Music for July 28, 2019

I am away from Good Shepherd this Sunday attending the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy. In my absence, Karen Silva will be playing the organ, and Margie VanBrackle will sing the offertory. Thanks so much to them for leading the music while I am away.

Vocal Music

• Great Is Thy Faithfulness – William M. Runyan (1870–1957), Margie VanBrackle, soprano

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 410 - Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (LAUDA ANIMA)
• Hymn 47 - On this day, the first of days (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Hymn - Through north and south (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn 325 - Let us break bread together on our knees (LET US BREAK BREAD)
• Hymn 555  - Lead on, O King eternal (LANCASHIRE)

Thomas Chisholm, the author of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and 1200 other poems was born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1866, and he lived a pretty unremarkable life: he worked as a school teacher, a newspaper editor, and insurance agent, then he retired and spent his remaining days at the Methodist Home for the Aged in New Jersey. Unlike many hymns that have heart-wrenching stories behind them (for instance "It Is Well With My Soul"), "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" is inspired by the simple realization that God is at work in our lives on a daily basis. He wrote, "My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness." The hymn reminds us that God doesn't only work in dramatic or miraculous ways, but also in simple, everyday ways. It also reminds us that Jesus has never failed us in the past, so we have no reason to doubt his faithfulness in the future. --Greg Scheer, 1994

The composer, William M. Runyan, was born in Marion, New York to a Methodist minister Rev. William White Runyan and his wife Hannah Orcutt Runyan. As a youth, Runyan served as a church organist and, after being ordained as a Methodist minister at age twenty-one,  pastored various congregations in Kansas. Starting in 1915 Runyan began writing gospel songs with the encouragement of D.B. Towner of the Moody Bible Institute.

In 1923 Runyan composed the music to the song "Great is Thy Faithfulness," originally a poem by Thomas O. Chisholm, a friend and fellow Methodist minister. Later Runyan moved to Chicago where he worked with the Moody Bible Institute, and he worked as editor for Hope Publishing Company, co-editing "The Service Hymnal" with Gordon Shorney. Runyan retired from Hope in 1948.

Runyan lived for a period of his retirement in Galveston, Texas.

Music for July 21, 2019

Vocal Music

• Be Thou My Vision – arr. Richard Walters, Harrison Boyd, baritone

Instrumental Music

• All Glory Be to God on High – Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718 – 1795)
• Jesus, All My Gladness – Friedrich Marpurg
• All Glory Be to God on High – Johann Pachelbel

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 401- The God of Abraham praise (LEONI)
• Hymn 440 - Blessed Jesus, at thy word (LIEBSTER JESU)
• Hymn 495 - Hail, thou once despised Jesus! (IN BABILONE)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (SEEK YE FIRST)
• Hymn R201 - Be still, for the Spirit of the Lord (BE STILL)
• Hymn R 10 - Be still and know that I am God (BE STILL AND KNOW)
• Hymn 344 - Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing (SICILIAN MARINERS)
• Psalm 15 - tone VIIIa

Hymns are the backbone of our worship. Next to the word of God, music deserves the highest praise. That's not original to me, unfortunately - I wish I could say something that deep. (Martin Luther gets the credit.) But it does echo my own feelings. Our hymnal is equal in importance to our prayer book. So it's fitting that everything we are doing this week is derived from our body of hymnody.

Look at the offertory solo that Harrison Boyd will be singing. It is an arrangement of the beloved Celtic hymn Be Thou My Vision by Richard (Rick) Walters. With a bachelor’s degree in piano from Simpson College and graduate study in composition at the University of Minnesota with Dominick Argento, Rick Walters is now vice president of classical and vocal publications at Hal Leonard Corporation, the world’s largest source for printed music. In addition to his duties as an editor and publisher, he also finds time to compose and arrange music for singers.

Harrison Boyd with your organist

This will be Harrison's last Sunday singing with us before he heads off to Mississippi to start college at the University of Mississippi. As I said on Senior Sunday, he has been an asset to our choir, helping to the lead the basses with his mellow voice and excellent musicianship. We will miss him terribly, and wish him the best.

All the organ music is also based on hymns. The opening and closing voluntaries are settings of the hymn-tune we have been singing as the Song of Praise  at the 10:15 service all summer. Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (All glory be to God on high) is a Lutheran hymn from the 1500s,which was intended as a German version of the Gloria part of the Latin mass. As a hymn usually sung every Sunday, it was often the basis for chorale preludes. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote six settings alone! Other composers from the 18th century include Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Georg Böhm.

In the Pachelbel setting that I am using for the closing voluntary, the melody does not come in right away. It begins with a small fughetta employing a chipper, 16th-note melodic subject. After two pages, the melody enters in the pedal with a flourish in the manual parts. It is played in a slow duple meter, as opposed to the quick triple meter setting we sing on Sundays. For that reason the tune may appear only vaguely familiar.

The same may be said about the opening voluntary using the same tune. Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg begins with a triple meter setting, but only outlining the usual harmonies of the hymn. There is no out-right presentation of the cantus firmus (melody) until the second half,  when he presents the full chorale - but, like Pachelbel, in a duple meter: 4/4 time instead of 3/4. Even at a typical hymn tempo it sounds different than what we are accustomed to.

Marpurg was German musicologist just after Bach in the Age of Enlightenment. Best known for his treatises on music theory and as a music critic, he still found time to write a collection of choral preludes, including today's opening voluntary as well as the communion voluntary, based on another German Chorale, Jesu, Meine Freude. You can find that hymn in our hymnal at 701, Jesus, all my gladness. 

Music for July 14, 2019

Vocal Music

• How Great Thou Art – Stuart K. Hine

Instrumental Music

• Hyfrydol – Paul Manz (1919-2009)
• Sonata No. 1 in F minor (Adagio) – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• Praise to the Lord – Paul Manz

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 390 - Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN)
• Hymn 609 - Where cross the crowded ways of life (GARDINER)
• Hymn R 266 - Give thanks with a grateful heart  (GIVE THANKS)
• Hymn 602 - Jesu, Jesu, fill us with thy love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 610 - Lord, whose love through humble service (BLAENHAFREN)
• Psalm 25:1-9 - Tone VIIIa

This Sunday one of our choristers, Emily VanNostrand, sings a hymn that has become one of the favorite hymns of the last century, How Great Thou Art. It was voted the United Kingdom's favorite hymn by BBC's Songs of Praise and was ranked second (after "Amazing Grace") on a list of the favorite hymns of all time in a survey by Christianity Today magazine in 2001.

It is also one among challengers for least-liked hymns of many in the church. (I've discovered Amazing Grace is also a contender!) Many of those who sing this hymn throughout the world in countless translations have no idea of the duality of feeling that exists around it. Perhaps both sides would benefit from some historical perspective.

Carl Boberg

Carl Gustaf Boberg, a Swedish pastor, editor, and member of the Swedish parliament, was enjoying a nice walk when a thunderstorm suddenly appeared out of nowhere. A severe wind began to blow. After the storm was over, Mr. Boberg looked out over the clear bay. He then heard a church bell in the distance. And the words to How Great Thou Art begin to form in his heart

O Lord, my God, When I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands hath made

This poem, titled O Store Gud (O Great God) was published in 1891 in Witness of the Truth, the weekly newspaper that Boberg edited. The poem became matched to an old Swedish folk tune and sung in public for the first-known occasion in a church in the Swedish province of Värmland in 1888. Eight verses appeared with the music in the 1890 Sions Harpan. It was later translated in German. In 1927, it was published in a Russian version of the German text.

Stuart K. Hine, an English missionary to the Ukraine, heard the Russian version and sang it at an evangelistic meeting with his wife. He then translated the first three stanzas into English, which they sang at an evangelistic meeting in England during World War Two. He published the first three verses (in both English and Russian) in 1949 in Grace and Peace, a Russian evangelistic paper which Hine edited. He later wrote the fourth verse as a triumphant message of life eternal.

The hymn was introduced to American audiences during the Billy Graham Evangelistic Crusades in the 1950s. The version sung by George Beverly Shea in the Graham Crusades is vastly different from that heard in Sweden. The Crusade rendition featured soaring lines with fermatas on the last phrase of the refrain. The Swedish version is much more understated and sung in strict rhythm.

Recordings by numerous popular recording artists may be found on YouTube, but perhaps none are as memorable as the rendition by Elvis Presley on his farewell tour in 1977 weeks before his death. This Sunday Emily sings the version made popular by Carrie Underwood.

Music for July 7, 2019 +

Vocal Music

• O Had I Jubal’s Lyre – George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

Anna Zhang, soprano
Instrumental Music

• Aria from Water Music – George Frederick Handel
• There Is a Fountain – Jean Langlais
• Postlude in G – George Frederick Handel

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn R-270 - Join all the glorious names (DARWALL)
• Hymn 441 - In the cross of Christ I glory (RATHBUN)
• Hymn 424 - For the fruit of all creation (EAST ACKLAM)
• Hymn R305 - Lord, you give the great commission (ABBOT’S LEIGH)

The offertory this Sunday is the jubilant aria for soprano from Handel's opera, Joshua. Joshua tells the story of the Israelites from their passage over the Jordan River into Canaan and through the Battle of Jericho. This aria comes at the end of the oratorio. It will be sung by our soprano section leader this past year, Anna Zhang. Anna was a student at Lone Star College, and will be entering Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches in the fall.

If you were raised in the Baptist, Methodist or other southern denominations, chances are great that you will remember an old hymn called "There is a fountain filled with blood." This old revival tune was given a new treatment by the French organist Jean Langlais. The melody is played in the pedals, while a slow, modal accompaniment hovers above.