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:
Eucharistic Suite - Paul Tate
The “Eucharistic Suite” uses three communion hymn melodies: Pange Lingua Gloriosi, Tantum Ergo, and At That First Eucharist.
Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium is a hymn written by St Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) for the Feast of Corpus Christi (now called the Solemnity of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ), which St. Thomas drew up in 1263, at the request of Pope Urban IV. This hymn is considered the most beautiful of Aquinas' hymns and one of the great seven hymns of the Church. The rhythm of the Pange Lingua is said to have come down from a marching song of Caesar's Legions: "Ecce, Caesar nunc triumphat qui subegit Gallias." There are two plainchant settings of the Pange Lingua hymn. The better known is a Phrygian mode tune from the Roman liturgy, and the other is from the Mozarabic liturgy from Spain. The Roman tune was originally part of the Gallican Rite. It is found in the Roman (Venice, 1478; and again, untouched, in 1632); Mozarabic of 1502, Sarum, York, Aberdeen, Paris of 1736, and many other Breviaries. Pange Lingua has been translated into many different languages for worship throughout the world. However, the Latin version remains the most popular.
Thomas of Aquino, confessor and doctor, commonly called The Angelical Doctor, “on account of," says Dom Gueranger, "the extraordinary gift of understanding wherewith God had blessed him," was born of noble parents, his father being Landulph, Count of Aquino, and his mother a rich Neapolitan lady, named Theodora. The exact date of his birth is not known, but most trustworthy authorities give it as 1227. At the age of five he was sent to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino to receive his first training, which in the hands of a large-hearted and God-fearing man, resulted in so filling his mind with knowledge and his soul with God, that it is said the monks themselves would often approach by stealth to hear the words of piety and wisdom that fell from the lips of the precocious child when conversing with his companions.
St. Thomas was a most voluminous writer, his principal work being the celebrated Summa Theologiae, which, although never completed, was accepted as such an authority as to be placed on a table in the council-chamber at the Council of Trent alongside of the Holy Scriptures and the Decrees of the Popes. But it is outside the province of this work to enlarge on his prose works. Though not a prolific writer of hymns, St. Thomas has contributed to the long list of Latin hymns some which have been in use in the services of the Church of Rome from his day to this. They are upon the subject of the Lord's Supper. The best known are:—Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis Mysterium; Adoro te devote latens Deitas; Sacris sollemniis juncta sint gaudia; Lauda Sion Salvatorem; and Verbum supernum prodiens. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th of these are found in the Roman Breviary, the 2nd, 4th, and 5th in Newman's Hymni Ecclesiae; the 4th in the Roman Missal; all of them appear in Daniel; the 2nd and 4th in Mone; and the 2nd, 4th, and 5th in Königsfeld. Of these hymns numerous translations have been made from time to time, and amongst the translators are found Caswall, Neale, Woodford, Morgan, and others.
Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory, Of His Flesh, the mystery sing;
Of the Blood, all price exceeding, Shed by our Immortal King,
Destined, for the world's redemption, From a noble Womb to spring.
Of a pure and spotless Virgin Born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing, Stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
Then He closed in solemn order Wondrously His Life of woe.
On the night of that Last Supper, Seated with His chosen band,
He, the Paschal Victim eating, First fulfils the Law's command;
Then as Food to all his brethren Gives Himself with His own Hand.
Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature By His Word to Flesh He turns;
Wine into His Blood He changes: What though sense no change discerns.
Only be the heart in earnest, Faith her lesson quickly learns.
Down in adoration falling, Lo, the sacred Host we hail,
Lo, o'er ancient forms departing Newer rites of grace prevail:
Faith for all defects supplying, When the feeble senses fail.
To the Everlasting Father And the Son who comes on high
With the Holy Ghost proceeding Forth from each eternally,
Be salvation, honor, blessing, Might and endless majesty.
Amen. Alleluia.
The last two verses of Pange lingua (Tantum ergo) are often separated out. They mark the end of the procession of the monstrance in Holy Thursday liturgy. Various separate musical settings have been written for this. The "Genitori genitoque" and "Procedenti ab utroque" portions are adapted from Adam of Saint Victor's sequence for Pentecost. The hymn's Latin incipit literally translates to "Therefore so great”.
Hence so greatly the Sacrament
Let us venerate with heads bowed,
And let the old practice Give way to the new rite;
Let faith provide a supplement For the failure of the senses.
To the Begetter and the Begotten, Be praise and jubilation,
Hail, honour, virtue also, And blessing too:
To the One proceeding from Both Let there be equal praise.
Amen.
℣. You have provided them bread from heaven.
℟. Having in itself all delight.
℣. Let us pray: O God, who to us in this wonderful Sacrament,
bequeathed a memorial of Your Passion: grant, we beseech, that we,
in worshipping the Holy Mysteries of Your Body and Blood, may
within ourselves continually, sensibly perceive the fruit of Your
redemption. You who live and reign into ages of ages.
℟. Amen.
“At That First Eucharist” was written by William Harry Turton (1856-1938). Turton was a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and published A Few Hymns written by A Layman between the Festivals of All Saints, 1880 and 1881. This contains 12 hymns. The Second Series, "written between the Festivals of All Saints, 1881 and 1882," also contains 12 hymns, and the Third Series, 1882-1883, another 12. This hymn was used at Ste. Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square, N. W., in the Anniversary Service of the English Church Union, June 22,1881. It was sung after the ‘Agnus Dei,' at a choral celebration. In the 1889 Supplemental Hymns to Hymns Ancient & Modern it reads "Thou, Who at Thy first Eucharist didst pray.”
The tune UNDE ET MEMORES was written by William H. Monk (1823-1889), who is best known for his music editing of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861, 1868; 1875, and 1889 editions). He also adapted music from plainsong and added accompaniments for Introits for Use Throughout the Year, a book issued with that famous hymnal. Beginning in his teenage years, Monk held a number of musical positions. He became choirmaster at King's College in London in 1847 and was organist and choirmaster at St. Matthias, Stoke Newington, from 1852 to 1889, where he was influenced by the Oxford Movement. At St. Matthias, Monk also began daily choral services with the choir leading the congregation in music chosen according to the church year, including psalms chanted to plainsong. He composed over fifty hymn tunes and edited The Scottish Hymnal (1872 edition) and Wordsworth's Hymns for the Holy Year (1862) as well as the periodical Parish Choir (1840-1851).
At that first Eucharist before you died,
O Lord, you prayed that all be one in you;
At this our Eucharist again preside,
And in our hearts your law of love renew.
For all your church, O Lord, we intercede;
O make our lack of charity to cease;
Draw us the nearer each to each we plead,
By drawing all to you, O Prince of Peace.
We pray for those who wander from the fold;
O bring them back, Good Shepherd of the sheep,
Back to the faith which saints believed of old,
Back to the Church which still that faith does keep.
Thus may we all one Bread, one Body be;
Through this blest Sacrament of Unity.
Paul A. Tate, a graduate of the University of Georgia, is a professional musician living in Sugar Hill, Georgia. As an active workshop presenter and concert performer, Paul has released a dozen recordings and published over 100 original songs and arrangements. His liturgical compositions appear in a number of hymnal resources, and his voice has been heard around the world on Sirius Satellite Radio.
About the Organ Music:
Gesthsemane - Ronald Besemer
“Go to Dark Gethsemane” is a Lenten hymn that spotlights scenes from the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ’s life. It takes us on a journey from the Garden of Gethsemane where we are charged to stand and watch, to the judgment hall and our denial of him, to the cross where we witness his death and his grace, and finally to his glorious resurrection and our redemption. We become part of the drama of Christ’s passion and resurrection.
The poet repeats the phrase “learn of” at the end of each stanza, charging us to apply each scene to our lives. James Montgomery uses repetition to draw attention to what he considers important about each scene and each stanza. “Learn of Jesus Christ to pray” encourages us to remember the scene of the garden and to go to God in fervent prayer. “Learn of Christ to bear the cross” is a charge to lay down our lives, take up the cross and follow Christ. “Learn of Jesus Christ to die” is a reminder of what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
James Montgomery( 1771-1854), considered one of the most important hymn writers of the English language, wrote this beautiful hymn in 1820. He was born in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of Moravian missionary John Montgomery. When Montgomery was 5 years old, his parents moved him to a Moravian settlement at Bracehill, Ireland, near Ballymena in Antrim County. Soon after, his parents accepted a call to the mission field and left him behind in Bracehill. He never saw his parents again. They both died while in the Barbados Islands. At age 7, Montgomery was enrolled at Fulneck Seminary in Yorkshire, where he would remain for the next nine years. Struggling to meet the expectations of his instructors, he left the school at age 16 and became an apprentice at a chandler’s shop in Mirfield. After five years, he tired of the work and took an apprenticeship with Joseph Gales, the owner and publisher of the Sheffield Register. For two years he learned about the publishing business, and in 1794, when Gales was forced to flee the country to avoid imprisonment, Montgomery took over the Register and changed its name to the Sheffield Iris. Montgomery published and managed the Sheffield Iris for 32 years. He used the Iris as a tool to distribute the 360 hymns written throughout his life. His most well-known hymns are “Angels, From the Realms of Glory,” “Go to Dark Gethsemane,” “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,” “Songs of Praise the Angels Sang” and “Stand Up and Bless the Lord.”
Montgomery’s “Go to Dark Gethsemane” is still one of his most widely used hymns, most often sung during Lent or during Holy Week. The first three stanzas are most commonly available in hymnals. The fourth stanza, though often omitted today, has been preserved in The United Methodist Hymnal. Even though the text is now over 185 years old, it has rarely been altered. Many hymns from this era use language that is no longer common in today’s hymns or speech. Hymnal editors typically remove antiquated language and replace it with modern equivalents, but this hymn has remained essentially intact. This beautiful somber hymn has stood the test of time. We benefit from the art and poetry of Montgomery still today.
The hymn tune GESTHSEMANE was written by Christopher Tye (c.1530-1580), who lived during the reign of Henry VIII. He was celebrated as a musician, and was granted the degree of MUS. D. at Cambridge in 1545. He was musical tutor to King Edward VI., and organist of the Chapel Royal under Queen Elizabeth I. Besides composing numerous anthems, he rendered the first fourteen chapters of the Acts of the Apostles into metre, which were set to music by him and sung in Edward 6th's Chapel, and published in 1553.
Go to dark Gethsemane, You who feel the tempter's pow’r;
Your Redeemer's conflict see; Watch with Him one bitter hour;
Turn not from His griefs away; Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.
Follow to the judgment hall; View the Lord of life arraigned;
O the worm-wood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suff'ring, shame, or loss; Learn of Him to bear the cross.
Calv'ry's mournful mountain climb There' adoring at His feet,
Mark the miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete:
"It is finished!" Hear the cry; Learn of Jesus Christ to die.
Early hasten to the tomb Where they laid his breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom; Who hath taken Him away?
Christ is ris'n! He meets our eyes: Savior, teach us so to rise.
Ronald Besemer (b. 1950) studied at Dr. Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minnesota, and Concordia College, River Forest, Illinois. He is choral director at Lakeside High School, Lake Mills, Wisconsin.
About the Vocal Solo Music:
Come Ye Disconsolate - Cesar Franck
Thomas Moore (1779-1852) was an Irish writer, poet and lyricist. Son of John Moore, a Dublin tradesman, he received his education at a private school, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He studied law and held a post in the Bermuda government for a time. Politically, Moore was an Irish nationalist. He was recognized in England as a press, or "squib", writer for the aristocratic Whigs; in Ireland, he was considered a Catholic patriot. In the controversies that surrounded Catholic Emancipation Moore was seen to defend the tradition of the Church in Ireland against both evangelising Protestants and uncompromising lay Catholics. His longer prose works reveal his radical sympathies. The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald depicts the United Irish leader as a martyr in the cause of democratic reform. Memoirs of Captain Rock is a saga, not of Anglo-Irish landowners, but of their exhausted tenants. Today, Moore is best remembered for his Irish Melodies. Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish to English. He wrote 32 hymns, including “Come, Ye Disconsolate” was published in 1816 with the title “Relief in Prayer”. The word “disconsolate” speaks of an unhappy person who has been unable to find any consolation or comfort. Moore’s poem expresses the assurance that God provides comfort for all ills.
Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat, in fervent prayer to kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
There’s no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
There’s no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Here see the bread of life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, divinely from above.
Come to the feast prepared; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heav’n can remove.
Earth has no sorrow but God in heaven can remove.
The text is set to the music Cesar Franck wrote for the Panis Angelicus (Angelic Bread). César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck (1822-1890) was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who was born at Liège, in what is now Belgium (though at the time of his birth it was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands). In that city he gave his first concerts in 1834. He studied privately in Paris from 1835. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception to an early oratorio Ruth, he moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a formidable improviser, and travelled widely in France to demonstrate new organs built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. In 1858, he became organist at Sainte-Clotilde, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He became professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872; he became a French citizen, a requirement of the appointment.
He wrote for organ and piano, as well as orchestral and choral works. His music is often contrapuntally complex, using a harmonic language that is prototypically late Romantic, showing a great deal of influence from Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his compositions, Franck showed a talent and a penchant for frequent, graceful modulations of key. Franck had huge hands, capable of spanning twelve white keys on the keyboard. This allowed him unusual flexibility in voice-leading between internal parts in fugal composition, and in the size of the repeated chords which are a feature of much of his keyboard music. Of the Violin Sonata's writing it has been said: "Franck, blissfully apt to forget that not every musician's hands were as enormous as his own, littered the piano part (the last movement in particular) with major-tenth chords... most mere pianistic mortals ever since have been obligated to spread them in order to play them at all." The key to his music may be found in his personality. His friends record that he was "a man of utmost humility, simplicity, reverence and industry." Louis Vierne, a pupil and later organist titulaire of Notre-Dame, wrote in his memoirs that Franck showed a "constant concern for the dignity of his art, for the nobility of his mission, and for the fervent sincerity of his sermon in sound... Joyous or melancholy, solemn or mystic, powerful or ethereal: Franck was all those at Sainte-Clotilde."
About the Hymns:
For the Bread Which Thou Hast Broken
Louis F. Benson (1855-1930), who wrote the lyrics of “For the Bread Which You Have Broken,” was educated at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and practiced law for seven years before pursuing theological studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1886, he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Benson served as pastor for six years at Christ the Redeemer in Germantown, PA, before stepping down to devote himself to literary work in the service of the church.
Benson did extensive work as an editor for several hymnals authorized for use by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. These hymnals include The Hymnal 1895, The Chapel Hymnal 1898, and The School Hymnal 1899. In 1905, he also edited the Book of Common Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America with Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933), who was the author of the well-known hymn, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee." Benson’s seminal publication The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in Worship 1915 is regarded as a definitive work on the subject and secured him a place among American hymnological scholars.
“For the Bread Which You Have Broken” is a post-Communion hymn that first appeared in Louis F. Benson’s private collection, Hymns Original and Translated (Philadelphia, 1925). The first three stanzas were written on November 21, 1924. A fourth stanza was suggested by Henry Sloane Coffin (1877-1954), who, at the time, was pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, that shows a relationship between the sacrament of Communion and going into the world to serve. In the first stanza, Benson recalls Christ’s actions at the Last Supper in which the Eucharist was instituted. However, instead of Christ giving thanks, the church gives thanks for the gift of the Eucharist as reflected in the phrase: “now we give you thanks, O Lord." Because of the sacrifice Christ made for the church, it proves his love for his people. This truth is reflected in the second stanza and is also reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s reflection on love in Romans 12:9-21. “With our sainted ones in glory” begins the third stanza and recalls the “great a cloud of witnesses” in Hebrews 12:1-2. In the second half of the third stanza, Benson makes a request for the church to keep the love of Christ until the second coming. The call to service in the fourth stanza ends with the hope expressed in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:10, “your kingdom come.”
The hymn tune FOR THE BREAD (also known as KINGDOM) was written by V. Earle Copes (1921–2014). Copes was a distinguished composer, teacher, performer, editor, and elder in the United Methodist Church, an important force in the development of Methodist’s professional standards, a champion of Wesleyan and ecumenical hymnody, and leader in the expansion of church music repertory, styles, and performance practices. He was educated at Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina (BA, 1942), and Union Theological Seminary, New York, (MSM, 1944, BD, 1945). He served as minister of music at Highland Park Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas, and served as a consultant for the 1966 revision of the United Methodist Hymnal.
For the bread which thou hast broken,
for the wine which thou hast poured,
For the words which thou hast spoken,
Now we give thee thanks, O Lord.
By this pledge that thou dost love us,
By the gift of peace restored,
By thy call to heaven above us,
Hallow all our lives, O Lord.
In thy service, Lord, defend us,
In our hearts keep watch and ward,
In the world where thou dost send us,
Let thy kingdom come, O Lord.
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face
Adoro te devote is one of five beautiful hymns St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) composed in honor of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Pope Urban IV's (1261-1264) request when the Pope first established the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. The hymn is found in the Roman Missal as a prayer of thanksgiving after Mass.
The paraphrase of the Latin text found in our hymnal is:
Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen,
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon thee lean.
This setting is to the hymn tune PENETENTIA by Edward Dearle (1806-1891), an organist and composer based in England. He was born in Cambridge and was a chorister at King's College, Cambridge. He was awarded Bachelor of Music at Cambridge in 1836 and Doctor of Music in 1842. He served as organist at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-Trent. In 1837, Dearle won the Gresham Prize for his anthem "Turn thee again.” He was a founder of Trinity College, Weymouth Street, Portland Place, London in 1875.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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