October 9, 2011

          “Praise Ye the Lord” is an adaptation of Psalm 150 (one of today’s scriptures) and was written by J. Jefferson Cleveland in 1981. Cleveland was an editor of several United Methodist collections and was also an expert in African-American music. This song is an example of that expertise.

            “When In Our Music” is actually titled, “Let the people sing!” and was written by the English hymn writer Fred Pratt Green. Green has been called “the twentieth-century hymn writing version of Charles Wesley” by the esteemed hymnologist Paul Westermeyer, and has been credited with starting the twentieth century’s hymn explosion. The original text of the first line of the hymn read, “When in man’s music God is glorified,” with the author intending only to employ alliteration, and not promote sexism. The text exemplifies the potential for extravagant worship through music, particularly in the final stanza, which is a paraphrase of Psalm 150. The fourth stanza in our anthem setting has been omitted from The Presbyterian Hymnal, but follows below:

And did not Jesus sing a Psalm that night

when utmost evil strove against the light?

Then let us sing, for whom he won the fight:

Alleluia!

            "Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty" is based on Psalm 103:1-6 and Psalm 150. It was translated from the original German  by Catherine Winkworth, a foremost translator of German hymns during the nineteenth century in England. Joachim Neander, who penned the German text, wrote around sixty hymns, making him one of the more prolific Calvinist hymn writers. Lutheran composer and conductor F. Melius Christiansen, the first conductor of the St. Olaf Choir, arranged the hymn in an anthem setting that is still widely used today. A performance of the piece by the Luther College Nordic Choir can be found here:

         

Nearly every hymn or song we will hear today incorporates the text of Psalm 150 in some way, and "Praise the Lord, God's Glories Show" is no different. Much like "When In Our Music," this hymn uses "Alleluias" in each stanza to proclaim God's praise when other words fall short.


Our final hymn today is Shirley Erena Murray’s “For the Music of Creation.” It was originally written for a 1988 arts festival in New Zealand. The text praises God for the gift of music, and for the ability to use music to communicate with the creator and “composer” of the world.