Introit: How Lovely, Lord
Arlo Duba wrote this paraphrase of Psalm 84 after being struck by the fact that other musical settings of the psalm did not seem to carry with them the understanding of God's house being a wonderfully pleasing place in which to be.
Hymn: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
Reginald Heber wrote this hymn for Trinity Sunday, building it on Revelation 4. Paul Westermeyer writes, "This accounts not only for 'Holy, holy holy' and its reminder of Isaiah 6:3, but for the imagery of 'golden crowns' and 'glassy sea,' which point beyond the realm of our experience and comprehension to the numinous (and which, as for the book of Revelation generally, when turned into literal figures become meaningless)."
Hymn: My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less
When speaking of his hymn, author Edward Mote said, "one day it came into my mind as I went to labor to write a hymn on the 'Gracious Experience of a Christian.'" The firstfruits of his labor were four stanzas and the refrain of this hymn. After leaving a meeting, he visited a sick parishioner, where they sang the original four stanzas. He then returned home and penned the final two. The hymn was published in 1836 under the title "The Immutable Basis of a Sinner's Hope," and originally began, "Nor earth nor hell my soul can move." The tune SOLID ROCK was penned by William Bradbury, who also wrote "Jesus Loves Me."
Hymn: How Firm a Foundation
The authorship of this hymn is still shrouded in mystery. First published in John Rippon's A Selection of Hymns (1787), it was signed "K." Baptist hymnologists David Music and Paul A. Richardson searched for a definitive author, but their labor yielded only "tantalizing clues" with no "conclusion." It was originally titled "Exceeding Great and Precious Promises, 2 Pet. iii.4." Paul Westermeyer writes that "the hymn runs that out in seven stanzas as a paraphrase of Isaiah 43:1b-3. Then, at the end, where the final line is 'I'll never—no never—no never forsake,' an asterisk points to a footnote," which references a translation of Hebrews 13:5: "Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.'"
Anthem: Hymn of Promise
Author and composer Natalie Sleeth writes of her work: "...I seem to have been much involved in pondering the ideas of life, and death, spring and winter, Good Friday and Easter, and the whole reawakening of the world that happens every spring. ...One evening we entertained a friend for supper, and he, too, had been pondering such themes, and, even shared a work by T.S. Eliot in which there was a phrase something like "In our end is our beginning." That was virtually the catalyst for the form of the text of "Hymn of Promise" which I wrote the next day or two. ...I worked on the words very carefully, choosing just the right "pairings," attempting to get across the idea of someting inherent in something else even though unseen, and I even bought a tulip plant (though it was in bloom and bright yellow) to contemplate the idea of the "bulb" leading to the flower even though the bulb itself seems 'dead.'"
Arlo Duba wrote this paraphrase of Psalm 84 after being struck by the fact that other musical settings of the psalm did not seem to carry with them the understanding of God's house being a wonderfully pleasing place in which to be.
Hymn: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
Reginald Heber wrote this hymn for Trinity Sunday, building it on Revelation 4. Paul Westermeyer writes, "This accounts not only for 'Holy, holy holy' and its reminder of Isaiah 6:3, but for the imagery of 'golden crowns' and 'glassy sea,' which point beyond the realm of our experience and comprehension to the numinous (and which, as for the book of Revelation generally, when turned into literal figures become meaningless)."
Hymn: My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less
When speaking of his hymn, author Edward Mote said, "one day it came into my mind as I went to labor to write a hymn on the 'Gracious Experience of a Christian.'" The firstfruits of his labor were four stanzas and the refrain of this hymn. After leaving a meeting, he visited a sick parishioner, where they sang the original four stanzas. He then returned home and penned the final two. The hymn was published in 1836 under the title "The Immutable Basis of a Sinner's Hope," and originally began, "Nor earth nor hell my soul can move." The tune SOLID ROCK was penned by William Bradbury, who also wrote "Jesus Loves Me."
Hymn: How Firm a Foundation
The authorship of this hymn is still shrouded in mystery. First published in John Rippon's A Selection of Hymns (1787), it was signed "K." Baptist hymnologists David Music and Paul A. Richardson searched for a definitive author, but their labor yielded only "tantalizing clues" with no "conclusion." It was originally titled "Exceeding Great and Precious Promises, 2 Pet. iii.4." Paul Westermeyer writes that "the hymn runs that out in seven stanzas as a paraphrase of Isaiah 43:1b-3. Then, at the end, where the final line is 'I'll never—no never—no never forsake,' an asterisk points to a footnote," which references a translation of Hebrews 13:5: "Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.'"
Anthem: Hymn of Promise
Author and composer Natalie Sleeth writes of her work: "...I seem to have been much involved in pondering the ideas of life, and death, spring and winter, Good Friday and Easter, and the whole reawakening of the world that happens every spring. ...One evening we entertained a friend for supper, and he, too, had been pondering such themes, and, even shared a work by T.S. Eliot in which there was a phrase something like "In our end is our beginning." That was virtually the catalyst for the form of the text of "Hymn of Promise" which I wrote the next day or two. ...I worked on the words very carefully, choosing just the right "pairings," attempting to get across the idea of someting inherent in something else even though unseen, and I even bought a tulip plant (though it was in bloom and bright yellow) to contemplate the idea of the "bulb" leading to the flower even though the bulb itself seems 'dead.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment