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:
In the Bleak Mid-Winter - Malcolm Archer
(c.1994, Kevin Mayhew Ltd)
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.
Malcolm Archer (b. 1952) is an English organist, conductor and composer. He combines this work with a recital career. Archer was formerly Organist and Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral and Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. Malcolm Archer was educated at King Edward VII School, Lytham before studying at the Royal College of Music (as an RCO scholar). He was later organ scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge. He is widely renowned as one of the foremost church musicians of his generation and is and combines this work with an extensive recital career. He is much in demand internationally as a Composer, Conductor, and Recitalist.
Today in Bethlehem - Rick Parks
(c.1998, Lorenz Publishing)
“Dzisiaj w Betlejem” has its origins in the Małopolska region of Poland. Some sources have the carol composed in the 17th century, but it was first published in 1878. Caroling represents an integral part of the Polish Christmas celebration. In Poland, the word for carol is “kolęda.” Some kolędy date back to the 15th century. Although the people who wrote them have long been forgotten, the songs have survived through the centuries in the voices of Polish carolers walking from door to door during the Christmas season.
Today in Bethlehem, today in Bethlehem (there is) merry news
That the pure Maiden, that the pure Maiden Has borne a son
Mary the Maiden, Mary the Maiden Is nursing the child
And Saint Joseph and Saint Joseph He's taking care of Her
Although in a little barn, although in a little barn The Maiden is bearing Her son
After all He'll soon, after all He'll soon deliver the people
And the Three Kings, and the Three Kings arrived from the east
and they gathered precious gifts for the Lord, gifts for the Lord
Let's go, too, let's go, too and bid welcome to Jesus
King of Kings, King of Kings to adore Jesus
Christ is born He's going to deliver us
The angels are playing (music) The kings are
bidding welcome The shepherds are singing
The cattle are kneeling Wonders, wonders do they announce
About the Hymns:
Away in a Manger
The origin of this popular Christmas hymn is shrouded in apocryphal associations with Martin Luther (1483-1546). Methodist hymnologist Fred Gealy (1894-1976) noted that “evidence suggests that [“Away in a Manger”] is wholly an American product. The original two-stanza form probably originated among German Lutherans in Pennsylvania about 1885.” The hymn first appeared with two stanzas in Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families, a Sunday school collection published in 1885 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America.
Stanza three first appeared unattributed in Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs (1892), compiled by gospel composer Charles H. Gabriel (1856-1932). Gealy conjectured “the song may have been contributed by an editor or publisher who thought the two narrative stanzas needed to be supplemented by a prayer.”
The only German version of the carol is clearly a translation from the English because the metrics are not natural to the German language. Furthermore, this version was first included in Herbert W. Werneke’s Christmas Songs and Weihnachts-Lieder (1934), a privately published collection. The false association between “Away in a Manger” and Luther appears to have been made by James R. Murray (1841-1905), who in his Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses (1887) called it “‘Luther’s Cradle Hymn,’ composed by Martin Luther for his children and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” However, no one has uncovered an original German version by the reformer. Theophilus Baker Stork (1814-1874) wrote Luther at Home (1872), in which he stated, “Luther’s carol for Christmas, written for his own child Hans, is still sung.” The irony of this assertion is that we actually have a Luther hymn that may have been written for young Hans, “Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her” (1531), published in Joseph Klug’s Gesangsbuch (1535).
“Away in a Manger” is sung to several tunes. With the original two-stanza text, AWAY IN A MANGER, also known as MUELLER, was first published in James R. Murray's Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses (1887) and initialed “J. R. M.” Murray (1841-1905) compiled the songbook and is now thought to be the tune's composer. However, Murray's hymnbook erroneously described this song as: "Luther's Cradle Hymn. Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their little ones." As a result, the hymn was wrongly attributed to Luther for many years. As a young man taught by such famous music teachers as Lowell Mason, George Root, and William Bradbury, Murray also studied at the Musical Institute in North Reading, Massachusetts. From 1868 until the Chicago fire of 1871 destroyed the company, he edited the Song Messenger for the publishing firm of Root and Cady. He then returned to his birth place, Andover, and taught music in the public schools. From 1881 to 1905 he was an editor for the John Church Company of Cincinnati, an important publisher of church school materials and gospel music, including the monthly Musical Visitor. Murray composed many gospel songs and tunes and compiled a number of church school songbooks that contained his music.
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head.
The stars in the bright sky looked down where He lay,
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes ,
But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.
I love Thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky,
And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever, and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,
And take us to heaven to live with Thee there.
Love Came Down at Christmas
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) came from a family steeped in the arts. The author of three collections of mostly religious poetry and four devotional books, she suffered poor health from age 16. Her deep faith is thought to be partially due to the solace she found in writing.
Her 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 19th-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—under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Rossetti’s best-known hymns are the Christmas carols “In the Bleak Midwinter” (1872) and “Love Came Down at Christmas,” the latter appearing first in Time Flies: a Reading Diary (1885), as her entry for Dec. 29. While the first stanza of “In the Bleak Midwinter” paints a vivid picture of an unwelcoming and desolate landscape—a symbolic representation of the state of the world encountered by the incarnate God—“Love Came Down at Christmas” presents an inviting image of incarnate “Love” descending to Earth, heralded by “star and angels.” Indeed, if one includes the word “lovely,” “Love” is mentioned 12 times in three short stanzas. The personification of “Love,” an inanimate concept, as the name for the incarnate God is not a new idea in Christian hymnody. More than a century before Rossetti’s hymns, Charles Wesley’s “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” (UMH No. 386) and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” (UMH No. 384) show a similar anthropomorphic use of “Love.”
Though Rossetti’s poems were not composed as hymns for congregational use, this one first appeared in the Oxford Hymn Book (1908) as a hymn. Hymnal editor Percy Dearmer (1867-1936), editor of the famous Oxford Book of Carols (1928), championed the cause of incorporating English poems as hymns. He included this text in the influential Songs of Praise (1925).
The poem is based on 1 John 4:7-11, a passage that mentions “love” in some form 11 times: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”
The author modified the original final line herself from “Love the universal sign” to “Love for plea and gift and sign.” In doing so, she eliminated the one four-syllable word “universal,” and maintained the utter simplicity of one- and two-syllable words throughout with the exception of “incarnate” in stanza two. As British hymnologist Richard Watson notes, “The sublime simplicity of this hymn is the mark of a very great writer.” This poem is the perfect antidote for those who find themselves recovering from the stress of the Christmas season induced by materialism, extensive shopping, travel and multiple gatherings of family and friends—in short, everything except for a moment to reflect on the gift of “Love incarnate, Love divine.”
Rossetti’s text is frequently paired with an Irish tune, GARTAN. This tune was first published in Ancient Music of Ireland from the Petrie Collection (Dublin: Pigott & Co., 1877 | Fig. 3), p. 131, arranged for piano by F. Hoffman, where it was under the general heading “Specimens of the ancient church music of Ireland” and simply labeled “Chant.” The melody had apparently been collected from the work of Irish scholar George Petrie (1790–1866), who had published some tunes several years earlier in The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland (Dublin: University Press, 1855).
Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas; star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead, Love incarnate, Love divine;
worship we our Jesus, but wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine;
love to God and others, love for plea and gift and sign.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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