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:
Prelude on Veni Emmanuel - Alec Wyton
(c.1982, Sacred Music Press)
O come, O come, Emmanuel is a Christian hymn for Advent. While it is most commonly known by that English title, it is in fact a translation of the original Latin, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel; translations into other modern languages (particularly German) are also in widespread use. The 1861 translation from Hymns Ancient and Modern is the most prominent by far in the English-speaking world, but other English translations also exist. The hymn is a metrical paraphrase of the O Antiphons, a series of plainchant antiphons attached to the Magnificat at Vespers over the final days before Christmas. The words and the music of "O come, O come, Emmanuel" developed separately. The Latin text is first documented in Germany in 1710, whereas the tune most familiar in the English-speaking world has its origins in 15th-century France.
The pre-history of the text stretches back to the origins of the O Antiphons, which were in existence by, at the latest, the eighth century. They were paraphrased extensively by the English poet Cynewulf in a poem written before the year 800. While "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is often linked with the 12th century, the earliest surviving evidence of the hymn's text is in the seventh edition of Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, which was published in Cologne in 1710. That hymnal was a major force in the history of German church music: first assembled by Jesuit hymnographer Johannes Herringsdorf in 1610 and receiving numerous revised editions through 1868, it achieved enormous impact due to its use in Jesuit schools.
The text of the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum version is essentially expanded, rather than altered, over the subsequent centuries. That version exhibits all of the hymn's characteristic qualities: it is strophic and metrical, and the order is altered so that the last of the O Antiphons (the titular "Veni Emmanuel") becomes the first verse of the hymn. Each stanza consists of a four-line verse, which adapts one of the antiphons, and a new two-line refrain ("Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel \ nascetur pro te, Israel," i.e. "Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel \ Shall come to thee, O Israel"), which provides an explicitly Advent-oriented response to the petition of the verse.
The familiar tune called Veni Emmanuel was first linked with this hymn in 1851, when Thomas Helmore published it in the Hymnal Noted, paired with an early revision of Neale's English translation of the text. The volume listed the tune as being "From a French Missal in the National Library, Lisbon." The pairing of the hymn text with the Veni Emmanuel tune was an extremely significant combination. The hymn text was embraced both out of a Romantic interest in poetic beauty and medieval exoticism and out of a concern for matching hymns to liturgical seasons and functions rooted in the Oxford Movement in the Church of England. The Hymnal Noted, in which the words and tune were first combined, represented these goals. This hymnal consisted entirely of versions of Latin hymns, designed for use as Office hymns within the Anglican Church despite the fact that Office hymns had no part in the authorized liturgy. The music was drawn chiefly from plainchant, as was the case with the Veni Emmanuel tune for "O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear.
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show, And teach us in her ways to go.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save, And give them victory over the grave.
O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
O come, Thou Key of David, come, And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high, And close the path to misery.
O come, O come, great Lord of might, Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law In cloud and majesty and awe.
O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree, An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall; All peoples on Thy mercy call.
O come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease, And be Thyself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
Alec Wyton (1921-2007), an English-born organist, composer and teacher brought contemporary influence to American church music over decades, two of them as organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. Besides presiding over prominent church music programs, he was the coordinator of the commission that produced The Hymnal 1982, the one used in Episcopal churches nationwide today.
Wyton grew up in London and Northampton, where an aunt encouraged him to learn to play piano and later organ. He joined the Army’s Royal Corps of Signals during World War II but was discharged early because of a duodenal ulcer. He then enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music and, in 1943, at Oxford, where he studied music and history. He received an honorary Mus. D. from Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA.
He came to the United States in 1950 at the invitation of the Episcopal bishop of Dallas, who wanted an English-style choir there. Bishop Horace Donegan of New York, a fellow Englishman, asked him to come to St. John the Divine in 1954 to be organist and master of the choristers. Mr. Wyton held that position until 1974, presiding over the 8,000-pipe Aeolian-Skinner organ and bringing in musicians from Duke Ellington and Ned Rorem to Leopold Stokowski and the cast of the musical “Hair” to resonate through the Gothic nave.
He was later organist and choirmaster of St. James’s Church on Madison Avenue and minister of music at St. Stephen’s Church in Ridgefield, Conn. Wyton taught at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan and, in the 1980s, at Manhattan School of Music, and he was president of the American Guild of Organists from 1964 to 1969.
On Jordan's Banks the Baptist's Cry - David Cherwien
(c.1997, Summa Productions)
Charles Coffin (167601749) was principal of the college at Beauvais, 1712 (succeeding the historian Rollin), and rector of the University of Paris, 1718. He published some of his Latin poems in 1727, and in 1736, the bulk of his hymns appeared in the Paris Breviary of that year. In the same year he published them as Hymni Sacri Auctore Carolo Coffin.
Coffin’s hymns were translated in English by John Chandler (1806-1876),one of the earliest and most successful of modern translators of Latin hymns, son of the Rev. John F. Chandler, educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He became Vicar of Witley in 1837. Besides numerous Sermons and Tracts, his prose works include Life of William of Wykeham, 1842; and Horae Sacrae; Prayers and Meditations from the writings of the Divines of the Anglican Church, with an Introduction, 1844. His translations, he says, arose out of his desire to see the ancient prayers of the Anglican Liturgy accompanied by hymns of a corresponding date of composition. The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated, and Arranged, by the Rev. J. Chandler (1837) contained translations accompanied by the Latin texts. Although Chandler's translations are somewhat free, and, in a few instances, doctrinal difficulties are either evaded or softened down, yet their popularity is unquestionably greater than the translations of several others whose renderings are more massive in style and more literal in execution.
John the Baptist's announcement "Prepare the way for the Lord" (Matt. 3:3, a quote from Isa. 40:3) is the primary basis for this hymn. It was published in Coffin’s Hymni Sacri as Jordanis oras praevia. It is one of the most popular of Chandler's translations, and is given in a large number of hymn-books.
The original version of WINCHESTER NEW appeared in Musikalisches Handbuch der geistlichen Melodien, published in Hamburg, Germany, in 1690 by Georg Wittwe. It was set to the text “Wer nur den lieben Gott”. An expanded version of the tune was a setting for "Dir, dir Jehova" in Johann Freylinghausen's Geistreiches Gesangbuch (1704). The melody was also used by John and Charles Wesley for their texts and was reworked by William J. Havergal as a long-meter tune in his Old Church Psalmody (1864). Havergal's version closely resembled its original 1690 form. Named for the ancient English city in Hampshire noted for its cathedral, the tune gained much popularity because of its extended use. It is called WINCHESTER NEW (also called CRASSELIUS) to distinguish it from WINCHESTER OLD.
On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh.
Awake and harken, for he brings glad tidings of the King of kings!
Then cleansed be every life from sin: make straight the way for God within,
and let us all our hearts prepare for Christ to come and enter there.
We hail you as our Savior, Lord, our refuge and our great reward.
Without your grace we waste away like flowers that wither and decay.
Stretch forth your hand, our health restore, and make us rise to fall no more.
O let your face upon us shine and fill the world with love divine.
All praise to you, eternal Son, whose advent has our freedom won,
whom with the Father we adore, and Holy Spirit, evermore.
Dr. David Cherwien (b. 1957) is currently serving as Director of Music at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, MN, and in 2002 was appointed Music Director for the National Lutheran Choir, also based in the Twin Cities. He has also held full time parish music positions in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, Chicago, Seattle, and Berlin. He completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance, and the Master of Arts degree in Theory and Composition, both from the University of Minnesota. His undergraduate work was in organ performance and music education at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, where he was honored as distinguished alumni in the fall of 2000.
About the Choral Music:
Sounds of Advent - Lee Dengler
(c.1997, Harold Flammer, div of Shawnee Press)
Sounds of Advent combines two advent hymns: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”.
“Let all mortal flesh keep silence” is an ancient chant of Eucharistic devotion based on words from Habakkuk 2:20, "Let all the earth keep silence before him". The original was composed in Greek as a Cherubic Hymn for the Offertory of the Divine Liturgy of St James; it probably antedates the rest of the liturgy and goes back at least to 275 AD, with local churches adopting arrangements in Syriac.
The text expresses awe at Christ's coming and the mystery of our perception of Christ in the body and blood. With images from Isaiah 6 and Revelation 5, it portrays the glory of Christ and his victory over sin. Although it has eucharistic emphasis, the text pictures the nativity of Christ in a majestic manner and in a much larger context than just his birth in Bethlehem. We are drawn into the awe and mystery with our own alleluias.
Gerard Moultrie (1829-1885) translated the text from the Greek; his English paraphrase was first published in Orby Shipley's Lyra Eucharistica (1864) and entitled "Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn." The Psalter Hymnal alters that paraphrase in part to solve Reformed sensitivities about eucharistic theology. Moultrie's great-grandfather had settled in South Carolina, but after siding with England during the American Revolution, he had moved back to Britain. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, England, Moultrie served as a pastor and chaplain in the Church of England. In addition to writing his own hymns he prepared translations of Greek, Latin, and German hymns. He also edited several hymnals, including Hymns and Lyrics for the Seasons and Saints' Days (1867) and Cantica Sanctorum or Hymns for the Black Letter Saints' Days in the English and Scottish Calendars (1880).
The text contains much language which is unfamiliar today: the concept of approaching God with so much awe that it causes “fear and trembling”. Seraphim are a type of celestial being in the highest rank in the Christian angelic hierarchy. A passage in the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-8) used the term to describe six-winged beings that fly around the Throne of God crying "holy, holy, holy". This throne scene, with its triple invocation of holiness (a formula that came to be known as the Trisagion), profoundly influenced subsequent theology, literature, and art. Its influence is frequently seen in works depicting angels, heaven and apotheosis. Seraphs are mentioned as celestial beings in an influential Hellenistic work, the Book of Enoch, and the Book of Revelation. Cherubim are a winged angelic beings who are represented in ancient Middle Eastern art as a lion or bull with eagles' wings and a human face, and regarded in traditional Christian angelology as an angel of the second highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy. Cherubim are mentioned throughout the Old Testament and once in the New Testament in reference to the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant (Hebrews 9:5).
Picardy is a hymn tune based on a French carol. Its name comes from the province of France from where it is thought to originate. The tune dates back at least to the 17th century, and was originally used for the folk song "Jésus-Christ s'habille en pauvre". First published in the 1848 collection Chansons populaires des provinces de France, "Picardy" was most famously arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906 for the hymn "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence", in the English Hymnal, the words of which are taken from the Byzantine Greek Liturgy of St. James translated by Gerard Moultrie a chaplain at Shrewsbury School.
Lee Dengler received a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from West Chester University School of Music in West Chester, PA. He studied choral composition and arranging with Alice Parker at Westminster Choir College as well as in her home in New England where he participated in the Melodious Accord Fellowship program. Lee and his wife, Susan, live in Goshen, Indiana where they are Ministers of Music and Arts at College Mennonite Church. He directs the Goshen Community Chorale. Composing has always been a passion for Lee, beginning very early in life. Lee grew up in a Mennonite church in eastern Pennsylvania where four-part a cappella congregational hymn singing was the norm. This planted in him a deep love for singing. This love continues to be an influence in his writing today. Lee composes a wide range of choral, vocal and piano works and has over 220 works.
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded, For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descending, Comes our homage to demand.
O come, blest Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits by Your advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Come, rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Let all mortal flesh keep silence. Until the Son of God appear.
Keep silence. Keep silence.
About the Hymns:
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
(c.1981, Church Pension Fund; c.1989, United Methodist Publishing House)
This hymn, originally in Latin, takes us back over 1,200 years to monastic life in the 8th- or 9th-century. Seven days before Christmas Eve monasteries would sing the “O antiphons” in anticipation of Christmas Eve when the eighth antiphon, “O Virgo virginum” (“O Virgin of virgins”) would be sung before and after Mary’s canticle, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46b-55).
The Latin metrical form of the hymn was composed as early as the 12th century. John Mason Neale (1818-1866), the famous architect of the Oxford movement, discovered the Latin hymn in the appendix of an early 18th-century manuscript, “Psalterium Cationum Catholicorum,” with a refrain. Neale, a translator of early Greek and Latin hymns, included it in his influential collection, Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851).
British hymnologist J.R. Watson provides a context for the antiphons included on the second page after the hymn in the UM Hymnal: “The antiphons, sometimes called the ‘O antiphons’ or ‘The Great O’s’, were designated to concentrate the mind on the coming Christmas, enriching the meaning of the Incarnation with a complex series of references from the Old and New Testaments.”
Each antiphon begins as follows:
O Sapentia (Wisdom)
O Adonai (Hebrew word for God)
O Radix Jesse (stem or root of Jesse)
O Clavis David (key of David)
O Oriens (dayspring)
O Rex genitium (King of the Gentiles)
O Emmanuel
Put together, the first letter of the second word of each antiphon spells SARCORE. If read backwards, the letters form a two-word acrostic, “Ero cras,” meaning “I will be present tomorrow.”
All of the Latin attributions to the coming Messiah are from the Old Testament except “Emmanuel,” which is found both in Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23. Matthew quotes Isaiah virtually verbatim—“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel”—with the exception that Matthew adds the phrase: “which being interpreted is, God with us.”
The “O Emmanuel” antiphon was traditionally sung on the night before Christmas Eve, revealing the meaning of the liturgical riddle through the completion of the acrostic. Today, we spoke the O Antiphons as the Call to Worship.
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
Of the Father's Love Begotten is a Christmas carol based on the Latin poem Corde natus by the Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius, from his Liber Cathemerinon (hymn no. IX) beginning "Da puer plectrum" The ancient poem was translated and paired with a medieval plainchant melody Divinum mysterium. Divinum mysterium was a "Sanctus trope" - an ancient plainchant melody which over the years had been musically embellished. An early version of this chant appears in manuscript form as early as the 10th century, although without the melodic additions, and "trope" versions with various melodic differences appear in Italian, German, Gallacian, Bohemian and Spanish manuscripts dating from the 13th to 16th centuries. Divinum mysterium first appeared in print in 1582 in the Finnish song book Piae Cantiones, a collection of seventy-four sacred and secular church and school songs of medieval Europe compiled by Jaakko Suomalainen and published by Theodoric Petri. In this collection, Divinum mysterium was classified as "De Eucharistia" reflecting its original use for the Mass.
The text of the Divinum mysterium was substituted for Prudentius's poem when it was published by Thomas Helmore in 1851. In making this fusion, the original meter of the chant was disturbed, changing the original triple meter rhythm into a duple meter and therefore altering stresses and note lengths. A later version by Charles Winfred Douglas corrected this using an "equalist" method of transcription, although the hymn is now found in both versions as well as a more dance-like interpretation of the original melody.
Of the Father’s love begotten, Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been, And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore!
At His Word the worlds were framèd; He commanded; it was done:
Heaven and earth and depths of ocean In their threefold order one;
All that grows beneath the shining Of the moon and burning sun,
Evermore and evermore!
He is found in human fashion, Death and sorrow here to know,
That the race of Adam’s children Doomed by law to endless woe,
May not henceforth die and perish In the dreadful gulf below,
Evermore and evermore!
O that birth forever blessèd, When the virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving, Bare the Savior of our race;
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, First revealed His sacred face,
Evermore and evermore!
This is He whom seers in old time Chanted of with one accord;
Whom the voices of the prophets Promised in their faithful word;
Now He shines, the long expected, Let creation praise its Lord,
Evermore and evermore!
O ye heights of heaven adore Him; Angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him, And extol our God and king!
Let no tongue on earth be silent, Every voice in concert sing,
Evermore and evermore!
Righteous judge of souls departed, Righteous king of them that live,
On the Father’s throne exalted None in might with Thee may strive;
Who at last in vengeance coming, Sinners from Thy face shalt drive,
Evermore and evermore!
Thee let old men, thee let young men, Thee let boys in chorus sing;
Matrons, virgins, little maidens, With glad voices answering:
Let their guileless songs re-echo, And the heart its music bring,
Evermore and evermore!
Christ, to Thee with God the Father, And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn and chant with high thanksgiving, And unwearied praises be:
Honor, glory, and dominion, And eternal victory,
Evermore and evermore!
Canticle of Light and Darkness
Response 2
Richard Proulx (1937-2010), composer, conductor, and teacher, was director of music at the Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, Illinois (1980-1997); before that he was organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Seattle, Washington. He contributed his expertise to the Roman Catholic Worship III (1986), The Episcopal Hymnal 1982, The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), and the ecumenical A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools (1992). He was educated at the University of Minnesota, MacPhail College of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota, St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and the Royal School of Church Music in England. He composed more than 250 works.
You are the light of the world;
be light in our darkness, O Christ.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
(c.1981, Church Pension Fund; c.1989, United Methodist Publishing House)
Each of the verses of “O come, O Come, Emmanuel” is a paraphrase of one of the O Antiphons.
The chorus was added at an unknown later date, The hymn has its origins over 1,200 years ago in monastic life in the 8th or 9th century. The refrain may have been added when the Latin metrical form of the hymn was composed as early as the 12th century.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel..
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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