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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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Cover Image: For I Know the Plans I Have for You – Schwoebel
Isaiah by Gustave Doré, 1866. Public Domain Pursuant to some discussion in the choir room, the image of the man praying on the cover of Schwoebel’s For I Know the Plans I Have for You (Jeremiah 29:11-14) is in fact meant to be Isaiah. The image is taken from La Grande Bible de Tours, an 1866 publication of the Vulgate Bible including 241 wood engravings by French artist Gustave Doré (1832–1883). The image is associated with Isaiah 6:8-9, which is the moving culmination of Isaiah’s commissioning (“Whom shall we send? And who will go for us?” “Here am I. Send me.”) [1].
Gustave Doré was a prolific French artist working in several media. His woodcut illustrations used in the printing technology of the day can be found in all manner of work, such as Cervantes, Milton, and the like. At peak he employed some 40 wood cutters to convert his drawings. The Doré signature can be seen in the lower left hand corner of Isaiah, and the engraver (Héliodore Pisan (1822-1890)) in the lower right.
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- [1] In the Year that King Uzziah Died (David McKay Williams) is a big choral anthem in the ESUMC anthem library using the KJV version of Isaiah’s commissioning as the text
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Dor%C3%A9
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Dor%C3%A9%27s_illustrations_for_La_Grande_Bible_de_Tours
- https://pitts.emory.edu/dia/image_details.cfm?ID=17157
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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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Treasures in Heaven – Clokey
Treasures In Heaven (1941 listen) enjoyed immense popularity in the heyday of organized religion in America in the mid 20th century [1]. The work is based on the King James version of Matthew 6:19-21 and 7:7-8, portions of the Sermon on the Mount [2]. The text follows the scripture precisely at the sacrifice of a discernable meter, alternating between phrases rooted three and four beats. The most salient and dramatic feature of the arrangement features the lower three voice parts walking an inverted triad down an entire octave in support of an octave down-jump in the soprano line (Thieves break through and steal!). A soprano solo interlude introduces the Matthew 7 text (Ask and it shall be given…) between portions A and B in an ABA construction.
Joseph W. Clokey (1890-1960), the son of a Presbyterian minister, was Professor of Organ among other capacities at Miami University (Ohio). He was an active composer of sacred and secular works including symphonies, opera, and over 100 choral works. [3]
If the Clokey name has a familiar ring, it may be because the composer’s son Art was the creator of Gumby and Pokey, as well as the Davey and Goliath clay animation figures. [4]
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- [1] https://religionnews.com/2014/12/11/1940s-america-wasnt-religious-think-rise-fall-american-religion/
- [2] We have discussed an aspect of the ASK teaching here .
- [3, 4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Clokey
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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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The Lord’s Prayer – Clausen
Rene Clausen (b. 1963), the American composer with a French name, burst onto the choral music scene in the 1990s with A New Creation, with perfectly stunning settings of familiar verses including Psalm 150, Luke 2:29-32, Romans 8:26-27, 1 Peter 1:24-25, along with 2 Corinthians 5:17. The a cappella setting of Song of Solomon 8:6-7 (Set Me as a Seal Upon Your Heart) shortly became a part of the popular choral cannon. Claussen has been a prolific composer of choral works as well as instrumental and solo voice compositions. He is an active conductor and clinician.
Claussen’s compositions frequently make use of close dissonant yet agreeable harmonies, as well as moving stepwise parallel intervals, typically upward. Both features are evident in The Lord’s Prayer (1994) [listen], along with a flexible approach to beats per measure. The climactic “forever” employs the same intervals, albeit in a different chord structure, as the well-known Malotte version of the The Lord’s Prayer (1936) heard at countless weddings. A nod to the earlier work?
Like many of Clausen’s other adagios, the music and text together in The Lord’s Prayer evoke a thoughtful tranquility.
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The Probability of Luke 11:9 in English
Part of the Gospel lesson (Luke 11:1-13) for the seventh Sunday after Pentecost – Year C – common lectionary
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”
Luke 11:9, also Matthew 7:7
Likely you recall that the first letters of Ask, Seek, and Knock compose an acronym (ASK) that is a mnemonic device for helping us remember the elements of the verse, and remarkably, the same as the first element in the acronym. Have you ever considered how improbable it is for the words Ask, Search (or seek), and Knock to form the work ASK as an acronym of the key words? Obviously, it only works in English, however the choice of words is apparently not a work of translation trickery.[1, 2]
For sophomoric analysis, the likelihood of any three words together starting with A, S, and K appears to be (11.7% x 6.7% x .86%) [3] which calculates to about 1 in 15,000, not an overly staggering number; but to have the three words appear in A-S-K order, the chances become about 1 in 100,000 (there are 31,102 verses in the Bible, for reference).
Here is a picture of 1 in 100,000. Can you find the red dot?
see https://anthonybmasters.medium.com/understanding-one-in-100-000-a2aa5556235 As for the acronym (ASK) being the same word as the first element in the three word expression, we really will require the services of a real lexicographer-mathematician.
Might this be a case of Divine design? Just asking the question…
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- [1] https://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/11-9.htm
- [2] https://www.transcripture.com/english-francais-luke-11.html
- [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency
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Living in the Moment
Gospel lesson (Luke 10:38-42) for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost – Year C – common lectionary
Living in the moment is a refrain from ancient schools of thought and behavior that has gained renewed traction in the today’s hyper-stimulated environment. While not necessarily an organizing principle of Christianity, the concept is nevertheless frequently evident in both Old and New Testaments [1], and indeed in Jesus’s explicit teachings, exampled in today’s Gospel lesson.
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, 42 but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 NRSVUEHere the teaching concerns living in this moment through identifying the essential thing distinct from the distractions of busy-ness and lesser endeavors. How to know the essential thing? In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed — Mark 1:35
Elsewhere, Jesus’s teachings on Living in the Moment come in the form of not worrying about the future. Recall the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount concerning the lilies of the field, culminating with “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”— Matthew 6:43.
A memorable lesson in Living in the Present was delivered at Edenton St. UMC by Bishop Marion Edwards (1929-2011) using Psalm 118:35 as his text – This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. We allow our narratives of the past to become idyllic, bearing little resemblance to what really happened. We fret about the future to the point that we miss the day that is given us. But emphasizing each element of the verse, he drove home the message that This Is the Day.
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[1] see Isaiah 43:18-19; Ephesians 5:15-16; James 4:14; also Matthew 24:42-44;
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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
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If Ye Love Me – Thomas Tallis
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth
John 14: 15-17a KJV
The English master composer Thomas Tallis (1505?-1585) was engaged in the royal courts as an organist and composer principally of choral music during Renaissance period. Tallis was among the earliest composers of choral works in English, rather than Latin, following the edict of King Edward VI [1], whose intention was to make the elements of the emerging Protestant religious service accessible to English speakers. If Ye Love Me [listen] is an early example of the English Anthem, mostly homophonic (one syllable to a note) and composed in ABB form, in which the second portion is repeated. If Ye Love Me, composed 1565, is a mainstay in the sacred choral music repertoire and on the very early portion of the spectrum.
While the synoptic gospels provide an accounting of events, John is focused on the nature of God in human form and on his love. Nowhere is this love more evident than in John 14. Here, during The Last Supper, Jesus is speaking intimately with his disciples. I don’t have any more to teach you, he says, and you are no longer my followers, but my friends. And I am leaving you.
Verse 16 provides the first mention in John of the Holy Spirit, God’s provision for an ongoing presence of God in our lives once Jesus (God in human form) has departed, thus making the verse one of the most pivotal passages in the Bible.
We, you and I, are armed with 2000 years of retrospect and probably several decades of Sunday School. We know what is going to happen at the Last Supper and beyond. Jesus has the power of omniscience. He knows that his earthly path is soon over, that the journey with his fellow travelers is soon to end, and that he is on the precipice of a very unpleasant ordeal. The disciples, by contrast, have not these advantages and are completely unequipped for the occasion, thinking that tomorrow will be another day with the Teacher, and now wondering, “If you are leaving me, how am I to go forward?”
If Ye Love Me speaks most clearly if we, like the disciples, can turn our attention to God in human form speaking to us with a great and heavy heart, trying once more to help us.
with Filippa Duke
