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:
Another Year is Dawning - Mary McDonald
(c.2014, Lorenz Publishing)
Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879) attended Mrs. Teed's school, Worchester, which had a strong influence on her. When she was confirmed at Worchester Cathedral, she said, "I committed my soul to the Saviour, and earth and heaven seemed brighter from that moment."
She was fluent in several modern languages, together with Greek and Hebrew. She was not a prominent place as a poet, but simply and sweetly she sang the love of God, and His way of salvation. To this end, and for this object, her whole life and all her powers were consecrated. She lives and speaks in every line of her poetry. Her poems are permeated with her passionate love of Jesus. Her religious views and theological bias are distinctly set forth in her poems, and may be described as mildly Calvinistic, without the severe dogmatic tenet of reprobation. Her writings present a free and full salvation, through the Redeemer's merits, for every sinner who will receive it, and her life was devoted to the proclamation of this truth her writing and an earnest interest in Foreign Missions.
“Another Year is Dawning” was written in 1874 for the ornamental leaflets and cards published by Caswell, 1875. It was subsequently included in her work, Under the Surface, 1874, and Life Chords, 1880.
Composed by Samuel S. Wesley, AURELIA (meaning "golden") was published as a setting for “Jerusalem the Golden” in Selection of Psalms and Hymns, which was compiled by Charles Kemble and Wesley in 1864. Though opinions vary concerning the tune's merits (Henry J. Gauntlett once condemned it as "secular twaddle"), it has been firmly associated with Stone's text since tune and text first appeared together in the 1868 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Another year is dawning! Dear Father, let it be,
in working or in waiting, another year with thee;
another year of leaning upon thy loving breast,
another year of trusting, of quiet, happy rest.
Another year of mercies, of faithfulness and grace;
another year of gladness in the shining of thy face;
another year of progress, another year of praise,
another year of proving thy presence all the days.
Another year of service, of witness for thy love;
another year of training for holier work above.
Another year is dawning! Dear Father, let it be
on earth, or else in heaven, another year for thee.
Mary McDonald’s sacred music career spans over thirty-five years. More than eight hundred anthems, seasonal musicals and keyboard collections testify to her significant contribution to sacred literature. In 2000, Mary became the first ever woman President of the Southern Baptist Church Music Conference. In addition, she has served as accompanist for the Tennessee Men's Chorale since 1985. Her greatest desire is "to give God glory for the songs He has allowed me to compose. He alone, is the true Creator behind my pen." In 2011, after serving as sacred music editor for The Lorenz Corporation in Dayton, Ohio for more than twenty years, Mary answered a new call. Now she takes her tremendous passion and love for music making directly to churches as an independent artist by holding Composer Weekend workshops.
About the Piano Music:
Go Tell it on the Mountain - Ken Barker
(c.2001, Word Music)
The Fisk Jubilee Singers (drawing their name from Leviticus 25—the year of jubilee) were founded as a ten-member touring ensemble to raise funds for debt-ridden Fisk University. Taking the entire contents of the University treasury with them for travel expenses, they departed on October 6, 1871, from Nashville on their difficult, but ultimately successful eighteen-month tour, a triumph that is still celebrated annually as Jubilee Day on the campus. Though not the original repertoire of the group, by the time they reached New York in December of that year, their concerts grew to include more and more spirituals, until their program consisted primarily of choral arrangements of spirituals or, according to African American scholars C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya, “anthemized spirituals.”
They have been credited with keeping the Negro spiritual alive. Spirituals scholar Sandra Jean Graham places this development in context: “The students were at first reluctant ambassadors for the songs of their ancestors. As [Jubilee] singer Ella Sheppard recalled, ‘The slave songs were never used by us then in public. They were associated with slavery and the dark past and represented the things to be forgotten. Then, too, they were sacred to our parents, who used them in their religious worship . . . It was only through persuasion that the students sang their spirituals privately for [the University’s treasurer, George L.] White [who was a white man], and through White’s coercion that they sang them in concert.”
Taking the spiritual to white and black audiences in the United States and Europe earned the school and the spiritual an international reputation. The small ensemble of two quartets and a pianist grew to a full choral ensemble. Other historically black colleges eventually followed the same pattern, including Howard University (Washington, D.C.) and Tuskegee Institute (now University, Tuskegee, Alabama).
The earliest version of the spiritual appeared in in Religious Folk Songs of The Negro, as Sung on The Plantations, new edition (1909) with the heading “Christmas Plantation Song” with different stanzas and in slave dialect:
When I was a seeker
I sought both night and day.
I ask de Lord to help me,
An’ He show me de way.
He made me a watchman
Upon the city wall, [a reference to Isaiah 21:11-12]
An’ if I am a Christian
I am the least of all.
Chorus:
Go tell it on de mountain,
Over de hills and everywhere.
Go tell it on de mountain,
Dat Jesus Christ is born.
A few smaller and less broadly circulated versions use these stanzas or a variation, for example, “When I was a sinner . . ..”
African Canadian composer R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) added another harmonization and stanza in the volume he edited, Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro As Sung At Hampton Institute (1927). His stanza follows:
If you cannot sing like Angels,
If you cannot pray like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say he died for all.
Dett’s stanza, or some version of it, is now most commonly associated with the spiritual, “There is a balm in Gilead.”
John Wesley Work, Jr. (1872?-1925), along with his brother Frederick Jerome Work (1878?-1942), led the Fisk Jubilee Singers from 1898-1904. Baptist hymnologist William J. Reynolds cites recollections by John Wesley Work, Jr.’s son about the role of “Go, tell it” on the campus: “[John Wesley Work, III] took pleasure in recalling his early days as a child on the campus of Fisk University where his father was a teacher. Very early on Christmas morning, long before sunrise, it was then the custom for students to gather and walk together from building to building singing [“Go, tell it on the mountain].”
Concert arrangements of spirituals were published in Frederick Work’s New Jubilee Songs, as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1902), a collection that may have been co-edited by John Wesley Work, though his name does not appear in this collection. “Go, tell it” appears in another collection for solo voice and four-part choir edited by John Wesley Work, III (Work, Jr.’s son) in American Negro Songs and Spirituals: a Comprehensive Collection of 230 Folk Songs, Religious and Secular (1940).
Drawing on an adaptation of the Work brothers’ setting, The Pilgrim Hymnal (1958), edited by Hugh Porter (1897-1960), professor in the Sacred Music Department at Union Seminary (New York), was the first mainline hymnal to include the spiritual. John Wesley Work’s stanzas based on Luke 2:8-20 have become the standard versions in hymnals. From this hymnal, versions of “Go, tell it” have spread to the point that it has become one of a “canon” of spirituals found in virtually every hymnal today.
John Wesley Work, Jr. (sometimes designated John Wesley Work II to distinguish him from his son) received his master’s degree from Fisk University, and after further study at Harvard, began teaching Latin and Greek at the University in 1898. He trained the Jubilee Singers and was a leader in preserving and performing African American spirituals. He taught at Fisk University until 1923 when he was relieved of his duties due to changing attitudes toward the spiritual. He then went on to be President of Roger Williams University in Nashville until his death in 1925.
The spiritual has inspired works in other media. Author James Baldwin’s (1924-1987) first major work and semi-autobiographical novel was titled Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). The novel discusses the role of the paradoxical church as experienced by African Americans, both as the incubator for repression and hypocrisy and as a foundation for hope, identity, and community. The ABC network produced a movie using this title in 1984.
In 1963, the musical team “Peter, Paul and Mary”, along with their musical director, Milt Okun, adapted and rewrote "Go Tell It on the Mountain" as "Tell It on the Mountain", their lyrics referring specifically to Exodus and using the phrase "Let my people go," but referring implicitly to the Civil Rights struggle of the early 1960s. According to Religious Studies professor and Civil Rights historian Charles Marsh, it was African American Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer who combined this song with the spiritual "Go Down Moses," taking the last line of the chorus, "Let my people go" and substituting it in the chorus of "Go Tell it on the Mountain". Marsh does not document this claim, but given that Hamer was highly active in Civil Rights work beginning in the 1950s, and that the use of the Exodus story and the singing of spirituals played a central role in her activities, this claim is compelling. The song was recorded by Yarrow, Stookey and Travers on their “Peter, Paul and Mary” album In the Wind and was also a moderately successful single for them.
Regardless of which version that is sung, “Go, tell it on the mountain” has become a truly American contribution to the telling of the Christmas story that is now sung around the world.
Go, tell it on the mountain Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain That Jesus Christ is born!
While shepherds kept their watching O'er silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens There shone a holy light
The shepherds feared and trembled When lo! Above the Earth
Rang out the angel chorus That hailed our Savior's birth
Down in a lowly manger Our humble Christ was born
And God sent us salvation That blessed Christmas morn.
Go, tell it on the mountain Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain That Jesus Christ is born!
About the Choral Music:
If Not for Love - Diane Tuiofu
(c.2006, Diane Tuiofu and Toni Thomas)
Diane Tuiofu's love of music began in childhood while taking piano lessons from her grandmother. She participated in various recitals and contests, and went on to begin the Performance Degree Program at San Diego State. Although Diane left the University to raise a family, after the birth of her third child, she felt something was missing in her life and returned to the keyboard where she discovered an additional interest—writing music. She feels her love of melody blossomed while growing up by listening to classical music with her family, singing the earlier tunes of the Beatles, and being exposed to great musicals like The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and West Side Story.
Soon Diane began collaborating with Toni Thomas; their combined credits include several musical plays, namely, Jewels in Her Crown, Seasons of a Woman's Life, The Queen of Phoenix, and A Time for Gathering, as well as the Easter cantata, "Christ: Life and Light of the World." Their songs have been recorded by such noteworthy talent as Michael Ballam ("The Kidron"), Anna Carson ("Open Window") and others. Most recently they have been honored with an Award of Merit in the 2012 LDS Church Music Submission Competition for the song "Women of Faith."
Diane's solo credits include: “Look to God and Live” which won an award of Special Recognition, 2015 LDS Church Music Submission Competition, Relief Society Category; "Anger," a 2012 International Piano Composition Contest, American College of Musicians award winner; her arrangement for string ensemble of "Beautiful Savior/All Creatures of Our God and King," that won an Award of Merit in the 2013 LDS Church Music Submission Competition; "Be Still and Know That I Am God," which won an award of Special Recognition in the 2012 LDS Church Music Submission Competition; and her arrangement of "Silent Night" which was a finalist in the 2011 LDS Church Submissions Awards, "Give Back the Love," the soundtrack for the San Diego Children's Hospital Telethon video, and "Because of Faith," which received Honorable Mention in the 1992 LDS Church Writing and Music Competition.
Diane graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University in 2012 with a Bachelor's Degree in Composition/Piano.
"If Not For Love" reminds us at the Christmas season that without the Love of Christ, a love that made Him willing to submit to mortality, all would be lost.
If not for love, what then would send The Son of God to dwell with men,
To leave His Father’s gracious throne And wander earth without a home?
If not for love, why then would He, The Lord of all, become a baby
And walk among the sons of men? If not for love what then? If not for love.
A manger in a cave, The King of Kings no castle knows.
Swaddling rags for royal robes, While at the inn the people sleep.
While shepherds guard their sheep A sudden glory breaks the night,
Fills the air with song and light "The child is born; Immanuel!”
If not for love, what then would send The Son of God to dwell with men,
To leave His Father’s gracious throne And wander earth without a home?
If not for love, why then would He, The Lord of all, become a baby
And walk among the sons of men? If not for love what then? If not for love.
One newly shining star Summons wise men who will bring
Gifts to crown the newborn king Of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
And though the weary world Winds its way without a pause,
In their midst the Son of God — His life a sacrifice for love.
If not for love, what then would send The Son of God to dwell with men,
To leave His Father’s gracious throne And wander earth without a home?
If not for love, why then would He, The Lord of all, become a baby
And walk among the sons of men? If not for love what then? If not for love.
If not for love.
About the Hymns:
In the Bleak Midwinter
Christina Georgiana Rossetti (1830-1894) was the author of three collections of mostly religious poetry and four devotional books. She came from a family steeped in the arts. Her deep faith is thought to be partially the result of the solace that she found in writing as a result of her poor health from age sixteen.
Christina’s father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a professor of Italian at King’s College, London, living in exile in England. Her brothers Dante Gabriel and William Michael gave birth to a nineteenth-century art movement, the Pre-Raphaelites, for which the beautiful Christina often served as a model, especially for portraits of the Madonna. Among the family friends was Charles Dodgson, who, under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll, authored the famous Alice in Wonderland. Her most famous hymns are the Christmas texts, "Love Came Down at Christmas" and "In the Bleak Midwinter,"
"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti written before 1872 in response to a request from the magazine Scribner's Monthly for a Christmas poem. It was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904. The poem became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst. In verse one, Rossetti describes the physical circumstances of the Incarnation in Bethlehem. In verse two, Rossetti contrasts Christ's first and second coming. The third verse dwells on Christ's birth and describes the simple surroundings, in a humble stable and watched by beasts of burden. Rossetti achieves another contrast in the fourth verse, this time between the incorporeal angels attendant at Christ's birth with Mary's ability to render Jesus physical affection. The final verse shifts the description to a more introspective thought process.
The poem became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with the tune CRANHAM by Gustav Holst. Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was a renowned British composer and musician. Having studied at Cheltenham Grammar School, he soon obtained a professional position as an organist, and later as choirmaster. In 1892, Holst composed a two-act operetta, which so impressed his father that he borrowed the money to send Holst to the Royal College of Music. Severe neuritis in his right hand later caused him to give up the keyboard, and Holst turned to the trombone and composing. In 1895 Holst met Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the two became lifelong friends. Vaughan Williams helped Holst land his first job as a singing teacher. Holst became very interested in Indian and Hindu culture, and composed a number of operas translated from Sanksrit myths. Holst is best known for his composition, The Planets. He composed a total of thirty operas.
In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk, And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel Which adore.
Angels and archangels May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air -
But only His mother In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss.
What can I give Him, Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him - Give my heart.
For All That You’ve Done (As Family We’ll Go)
Rend Collective (formerly known as Rend Collective Experiment) is a Northern Irish Christian folk rock worship band originating from Bangor, Northern Ireland. “For All That You’ve Done” is from the album Campfire Christmas, Vol. 1 (2014) and is sung to the tune Auld Lang Syne.
The composer of the melody to Robert Burns’ Auld Lang Syne” is unknown.
Some say it was composed by an Englishman named William Shield for an opera called “Rosina,” which was performed on New Year’s Eve 1782 in London. According to the score, he was attempting to imitate Scottish-style melody. But others say that Shield was quoting an older Scottish melody which shows up in a number of 17th and 18th century Scottish tunes such as “Miller’s Wedding,” “Lasses of the Ferry” and a few others, but it’s hard to say when it was written because it wasn’t published until after 1815 in the Beauties of Niel Gow.
Your grace will never be forgot Your mercy, all my life
Will be my source forever song My story and my light
From mountain top to valley low Through laughter and through tears
Surely the goodness of my God Will follow all the years
For all that You have done for us For every battle won
We'll raise a song to bless Your heart For all that you have done
You know our failures and regrets You always led us home
Redemption's arm has raised us up Our triumph in the storm
For all that You have done for us For every battle won
We'll raise a song to bless Your heart For all that you have done
You're faithful through the ages
In unity we'll stand as one As family we'll go
Shoulder to shoulder Hand in hand Into the great unknown
For all that You have done for us For every battle won
We'll raise a song to bless Your heart For all that you have done
For all that You have done for us For every battle won
We'll raise a song to bless Your heart For all that you have done
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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