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There is a Balm in Gilead – Dawson
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Jeremiah 8:22a
No doubt you have heard by now that there is indeed a balm in Gilead, or at least there was, prior to the extinction of Commiphora opobalsamum [1]. This sturdy bush grew in the stony arid hills of Gilead, a region east of the Jordan that was the inheritance of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and part of Manasseh. Resin from the bush was harvested for medicinal balms that were an economic engine for the region for more than 1000 years.
However powerful the balm was, it did not heal sin-sick souls. That would be the work of Jesus; so in this usage the Balm of Gilead is another personage of Jesus, like The Lion of Judah or The Good Shepherd. This use of metaphor, along with the nature of the tune and the words, suggest to me a date on the late end of the African-American Spiritual spectrum, and suggest a variety of influences on what came to be the hymn.
William Levi Dawson (1899 – 1990) was a composer and arranger specializing in African-American Spirituals among other musical achievements; he is also remembered for his contributions to the Tuskegee Institute musical programs, particularly the choir that he raised to international prominence. His There is A Balm In Gilead (1939 – listen), is a straightforward anthem arrangement of the hymn employing echo and solo voice features.
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- Not Pistachia lentiscus, according to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282748639_Frankincense_Myrrh_and_Balm_of_Gilead_Ancient_Spices_of_Southern_Arabia_and_Judea
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L._Dawson_(composer)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_a_Balm_in_Gilead
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A Biography of Note – Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Vaughan Williams
- by Eric Saylor
- Oxford, 339 pages
The Wall Street Journal reports that Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 150th birthday is upcoming October 12, and that a new biography of the great composer has been released [1].
Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) is associated with 22 works in our current hymnal employing 11 hymn tunes. Of these 11, about half are harmonizations of traditional melodies (as mentioned in the Kingsfold post), half are original compositions. Included among the original compositions are favorites The Call (Come, My Way, My Truth, My Life), Sine Nomine (For All The Saints), and Randolph (God Be With You till We Meet Again). The Lark Ascending (listen) is said to be his most famous tune; Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (listen), also popular, has been used in at least a half dozen movies (Master and Commander; Zea). His setting of Greensleeves (listen) is also a favorite of many. Vaughn Williams is well-represented in our choral library; some will remember Hodie, the Christmas major work, prepared and performed by the Chancel choir many years ago.
Vaughan Williams composed over six decades, and is noted for his affinity for folk song and his decided Englishness, thought to be derived from his teacher Sir Hubert Perry (composer of the hymn tune Jerusalem – just sung last week) and best friend Gustav The Planets Holst (Cranham – In The Bleak Midwinter), along with his Victorian home upbringing. His The English Hymnal of 1906 is still in use today. In addition to the sacred and secular songwork, he penned nine symphonies and five operas.
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- [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaughan-williams-book-review-composer-more-than-mere-pastoral-charm-11660922287?mod=Searchresults_pos5&page=1
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Kingsfold Fantasia – Hakes
The Kingsfold hymn tune was published in 1893 in a compendium of English country songs; it is thought to date back to the middle ages. Ralph Vaughn Williams heard the tune in Kingsfold, England, and subsequently added the still-used harmony for use in the The English Hymnal of 1906 with the text I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say. The tune is minor but most of the harmonization is major, making it a suitable choice as well for O Sing a Song of Bethlehem. This text appears in the current Methodist Hymnal using the Kingsfold tune, along with Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine and To Mock Your Reign, O Dearest Lord. Kingsfold’s meter is Common Meter Doubled [1], making it a possible substitute for a great many texts.
Kingsfold Fantasia (Derek K. Hakes, 2017 listen) is scored for flute, bells/hand chimes, and piano. The interpretation is a rich exchange between the three voices.
Mikey Arichea is a recent addition to the bass section of the Chancel Choir. He is additionally an accomplished flutist, having tired of the tuba in high school.
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- [1] More on this another day.
- https://hymnary.org/tune/kingsfold_english
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A New Hymn
Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men) adapted Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird for stage in 2018. The play is currently on national tour and is, at this writing, being performed at the Durham Performing Arts Center. There is much to be said about the play, its voice and message, and its veracity and fidelity to the original work, but that can be taken up in a different forum. Relevant to this forum, however, is the bridge music used during some of the scene changes.
In the most unobtrusive way, the hymn tune Llanfair is used during the some of the scene changes, at first instrumentally, then as the play progresses, the players that are moving props hum along. In the late scenes, verse 5 from Psalm 30 becomes a passing element in the play’s dialogue: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. In a subsequent scene change, the a couple of players can be heard (barely) vocalizing to the Llanfair tune, singing “… joy will come in the morning” on the refrain.
On returning to various internet-enabled devices, I was looking forward to learning about the Psalm 30-based hymn with Llanfiar, as I did not quite recall ever having heard it before. Turns out it is for good reason: There isn’t one.
There are many texts that are purportedly associated with Psalm 30; even with Psalm 30:5 [1], but none of those texts is associated with Llanfair, and so far none found ending with “joy will come in the morning.”
Sorkin’s play is not a musical, so there is no score to be searched up, so I searched for mentions of the inclusion of Psalm 30 in the play, and about the singing of it. So far I have not located anyone discussing it print.
I wonder how it came to be. Was it organic, in which Llanfair was chosen as the bridge music, the humming evolved, and at some point a cast member recognized that the rhythm of the last phrase matched the “joy will come in the morning” phrase, and ad-libbed it, and it stuck? Unlikely. Then if instead it was engineered from the start, with Llanfair being selected as the bridge music so that the text can be sung later, how and why does one get that kind of musical engagement in a non-musical play? And why only for scene changes, where even when fully developed, perhaps one or two cast members may be singing the text in a distracted, barely audible way?
The inclusion of Psalm 30:5 in To Kill A Mockingbird is unique to the play, and even there has only a tangential or even puzzling relationship to the storyline and dialogue. Presumably it is an association born of Lee’s phrase from the original text, a narrative remark made in passing, which has (surprisingly) become a touchstone quote for many: “Things are always better in the morning”. The Psalm is employed significantly later in the play than the “morning” quote appears in the book.
So what might a Psalm 30 + Llanfair hymn be like? I propose the following:
God has saved us from the grave, sing His praises ever!
Praise the Lord ye saints of His, praise His name together!
Healed our wounds and made us whole, all our fears removing.
Weeping may endure for the night, joy will come in the morning.
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Safe from earthly evils e’re, we shall fear no darkness.
On thy might mountain stand, Satan there is pow’rless.
From that lofty temple raise every voice in singing!
Weeping may endure for the night, joy will come in the morning.[2]
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- [1] Some of the referenced texts have only a passing relationship with the verse, see Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go.
- [2] Llanfair is used in the current Methodist Hymnal once, with the Charles Wesley text Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise, with a meter of 7.7.7.7 with Alleluias. The meter for the proposed text would be 13.13.13.15 which appears to be a first.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin
- https://hymnary.org/search?qu=psalm+30
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Mothering God – Trenney/Janzen
The Trenney arrangement of Mothering God (2020 listen, and see Trenney at the piano playing from manuscript) is a moving work that has breathed a life into the text with music that matches the flow and feeling of the text.
Tom Trenney (b. 1977) is a current force in sacred music with dozens of original works and arrangements published within the last decade. His arrangements encompass the very familiar as well as the somewhat obscure, along with many original works. His big choir works often have a gospel choir feel in both style and text. Some will remember Maya’s Prayer for Peace, one of the many Trenney selections in the ESUMC library, that is illustrative of the style and implementation of progressive lyrics. Trenney is the Minister of Music at First-Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, Nebraska and is on faculty at Nebraska Wesleyan University.
The text of Mothering God originates with Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic in medieval England. The original text was adapted by poet Jean Janzen (b. 1933) for a 1992 Mennonite hymnal. The text has been set to multiple tunes, notably Maryton (H. Percy Smith, 1874), which is also the tune used with O Master Let Me Walk With Thee. This combination appears in the current The Faith We Sing hymnal. Confusingly, Trenney has also arranged Mothering God using the Maryton tune for choir; today’s solo uses the Trenney-composed tune.
Soprano Grace Sugg has sung with the Chancel Choir for over 12 years.
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- https://tomtrenney.com/
- https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-mothering-god-you-gave-me-birth
- https://hymnary.org/tune/maryton_smith
- https://hymnary.org/text/mothering_god_you_gave_me_birth
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Be Thou My Vision – arr. Parker
Alice Parker (b. 1925) is the grande dame of American choral music, having composed a wealth of original work and occupied a litany of leadership roles. She is perhaps most recognized for her arrangements, notably of American folk music. Melodious Accord – A Concert of Praise is a collection of American folk worship tunes in the ESUMC library [1]. Melodious Accord is also the title of many things Alice Parker, including her publishing concern, benevolent organization, and one of her several books [2]. Early in her career she enjoyed a professional partnership with Robert Shaw, the dean of the American choral scene in the mid-20th century, and later formed her own professional chorale (also named Melodious Accord) in 1985.
Be Thou My Vision is a hymn of Irish extraction, first appearing in English in 1912 and later paired with the now-familiar Slane hymn tune, also of Irish origin, in 1919. Parker’s 1976 arrangement [listen] uses four of the verses that make up the commonly translated text [3]. Parker’s version is a straight-forward statement of the work scored for SATB including a descant along with an accompaniment of harp and organ.
The hymn text is not associated with any particular Bible verse. The infrequently heard “Be thou my breastplate” verse is nevertheless reminiscent of Ephesians 6:11-18 (Put on the whole armor of God).
Be Thou my Breastplate, my Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my whole Armor, be Thou my true Might;
Be Thou my soul’s Shelter, be Thou my strong Tow’r,
O raise Thou me heav’nward, great Pow’r of my pow’r.The phrase “Be thou my vision” is familiar enough that we likely don’t give it the reflection it deserves. Ephesians 5:1-2 can help put us in the mind of “Be thou the perfect ideal that I aspire to live up to” : “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
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- [1] The choir recorded the work to CD; copies are in the archives.
- [2] The expression Melodious Accord is extracted from a stylized version of Psalm 100, per Parker’s book of the same title.
- [3] The current Methodist Hymnal omits the “Riches I heed not” verse, although it appears in other common hymnals. The prior Methodist Hymnal omitted the hymn altogether.
Other sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Thou_My_Vision
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Parker
- https://www.melodiousaccord.org/
- Parker, Alice: Melodious Accord (Gia Publications, Inc., 2014)
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Make Me A Channel of Your Peace – Temple/Neary
Make Me a Channel of Your Peace [listen] was written by Sebastian Temple (1928-1997) in 1967. Temple was born in South Africa, moved to London, then to the United States where he ultimately converted to Catholicism in a Franciscan Order. A man of diverse interests, he dedicated his later years to composing music for worship.
Temple’s Make Me a Channel of Your Peace employs a light melodious folk melody suitable for guitar accompaniment onto which a stylized version of the traditional Peace Prayer is applied (see comparison below). By contrast, another version of the Prayer in the ESUMC library is David Stanley York’s Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace, which applies the traditional text rigorously on undoubtedly beautiful but not necessarily melodious music.
Temple:
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.Oh, Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand.
To be loved as to love with all my soul.Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
in giving of ourselves that we receive,
and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.Traditional:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.Make Me a Channel of Your Peace is reportedly very popular in England, and was selected for use in the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 as shown on the sheet music. Martin Neary was the Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey from 1988 to 1998, and arranged a fuller accompaniment and descant for Temple’s work.
Temple died the same year as Princess Diana, but was able to see his work gain world attention.
Musicians, who see themselves as instruments in the first place, are drawn to the idea a contributing to the larger purpose. Consequently there are dozens of “Make Me an Instrument” compositions (Rutter! Clausen!) and even more song/artist combinations (Sinead O’Connor! Olivia Newton John!).
St. Francis (1181? – 1226) was born into wealth and lived lavishly as a young man prior to a number of life changes that led him to religious asceticism. The Peace Prayer is not in fact found among St. Francis’s writings, but came to be associated with him as his likeness appeared on the back of a popular printing. The prayer dates from the 20th century.
Sources:
- https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-make-me-a-channel-of-your-peace
- http://www.hymnology.co.uk/s/sebastian-temple
- http://www.hymnology.co.uk/m/make-me-a-channel-of-your-peace
- https://hymnary.org/text/make_me_a_channel_of_your_peace
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Neary
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Saint_Francis
with Filippa Duke
