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; most of it is copied from other websites 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:
Quietude - George Blake
(c.1990, Belgian-Mills Publishing)
"Speak, Lord, in the Stillness" was written by Emily May Grimes Crawford (1864-1927), who was born at Lambeth in Surrey, England. In 1893, she went as a missionary to Pondoland in South Africa, where she married Dr. T. W. W. Crawford, an Anglican minister with the Christian Missionary Society of Kikuyu in British East Africa. While in South Africa, she penned "The Master Comes! He Calls for Thee" in 1896, and these words under the title "The Quiet Hour." They were first published in her 1920 work Unseen Realities.
The tune (Quietude) was composed by Harold Green (1871-1930). The son of a minister from Helme near Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England, and also a missionary in Pondoland, Green provided this music for Mrs. Crawford’s words around 1925, about five years before his death on the mission field. The song quickly became a favorite at the Keswick Convention in northern England and appeared in The Keswick Hymnbook of 1936 in England.
Speak, Lord, in the stillness, While I wait on Thee;
Hushed my heart to listen, In expectancy.
Speak, O blessed Master, In this quiet hour;
Let me see Thy face, Lord, Feel Thy touch of power.
For the words Thou speakest, They are life indeed;
Living bread from heaven, Now my spirit feed!
All to Thee is yielded, I am not my own;
Blissful, glad surrender, I am Thine alone.
Speak, Thy servant heareth, Be not silent, Lord;
Waits my soul upon Thee For the quickening word.
Fill me with the knowledge Of Thy glorious will;
All Thine own good pleasure In Thy child fulfill.
Like a watered garden, Full of fragrance rare,
Lingering in Thy presence, Let my life appear.
At age fourteen, George Blake (1912–1986) began to play the theater organ professionally at the Franklin Theatre in Nutley, New Jersey. His father having died when he was very young, Blake quickly became the primary supporter of his family through his performing, and he lived with his mother in New Jersey for many years until her death. His younger brother was the cartoonist Bud Blake (of the popular comic strip "Tiger.") A student and protégé of Lew White (organist of the original Roxy Theatre), George Blake served as principal organist for a number of theaters in New Jersey and New York City, including the New Roxy (later the Center Theatre) in Rockefeller Center. He was also a regular performer on several radio programs of the day, including the "Lucky Strike Hour." As the age of the cinema organist ended, Blake focused primarily on sacred music. During his cinema years, he was organist at several churches in New Jersey including St. Andrew's Episcopal (South Orange) and Grace Episcopal (Nutley) and was the school organist for Columbia High School (Maplewood). Blake composed and published extensively in both sacred and secular genres. He cowrote a number of popular songs with Richard Leibert, organist of Radio City Music Hall, several of which were performed and recorded by leading artists of the day, including Mario Lanza.
Toccata - Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era. Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, as well as the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard variations.
Pachelbel studied music at Altdorf and Regensburg and held posts as organist in Vienna, Stuttgart, and other cities. In 1695 he was appointed organist at the St. Sebalduskirche in Nürnberg, where he remained until his death. He also taught organ, and one of his pupils was Johann Christoph Bach, who in turn gave his younger brother Johann Sebastian Bach his first formal keyboard lessons.
A toccata (from Italian toccare, "to touch") is a virtuoso piece of music, typically for keyboard, featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise rapid passages or sections.
About the Piano Music:
As the Deer - Kurt Kaiser
(c.1991, Maranatha! Music)
“As the deer,” written in 1981, is one of the most popular songs in the contemporary Christian musical genre written in the latter twentieth century. Martin J. Nystrom (b. 1956) is a native of Seattle, Washington. After graduating from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma, he served as musical evangelist with Christ for the Nations, Dallas, Texas, and produced five praise and worship albums for Hosanna! Music, Mobile, Alabama.
Lindsay Terry, in his book The Sacrifice of Praise: The Stories Behind the Greatest Praise and Worship Songs of All Time (2002), describes the circumstances surrounding the creation of this song:
Marty was a schoolteacher in Seattle, and since he had the summer off, he decided to go to the summer term of Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas. Little did he know what was about to happen to him, especially with all that he would be exposed to and the worship emphasis of the school. . .
He had graduated from Oral Roberts University and, frankly, was a little overwhelmed in ministry. He had been involved in many things at the school, not the least of which was the television ministry of ORU. All of his studies combined with many other activities had caused stress to take its toll on Marty’s spiritual life. . . .
Marty’s roommate at CFNI was a vibrant Christian who challenged Marty to go on a fast, thinking it would help him recover his joy. Marty took up the challenge, and on the nineteenth day of the fast, he found himself sitting at the piano in a room of the school, trying to write a song. He was simply playing chord progressions when he noticed a Bible on the music stand of the piano, open to Psalm 42. His eyes fell on the first verse of that chapter. After reading the verse he began to sing its message, right off the page. He wrote the first verse and the chorus of a song, practically straight through. The entire song was completed in a matter of minutes.”
Though Mr. Nystrom had not intended to perform the song publically, he shared it with a friend at Christ for the Nations before returning to Seattle. His friend introduced it to the others at the Institute, and it became a favorite. Contrary to his website, the composer appears to have written closer to 250 songs. He travels extensively in the United States and Asia, participating in conferences and retreats.
As the deer panteth for the water So my soul longeth after thee.
You alone are my heart's desire, And I long to worship thee.
Kurt Kaiser's (1934-2018) attended The American Conservatory of Music and Northwestern University School of Music, where he earned both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in music. In 1959, he joined Word Records as Director of Artists and Repertoire. He later became Vice-president and Director of Music there. From 1965 through 1970, Kaiser served as director of the Baylor Religious Hour Choir. Kurt Kaiser and his friend Ralph Carmichael began writing Christian rock musicals geared to reach out to the youth of the time. Crossing denominational boundaries, many of Kurt's compositions have found their way into a number of hymnals, including “Pass It On” and “O How He Loves You and Me”. Kurt has achieved subtle trend changes by maintaining a sensitivity to that which is widely acceptable. His innovative approach has broadened musical styles that are palatable to the church at large. Associations with the Eastman School of Music and the Baylor University acapella choir, as well as many other fine choral groups are indicative of his taste for fine choral literature. Kurt finds it equally challenging to assist volunteer choirs to enjoy singing while bettering their art. He helped to found the Day Spring Baptist Church in Waco, Texas and is their choir director. In 2001 he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
About the Choral Music:
We Beseech Thee - Robert Graham
(c. 1963, Elkan-Vogel Co.)
Robert V. Graham (1912-1992) was born in El Dorado, Kansas. He attended Eastman School of music from 1933 to 1936, working in the girls’ dining hall and coping music for the Sibley Library for money to live on. He also worked as an accompanist there for several years. He dropped out after three years to teach privately.
At the outset of World War II, Graham moved to Wichita, to take a job in a war plant. He entered the U.S. Army in 1944, where he served as an assistant to Chaplain Willi Frey in Camp Hood, Texas and later with the Army of Occupation, Eighth Army Headquarters in Yokohama, Japan.
He was discharged in 1947, and returned to Rochester, New York. He received the degree of Bachelor of Music with Distinction from the Eastman School of Music in 1950. He later received the Master of Music (in Composition) from the University of Redlands, California.
From 1952 to 1954, Graham worked as a missionary teacher at St. Margaret’s Episcopal in Tokyo. Returning to California in 1954, Graham was a piano and organ teacher for private students, and church organist for St. Paul’s Episcopal in Pomona, California. Robert continued work for the overseas missions of the Protestant Episcopal church, making a lecture tour, and acting as liaison between American and Japanese music publishing houses.
Among awards he received are an early one from the Kansas Federation of Music Clubs, and the Hubert Prize for outstanding work in the field of musical composition in 1951. In 1956, he was chosen as one of the top 12 outstanding composers of educational music for piano in America.
This text is adapted by Jeana Graham, Robert’s wife, from the collect for Evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer (1662). Jeana was a 1937 graduate of Eastman. A gifted poet, over the following years she provided the lyrical settings for a sizeable segment of her husband’s musical works.
We beseech Thee, O Lord, to grant us pardon and peace;
That we may serve Thee with a quiet mind, through Jesus Christ the Lord.
Amen.
About the Hymns:
Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days
(c.1989, United Methodist Publishing House)
Claudia Frances Ibotson Hernaman’s hymn, “Lord, who throughout these forty days,” signals the beginning of Lent and is often sung during Ash Wednesday services or throughout the season of Lent. Forty is a number with special biblical significance. It rained for forty days and nights when the earth was overtaken by floodwaters, and Noah waited another forty days before opening the window of the Ark. Israel wandered in the desert for forty years. Jesus was seen on earth following the resurrection for forty days. In this case, Christ’s forty days in the wilderness provides the primary paradigm for the forty days of Lent.
Claudia Hernaman (1838-1898) was born in Surrey, England, and died in Brussels, Belgium. She was the daughter of an Anglican minister, and she married a minister who also served as a school inspector. Like so many other women hymn writers of the nineteenth century, she was devoted to the religious education of children. Toward this end, she wrote 150 hymns in several collections, some original and some translated from Latin.
"Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days" appeared first in her Child’s Book of Praise; A Manual for Devotion in Simple Verse (1873). It was not included in hymnals, however, until the mid-twentieth century, when it appeared in the Irish Church Hymnal (1960) and Hymns for Church and School (1964). By the 1970s, “Lord, who throughout these forty days” was a standard hymn in most hymnals in the United States. It is based on the account of the temptation of Jesus found in three Gospels -- Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13.
LAND OF REST is an American folk tune with roots in the ballads of northern England and Scotland. It was known throughout the Appalachians; a shape-note version of the tune was published in The Sacred Harp (1844) and titled NEW PROSPECT as the setting for "O land of rest! for thee I sigh." The tune was published again with that same text in J. R. Graves's Little Seraph (Memphis, 1873). The name LAND OF REST derives from the tune's association with that text.
The tune was known to Annabel M. Buchanan (b. Groesbeck, TX, 1888; d. Paducah KY, 1983), whose grandmother sang it to her as a child. She harmonized the tune and published it in her Folk Hymns of America (1938). Known as a musicologist of American folk music, Buchanan was educated at the Landon Conservatory, Dallas, Texas, and the Guilmant Organ School, New York City. She taught at several colleges, including Stonewall Jackson College, Abingdoll, Virginia. Buchanan published numerous articles on folk traditions of the Appalachian area of the United States. She also lectured widely on this topic and gave recitals of folk music. Her own compositions also show the influence of folk music.
Lord, who throughout these forty days For us did fast and pray,
Teach us to overcome our sins, And close by You to stay.
As You with Satan did contend And did the vict'ry win,
O give us strength in You to fight, In You to conquer sin.
As You did hunger and did thirst, So teach us, gracious Lord,
To die to self, and only live By Your most holy word.
And through these days of penitence, And through Your Passion-tide,
For evermore, in life and death, O Lord, with us abide.
Abide with us that, when this life Of suffering is past,
An Easter of unending joy We may attain at last!
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" was written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton (1725–1807). With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world.
Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was drafted into the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. However, he continued his slave trading career until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether and began studying Christian theology.
Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It was first printed in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns, but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States however, "Amazing Grace" was used extensively during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than 20 melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named "New Britain" to which it is most frequently sung today.
The melody sung to John Newton’s 1779 hymn “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound” is, without a doubt, America’s best-loved hymn tune. Unlike Lowell Mason’s “Nearer, my God, to thee,” the “Amazing grace” tune is of unknown origin. It first appeared in print in 1829 without any composer attribution, and there were thought to be no earlier surviving instances of the tune. However, an 1828 manuscript by Lucius Chapin (1760-1842), who was famous in his day as a hymn tune writer, raises the possibility that Lucius was its composer.
Lucius and his brother Amzi (1768-1835) were among the first and most influential composers to harmonize American folk hymns, using principles they had absorbed from New England and English church music, and perhaps from the oral tradition as well. They also composed hymns in a similar style. The brothers came from a large, musical Massachusetts family. Their mother was an exceptional singer, though she did not read music, and two of their brothers also became singing masters. Lucius and Amzi moved south and west as young men and taught singing schools throughout their lives. In 1828, Lucius was living in central Kentucky and Amzi in western Pennsylvania. The 1828 manuscript was mentioned in passing in James Scholten’s 1972 dissertation on Lucius and Amzi Chapin. On July 25, 1828, Lusius’ son Cephas died from typhus in Oxford, Ohio en route home to visit his parents. There are three tender expressions of paternal love and grief on the back of Cephas’ last letter penned there by Lucius, the tunes AMAZING GRACE and BRAINARD and a brief poem.
The familiar melody had a number of titles in its early publications: ST. MARY’S, GALLAHER, HARMONY GROVE (Shenandoah Harmony), NEW BRITAIN (Sacred Harp), and more. The one title it did not have was AMAZING GRACE, though that title was used for at least two other melodies. The tune wasn’t paired with Newton’s text until 1835. The great nineteenth-century scholar W.E. Chute (1832-1900) attributed the melody to the Chapins.
It is possible that NEW BRITAIN was added to the manuscript after 1828, or copied from a source that does not survive. However, the version here doesn’t exactly match any tune found, either published or in manuscript, in Nikos Pappas’ exhaustive index of over 60,000 early American hymn tunes (1700-1870). It is closest to the tune ST. MARY’S found in Shaw and Spilman’s Columbian Harmony (1829) [4]. Like Lucius, Shaw and Spilman lived in central Kentucky.
Even if Lucius were the first to notate the tune, the concept of “authorship” in this repertoire is difficult. Composers felt free to write arrangements of popular sacred or secular melodies in oral tradition and publish them, either as unattributed tunes or with their own names attached. They also made their own versions of tunes in books or manuscripts, appropriated and rearranged European classical music, and composed music from scratch in a folk idiom.
If Lucius didn’t compose NEW BRITAIN, then who did? The basic structure of the tune is ancient. NEW BRITAIN is a folk hymn—a sacred melody that existed, in some form, in oral tradition prior to being notated. It belongs to a recognized “tune family,” or group of tunes, sacred or secular, that share enough structure and melodic phrases that they seem to be descended from a common root. Other related tunes include Amzi Chapin’s TWENTY-FOURTH (written in the 1790s) and, more distantly, the African-American spiritual “Swing low, sweet chariot” (published in 1873, but definitely older). The folk hymn CONSOLATION (attributed to the Chapins when first published in 1812) has the same contour, but is in the minor mode. However, just because a tune is a folk hymn doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an originator for a particular variant of the tune family. There were at least ten slightly different versions of NEW BRITAIN written down from 1828 to 1840 in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Three of these were from central Kentucky. This argues for oral transmission, but the fact that each version differs from the others only in the amount of ornamentation notated suggests that one person, perhaps an itinerant preacher or singing master, was the “vector” that spread the tune through this area in the late 1820s to 1830s.
Another interesting story, though tangential, is the Chapin family’s connection to the antislavery movement. If you’ve read the story of John Newton (the author of the words to “Amazing Grace”), you know that he was the captain of a slave ship who later rejected his past and advocated against slavery. The Chapin family lived in central Kentucky and some of their neighbors owned slaves, though there weren’t large plantations in the area. However, the diary of Cephas’ sister Harriet survives, and she was profoundly antislavery, though as a woman she didn’t have power to make decisions about her household. She thanks God that her father is “an Emancipator.” I don’t know if that means that he had slaves and set them free or if he didn’t believe in slavery and never owned slaves. Harriet considered it her duty to educate the two young African-Americans who worked for the family, an act that would have been illegal in many states. Harriet died in 1827, just a year before Cephas.
In general, the early revivals in Kentucky were far more democratic than were churches later in the 19th century. Both white women and African-Americans—even slaves—were called on to testify and even preach, and everyone participated in group singing, which was one of the hallmarks of these revivals. So the fact that this particular tune, whoever wrote it, is often associated with black spirituals and related to “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” is not surprising, as it was first popular in a mixed environment.
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see.
Shout, shout for glory, Shout, shout aloud for glory;
Brother, sister, mourner, All shout glory hallelujah.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come:
'tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease:
I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine;
but God, who called me here below, will be forever mine.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’d first begun.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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