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:
Eternal Joy - Noel Goemanne
(c.1972, Theodore Presser Co)
Noël Goemanne (1926-2010) was born in December in Poperinge, Belgium, and was named "Noël" in honor of Christmas, and during his long career as a composer of sacred music, he wrote many choral and organ pieces to celebrate that season. He attended The Lemmens Institute and the Royal Conservatory of Liege in Belgium. Outspoken about the importance of music from his earliest years, he was arrested during World War II for publicly playing the music of the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn during the Nazi occupation. In 1952, he and his wife Janine immigrated to the United States, and he took the position of church organist at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Victoria, Texas. When the liturgical rites of the Catholic Church changed in the early 1960s, he was quick to adapt to the changes while adhering to classical good taste. He composed the first Vatican II-approved Masses in English for use in the Church. Goemanne held organist and choirmaster positions at St. Rita's Catholic Church and Out Lady, Queen of Martyrs Church in Detroit, Michigan; St. Monica's Catholic Church and Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas; and, finally, Christ the King Catholic Church from 1972 until his death. During his long composing career, Goemanne received the "Pro Ecclesia" medal from the Vatican in 1977, the award from the Institute of Sacred Music, Manila, Philippines in 1974, and numerous ASCAP awards.
About the Piano Music:
I Know Whom I Have Believed - Ruth Elaine Schram
(c.2008, Lorenz Publishing)
Daniel Webster Whittle (1840-1901) wrote multiple hymns texts under the pseudonym “El Nathan.” Whittle fought in the army during the American Civil War and marched with General William Tecumseh Sherman through Georgia. At the end of the war, he was given the title of Major, and is still known by many hymnologists as Major Whittle. After the war, Whittle became closely associated with the evangelistic campaigns of the famous Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899). Whittle’s daughter married Moody’s son. His war experiences served as a basis for the gospel song, “Hold the Fort for I Am Coming” by Philip Paul Bliss (1838-1876). Major Whittle, who composed around 200 hymn texts, continued to travel on evangelist tours in North America and Great Britain with Moody and Bliss until his death.
His hymn “I Know Whom I Have Believed” (1883) was also given the tune name EL NATHAN. The tune, written by prominent music publisher and gospel song composer James McGranahan (1840-1907), was given this tune name to match Whittle’s pseudonym. One of his more popular hymns, it was first published in Gospel Hymns, No 4 (1883), edited by a distinguished trio of gospel song musicians and promoters that included Dwight Moody’s evangelist, Ira D. Sankey (1840-1908), McGranahan, and George C. Stebbins (1846-1945). This hymn has been extremely popular in the United States, and it can be found in every Southern Baptist hymnal since The Baptist Hymn and Praise Book (1904), in The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), as well as in more than 200 other hymnals published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.
The tune of this hymn sounds like a typical gospel hymn tune with modest harmony and simple melodic lines. The direct quotation of Scripture results in an extended phrase in the refrain. The text of this hymn is a direct quotation from 2 Timothy 1:12: “. . . I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (KJV). In this letter, the apostle Paul has been imprisoned, yet he feels empowered in his suffering because it mirrors the suffering of Jesus Christ. Paul uses his plight to encourage his fellow Christian Timothy to remain strong in his faith, no matter the difficulties he is facing. Paul would argue that even though he feels that he may not able, he is made able through the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. Like in the first stanza, while we are unworthy, “Christ in love” has “redeemed me for his own.”
I know not why God’s wondrous grace To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love Redeemed me for His own.
I know not how this saving faith To me He did impart,
Nor how believing in His Word Wrought peace within my heart.
I know not how the Spirit moves, Convincing men of sin,
Revealing Jesus through the Word, Creating faith in Him.
I know not what of good or ill May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days, Before His face I see.
I know not when my Lord may come, At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him, Or meet Him in the air.
But “I know Whom I have believed, And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed Unto Him against that day.”
Ruth Elaine Schram (b. 1952) wrote her first song at the age of twelve, and her first octavo was published twenty years later, in 1988. In 1992, she became a full-time composer and arranger and now has over 2,000 published works. Over seventeen million copies of her songs have been purchased in their various venues, and she has been a recipient of the ASCAP Special Award each year since 1990. In addition to her choral music for church and school choirs, her songs appear on thirty albums (four of which have been Dove Award Finalists) and numerous children's videos, including sixteen songs on four gold videos, and four songs on one multi-platinum video. Her songs have also appeared on such diverse television shows as "The 700 Club" and HBO's acclaimed series "The Sopranos.” Schram began piano and theory lessons at the age of five. She studied music at Lancaster Bible College and Millersville State College and taught Elementary Music in Pennsylvania for several years. She now lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
About the Choral Music:
Just a Closer Walk with Thee - Ed Lojeski
(c.1975, Hal Leonard Pub)
"Just a Closer Walk With Thee" is a traditional gospel song, performed either as an instrumental or vocal song. While the precise author of "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" is unknown, circumstantial evidence suggest it dates back to southern African-American churches of the 19th century. The first known recording was by the Selah Jubilee Singers in October, 1941. Performed as either an instrumental or vocal, "A Closer Walk" is perhaps the most frequently played number in the hymn and dirge section of traditional New Orleans jazz funerals. The title and lyrics of the song allude to the Biblical passage from 2 Corinthians 5:7 which states, "We walk by faith, not by sight" and James 4:8, "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
Some personal African American histories recall "slaves singing as they worked in the fields a song about walking by the Lord's side." Songs with similar chorus lyrics were published in the 1800s, including "Closer Walk with Thee" with lyrics by Martha J. Lankton (a pseudonym for Fanny Crosby) and music by William Kirkpatrick, which was published in 1885. Some references in Atchison, Kansas credit an African-American foundry worker and vocalist, Rev. Elijah Cluke (1907-1974), for the current rendition of the song. "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" became better known nationally in the 1930s when African-American churches held huge musical conventions. In 1940 Kenneth Morris arranged and published for the first time the well-known version after gospel musicians Robert Anderson and R.L. Knowles listened to William B. Hurse direct a performance of it in Kansas City and then brought it to Morris' attention. Morris added some new lyrics and a choral arrangement. In the 1940s, a boom of recordings recorded the number in many genres, ranging from Southern gospel to jazz and brass bands.
Ed Lojeski (1942-2020) was acknowledged as one of the finest choral arrangers/directors in the business. His arrangements have a special meaning to vocal groups and choral directors who seek material beyond the standard and ordinary. Much of his writing success derived from his own wide experience as a nationally known performer and show producer. Lojeski served as an accompanist and musical consultant for movie productions such as Where The Boys Are, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Hello Dolly and Shaft and on TV films for Mannix, Medical Center, Gunsmoke and Mystery Movie of the Week. Mr. Lojeski also wrote shows for Robert Goulet, Trini Lopez, The Nicholas Brothers and George Shearing. He served as a pianist-conductor and/or vocal coach for Elvis Presley, Johnny Mathis, Kathryn Grayson, The Lettermen, Tony Martin, Cyd Charisse, Charles Nelson Reilly and Karren Morrow. He was on of the directors of the Doodletown Pipers. Choral groups under his direction appeared on television and in the Hollywood Bowl. Ed Lojeski was a prolific writer of pop choral arrangements that were designed to bring maturity of sound to the young chorus and an edge of excellence to advanced groups.
I am weak, but Thou art strong, Jesus, keep me from all wrong,
I’ll be satisfied as long As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.
Through this world of toil and snares, If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares? None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.
Just a closer walk with Thee, Jesus, grant my humble plea!
Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
When the journey here is o’er, Time for me will be no more,
Guide me to thy distant shore, To thy shore, oh dear Lord, to Thy shore.
Just a closer walk with Thee, Jesus, grant my humble plea!
Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
Peace I Leave with You - Matthew Glandorf
(c.1993, Randall M. Egan)
“Peace I Leave with You” is a text from John 14:27, which has been set by many composers. Matthew Glandorf is active as a conductor, composer, church musician, and educator. He was raised in Germany, where he received early instruction at the organ of Bremen Cathedral with Wolfgang Baumgratz. At age sixteen he entered the Curtis Institute of Music. He pursued graduate studie at the Manhattan School of Music. In 2004 he was appointed artistic director of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, and in 2008 he became the artistic director of the Bach Festival of Philadelphia. He has served as director of music for many Philadelphia churches, including Old St. Joseph’s, Old Pine Street Presbyterian, and Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion. Mr. Glandorf joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1995. He has also served on the faculties of Swarthmore College and Westminster Choir College.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give unto you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give unto you.
About the Hymns:
Spirit of Faith, Come Down
Exploring the hymns of Charles Wesley (1707-1788) is like examining a trove of treasures excavated from the pages of his writings. While the church has preserved many of these treasures intact within its hymnals, sometimes a single gem is lost or forgotten. When such a jewel is recovered, it provides fresh color to the hymn as newly shed light streams through it and dances across the page. One such gem is the excised third stanza of “Spirit of Faith Come Down.”
“Spirit of Faith Come Down” by Charles Wesley was first published in Hymns of Petition and Thanksgiving for the Promise of the Father (1746) and is also found in the collection Whitsunday [Pentecost] Hymns (1746). The original hymn is composed of five stanzas, though in most hymnals today, there are only four, sometimes three, stanzas. This is due to the long lasting editorial change made by John Wesley when he included the hymn in his famous Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780). As observed by Carlton Young in the Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal, John Wesley removed the original third stanza and slightly altered the second line of the original fourth stanza.
The hymn is filled with references to Scripture. Charles Wesley directly quotes both 1 Corinthians 12:3 and John 20:28 in the second stanza. His construction of this stanza makes it clear, using Scripture as the basis, that one desperately needs the Spirit to have the faith required to fully accept Jesus and redemption through him. Wesley’s theology of atonement also plays a key role in the text of this hymn, infusing the entirety of the hymn. The first stanza quickly delivers a statement of the ongoing process of redemption, pleading (possibly demanding) that the “Spirit of faith come down” to “reveal the things of God” so to “give us eyes to see who did for every sinner die, hath surely died for me.” In their Companion to Hymns and Psalms, Richard Watson and Kenneth Trickett note that Wesley often uses the expression, “Tis thine the blood to apply,” as he does in the first stanza, fifth line. This phrase is a poetic manifestation of Charles Wesley’s belief that the Spirit’s mission is to the individual person. Salvation is encountered through the Spirit and is delivered as an intimate gift, given through faith. This first stanza is a condensed teaching of Wesleyan redemption. Indeed, the entire hymn is written as a proclamation on the extraordinarily active and vital role the Spirit plays in giving, sustaining, and nurturing faith so one might believe and accept Jesus as the Redeemer.
While the hymn as we know it contains the Wesleyan standard of attention to Scripture and theological depth, the words of the original third stanza enrich the hymn as a whole and fulfill a role that stanzas currently available cannot hope to do. The text of the individual stanza as it appears in the original 1746 hymnal is as follows:
I know my Savior lives, He lives who died for me,
My inmost Soul his Voice receives Who hangs on yonder Tree:
Set forth before my Eyes Ev’n Now I see Him bleed,
And hear his Mortal Groans and Cries While suffering in my stead.
Here, in the original third stanza, is a vivid depiction of Jesus’ act of redemption and victory over death. The stanza opens with a paradox of life and death and then moves on to a brutally vivid and deeply personal vision of the crucifixion. In light of the vivid scene (known by the poetic device, hypotyposis) just painted in the original third stanza, to claim Jesus’ redemption as deeply personal gives a rather stirring and evocative opening statement. The words do not inspire a general claim or reality, but one that is intimately personal, which a person cannot help but share with the world. By omitting the third stanza, the hymn loses a key turning point in the journey through the hymn as well as a climactic follow up to the second stanza. The second stanza ends, “Thou art my Lord, my God,” and then the third stanza depicts in a shockingly graphic manner the one whom the individual is claiming as Lord and God. Stanza four then affirms that indeed, the one who is “my Lord and God…who hangs on yonder tree” truly and surely is “My dear atoning Lamb.”
The tune BEALOTH was first published in Sacred Harp, a songbook created and published by Lowell Mason and his sons in 1840.
Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in New England and was later perpetuated and carried on in the American South of the United States. The name is derived from The Sacred Harp, a ubiquitous and historically important tunebook printed in shape notes. The work was first published in 1844 and has reappeared in multiple editions ever since. Sacred Harp music represents one branch of an older tradition of American music that developed over the period 1770 to 1820 from roots in New England, with a significant, related development under the influence of "revival" services around the 1840s. This music was included in, and became profoundly associated with, books using the shape note style of notation popular in America in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Brothers Lowell and Timothy Mason published their own Sacred Harp in 1840 in Cincinnati. Originally from Boston, the Mason family is hardly associated with the promotion of shape-note (or “patent note”) notation—indeed, Lowell Mason would become a famously successful antagonist of shape-notes, which he derided as an obstacle to “scientific” music education. Shape-notes were flourishing in the Ohio Valley in the 1830s, and the music publishers recognized that a shape-note version of the hymnal would boost its commercial prospects. The Masons were clear that their use of shape-notes was in no way intended as an endorsement, however: the preface acknowledges that “the Sacred Harp is printed in patent notes (contrary to the wishes of the Authors) under the belief that it will prove much more acceptable to a majority of singers in the West and South.
If the notation style of both Sacred Harps is the same, the contents are dramatically different. While B. F. White’s Sacred Harp largely followed its shape-note predecessors in reprinting a broad range of early American singing-school repertoire, southern vernacular hymnody, and new compositions based on those styles, the Masons’ Sacred Harp features music by European composers and new compositions based on a European aesthetic, many by Lowell Mason himself. In fact, the Masons intended their volume to supplant the American hymnody then popular in the region—the “patent notes” would be but a minor concession if the tunebook could succeed in pushing local musical taste toward the style that the Masons favored. In the few examples of eighteenth-century American music they included, Lowell and Timothy Mason altered the harmonies to better conform to the European style they favored, eliminating parallel fifths and open chords.
Spirit of faith, come down, reveal the things of God,
and make to us the Godhead known, and witness with the blood.
'Tis thine the blood to apply and give us eyes to see,
who did for every sinner die hath surely died for me.
No one can truly say that Jesus is the Lord,
unless thou take the veil away and breathe the living Word.
Then, only then, we feel our interest in his blood,
and cry with joy unspeakable, "Thou art my Lord, my God!"
O that the world might know the all atoning Lamb!
Spirit of faith, descend and show the virtue of his name;
the grace which all may find, the saving power, impart,
and testify to humankind, and speak in every heart.
Inspire the living faith (which whosoe'er receive,
the witness in themselves they have and consciously believe),
the faith that conquers all, and doth the mountain move,
and saves whoe'er on Jesus call, and perfects them in love.
Trust and Obey
This hymn was inspired in 1886 when the composer of the music, Daniel B. Towner (1850-1919), was the music leader during one of Dwight L. Moody’s famous revivals. Towner provided the following account cited by Moody’s musical partner, Ira D. Sankey, in his biography, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns: “Mr. Moody was conducting a series of meetings in Brockton, Massachusetts, and I had the pleasure of singing for him there. One night a young man rose in a testimony meeting and said, ‘I am not quite sure—but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.’ I just jotted that sentence down, and sent it with a little story to the Rev. J. H. Sammis, a Presbyterian minister. He wrote the hymn, and the tune was born.” Sammis is said to have composed the lines of the refrain upon receiving the letter.
As is the case with most gospel songs, the refrain provides the central theme around which all of the stanzas were written. The text and Towner’s tune, TRUST AND OBEY, appeared in the 1887 collection, Hymns Old and New, and has been included in countless hymnals since. Methodist hymnals in the United States have carried it since 1897.
When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word,
what a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will, he abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
but our toil he doth richly repay;
not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross,
but is blest if we trust and obey.
But we never can prove the delights of his love
until all on the altar we lay;
for the favor he shows, for the joy he bestows,
are for them who will trust and obey.
Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at his feet,
or we'll walk by his side in the way;
what he says we will do, where he sends we will go;
never fear, only trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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