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:
Aus tiefer not - J. C. Bach
Martin Luther (1483-1546) is important in the history of hymnody for restoring congregational singing in worship. In addition, Luther wrote hymns and composed hymn tunes. Luther was one of the primary theologians of the Protestant Reformation and established the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany. Lutheranism eventually spread throughout Europe and North America. Luther had a unique theological perspective: Justification by Faith (salvation is a gift from God and is available through acceptance. It is not attained through 'works.'). Luther's theological views are evident in his hymns.
Luther wrote both the text and tune of “Aus tiefer not schrei ich zu dir" (From deep affliction I cry out to you), originally "Aus tieffer not schrey ich zu dir" and published it in the Achtliederbuch in 1524, one of several hymnals he published. The text is based on Psalm 130.
Out of the deep I cry to thee; O Lord God, hear my crying:
Incline thy gracious ear to me, With prayer to thee applying.
For if thou fix thy searching eye On all sin and iniquity,
Who, Lord, can stand before thee?
For this, my hope in God shall rest, Naught building on my merit;
My heart confides, of him possest, His goodness stays my spirit.
His precious word assureth me; My solace, my sure rock is he,
Whereon my soul abideth.
What though our sins are manifold? Supreme his mercy reigneth;
No limit can his hand withhold, Where evil most obtaineth.
He the good Shepherd is alone, Who Israel will redeem and won,
Forgiving all transgression.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s life was surrounded by Johann Christophs: an uncle, a cousin, an older brother, and a son. Here we have a chorale prelude by his 1st cousin once removed, who became the town organist in Eisenach in the year 1665 and court chamber musician there in 1700. Prior to Johann Sebastian, Johann Christoph (1642-1703) would have been considered the most famous musician of the Bach family. His work is of the highest quality and, in some instances, has been improperly attributed to Johann Sebastian himself (e.g. the motet Ich lasse dich nicht). Johann Christoph composed choral works (motets and cantatas) and works for organ (preludes and fugues). Johann Sebastian described his cousin as "the great and expressive composer," and performed his works often as did Carl Philipp Emanuel.
About the Piano Music:
Pie Jesu - Gabriel Faure/Heather Slater
“Pie Jesu” means “Kind Jesus,” and the Latin text calls on “the Lamb of God” to show mercy to his people, which is at the heart of Christian spirituality. The “Pie Jesu” is an ancient motet based on the the last couplet of the “Dies Irae,” the hymn of the “Day of Wrath” that was part of the old Latin Requiem Mass. Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, between 1887 and 1890. Its focus is on rest and consolation. Fauré wrote of the work, "Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious belief I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith.”
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845-1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to the Ecole Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. He became organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the Modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of Fauré's death, jazz and the atonal music of the Second Viennese School were being heard. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, notes that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of harmony for later generations. During the last twenty years of his life, he suffered from increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times turbulent and impassioned.
Although written for the mass for the dead, this text seem appropriate for all of us in these times. Lamb of God, give us rest.
Kind Jesus, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest, Everlasting Rest.
Heather Slater is a staff arranger and editor for Hal Leonard Corporation.
About the Vocal Solo Music:
There is a Balm in Gilead – Mark Hayes
Paul Burnett, baritone
This is a well-known traditional African-American spiritual. The “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament, but the lyrics of this spiritual refer to the New Testament concept of salvation through Jesus Christ. The Balm of Gilead is interpreted as a spiritual medicine that is able to heal Israel (and sinners in general). In the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead is taken most directly from Jeremiah chapter 8 v. 22: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wounds of my [God's] people?" (Another allusion can also be found in Jeremiah chapter 46, v. 2 and 11: “This is the message (of the Lord) against the army of Pharaoh Neco … Go up to Gilead and get balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt, but you multiply remedies in vain; here is no healing for you” - see also Jeremiah chapter 22, v. 6.)
The first appearance of the spiritual in something close to its current form is uncertain. A version of the refrain can be found in Washington Glass's 1854 hymn "The Sinner's Cure”. Glass attributed this hymn to himself, but like several of the hymns so attributed, it is substantially the work of another. The 1925 7-shape Primitive Baptist songbook Harp of Ages has an unattributed song "Balm in Gilead" with a similar chorus, but verses drawn from a Charles Wesley hymn, "Father I Stretch My Hands to Thee."
The second verse ("If you can't...") is also found in some versions of another well-known spiritual "(Walk That) Lonesome Valley." "Wandering verses," as they are often called, are quite common in the camp meeting and revival context, and were already found in the African-American community, as shown by Richard Allen's 1801 "A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs Selected from Various Authors."
There is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul.
Sometimes I feel discouraged, And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit Revives my soul again.
If you can preach like Peter, if you can preach like Paul,
Go home and tell your neighbor, “He died to save us all.”
If you cannot sing like angels, If you can’t preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus, And say He died for all.
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 Hymns:
Heal Me, Hands of Jesus
“Heal me, Hands of Jesus” was written by Michael Perry in 1982. Perry (1942-1996) was educated at Dulwich College; University College, London; Oak Hill Theological College, London; University of Cambridge (Ridley Hall); and University of Southampton. He was ordained in the Church of England and had served four different parishes when he died at age 54, losing a battle to cancer.
One of the organizations that helped define Perry’s ministry through music was the Jubilate Group. The group was founded by Michael Baughen in the 1960s, and by the 1970s was made up of 11 members, including Perry. The Jubilate Group’s mission is to meet the challenge of a new generation in the UK, a generation which wished to extend its singing beyond the foursquare ways of metrical hymnody.
Perry was named the honorary editorial secretary of Jubilate Hymns, Ltd, and helped edit most of the books issued by Jubilate Hymns including what hymnologist Erik Routley said is the “defining collection” of the group, Hymns for Today’s Church (1982).
“Heal me, Hands of Jesus” was written, according to Perry, to “fill the tremendous gap in hymns about healing.” Some textual changes were made from the original text before its first publication, with permission of Perry. In his A Panorama of Christian Hymnody, hymnologist Paul A. Richardson notes that this hymn’s “direct and parallel petitions . . . convey both intimacy and fervency.” This hands-on and personal imagery of Jesus is typical of Perry and Jubilate Group’s aesthetic. While maintaining an intimate feeling, the text also speaks universally, including pain, bitterness, sin, and anxiety in the four stanzas respectively. Setting out to write a hymn about healing, Perry did well to include not only the healing of the physical body, but also the healing of the soul and mind.
Norman L. Warren (b. 1934) wrote the tune SUTTON COMMON for Perry’s text within the context of the Jubilate Group, of which he was a founding member. Warren also went to Dulwich College, and studied music and theology at Corpus Christi College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge, earning his bachelors and masters degrees. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1960, and served four parishes before his retirement in 2000. Warren, whose main instrument is the organ, has had more than 100 of his hymn tunes published. He also wrote Journey into Life (1964), the world’s best-selling evangelistic booklet.
Heal me, hands of Jesus, and search out all my pain;
restore my hope, remove my fear, and bring me peace again.
Cleanse me, blood of Jesus, take bitterness away;
let me forgive as one forgiven and bring me peace today.
Know me, mind of Jesus, and show me all my sin;
dispel the memories of guilt and bring me peace within.
Fill me, joy of Jesus; anxiety shall cease,
and heaven's serenity be mine, for Jesus brings me peace!
Jesus, Lover of my Soul
“Jesus, lover of my soul” is perhaps one of the most personal hymns penned by Charles Wesley (1707-1788). The understanding that Jesus as a “lover” seems to have made many squeamish at the very idea, especially an idea that should be expressed in public worship. Is this hymn better for private devotions? Yet, according to hymnologist Kenneth W. Osbeck, this hymn is considered to be among Wesley’s greatest hymns. It demonstrates, among many other things, Charles Wesley’s vast knowledge of biblical texts, classic literature, and other intellectual sources of his era.
Wesley, always meticulous in drawing upon biblical or classical sources, continued this practice in this hymn. The apocryphal book, The Wisdom of Solomon, 11:23-26, provides the inspiration for this primary theme of this hymn: “But thou hast mercy upon all; for thou canst do all things, and winkest at the sins of men, because they should amend. For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made any thing, if thou hadst hated it. And how could any thing have endured, if it had not been thy will? or been preserved, if not called by thee? But thou sparest all: for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls.” Another possible source is Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471), who often commented on the nature of love. In The Imitation of Christ, for example, he states: “A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.” Another quote also addresses Jesus’ followers as “lovers”: “Jesus has now many lovers of the heavenly kingdom but few bearers of His cross.”
“Jesus, lover of my soul” foreshadows famous hymns on a related theme including “Rock of Ages” (1776) by English Anglican turned Calvinist Augustus M. Toplady, and “Abide with me” (1847) by Scottish Anglican Henry Francis Lyte. Like these hymns, “Jesus, lover of my soul” has attracted a number of stories. Some have tried to connect the sea images in the hymn to the tumultuous voyage of the Wesley brothers to America in 1736. Rather than focusing on the circumstances surrounding the poem’s composition, there can be no doubt as to its influence and popularity on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1877), the great American preacher, stated: “I would rather have written this hymn of Wesley’s than to have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on earth.” Richard Watson does not doubt the veracity of the “story of the soldier in the American Civil War who was about to shoot a picket from the other side when he heard him singing, ‘Cover my defenseless head/With the shadow of thy wing.'”
Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide; Oh, receive my soul at last.
Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing.
Wilt Thou not regard my call? Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?
Lo! I sink, I faint, I fall— Lo! on Thee I cast my care.
Reach me out Thy gracious hand! While I of Thy strength receive,
Hoping against hope I stand, Dying, and behold, I live.
Thou, O Christ, art all I want, More than all in Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, Heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is Thy Name, Source of all true righteousness;
Thou art evermore the same, Thou art full of truth and grace.
Plenteous grace with Thee is found, Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound; Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art, Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart; Rise to all eternity.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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