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:
March - Scotson Clark
(c.1980, Carl Fischer)
The Reverend Frederick Scotson Clark (1840-1883) was an English organist and composer. He was founder of the London Organ School and College of Music. Clark had his early music education from his mother, who was a pupil of Chopin. He became organist at the Regent Square Presbyterian Church at the age of fourteen. He studied at the Royal College of Music, and at the age of 18 he was teaching at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1865 he founded the London Organ School and College of Music. He then attended Exeter College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar, graduating as Bachelor of Music. He was appointed headmaster of St. Michael's Grammar School, Brighton. In 1868 he was ordained deacon and he became curate at St. Michael's Grammar School, Brighton. He was chosen to represent English organists at the Paris Exposition of 1878, where he won a gold award. Clark composed much organ music, church vocal music, songs, characteristic pieces for piano and music for harmonium
About the Piano Music:
Bunessan Variations - Ivan Burnett, Jr
(public domain)
"Morning Has Broken" was first published in 1931 in Songs of Praise. It was written by English author Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) and set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune known as BUNESSAN. In Songs of Praise Discussed, the editor, Percy Dearmer, explains that as there was need for a hymn to give thanks for each day, English poet and children's author Eleanor Farjeon had been "asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune". A slight variation on the original hymn, also written by Eleanor Farjeon, can be found in the form of a poem contributed to the anthology Children's Bells, under Farjeon's new title, "A Morning Song (For the First Day of Spring)", published by Oxford University Press in 1957. English pop musician and folk singer Cat Stevens (known as Yusuf Islam since 1978) included a version on his 1971 album “Teaser and the Firecat”. The song became identified with Stevens when it reached number six on the US “Billboard” Hot 100 and number one on the US easy listening chart in 1972.
Farjeon was born in London, England. She came from a literary family and was an author of children’s stories and plays, among numerous other literary pursuits. Known as ‘Nellie’ to her immediate family, she was a sickly child who suffered from poor eyesight and educated at home. Her father encouraged her to write from the age of five. She eventually earned a living as a journalist, broadcaster, writing poetry and stories and counted among her friends the celebrated D H Lawrence and Walter de la Mare. Farjeon never married but had two long term relationships. First with an English teacher, George Earle, and after his death with the actor, Denys Blakelock. In 1951, she converted to become a Roman Catholic. She won numerous literary awards during her lifetime. The Children’s Book Circle, a society of publishers, present the Eleanor Farjeon Award annually to individuals or organizations whose commitment and contribution to children’s books is deemed to be outstanding.
Sweet as dew and drenched in sunlight, Farjeon’s lyrics are built, surprisingly, on verses found in The Book of Lamentations, written, it’s widely believed, by Jeremiah, the grieving, raging, weeping prophet. In this book of sorrows, the despairing observer lists all that is wrong with the world around him: illness, exile, hunger and misery, crime, ravage and ruin. The list sounds familiar: check out today’s news. Is there nothing new under the sun?
But, in the middle of this inventory of woe (Lamentations 3:22-23), the weeping prophet waves away clouds of doom and gloom, steps into the sunshine, and startles us with joy. Jeremiah affirms his trust in God, whose mercies are “new every morning,” and proclaims, “Great is Thy faithfulness!” These exclamations of praise arise from a litany of despair.
Knowing that this refreshing and gentle hymn was inspired by verses in Lamentations deepens our experience of it. We are reminded that our task is to awaken, not only to this day, but to the world around us, to be mindful of all of it — the beauty and the pain. This hymn calls us to be faithful to the whole of God’s wondrous, suffering creation.
Morning has broken like the first morning;
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, Praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight, Mine is the morning
Born of the One Light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day.
Ivan Burnett, Jr. received a Bachelor’s Degree from Millsaps College and a Master of Divinity Degree from Yale University. He then served churches in Mississippi and Arizona, earned a Doctor of Ministry from the School of Theology at Claremont, CA, and in 1973 was commissioned as a Navy Chaplain. He reached the rank of Navy Captain. Duties included his being the Senior Chaplain of the USS MISSISSIPPI (CGN-40) and two other ships, including an aircraft carrier, and serving as the Senior Chaplain of MCAS, Yuma, AZ; 1st Force Service Support Group, Camp Pendleton, CA; Long Beach, Naval Station; and Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, 29 Palms, CA. Military decorations include the Navy Commendation Medal (two awards), Meritorious Service Medal (three awards), and the Legion of Merit.
Prior to entering the chaplaincy he served churches in Grenada and Clarksdale, MS, and in Scottsdale and Buckeye AZ, and was the founding pastor of a mission in Gila Bend, AZ. Since retiring as a member of the Desert Southwest Annual Conference, he has been busy composing music, teaching marriage enrichment courses, and serving on numerous church boards and agencies, including a United Methodist camp for persons with AIDS and their partners. His music has been performed in churches from Colorado and Arizona to Virginia.
About the Choral Music:
All Creation Danced in Answer - Austin Lovelace
(c.2011, E.C.Schirmer Music Company, div of ECS Publishing)
John Core (b.1951) is a music librarian at West Virginia University in Morgantown and is also a hymn text writer. He is a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a life member of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Core wrote this hymn text in 2006.
Austin Lovelace has set this text using three different tunes. Verse 1-2 are set to an original tune by Lovelace. Verse 3 is set to HOLY MANNA, the hymn tune originally written for "Brethren, We Have Met Together", which is one of the oldest published American folk hymns. Holy Manna is a pentatonic melody in Ionian mode. It was originally published by William Moore in Columbian Harmony, a four-note shape-note tunebook, in 1829, and is attributed to him. Verse 4 is set to REGENT SQUARE. Henry T. Smart composed REGENT SQUARE for the Horatius Bonar doxology "Glory be to God the Father." The tune was first published in the English Presbyterian Church's Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), of which Smart was music editor. Because the text editor of that hymnal, James Hamilton, was minister of the Regent Square Church, the "Presbyterian cathedral" of London, the tune was given this title.
Austin C. Lovelace (1919-2010) was called by many the Dean of American Church music. Lovelace got his first job as a church organist when he was 15 and went on to do workshops and recitals in 45 states and six countries. He received his A.B. from High Point College in 1939 and his M.S.M. and D.S.M. from the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1941 and 1950, respectively. He was Past President and a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Dr. Lovelace was Minister of Music Emeritus at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado. Over many years he worked at a number of Methodist and Presbyterian churches in Colorado, North Carolina, Illinois, and Nebraska. He also worked at Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C., Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He traveled widely as a Director of Music for general conferences, lecturer, and consultant. He was the organist for the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1954. He believed in cradle-to-grave music programs, fostering children, youth, and adult choirs. Known for his sense of humor, Lovelace wrote five books, including Hymns That Jesus Would Not Have Liked, which included gems he unearthed such as “When the Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-Ling for You and Not for Me”. He was a prolific writer and composer with over 800 compositions for church in print, as well as numerous articles and books on church hymnody.
All creation danced in answer when God’s voice first touched the air,
and the great eternal cantor called a universe to prayer,
called to praise and to thanksgiving all that filled the space about,
sought a hymn from all things living, bid the stones themselves cry out.
Jesus gave the tune new texture, love song for a world set free,
gospel song in full, rich measure, earth’s voice, but God’s melody;
passion music, sad and somber, discord on a cross was built,
giving way to bright new timbre in the Easter morning’s lilt.
And the spirit comes, composing music made of wind and fire,
in it’s newfound tones disclosing all that heart and soul require,
forging from day’s hym and thunder, from that mixture, sweet and strong,
psalms and hymns of awe and wonder: daily life as sacred song.
Come, my friends, sing, dance in answer as God’s music fills the air,
and the great eternal cantor calls us yet to praise and prayer,
bids us join the endless singing, till all earthly song shall cease;
heaven’s voice alone goes ringing through a universe of peace.
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.
May God Bless and Keep You - Jim Strathdee
(c.1994, Desert Flower Music)
Internationally known artists, Jim and Jean Strathdee sing with thousands of people each year as they offer their music in concerts, worship, conferences, reteats, and workshops. Most often they travel throughout the United States and Canada, but over the 40 year span of their ministry they have shared their music in India, New Zealand, Cuba, and Central America. Their music spans a diversity of sound and style and includes use of guitar, piano, mandolin, harmonica, African drums, and Native American flute. They see music as an agent of transformation where ecumenical and inter-faith communities come together to make a stand for positive change. Jim and Jean have served on the staff of United Methodist churches in southern and northern California and Hawaii. They have written hundreds of hymns, songs, and anthems.
May God bless and keep you,
May God's loving face now shine on you and be gracious, gracious, Amen.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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