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:
What Star is This? - Franklin Ritter
(c.2000, Lorenz Publishing)
Charles Coffin (1676-1749) was principal of the college at Beauvais and rector of the University of Paris. He published some of his Latin poems, for which he was already noted, and in 1736 the bulk of his hymns appeared in the Paris Breviaryr. In the same year he published them as Hymni Sacri Auctore Carolo Coffin, and in 1755 a complete edition of his Works was issued in 2 volumes. “What Star is This?” was translated by John Chandler in The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated and Arranged, 1837
What star is this, with beams so bright, more lovely than the noonday light?
’Tis sent to announce a newborn king, glad tidings of our God to bring.
‘Tis now fulfilled what God decreed, “From Jacob shall a star proceed;"
and lo! the eastern sages stand to read in heaven the Lord’s command.
While outward signs the star displays, an inward light the Lord conveys
and urges them, with tender might, to seek the giver of the light.
O Jesus, while the star of grace impels us on to seek your face,
let not our slothful hearts refuse the guidance of your light to use.
Franklin Ritter is a pseudonym of Lani Smith (1934-2015), an organist best known for his church music compositions. His compositions include choral, organ and piano pieces, and he was a regular contributor to the Lorenz Corporation’s keyboard magazines The Church Pianist, The Organist, The Organ Portfolio, and The Sacred Organ Journal, as well as the choral magazines The SAB Choir and The Volunteer Choir for over 50 years. The grandson of Edmund Lorenz, he served as an editor, composer, and arranger on the Lorenz Publishing editorial staff between 1967 and 1982. During this time, he received composing and arranging credits for over 1000 works.
About the Piano Music:
We Three Kings - Bethany Wakim
(c.2023, Bethany Wakim)
“We Three Kings", also known as "We Three Kings of Orient Are" or "The Quest of the Magi", is a Christmas carol written by the Reverend John Henry Hopkins, Jr., who wrote both the lyrics and the tune (KINGS OF ORIENT). It is thought to have been written in 1857 but did not appear in print until his Carols, Hymns and Song in 1863. John Henry Hopkins, Jr., then an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, was instrumental in organizing an elaborate holiday pageant (which featured this hymn) for the students of the General Theological Seminary in New York City in 1857 while serving as the seminary's music director. Although there is no scriptural basis for stating dogmatically that there were three wise men, the fact that three distinct gifts are mentioned has given rise to this traditional idea. Master artists throughout the centuries have depicted three wise men on camels as one of their favorite nativity themes.
We three kings of Orient are; bearing gifts we traverse afar,
field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star.
Born a King on Bethlehem's plain, gold I bring to crown him again,
King forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign.
Frankincense to offer have I; incense owns a Deity nigh;
prayer and praising, voices raising, worshiping God on high.
Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb.
Glorious now behold him arise; King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia, sounds through the earth and skies.
O star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright,
westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.
Bethany Wakim (b.1992) was born in New England and has lived there ever since. Although she studied piano, violin, and sang in choirs from an early age, she chose to study math in college, but she continued to study piano and worked as an accompanist. She teaches middle and high school math and teaches private piano. She enjoys writing piano arrangements of hymns and other songs and shares them on the internet.
About the Choral Music:
Star in the East - David Ashley White
(c.1993, Selah Publishing)
Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was born into a wealthy, educated family. He was a bright youth, translating a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven, entering Oxford at 17, and winning two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation he became rector of his father's church in the village of Hodnet near Shrewsbury in the west of England where he remained for 16 years. He took on the task of improving hymn singing in the congregation. When he arrived, they were still singing only metrical psalms. He couldn’t find the hymns he wanted, especially those that would fit the Anglican liturgy and the requirements of the Book of Common Prayer. Heber decided to prepare his own hymnal and invited other poets to contribute, including Sir Walter Scott and Henry Milman. Hymn singing was not firmly established in the Anglican Church at this time, and the bishop of London refused Heber’s request to publish a hymnal. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and worked tirelessly for three years until the weather and travel took its toll on his health and he died of a stroke. Most of his 57 hymns, which include "Holy, Holy, Holy," are still in use today.
“Brightest and Best” was written in 1811 to be sung at the feast of Epiphany. It appeared in Heber's widow's compilation of hymns entitled Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Service of the Church Year in 1827. But the carol’s opening verse, “Hail the blest morn, see the great Mediator,” is by an anonymous author, with Heber’s text, including the refrain, constituting the remainder of the lyrics. Images of light, a dominant theme of the Epiphany season, pervade the hymn’s first stanza: “brightest,” “morning,” “dawn,” “star” and “horizon.” The “Star of the East” that once guided the magi now guides us to “where our infant Redeemer is laid.” It was first published in Japheth Coombs Washburn’s The Temple Harmony (1826), in three parts, Joshua Leavitt's The Christian Lyre (1830), in two parts, and in John H. Hickok's Sacred Harp (1832), in two parts. The tune is a folk hymn from the late eighteenth century (Jackson 1953a, No. 182). Revised by William Hauser in four parts in 1848, and William Walker for four parts in seven-shape format in 1867.
David Ashley White is Professor of Composition and the C. W. Moores, Jr. Endowed Professor of Music in the Moores School of Music, University of Houston, and Composer-in-Residence at Houston’s Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church. He earned degrees from the University of Houston (B.M. and M.M.) and the University of Texas at Austin (D.M.A.). He served as Director of the Moores School from 1999-2014. A seventh-generation Texan, White was named Distinguished Composer by the American Guild of Organists for its national convention, held in Houston in June 2016. In April 2015, he received the Esther Farfel Award from the University of Houston, the university’s highest honor, in recognition of his teaching, creative work, and service, and in July 2015, he was awarded the Raabe Prize for Excellence in Sacred Composition.
Brightest and best of the stars of the morning,
Hail morn, blest morn, Hail morn, blest morn.
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
Star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where the infant Redeemer is laid.
Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining,
low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all.
Shall we then yield him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom, and offerings divine,
gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean,
myrrh from the forest, and fold from the mine?
Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
vainly with gifts would his favor secure;
richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
Brightest and best of the stars of the morning,
dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
Star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
About the Hymns:
O Word of God Incarnate
Anglican Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) is best known for one of the great All Saints Day hymns, “For all the saints who from their labors rest.” While one of the great legacies to the church from the 19th century, we actually learn more about How from his hymn on scripture, “O Word of God incarnate.” If not a unique bishop of his time, How was certainly an anomaly. He rejected offers to serve as bishop in prestigious settings such as Manchester and Durham and instead ministered in a slum area of London, a choice that resulted in his designation as “the poor man’s bishop.” While other bishops often lived in luxurious settings and were conveyed by private coach, How lived and worked with his people, traveling by public transportation.
While many churchmen were appalled by the doctrine of evolution and the feeling that science challenged the truth of the Bible, How was much more discerning. In his 1887 sermon “The Bible and Science,” How observed that evolution included many facts and theories that were difficult to dispute, and added one could not state categorically that “[a]ll such-like speculations are straight against God’s Word and therefore utterly untrue.” Even Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), grandfather of Aldous Huxley, and a leader in the scientific debate in England who was often known as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” cites the sermon in his book, Science and the Christian Tradition (1902). According to hymnologist Albert Bailey, Huxley “says that the Bishop was one of the few people who so treated . . . religion and science that he felt he could go along with him.”
Yet at the same time, this Oxford-educated clergyman had a “high” view of Scripture as this hymn attests. This hymn in praise of the Bible is based on Psalm 119:105, “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” Singing this text, we pray that the church, the people of God, will always be led by the Scriptures to seek Christ, to whom the Scriptures point, and to bring the good news of his Word to the nations. This text was first published in the 1867 addition to Psalms and Hymns (1854), a supplementary collection How edited with Thomas B. Morrell.
How’s 54 hymns were all written between 1858 and 1871 while he was a rector at Whittington, before becoming Suffragan Bishop of East London, and in 1888, the first Bishop of Wakefield. He once said, “A good hymn should be like a good prayer—simple, real, earnest, and reverent.” How was a modernist who studied thoughtfully the latest scientific thinking of his day and still fully embraced Scripture—a model for us over 100 years later.
MUNICH has a colorful history. Traces of it run as far back as 1593 in the Dresden, Germany, Gesangbuch in conjunction with the text 'Wir Christenleut." A version from a Meiningen Gesangbuch (1693) is still used in Lutheranism for "O Gott, du frommer Gott." Felix Mendelssohn's adaptation of that tune for the quartet "Cast Thy Burden upon the Lord" in the oratorio Elijah (1846) is the most recent step in shaping MUNICH as we find it in the Psalter Hymnal and other modern English hymnals.
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (b. Hamburg, Germany, 1809; d. Leipzig, Germany, 1847) was the son of banker Abraham Mendelssohn and the grandson of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. His Jewish family became Christian and took the Bartholdy name (name of the estate of Mendelssohn's uncle) when baptized into the Lutheran church. The children all received an excellent musical education. Mendelssohn had his first public performance at the age of nine and by the age of sixteen had written several symphonies. Profoundly influenced by J. S. Bach's music, he conducted a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 (at age 20!) – the first performance since Bach's death, thus reintroducing Bach to the world. Mendelssohn organized the Domchor in Berlin and founded the Leipzig Conservatory of Music in 1843.
Traveling widely, he not only became familiar with various styles of music but also became well known himself in countries other than Germany, especially in England. He left a rich treasury of music: organ and piano works, overtures and incidental music, oratorios (including St. Paul or Elijah and choral works, and symphonies. He harmonized a number of hymn tunes himself, but hymnbook editors also arrange some of his other tunes into hymn tunes. Given its geographical roots, we may be fairly confident that the tune is named after the German city Munich, although the city's name in German is München.
O Word of God incarnate, O Wisdom from on high,
O Truth unchanged, unchanging, O Light of our dark sky,
we praise thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page,
a lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age.
The Church from you, dear Master, received the gift divine,
and still that light is lifted o'er all the earth to shine.
It is the chart and compass that, all life's voyage through,
mid mists and rocks and quicksands still guides, O Christ, to you.
The Scripture is a banner before God’s host unfurled;
it is a shining beacon above the darkling world.
It is the chart and compass that o’er life’s surging tide,
mid mists and rocks and quicksands, to you, O Christ, will guide.
O make your Church, dear Savior, a lamp of purest gold
to bear before the nations your true light, as of old.
O teach your wand'ring pilgrims by this their path to trace
till, clouds and darkness ended, they see you face to face.
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
(c.1975, Celebration)
Kathleen Thomerson (b. 1934) is Organist and Music Director at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas. She was born in Tennessee and grew up in Mississippi, California, and Texas. College music study was at the Universities of Colorado and Texas, the Flemish Royal Conservatory in Antwerp, and privately in Paris. Before retirement in Austin, she lived in Collinsville, Illinois, when her husband was a biology professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Her best-known hymn text is "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light." It was written as a scriptural meditation and prayer. It was inspired by many Bible verses, including Genesis 1:17, Isaiah 60:19, Psalm 75:16, Psalm 139:12, Ephesians 3:17, Ephesians 5:8, Galatians 4:6, Hebrews 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:5, 2 Peter 1:19, 1 John 1:5-7, and Revelation 21:23.
I want to walk as a child of the light; I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world;
The star of my life is Jesus.
I want to see the brightness of God. I want to look at Jesus.
Clear Sun of Righteousness, shine on my path,
and show me the way to the Father.
I’m looking for the coming of Christ. I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the race,
we shall know the joy of Jesus.
In him there is no darkness at all;
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.
Christ Be Beside Me
(c.1987, Faith Alive Christian Resources)
Scottish Jesuit Father James Quinn (1919-2010) was born in Glasgow, Scotland and educated at St. Aloysius' College in Glasgow and Glasgow University. His first hymn collection, New Hymns for All Seasons, was published in 1969, and Praise for All Seasons, which contained texts drawn from some of his earlier works, was published in 1994. In 2017, after becoming sole publisher and licensing agent, OCP published Hymns for All Seasons, the first-ever complete edition of Fr. Quinn's hymn texts. Fr. Quinn worked for decades to make the theology of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) accessible and easily sung by worshipers. He wrote paraphrases of psalms and Scriptures or English translations of Marian prayers to the number of beats in the lines of existing melodies. Many of his texts, set to traditional hymn tunes appear in the English-language hymnals of nearly every Christian denomination around the world. In 1998, the “Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians” praised Father Quinn's ability to articulate the orthodox aspects of Christianity in new and fresh ways. He published more than 200 texts during his lifetime.
This hymn is a reworking of the prayer known as ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’. The tune ‘Bunessan’ is said to have been noted down by Alexander Fraser from the singing of a wandering Highland singer and appeared in print first in Songs and Hymns of the Gael, which Lachlan McBean published in 1888. McBean was a major influence in widening the appreciation of Gaelic culture in his time.
Christ be beside me, Christ be before me,
Christ be behind me, King of my heart.
Christ be within me, Christ be below me,
Christ be above me, never to part.
Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand,
Christ all around me, shield in the strife.
Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting,
Christ in my rising, light of my life.
Christ be in all hearts thinking about me,
Christ be on all tongues telling of me.
Christ be the vision in eyes that see me,
In ears that hear me Christ ever be.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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