Music for January 22, 2017 + The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• Dear Lord and Father of Mankind – C. H. H. Parry (1848-1918)

Instrumental Music

• O God, Thou Faithful God– Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• How Brightly Shines the Morningstar – Andreas Armsdorff (1670–1699)
• Improvisation on “Praise to the Lord” – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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 381 - Thy strong word did cleave the darkness (TONY-Y-BOTEL)
• Hymn 707 - Take my life, and let it be (HOLLINGSIDE)
• Hymn 321 - My God, thy table now is spread (ROCKINGHAM)
• Hymn R102 - The Lord is my light (Jacques Berthier)
• Hymn 530 - Spread, O spread, thou mighty word (GOTT SEI DANK)
• Psalm 27:1, 5-13 - Dominus illuminatio (simplified Anglican Chant by Jerome Meachem)

The choir sings one of our favorite anthems this Sunday, the beautiful Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by the British composer Charles Hubert Hastings Parry.  This hymn, now one of England’s favorites, began life as the ballad of Meshullemeth (‘Long since in Egypt’s plenteous land’) in Act I of Judith, Parry's oratorio of 1888. It was only after Parry’s death that permission was granted by Novello and Parry’s estate to allow George Gilbert Stocks, the head of music at Repton School, to adapt the music to this text for the school’s hymn book, at which time the melody became known as REPTON.  It was also published in 1941 as the hymn-anthem (which we are singing today) in which much of the original music of the aria was restored.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Ironically, the author of this beautiful and much-loved hymn deeply disapproved of singing in church. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) was an American Quaker who firmly believed that God was best worshipped in silent meditation and who deplored the histrionics associated with both the High Church and the Evangelical movement.

He did, however, allow these verses to be used in a hymn book published in 1884. They are drawn from an interlude in his long and eccentric poem called The Brewing of Soma, which describes in shocked terms the Vedic Hindu habit of drinking hallucinogenic concoctions as a way of whipping up religious enthusiasm. Michael Hawn, professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology at SMU, tell's of the hymn's origins here.

Whittier advocated waiting instead for "the still small voice of calm" – an injunction beautifully suggested in the climax to this tune composed by Parry.

It will also be sung as a congregational hymn at the Hymn Festival this Sunday night. Make plans to come!