasius in Mühlhausen. Much of his compositional output consists of sacred choral and vocal works, instrumental music, and organ music. He wrote over 400 sacred arias, from which hymn tunes have been adapted.
Blessed Jesus, at your word we are gathered all to hear you.
Let our hearts and souls be stirred now to seek and love and fear you.
By your gospel pure and holy, teach us, Lord, to love you solely.
All our knowledge, sense, and sight lie in deepest darkness shrouded,
till Your Spirit breaks our night with Your beams of truth unclouded.
You alone to God can win us; You must work all good within us.
Glorious Lord, yourself impart; Light of Light, from God proceeding,
open lips and ears and heart; help us by Your Spirit's leading.
Hear the cry Your church now raises; Lord, accept our prayers and praises.
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933) was a German composer of considerable fame in the early twentieth century. The cultural climate in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was very hostile to the internationally oriented, French-influenced Karg-Elert; and although his works were admired outside Germany, especially in the U.K. (the Organ Music Society of London held a ten-day festival in his honour in 1930) and in the U.S.A., in his home country his music was almost completely neglected. Karg-Elert regarded himself as an outsider. Notable influences in his work include composers Johann Sebastian Bach (he often used the B.A.C.H. motif in Bach's honour), Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, Max Reger, Aleksandre Scriabin, and early Arnold Schoernberg. In general terms, his musical style can be characterised as being late-romantic with impressionistic and expressionistic tendencies. His profound knowledge of music theory allowed him to stretch the limits of traditional harmony without losing tonal coherence.
Prelude and Fugue in C Major - attr. J. S. Bach
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, hamonic 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, Frederic 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 Eight Short Preludes and Fugues (also Eight Little Preludes and Fugues), BWV 553–560, are a collection of works for keyboard and pedal formerly attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach. They are now believed to have been composed by one of Bach's pupils, possibly Johann Tobias Krebs or his son, based on certain unusual characteristics and simplicity unusual to most of Bach's music when played on the organ. However, Philipp Spitta noted that they bore the "stamp of commanding mastery.” Additionally, Sir George Grove wrote that "on stylistic grounds neither [Johann Tobias or Johann Ludwig] seems likely.” These pieces came to be played often on the organ in the 19th and 20th centuries, and were especially useful as teaching pieces for beginners. Subsequent scholarship has suggested that this collection was conceived specifically for the pedal clavichord, thereby making the stylistic claim of inauthenticity far less tenable. Several elements of the pieces, including the rolling of large chords, octave doublings and repeated notes, and the patterns of movement of the fingers and feet, the rhythm, and overall texture are idiomatic on the clavichord. So, whether these pieces were written by Bach for his students or written by his students, perhaps as composition exercises, as they are in a variety of styles and keys, we still do not know. In these times prior to both copyright and publishing, we are often dependent on finding the earliest handwritten copy to verify authorship. For now, we just say “attributed to J. S. Bach”.
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About the Handbell Music:
O Worship the King - Judy Endean
The Masked Ringers
Of Scottish ancestry, Robert Grant (1779-1838) was born in India, where his father was a director of the East India Company. He attended Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished public career a Governor of Bombay and as a member of the British Parliament, where he sponsored a bill to remove civil restrictions on Jews. Grant was knighted in 1834. His hymn texts were published in the Christian Observer (1806-1815), in Elliot’s Psalms and Hymns (1835), and posthumously by his brother as Sacred Poems (1839).
Grant’s text was influenced by William Kethe’s paraphrase of Psalm 104 in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561). Grant’s text was first published in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody (1833) with several unauthorized alterations. In 1835 his original six-stanza text was published in Henry Elliott’s Psalm and Hymns. Stanza 3 was omitted in the Psalter Hymnal.
Rather than being a paraphrase or versification, the text is a meditation on the creation theme of Psalm 104, focusing on God’s creation as a testimony to his “measureless might.” More personal in tone, stanzas 4 and 5 confess the compassion of God toward his creatures and affirm with apocalyptic vision that the “ransomed creation, with glory ablaze” will join with angels to hymn its praise to God. In the last verse, Grant points to Christ as the ultimate reconciler of a broken, but still beautiful creation. An original last stanza that we no longer sing reads, “The humbler creation, though feeble their lays, with true adoration shall lisp to Thy praise.”
O worship the King all-glorious above,
O gratefully sing his power and his love:
our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days,
pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.
O tell of his might and sing of his grace,
whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.
Your bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!
O measureless Might, unchangeable Love,
whom angels delight to worship above!
Your ransomed creation, with glory ablaze,
in true adoration shall sing to your praise!
Judy Endean has published many arrangements for small or limited handbell choirs; however, there is no biographical information available on her.
About the Hymns:
For the Beauty of the Earth
Folliott Piermont (1835-1917) was born in Bath, England and was a lay member of the Anglican Church. Following his graduation from Queen's College, Cambridge, he taught the classics for a time at Somerset College, later becoming a freelance writer. During his 82 years of life, Pierpoint published seven volumes of poems and hymn texts, many of them showing his love for nature. He is most remembered for this beautiful hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth.
Piermont was about 29 years old when he wrote the text for this joyful hymn. It was a lovely day in late spring. While enjoying the surrounding area of his native city of Bath, in England, he was inspired by the beautiful countryside with its winding cool and peaceful river, Avon, in the distance. The tuneful songbirds, the wind whispering over a vibrantly colored hillside, all seemed to be praising the Creator with their unrestrained gladness and peace. Overwhelmed with emotion, he expressed his feelings of gratitude in the penning of this sacred song. The text was inspired by Hebrews 13:15: "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name." It first appeared in 1864 in a book of Eucharistic hymns and poems entitled Lyra Eucharistica, Hymns and Verses on The Holy Communion, Ancient and Modern, with other Poems with the title "The Sacrifice of Praise".
An early form of the tune DIX was composed by Conrad Kocher (1786-1872). Trained as a teacher, Kocher moved from Germany to St. Petersburg, Russia, to work as a tutor at the age of seventeen. But his love for the music of Haydn and Mozart impelled him to a career in music. He moved back to Germany in 1811, settled in Stuttgart, and remained there for most of his life. The prestigious Cotta music firm published some of his early compositions and sent him to study music in Italy, where he came under the influence of Palestrina's music. In 1821 Kocher founded the School for Sacred Song in Stuttgart, which popularized four-part singing in the churches of that region. He was organist and choir director at the Striftsckirche in Stuttgart from 1827 to 1865. Kocher wrote a treatise on church music, Die Tonkunst in der Kirche (1823), collected a large number of chorales in Zions Harfe (1855), and composed an oratorio, two operas, and some sonatas. William H. Monk created the current form of DIX by revising and shortening Conrad Kocher's chorale melody for “Treuer Heiland, wir sind hir,” found in Kocher's Stimmen aus den Reiche Gottes (1838). Monk's tune was published in the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, of which Monk was music editor.
Hail to the Lord’s Anointed
James Montgomery (1771-1854) was a Moravian minister and writer. In addition to his religious writings and hymns, he was the editor and a writer for a newspaper, The Sheffield Iris. As such, he was imprisoned twice, first for reprinting therein a song in commemoration of "The Fall of the Bastille," and the second for giving an account of a riot in Sheffield. The editing of his paper, the composition and publication of his poems and hymns, the delivery of lectures on poetry in Sheffield and at the Royal Institution, London, and the earnest advocacy of Foreign Missions and the Bible Society in many parts of the country, gave great variety to his life. After his death, a statue was erected to his memory in the Sheffield General Cemetery, and a stained glass window in the Parish Church. A Wesleyan chapel and a public hall are also named in his honor.
As a writer of hymns, he ranks in popularity with Wesley, Watts, Doddridge, Newton, and Cowper. Of Montgomery's 400 hymns (including his versions of the Psalms) more than 100 are still in common use. His finest lyrics are "Angels from the realms of glory," "Go to dark Gethsemane," "Hail to the Lord's Anointed," and "Songs of praise the angels sang." “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” is Montgomery's best psalm rendering. It is based on Psalm 72 and was written in eight stanzas for, and included in, a Christmas Ode which was sung at one of the Moravian settlements, perhaps Fulneck, in the United Kingdom, Christmas, 1821. It was published in the following year in the Evangelical Magazine and entitled "Imitation of the 72d psalm (Tune: Culmstock)."
Published in a chapel hymnal for the Duke of Würtemberg (Gesangbuch der Herzogl, 1784), ELLACOMBE (the name of a village in Devonshire, England) was first set to the words "Ave Maria, klarer und lichter Morgenstern." During the first half of the nineteenth century various German hymnals altered the tune. Since ELLACOMBE's inclusion in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern, where it was set to John Daniell's children's hymn "Come, Sing with Holy Gladness," its use throughout the English-speaking world has spread.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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