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¡Gloria, gloria, gloria! Pablo Sosa* (1933—2020).
This joyful chorus comes directly from Luke 2: 14, the canticle of the angels. 'Gloria' (1978) was composed for a Christmas pageant, designed so that the congregation could join in the drama as the chorus of angels. The song-dance is based on the cueca, the national dance of Chile, but also popular in Bolivia and parts of Argentina. The musical style includes a lively three-four (¾) meter melded with a cross-rhythm of six-eight (6/8)...
A brighter dawn is breaking. Percy Dearmer* (1867-1936).
Written for EH (1906) to fit the German tune SELNECKER (NUN LASST UNS GOTT DEM HERREN). Dearmer said that it was written for Eastertide 'because there was a dearth of cheerful Easter tunes' (Songs of Praise Discussed, 1933, p. 231):
A brighter dawn is breaking,And earth with praise is waking;For thou, O King most highest,The power of death defiest;
And thou hast come victorious,With risen Body glorious,Who now for ever livest,And life...
A city radiant as a bride. Timothy Dudley-Smith* (1926- ).
First published in the quarterly News of Hymnody in 1987. Drawing on Revelation 21, it is a hymn on the subject of 'citizens of heaven'; which was, at that point in the development in the Church of England's alternative liturgies, the theme for the 'Last Sunday after Pentecost'. Although since the replacement of the 1980 Alternative Service Book this is no longer the case, the same chapter from Revelation now appears as an option for...
A glorious company we sing. Albert Frederick Bayly* (1901-1984).
Written in 1946 for a Sunday School Anniversary at Morpeth Congregational Church, and published in The Sunday School Chronicle (1946), Rejoice O People (1950), and Sunday School Praise (1958). It has appeared in many books since, including HP, with four of the original five verses, omitting verse three:
A daring company we sing,
who bore by land and sea
the tidings of their Saviour's love,
his cross and victory:
till...
A light from heaven shone around. Gracia Grindal* (1943- ).
This was written in response to a general request from the committee of H82, which circulated a list of Festivals and Saints' Days for which it was seeking new hymns. This one, on the Conversion of St Paul, follows the account in Acts 9 closely. Since that time it has also appeared in Singing the New Testament (ed. Joyce Borger, Faith Alive, 2008).
JRW
A Light is Gleaming ('When light comes pouring into the darkest place'). Linnea Good* (1962– ).
Written first for The Whole People of God church school curriculum (1992), Linnea Good's 'A Light Is Gleaming' appeared subsequently in Voices United (VU, 1996) the denomination hymnal of the United Church of Canada.
The song begins with a refrain inviting the singers to come and share in the light and love of God. Notable in its text construction, the line 'living in the light', sung twice in the...
A man there lived in Galilee. Somerset Lowry* (1855-1932).
According to Wesley Milgate* this hymn 'was apparently first published in School Worship (1926), set to FOREST GREEN' (Milgate, 1982, p. 88). In that version it had a refrain, which has been omitted in most subsequent books, though not in CP:
O Son of Man, O more than man,
Canst Thou our comrade be?
Then help us all, who hear Thy call,
To rise and follow Thee.
It had three stanzas, neatly celebrating the life, death and...
A purple robe, a crown of thorn. Timothy Dudley-Smith* (1926-2024).
Written at the author's home at Sevenoaks, Kent, in October 1968, this Passiontide text was published the next year in Youth Praise 2. This was followed by several mainstream hymnals in the UK (including A&MRW) and the USA as well as two of the author's own collections; other appearances include at least two publications in a Chinese translation.
It has usually been set to David Wilson*'s composition A PURPLE ROBE,...
A Saviour who died our salvation to win. Ada Ruth Habershon* (1861-1918).
This hymn is dated 1905, one of many written for the evangelistic campaign of Charles M. Alexander* with his teacher Reuben Archer Torrey*. It was sometimes entitled 'Is He Yours?', taken from the refrain:
Is He yours? Is He Yours? Is this Saviour, who loves you, yours?
Another title was 'The Pilot Song', from stanza 3, which stands out from the other three more traditional stanzas, which celebrate 'Saviour',...
A stable lamp was lighted. Richard Wilbur* (1921-2017).
According to The Hymnal 1982 Companion, this was written for a candlelight service on 7 December 1958 at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, prefaced by a quotation from Luke 19: 40: 'I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out'. It was used by the Wilbur family as its Christmas card in 1958 (Companion, Volume 3A, pp. 203-4, note to hymn 104).
Entitled 'A Christmas Hymn', this was published in...
Allchin, Arthur MacDonald. b. Acton, London, 20 April 1930; d. Oxford, 23 December 2010. Donald, as he was always called, was the youngest of four children of Frank MacDonald Allchin, a physician, and Louise Maude, née Wright. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history and proceeded to take a BLitt, published as The Silent Revolution (1958), a history of 19th-century Anglican religious communities which became the standard study of the...
See 'Zimbabwean hymnody#Abraham Dumisani Maraire'*
Accept, O Lord, our Alms, though small. Wilson Carlile* (1847-1942).
This was printed by Lady Victoria Carbery* in the Church Hymnal for the Christian Year (1917, retained in the 1920 edition). It was included in the 'Introduction', in a section 'Hymns for the Alms and Oblations'. It was preceded by a quotation from 1 Peter 2: 5: 'Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.' It also referred...
Den Besten, Adriaan Cornelis ('Ad'). b. Utrecht, the Netherlands, 11 March 1923; d. Amstelveen, 31 March 2015. He went to primary and secondary school in Utrecht, and after graduating in 1941 he went to Utrecht University to study theology. Two years earlier, he had made his literary debut in Opwaartsche Wegen, a magazine for young protestant poets. In 1943 he was forced to abandon his studies as Utrecht University was closed by order of the German occupying forces. Den Besten and other...
GREENAWAY, Ada Rundall. b. Trivandrum, India, 12 October 1861; d. Woking, Surrey, 15 May 1937. She was the daughter of a general in the Indian army. Like many army children, she was sent to Britain as a child. She lived in Surrey in later years, first at Guildford, and finally at Woking. She had an arrangement to write improving words for the calendars and Christmas cards of Mowbrays, the religious publishers. Her 'Rise in the strength of God'* (in the Second Supplement of A&M, 1916, and in...
HABERSHON, Ada Ruth. b. Marylebone, London, 8 January 1861; d. London, 1 February 1918. She came from a religious family: she was the daughter of a physician, Dr Samuel Habershon, and his wife Grace. She was educated at a boarding school at Dover. She was steeped in evangelical culture: she was a friend of Charles Haddon Spurgeon*, and an enthusiastic supporter of the 1884 London Mission of Dwight L. Moody* and Ira D. Sankey*. Her autobiography and memoir, A Gatherer of Fresh Spoil, compiled by...
FOX, Adam. b. Kensington, London, 15 July 1883; d. Westminster, London, 17 January 1977. He was educated at University College, Oxford (BA 1906, MA 1909), becoming an assistant master at Lancing College, Sussex (1906-18). During this time at Lancing he trained for the priesthood at Cuddesdon College, and was ordained (deacon 1911, priest 1913). He was Warden of Radley College, near Oxford (1918-24), before teaching at the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, South Africa (1925-29). He returned to...
TICE, Adam Merrill Longoria. b. Boynton, Pennsylvania, 11 October 1979. Adam Tice spent his growing up years in several states across the USA, ending up in the town of Goshen in northern Indiana. He is a graduate of Goshen College (B.A. in music, 2002), and the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana (now Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, AMBS), with an MA in Christian Formation (2006).
It was at AMBS that he wrote his first hymn text. This began a profound and...
POLLARD, Adelaide Addison. b. Bloomfield, Iowa, 27 November 1862; d. New York City, 20 December 1934. She was christened Sarah, but chose the name Adelaide for herself. She attended the Boston School of Oratory, and taught in several girls' schools in Chicago. Although she was brought up a Presbyterian, Pollard's spiritual journey extended to faith healers such as John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), and preachers of the imminent coming of Christ including her contemporary Frank Sanford...
Affirm anew the three-fold name. Timothy Dudley-Smith* (1926-2024).
Built upon its four imperatives of 'Affirm…Declare…Confirm…Renew…', this hymn of Christian dedication and renewal was written for the 1998 Lambeth Conference of worldwide Anglican bishops (see Lambeth Praise*). The Archbishop of Canterbury's Secretary for this event wrote well in advance to Dudley-Smith outlining the conference's four main themes; a small selection of hymns was to be used including some new texts. Dudley-Smith...
Africa Praise. This book, published in 1969 by the United Society for Christian Literature, is a good example of an early attempt to provide hymns for African schools that would recognise the importance of local cultures and the needs of independent African nations. It was edited by David G. Temple (words) and Arthur Morris Jones* (music). It was intended for schools in which English was the medium of instruction, and one of its aims was 'to discover as many African hymns as possible' (Preface,...
YearDenomination and EditorsTitleComments
1801
African Methodist Episcopal ChurchRichard Allen*
A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns Selected From Various Authors, by Richard Allen, African Minister
54 Texts only (no music like other hymnals of this period; the authors of text were not included).
1801
African Methodist Episcopal ChurchRichard Allen
A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs from Various Authors, by Richard Allen, Minister of the African Methodist Episcopal...
After darkness, light. Fred Pratt Green* (1903-2000).
Written for Seven Words from the Cross (1972), an unpublished cantata by Francis Westbrook*, the text appeared in Partners in Praise (1979), after The Methodist Recorder had printed this Easter hymn, inviting tunes for its unusual metre, 5.5.5.4. Two tunes were selected: it is normally sung to RIDGEWAY, by Brian R. Hoare*. It is a remarkable example of a modern hymn in simple rhythm, with sharp contrasts and oppositions, and economy of...
GAUNT, Alan. b. Manchester, 26 May 1935; d. The Wirral, Merseyside, 19 July 2023. He was educated at Silcoates School, Lancashire Independent College, and Manchester University. He was ordained in the Congregational (later United Reformed Church) ministry in 1958, and served churches at Clitheroe and Barrow, Lancashire; Keighley, Yorkshire; Sunderland; Heswall; the South-West Manchester group of Baptist and United Reformed churches; and Windermere.
He published books of prayers, including New...
HOMMERDING, Alan Joseph. b. Port Washington, Wisconsin, 19 November 1956. He earned graduate degrees in theology, liturgy and music from St Mary's Seminary in Baltimore and the University of Notre Dame. Additional studies in organ, accompanying and vocal/choral studies were taken at Princeton University, Westminster Choir College and the Peabody Conservatory.
In addition to serving as a church musician and a music advisor for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, Hommerding is Senior...
LUFF, Alan Harold Frank. b. Bristol, 6 November 1928; d. Cardiff, 16 April 2020. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School. After University College, Oxford (1947-1952), where he read 'Greats' (Literae Humaniores, Greek and Latin/ Ancient Philosophy and History) and then Theology (1952), he trained for the Anglican priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge (1954-56). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1956, priest 1957), and after curacies at Stretford and Swinton, diocese of Manchester (1956-62), he...
DALE, Alan Taylor. b. Baddeley Green, near Stoke-on-Trent, 9 April 1902; d. Dartmouth, Devon, 31 January 1979. He was educated at Hanley School, Stoke. He trained as a teacher, and taught for two years before entering Victoria Park College, Manchester, to train for the United Methodist Church ministry. Ordained in 1928, he was a missionary in China (1929-35), followed by Methodist circuits at Skipton, Blackpool North, Sheffield North-East, and Bath. His final post was as a lecturer in religious...
ORSBORN, Albert (William Thomas). b. Maidstone, Kent, 4 September 1886; d. Boscombe, Hampshire, 4 February 1967. He was the son of Salvation Army officers who had helped to pioneer Army work in Norway in 1888; he became one of the Army's most significant writers of congregational song in the 20th century.
His early efforts at writing poetry, as a junior clerk, aged about 15, were despised by his office manager, but were encouraged by the editors of The War Cry, the Salvationist newspaper, when...
GOODSON, Albert A. b. Los Angeles, October 1933; d. Los Angeles, December 2003. Goodson was brought up in the Pentecostal church. At the age of twelve he joined St Paul Baptist Church where he apparently received his only formal musical training, and was introduced to gospel music by the church's director of music, J. Earle Hines (1916-60) and pianist Gwendolyn Cooper-Lightner (1925-1999), who in 1946 founded the church's Echoes of Eden Choir, and with others established St Paul's as a center...
BAYLY, Albert Frederick. b. Bexhill, Sussex, 6 September 1901; d. Chichester, 26 July 1984. He was educated at Hastings Grammar School. He trained as a shipwright at the Royal Dockyard School, Portsmouth; but working on warships was contrary to his strong pacifist views, and he offered for the Congregational ministry, having obtained by part-time study an external BA (1924) from London University. He trained at Mansfield College, Oxford (1925-28), and was ordained in 1929. He served at Whitley...
RONANDER, Albert Carl. b. Worcester, Massachusetts, 15 December 1914; d. Hyannis, Massachusetts, 16 March 2007. A United Church of Christ pastor and hymnologist, Ronander attended Occidental College, Los Angeles, California, and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (BA, 1938); he undertook further study at Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago Illinois (BD, 1941), Union Theological Seminary, New York City (STM, 1950), with post-graduate studies at Harvard University, Cambridge,...
BRUMLEY, Albert Edward. b. near Spiro, Oklahoma, 29 October 1905; d. Powell, Missouri, 15 November 1977. Brumley was born on a cotton farm. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes: 'Music, both sacred and secular, formed an important part of Brumley's childhood. His parents were firmly committed Campbellite Protestants, [whose worship excluded instruments] but his father was also a noted fiddler, and his mother enjoyed singing parlor songs. Music was integral to the family's weekly church gatherings...
BAILEY, Albert Edward. b. North Scituate, Massachusetts, 11 March 1871; d. Worchester, Massachusetts, 31 October 1951. Bailey, a foremost author and authority on art and religion, attended Scituate High School, Worchester Academy, and Harvard (BA, 1894; MAEd, 1916). He taught classics, religious education, and English at the Worchester Academy (1891-1910); was head master of the Allen English and Classical School, West Newton, Massachusetts (1900-07); lectured on Eastern-Mediterranean...
MALOTTE, Albert Hay. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19 May 1895; d. Hollywood, California, 16 November 1964. He is known primarily as the composer of 'The Lord's Prayer' (see Malotte's Lord's Prayer*), found in several hymnals with tune name MALOTTE.
The 1910 US Federal Census indicates that Malotte's father, Charles William Malotte (1874-1953), was the son of John B. Malott (without an e), born in France. Charles owned a bookbindery in Philadelphia; his name and company occur in...
DAWSON, Albert Mason Patrick. b. Wicklow, Ireland, 8 May 1880; d. 13 March 1963. He was educated in Cheshire at Frodsham Grammar School and Chester School of Science and Arts. He published two books of poetry, St Phocas and Other Poems (1923) and The Pageant of Man: Poems (1943); also 'Where love is, God is': a Modern Morality Play founded on Tolstoy's Story (1919). He was closely associated with the Adult School Movement, and was President of the Clapham and Balham Adult School, which suggests...
MILNER-BARRY, Alda Marguerite. b. Scothorne (now Scothern), Lincolnshire, 18 August 1875; d. Weston-super-Mare, 15 April 1940. She was the daughter of the vicar of Scothorne, Edward Milner-Barry. She was the author of Lessons on the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Junior Classes. Prepared for Use in South Africa (London and Johannesburg, 1939). A posthumous publication, edited with Dorothy Allsup, was Forms of Prayer and Praise for Use in Sunday School (1946). She was a student and an...
WYTON, Alec (Alexander Francis). b. London, 3 August 1921; d. Danbury, Connecticut, 18 March 2007. After his parents separated, he received his early encouragement from an aunt in Northampton who suggested he learned the piano and organ. When war broke out in 1939, he joined the Royal Corps of Signals but was discharged early owing to a duodenal ulcer. He then went on to the Royal Academy of Music and, in 1943, he became organ scholar at Exeter College, Oxford (BA 1945) where he studied history...
BRENT SMITH, Alexander. b. Brookethorpe, near Gloucester, 8 October 1889; d. Brookethorpe, 3 July 1950. He received his education at the King's School, Worcester, and was a chorister in Worcester Cathedral. After studying with Ivor Atkins, he became his assistant organist. In 1912 he was appointed Director of Music at Lancing College, Sussex, where Peter Pears was among his pupils. He left Lancing in 1934 and taught at Pate's Grammar School in Cheltenham. He served as an enthusiastic member of...
CARMICHAEL, Alexander. b. Lismore, Argyll, 1 December 1832; d. Edinburgh, 6 June 1912. He worked for a time in the customs and excise division of the Scottish Civil Service, with periods in the Highlands and Islands. He married Mary Frances MacBean in 1868, and they lived on South Uist until 1882, when they moved to Edinburgh, where they became the centre of a Celtic revival. Alexander was the compiler of Carmina Gadelica* (first published in 1900), a two-volume collection of verses, including...
MacMILLAN, Alexander. b. Edinburgh, 19 October 1864; d. Toronto, 5 May 1961. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Alexander MacMillan moved to Canada following his graduation from the University of Edinburgh, licensed by the United Presbyterian Presbytery of Edinburgh in June, 1887. He described what happened when he was a student:
While a student in the faculty of Arts in Edinburgh University, and in the Divinity Hall, Edinburgh, I felt a gradual and growing desire to make Canada the sphere of my...
SCHREINER, Christian Alexander Ferdinand. b. Steinbühl, a suburb of Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Bavaria, Germany, 31 July 1901; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 15 September 1987. Schreiner was associated with the Mormon Tabernacle as an organ recitalist for many years and was the Chief Organist from 1965 to 1987. As a member of the General Music Committee of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), he assisted in the preparation of the 1948 LDS hymnal, which includes 10 of his hymn...
ACKLEY, Alfred Henry. b. Spring Hill, Pennsylvania, 21 January 1887; d. Whittier, California, 3 July 1960. Ackley received his early musical training from his father, and later studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and in New York City to become an accomplished cellist. He graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary, Westminster, Maryland, in 1914, and served Presbyterian churches in Wilkes-Barre and Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, and Escondido, California. Ackley claimed he wrote the...
HAAS, Alfred Burton. b. Shamokin, Pennsylvania, 21 July 1911; d. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 19 July 1987. Haas attended Bucknell University, Lycoming, Pennsylvania (BA, 1933), and Drew Theological School, Madison, New Jersey (BD, 1936; MA 1946 ). In 1938 he was ordained elder in the Central Pennsylvania Conference of the Methodist Church: he served parishes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York City. Haas taught hymnody and worship at Drew from 1941-1968, attaining the rank of Associate...
ALSTON, Alfred Edward. b. British Columbia, Canada, 25 June 1862; d. Framingham Earl, Norfolk, UK, 13 May 1927. Educated in England at St Paul's School, London, and Gloucester Theological College, Alston took Holy Orders (deacon 1886, priest 1887), and after a curacy at St Mark's, Gloucester (1886-87) he was appointed rector of Framingham Earl with Bixley, Norfolk, where he remained until his death, by which time he had been rector for almost fifty years. He published Some Liturgical Hymns...
SMITH, Alfred Morton. b. Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, 20 May 1879; d. Brigantine, New Jersey, 26 February 1971. Smith was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1901) and the Philadelphia Divinity School (BD 1905, STD 1911). He was ordained in the American Protestant Episcopal Church (deacon 1905, priest 1906), and served curacies at St Peter's, Philadelphia, and Long Beach, California. He was a priest at St Matthias', Los Angeles (1906-16), a chaplain to the United States army during the...
FEDAK, Alfred Victor. b. Elizabeth, New Jersey, 4 July 1953. Fedak was educated at the Pingry School and Hope College, Holland, Michigan. He graduated with degrees in organ performance and music history in 1975. An MA in organ performance was conferred in 1981 by Montclair State College (now Montclair State University, New Jersey). He undertook additional studies at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, The Eastman School of Music, New York, The Institute for European Studies,...
PARKER, Alice. b. Boston, 16 December 1925; d. Hawley, Massachusetts, 24 December 2023. Distinguished, widely celebrated composer, conductor, author and teacher, Parker began composing at the age of eight, and completed her first orchestral score in high school. She studied at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, majoring in music performance and composition (BA 1947), and the Juilliard School of Music, New York City (MS 1949), where her teachers included Robert Shaw (1916-1999), Julius...
ROBERTSON, Alison Margaret (née Malloch). b. Glasgow, 22 February 1940. She was the younger twin of the Revd. Jack and Nancy Malloch. In 1948 the family moved to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), when her father became a Church of Scotland missionary principal of the Teacher Training College at Akropong. Her mother ran a baby clinic once a week and Alison, at the age of 10, was made responsible for the small wounds part of the clinic, cleaning and dressing fresh and infected wounds sustained by the...
All beautiful the march of days. Frances Whitmarsh Wile* (1878-1939).
According to Henry Wilder Foote, American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns (Cambridge, Mass., 1959) (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53833/53833-h/53833-h.htm), this was written ca. 1907 in Rochester with the help of her pastor, William Channing Gannett*. It had three stanzas:
All beautiful the march of days, As seasons come and go; The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought The crystal of the snow; Hath sent the hoary...
All creating heavenly giver. Michael Saward* (1932-2015).
Written in 1979 at Ealing Vicarage for a Stewardship Programme in the parish. However, it is a traditional Trinitarian hymn, and can serve for any occasion or enterprise for which God's blessing is sought. It has stanzas devoted to Father, Son ('Ever-living Lord and Saviour') and Holy Spirit ('Life-conceiving wind of heaven'). Stanza 4 begins 'Father, Son, and Holy Spirit'. It has been published in 11 books, including Sing Glory (1999)...
All creatures of our God and King. William Henry Draper* (1855-1933).
This is a free versification of the 'Cantico di frate sole'* of St Francis. It was written for a children's Whitsuntide Festival at Adel, Leeds, when Draper was the incumbent at Adel, between 1899 and 1919. Draper could not remember the exact year in which he wrote the translation, but it was published in the Public School Hymn Book (1919), so it was known before that book was compiled. It was written to be sung to the tune...
'All my living fountains will spring up in you!' Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig* (1783-1872), translated by Alan Gaunt* (1935-2023).
This hymn, 'Alle mine kilder skal vaere hos dig!', has its roots in Psalm 87: 'On the holy mountain stands the city God has founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O City of God.' A standard commentary speaks of this particular psalm as expressing the highest point of the universalism...
All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
Written in 1938 on Philippians 2: 5-11. It was written for the tune SINE NOMINE, by Ralph Vaughan Williams*, although set in H40 (for copyright reasons) to ENGELBERG, by Charles Villiers Stanford*. It has been frequently used in subsequent books: it is very popular in Britain, and is found in 100HfT and thus in A&MNS, NEH and A&MCP. A modernized version, to avoid 'thee' (but not wanting 'All praise to you...') is...
All things which live below the sky. Edward John Brailsford* (1841-1921).
First published in the Wesleyan Methodist School Hymnal (1911), and then in SofPE, with seven stanzas:
All things which live below the sky, Or move within the sea,Are creatures of the Lord most high, And brothers unto me.
I love to hear the robin sing, Perched on the highest bough;To see the rook with purple wing Follow the shining plough.
I love to watch the swallow skim The river in his flight;To mark, when day is...
All who believe and are baptized. Thomas Hansen Kingo* (1634-1703), translated by George Alfred Taylor Rygh* (1860-1942).
Kingo's hymn began 'Enhver som tror og bliver døbt', in his Danmarks og Norges Kirkes forordnede Salmebog (1689) (Milgate, p. 158: this hymnal was not approved by the church authorities, but Kingo's hymn was found in the official book that succeeded it, Den forordnede ny Kirke-Psalme-Bog, 1699, 'The authorized hymn book'). It was translated from the Danish by Rygh as 'He...
All who hunger, gather gladly. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-1993).
Dunstan wrote: 'At the Hymn Society Congress in 1990 I had the chance to acquaint myself with the tunes of the Southern Harmony. After the conference, some of us vacationed at Folly Beach outside Charleston, where I worked out this text, wandering up and down the beach singing the tune HOLY MANNA.' The hymn was sung for the first time in worship that Fall at one of the weekly Eucharistic liturgies at the chapel of Emmanuel College,...
All who love and serve your city. Erik Routley* (1917-1982).
This was the first hymn text by the author. It was written during a workshop session of the Scottish Churches' Music Consultation at Dunblane in 1966 and was first printed in Dunblane Praises (No. 2, 1967). The hymn was characteristic of those produced in the course of this seven-year long consultation in engaging in the name of the gospel with the structures of contemporary society. The life of the modern city is vividly evoked, its...
Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks to the risen Lord. Don Fishel* (1950- ).
This popular Easter chant, with five stanzas and a refrain, was written by Fishel in 1971 when he was a student at the University of Michigan. The stanzas are of two unrhymed lines. Stanza 3 quotes Galatians 2: 20, which is an important text for this chant: it was written later than the other stanzas, added when Fishel was preparing for Baptism.
The chant was published in The Word of God (Michigan, 1973), and in Britain in...
Almighty Father, God of love. Hester Periam Hawkins* (1846-1928).
This hymn was not included in the list of Hawkins' hymns by James Mearns* in Appendix II of JJ (p. 1646). It may have been written after the completion of the Appendix. It is included here because it was the best known of her hymns in America (British books preferred 'Heavenly Father, may thy blessing'*, although the present hymn was in FHB, 1933). The editors would welcome information about the composition and first...
Almighty Father, Lord most High. Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles* (1845-1929).
Written in 1904, when Coles was Principal of Pusey House, Oxford, and first published in A&M (1904). It is a hymn for Holy Communion, entitled in A&M 'At the Offertory', and it may well have been written for that specific purpose in that book. It had five stanzas, of which the three central ones are the most specific:
Almighty Father, Lord most High,Who madest all, Who fillest all,Thy Name we praise and...
Almighty Father, who dost give. John Howard Bertram Masterman* (1867-1933).
First published in In Hoc Signo: hymns of war and peace (1914), with music edited by Walford Davies*. It is eminently suitable for war time, but because the sentiments are general, it can be seen as a hymn for various purposes: after the war of 1914-1918 it came to be seen as a hymn for World Peace and Brotherhood (the heading of the section in which it appears in MHB). It could also be used for missions: it appeared in...
Almighty Father, who for us thy Son didst give. George Bradford Caird* (1917-1984).
Written in 1941 as an entry for the Scott Psalmody Prize at Mansfield College, Oxford, set as 'a hymn to be sung after a sermon on the social implications of the gospel'. It won the prize and was subsequently included in CP(1951). From there it was included in many books, including 100HfT and thus A&MNS, A&MCP, HP and RS (with alterations to produce inclusive language in two places).
Its long lines of...
Alone thou goest forth, O Lord. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
Written in 1938 and published in H40. It is a free translation of a hymn by Peter Abelard* on the Passion of our Lord, 'Solus ad victimam procedis, Domine'*, found in Abelard's Hymnarius Paraclitensis. Abelard's hymn was written for the nocturnal office on Good Friday at the Convent of the Paraclete where Heloise was abbess. In H82 it is found in the 'Holy Week' section, set to BANGOR, an 18th-century psalm tune. It has been...
Amen Siakudumisa. Stephen Cuthbert Molefe*.
We know this composition of 1977 ('Amen, we praise your name') through the work of David Dargie*, who met Molefe in that year at a composition workshop and transcribed a number of his works into staff notation, in a wide variety of musical styles, 'Masithi-Amen' being among the simplest (see the score of this tune in African hymnody*). The original version of 'Amen Siakudumisa' was 'Sive-sithi Amen, siakudumisa' ('Hear us we say, Amen, we praise...
CARMICHAEL, Amy Beatrice. b. Millisle, Co Down, Ireland (later Northern Ireland), 16 December 1867; d. Tirunelveli, India, 18 January 1951. She was the eldest of seven children of David Carmichael, a prosperous owner of flour mills, and his wife, Catherine Jane Filson Carmichael. Her father died in April 1885, two years after the family moved to Belfast for business. Under the influence of her devout (Presbyterian) mother, Carmichael became involved in welfare work for the underprivileged from...
An image of that heavenly light. Latin, 15th Century, translated by Richard Ellis Roberts* (1879-1963).
This is the translation of the Latin hymn, 'Caelestis formam gloriae'* used by EH in preference to the one by John Mason Neale*, 'A type of those bright rays on high'*, which formed the base text for the hymn in the A&M tradition, 'O wondrous type, O vision fair'*. It was the first of four hymns on the Transfiguration in EH, which paid more attention to the Feast of the Transfiguration...
VAN BURKALOW, Anastasia. b. Buchanan, New York, 16 March 1911; d. Wantage, New Jersey, 14 January 2004. She was a hymn writer, hymnologist, geologist, and physical geographer. Born into a family with church music and teaching in its DNA, Burkalow pursued both with passion and dedication throughout her life. Her father, James Turley Van Burkalow (d. 1959) of Salisbury, Maryland, a second-generation Methodist minister, served churches throughout the Hudson Valley area and, after earning a PhD at...
And God will raise you up on eagle's wings. Jan Michael Joncas* (1951- ). According to the Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal [1991], this was written in 1978, when Joncas was visiting a friend. The friend received a telephone call to say that his father had had a heart attack, from which he died. Joncas sang this song to guitar accompaniment at the service before the funeral Eucharist. It began 'And he will raise you up...'.
It was published in Glory and Praise (Phoenix, Arizona, 1979), and has...
FROSTENSON, Anders. b. Loshult, Kristianstad, Sweden, 23 April 1906; d. 4 February 2006. Frostenson studied history of literature and theology at the University of Lund. He served in Stockholm from 1933, first as a curate in Gustav Vasa, a big city parish, and then as a parish clergyman in Lovö parish, near to Drottningholm, one of the castles of the royal family, where he served as a preacher from 1955. In 1969 he became a member of the Swedish official hymn committee and in 1981 he was...
NYBERG, Anders. b. Malung, north-west of Västerås, Sweden, 1955. He studied choral conducting and composition at the Royal Music Academy, Stockholm. In 1978 he led a Swedish worship group called 'Fjedur' to South Africa, then under an apartheid regime. They worked in black churches, and soon after Nyberg returned to work in the township of Guglethu, Cape Town (see 'South African freedom songs'). He subsequently worked in Latin America, taking another group, 'Gondwana', to Cuba and other...
CROUCH, Andraé Edward. b. San Francisco, California, 1 July 1942; d. Los Angeles, California, 8 January 2015. Andraé Crouch began performing as a teenager in his church, directed a choir at a Teen Challenge drug rehabilitation center, and in 1960 formed a singing group, the COGICS, for his Church of God in Christ denomination (Holiness/Pentecostal). He studied at the L.I.F.E. Bible College and Valley Junior College in Los Angeles where in 1965 he founded the 'Andraé Crouch and the Disciples'...
DONALDSON, Andrew James. b. Matheson, Ontario, Canada, July 22, 1951. Pastoral musician Andrew Donaldson is a composer, hymn-writer, and leader of congregational song, the third of seven children of missionaries in northern Ontario. He was educated in French and English studies at Glendon College, York University (BA, 1974), and studied classical guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT, Classical Guitar Performance, 1979).
From 1982 until 2010 he combined directing music at Beaches...
PRATT, Andrew Edward. b. Paignton, Devon, 28 December 1948. He was educated at Barking Regional College of Technology, London, where he read Zoology, and the University College of North Wales, Bangor, where he obtained an M.Sc. in Marine Biology. He became a teacher, but then decided to train for the Methodist ministry, studying at Queen's College, Birmingham. (1979-82). He has served as a Methodist minister in circuits in Cheshire and Lancashire (Northwich; Nantwich; Leigh and Hindley; Orrell...
Anglican Hymn Book (1965) was an attempt to replace the Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (Third Edition, 1890) and The Church Hymnal for the Christian Year (1920). It was compiled by a committee appointed by the Church Society, chaired by Canon Herbert Taylor, vicar of Orpington, Kent, and Honorary Canon of Rochester Cathedral. The music editor was Robin Sheldon. It contained 663 hymns, printed in a sans-serif type, unusual in a hymnbook at that time. It is notable for the number...
BRIGGS, Anna. b. Newcastle upon Tyne, 15 February 1947. Anna is the eldest of six daughters. Her parents, Harry and Gwen Briggs, were active in the church, the Labour Party and many other political pressure groups, and she grew up surrounded by campaigning and lobbying as a way of life, not divorced from, but an essential part of, her family's Christian beliefs.
She graduated in Political and Economic Studies from University College, Cardiff (1968) and took a postgraduate Diploma in Health...
HOPPE, Anna Bernardine Dorothy. b. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 7 May 1889; d. Milwaukee, 2 August 1941. Hoppe, a Lutheran Wisconsin Synod member, penned around 600 original hymns and chorale translations that remained uncollected and unpublished until 75 years after her death. She was born to German-Lutheran immigrants Albert and Emilie Hoppe. Baptized and confirmed by pastor Johann Bading of St John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, she alone of her five siblings attended the parochial school there,...
GOTTSCHICK, Anna Martina. b. Dresden, 29 September 1914; d. Kassel. 8 November 1995. Although born at Dresden, she moved with her family to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). She was a journalist on a local newspaper during World War II. After the war she worked at Kassel as a reader and editor for Johannes-Stauda-Verlag, a section of the publishers Bärenreiter. Her hymn, 'Herr, mach uns stark im Mut, der dich bekennt'* ('Lord, make us strong in courage, we who confess you') is in the 'Ende des...
BUCHANAN, Annabel Morris. b. Groesbeck, Texas, 22 October 1888; d. Paducah, Kentucky, 6 January 1983. Raised in Texas and Tennessee as the daughter and grand-daughter of Cumberland Presbyterian ministers, she was from earliest childhood familiar with the idiom of southern folk hymnody; she learned to read music from oblong shape-note tunebooks. After formal training and graduation with highest honors from the Landon Conservatory in Dallas, she taught music at colleges in Oklahoma and Virginia...
HAWKS, Annie Sherwood. b. Hoosick, New York, 25 or 28 May 1835 or 1836; d. Bennington, Vermont, 3 January 1918. According to Taylor (1989) there is uncertainty about her date of birth. Annie Sherwood married Charles Hawks; for many years she was a member of the Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, where her pastor, Robert Lowry*, encouraged her to write verse. After her husband's death in 1888, she lived with her daughter in Vermont, though she was buried beside her husband in...
MURRAY, Anthony Gregory (monastic name) OSB. b. Fulham, London, 27 February 1905; d. 19 January 1992. He was educated at Westminster Cathedral Choir School (1914-20) and St Benedict's Priory School, Ealing (1920-22). He entered Downside Abbey as a monk in 1922, and read History at Cambridge University (1926-29). He was organist and choirmaster at Downside from 1929 to 1941. He was parish priest at Ealing, (1941-46), Hindley, near Wigan, (1948-52), and Stratton on the Fosse (Downside)...
SHOWALTER, Anthony Johnson. b. Rockingham County, Virginia,1 May 1858; d. Chattanooga, Tennessee, 14 or 15 September 1924. Showalter was perhaps the most prominent sacred-music publisher and music teacher in the southern United States ca. 1890-1920. A publisher of songbooks in seven-shape and standard notation, his companies surpassed The Ruebush-Kieffer Company* in sales and influence and were, in turn, surpassed by the James D. Vaughan* and Stamps-Baxter* companies. He also was known as an...
PETTI, Anthony Gaetano Raphael. b. Islington, London, 12 February 1932; d. Calgary, Canada, 13 January 1985. He was educated at St Michael's College, Hitchin, Hertfordshire (1941-45) and St Ignatius' College, London (1945-50). After National Service he read English at University College, London (BA 1955, MA 1957), teaching at the College from 1960 to 1969. He was Professor of English, University of Calgary, Canada, from 1969 until his early and sudden death.
Petti was a specialist in medieval...
DUBA, Arlo Dean. b. Platte, Brule County, South Dakota, 12 November 1929; d. Gunnison, Colorado, 27 June 2023. Duba was raised in a Bohemian Presbyterian farming family whose Hussite/Czech forebearers settled in the Dakotas in the 1880s. He attended the University of Dubuque, where he met his wife, Doreen. He majored in music and religion (BA 1952), and Princeton Theological Seminary (BD 1955, PhD 1960). His dissertation title was 'The Principles of Theological Language in the Writings of...
HAEUSSLER, Armin. b. Lewiston, Minnesota, 24 May 1891; d. Glenview, Indiana, 16 July 1967. Distinguished hymnologist and pastor, Haeussler is best known for The Story of Our Hymns, The Handbook to the Hymnal of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (St Louis, Missouri, 1952, Third Edition, 1954). He was first-born from the marriage of Rev Carl Herman (1862-1913), a German-born member of The German Evangelical Synod of North America, and Elizabeth Catherine (Scherer; 1871-1965). Armin attended...
PÖTZSCH, Arno. b. Leipzig, 23 November 1900; d. Cuxhaven, 19 April 1956. He entered the teacher's college at Bautzen in 1915. After an illness, he worked during the First World War in a grenade factory and served in the navy. After the end of the war he found refuge at Herrnhut, working as a teacher and studying from 1925 to 1927 at the seminary for mission, training as a social worker and finally beginning to study theology. While continuing his responsibilities and his work with young people,...
BROOKS, Arnold. b. Edgbaston, Birmingham, 25 December 1870; d. Edinburgh, 2 July 1933. Brooks was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA 1893, MA 1897). After serving a curacy at Bermondsey, London (1897-99), he moved to Scotland and to the Scottish Episcopal Church, becoming a 'licensed curate' of St Peter's, Lutton Place, Edinburgh (1899-1905), and then of St John's, Princes Street, Edinburgh (1905- 09). He was priest-in-charge of St...
THOMAS, (Henry) Arnold. b. Clifton, Bristol, 13 June 1848; d. Sneyd Park, Bristol, 28 June 1924. The son of the minister of Highbury Chapel, Bristol (Congregational), he was educated at Mill Hill School, University College, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He assisted his father at Highbury Chapel before training for the Congregational ministry at New College, London. He was ordained to pastorates at Burntash, Lewisham, London (1873-74) and Ealing (1874-76); but 'it was fore-ordained...
PATTEN, Arthur Bardwell. b. Bowdoinham, Maine, 26 March 1864; d. Claremont, California, 10 May 1952. He was educated at Colby University, Waterville, Maine (now Colby College, to indicate its status as an old-established Liberal Arts College). He graduated AB in 1890, and went on to Bangor Theological Seminary (graduated 1893). He became a minister in the Congregational Church, serving pastorates at Everett, Massachusetts (1895-97), South Hadley, Mass. (1897-1905), Sant Rosa, California...
GOOK, Arthur Charles. b. London, 11 June 1883; d. London, 18 June 1959. Gook was the son of an estate agent, who would not allow him to take up a scholarship to a university. After working briefly in his father's business, and for a London publisher, he trained as a homeopathic practitioner at the London Homeopathic Hospital. He was converted at a Bible Class, and joined the Open Brethren (OBs: see Brethren hymnody, British*). With his wife Florence, he went to Iceland in 1905 to take over a...
BENSON, Arthur Christopher. b. Crowthorne, Berkshire, 24 April 1862; d. Cambridge, 17 June 1925. He was the son of Edward White Benson*, who was Headmaster of Wellington College, Crowthorne, at the time of his birth, and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury. The younger Benson was educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge (BA 1884). He taught at Eton, 1885-1903, resigning to become a full-time writer. He went to live at Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship at Magdalene College...
CLYDE, Arthur G. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 28 December 1940. A prominent United Church of Christ (UCC) musician and editor of The New Century Hymnal (Cleveland, 1995), Clyde attended Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania (BA, in Sociology, 1963), with additional studies at Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, Philadelphia (1963-64, 75-77). He was an English language teacher in Japan under the missions program of the Lutheran Church in America (1965-1968), taught music...
BROWN, Arthur Henry. b. Brentwood, Essex, 24 July 1830; d. Brentwood, 15 February 1926. A self-taught musician, he grew up in Brentwood playing the organ at the parish church, where, apart from a brief interval as organist in nearby Romford (1853-58), he remained for 40 years (1842-53 and 1858-88). It is not known when he became organist of Sir Anthony Browne's School in Brentwood, although a letter from Brown to the headmaster dated 8th Feb 1918 thanks him for his share 'in the very gratifying...
MANN, Arthur Henry. b. Norwich, 16 May 1850; d. Cambridge, 19 November 1929. He was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and then an articled pupil of Zechariah Buck. He held the positions of organist at St Peter's Church, Wolverhampton (1870), Tettenhall Parish Church (1871) and Beverley Minster (1875) before he was appointed organist of King's College, Cambridge in 1876. He remained in this post for the rest of his life.
Mann did much for Cambridge music. He oversaw the change of regime in which...
HUTCHINGS, Arthur James Bramwell. b. Sunbury-on-Thames, 14 July 1906; d. 13 November 1989. Before the Second World War, in which he served with the Royal Air Force, Hutchings was a schoolmaster and organist, and a contributor to music periodicals. After the war he was Professor of Music at the University of Durham (1947-68) and the University of Exeter (1968-71). He retired to Colyton, Devon. His publications included Schubert (1941, 5th Edition, 1978); Edmund Rubbra (1941), Delius (Paris,...
MASON, Arthur James. b. Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, 4 May 1851; d. Canterbury, 24 April 1928. The son of a former High Sherriff of Nottinghamshire, he was educated at Repton School and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1872). He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College (1873), and took Holy Orders (deacon 1874, priest 1875). He was perpetual curate, St Michael's, Cambridge (1875-77).
Between graduating and taking Holy Orders, Mason taught at Wellington College, where the headmaster was Edward...
JONES, Arthur Morris. b. 1899; d. 1980. He was a missionary and musicologist, educated at Keble College, Oxford, and Wells Theological College. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1922, priest 1923) and served curacies at Ashford, Kent (1922-24) and St Michael and All Angels, Maidstone, Kent (1924-28). In 1929 he became a missionary in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. He took up a post as Warden of St Mark's Teachers' Training College, under the auspices of the Universities' Mission to...
SOMERVELL, (Sir) Arthur. b. Windermere, Cumbria, 5 June 1863; d. London, 2 May 1937. Somervell was a composer and educationist, the youngest of six sons and nine children of Robert Miller Somervell, leather merchant and founder of Somervell Brothers (manufacturers of K (for 'Kendal') Shoes), and Anne Wilson. He was educated for one year at Uppingham School (1878-9) and then at King's College, Cambridge (BA 1884), where he also studied composition under Charles Villiers Stanford*. At Stanford's...
WARRELL, Arthur Sydney. b. Farmborough near Bath, 1882; d. Bristol, 12 August 1939. He was educated at Farmborough and at the Merchant Venturers' Technical College in Bristol. He was assistant organist at Bristol Cathedral (where he worked under Hubert Hunt) and was latterly organist of Clifton Parish Church. He was appointed Lecturer in Music at Bristol University in 1909. There he founded the University Choir, Orchestra and Madrigal Singers, and became known for his prowess as an educator....
As comes the breath of spring. David Lakie Ritchie* (1865-1951).
This hymn for Pentecost is from the Congregational tradition in Canada. Alexander MacMillan (1864-1961) noted that Ritchie wrote this hymn for youth, featuring 'aspects of the manifold work of the Divine Spirit in the transforming of human life.' It was first published in The Hymnary (1930). The author, a Scottish Congregationalist, was Dean of United Theological College in Montreal. His use of vivid imagery makes the hymn...
As men of old their first-fruits brought. Frank Von Christierson* (1900-1996).
Written in 1960, and submitted to a 'hymn search' of the Hymn Society of America together with the Department of Stewardship and Benevolence of the National Council of Churches in America. It was published in the Hymn Society's booklet, Ten New Stewardship Hymns (1961). Von Christierson wrote of this hymn:
As pastor of two new churches, with small memberships and great financial needs, I have been deeply concerned...
As the fainting deer cries out. David George Preston* (1939- ).
This version of Psalm 42 was one of the last texts written for The Book of Praises: 70 Psalms for singing today, which the author compiled in 1986. It was paired from then on with his version of Psalm 43, 'God defend me; traitors rise'. As the two Psalms have much in common, including their refrain, and because they may have been a single song which was later divided, Preston has rendered them in the same 7777D metre and given...
As we gather at your table. Carl P. Daw, Jr.* (1944- ).
Written by request in 1989 for Eastern Shore Chapel (Episcopal), Virginia Beach, Virginia, which was celebrating the tricentenary of its founding in 1689. The motto for the occasion was 'Repeat the sounding joy' (from Isaac Watts*, 'Joy to the world, the Lord is come'*) which Daw has incorporated in the last line, the climax of this fine hymn of worship and service. The first line is simple and beautiful in its simplicity: it suggests...
Asian and Asian American hymns, USA
This essay updates a portion of Carlton R. Young*'s earlier study (1998) on the inclusion of ethnic congregational song in hymnals published 1942-95 by the Protestant Episcopal Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Christian Reformed Church, The United Methodist Church, The Presbyterian Church (USA), The Southern Baptist Church, The United Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Christ. His detailed work noted a distinct increase of ethnic minority...
Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (ALCM)
The Association of Lutheran Church Musicians nurtures and equips musicians to serve and lead the church's song. Music is a vital expression of Lutheran worship. By sharing the knowledge, experience, and passion that honor our heritage and inspire our future, ALCM nurtures and equips those who lead music in worship.
Approximately 140 church musicians from across the United States and Canada responded to an invitation to meet at Lutheran...
At break of day three women came. Janet Wootton* (1952- ).
This was originally published in Hymns and Congregational Songs Vol. 2 No.1 (1990) and then unaltered in Story Song and Reflecting Praise (both 1993). The hymn was originally set to STOURBRIDGE (anonymous but arranged by June Boyce-Tillman*). Two versions of the text are offered, one for this tune and the other for KINGSFOLD. This latter shortens the penultimate line of each stanza, so in stanza 1 'They worship in the light of day'...
RILEY, John Athelstan Laurie. b. Paddington, London, 10 August 1858; d. Jersey, Channel Islands, 17 November 1945. He was the son of a successful barrister, of Yorkshire stock: educated at Eton and Pembroke College, Oxford, which he left without taking a degree. He spent much time travelling in Europe and the Near East, publishing Athos; or, the Mountain of the Monks, in 1887. He was an active Anglo-Catholic: he wrote a preface to a book by his friend William John Birkbeck*, Why I am an...
MIEIR, Audrey Mae (neé Wagner). b. Leechburg, Pennsylvania, 12 May 1916; d. Irvine, California, 5 November 1996. Audrey Wagner was educated at the L.I.F.E. Bible College (Meridian, Idaho). As a young woman, she moved to California where she was influenced by Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944), founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She married Charles Brooks Mieir (1911-1996), and was ordained to the Gospel ministry of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1937.
She...
CRULL, August. b. Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany, 27 January 1845; d. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 17 February 1923. August Crull was a German-American Lutheran theologian and educator who played an important role in 19th-century American Lutheranism as a hymnal editor and hymn translator. As a hymnal editor, he helped compile and edit the first English-language hymnals of the Missouri Synod branch of American Lutheranism, thus shaping its hymnic tradition as it began to transition from German to...
KJELLSTRAND, August W. b. Skoefde, Vastergötland, Sweden, 10 February 1864; d. 29 October 1930. His family emigrated to the USA in 1870, when August was a child. He was closely associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America: he graduated from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1885. He was appointed to Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, to teach Latin in 1886. After a further period of study, he returned to Bethany in 1893.
He graduated from Augustana...
NEWMAN, Augustus Sherman. b. Putnam County [?], New York, 21 July 1848; d. New York City, 11 December 1928. Augustus Sherman Newman was a businessman, avocational musician, collector of hymnals and hymnological materials, and a founder in 1922 of The Hymn Society (now the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*).
The eldest child of Allen G. and Sarah Church Tompkins Newman, Augustus completed his basic education in New York. He then toured Europe with his younger brother, Allen,...
LOVELACE, Austin C. b. Rutherford, North Carolina, 26 March 1919; d. Denver, Colorado, 25 April 2010. Lovelace spent his entire life in church music. At the age of 15 he began playing organ in a Baptist church in Forest City, North Carolina. He was educated at High Point College in North Carolina (BA 1939) and at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from which he received a masters degree (1941) and a doctor of sacred music degree (1950). While at Union Seminary he studied with T....
CHRISTIANSEN, Avis Burgeson. b. Chicago, 11 October 1895; d. 14 January 1985. She was a member of the Moody Church in Chicago, and married Ernest C. Christiansen, vice-president of the Moody Bible Institute. Her numerous hymns, the earliest in collaboration with Daniel B. Towner*, appeared in Tabernacle Praises (Chicago, 1916). They are characteristic of early 20th-century Gospel hymnody, with a concentration on the love of Jesus and the hope of heaven. She also wrote under pseudonyms: Avis...
Awake, awake, and greet the new morn. Marty Haugen* (1950- ). Written in 1983 as a Christmas hymn, and published in Haugen's Rejoice, Rejoice (Chicago, 1983). Haugen's tune, REJOICE, REJOICE, takes its name from the opening words of the last stanza. In verse 1 line 3 Haugen wrote 'for now he is born', which was changed by the editors of Worship - Third Edition (1986), of whom Haugen was one, to 'for soon he is born', which turns the hymn into one for Advent.
JRW
Awake, awake: fling off the night. John Raphael Peacey* (1896-1971).
This hymn was one of a number of Peacey's hymns published in 100HfT and thus in A&MNS. It had the title 'The New Life'. It is based on phrases from Ephesians 5: 8-10, in the New English Bible translation: 'For though you were once all darkness, now as Christians you are light. Live like men who are at home in daylight; for where light is, there all goodness springs up, all justice and truth.' So Peacey's verse 2 (of 5)...
Awake, O Lord, as in the time of old. Henry Twells* (1823-1900).
This was published in Twells's Hymns and Other Stray Verses (1901), entitled 'Whitsuntide'. It was preceded by the quotation from Acts 2: 'And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.' In 1901 the first stanza was:
The day of Pentecost is fully come; With one accord we gather in one place; And is the Voice of Heaven's great Teacher dumb? Or quenched the Flame of His all-conquering...
Awake, O sleeper, rise from death. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
Written originally as an anthem text for David N. Johnson, published by Augsburg Fortress Press (Minneapolis, 1980), this was revised and made metrically stable for H82. It is based on phrases from Ephesians chapters 3,4, and 5, beginning with Ephesians 5: 14 ('Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light'), itself 'a very ancient Christian hymn, probably' (Tucker, quoted in Young, 1993, p....
HAMM, Barbara Elizabeth. b. Sterling, Colorado, 25 September 1943. Barbara Hamm began piano study as a young girl, learning to improvise on gospel hymns in a small Baptist congregation in the Midwestern United States. She gained further experience while playing for a small church during her college study in Eastern Tennessee. This early involvement in worship led to a lifetime of music ministry.
A United Church of Christ (UCC) church musician, composer, and hymn writer, Barbara Hamm received...
ROSE, Barry Michael. b. Chingford, Essex, 24 May 1934. A choir trainer of quite exceptional gifts, Rose was appointed the first organist of the new and as yet unfinished cathedral at Guildford in March 1960. He built up one of the country's finest cathedral choirs there, and had a similarly beneficial effect on the singing at St Paul's Cathedral (1974-84), where he was initially Sub-Organist and subsequently Master of the Choir. After an interlude as Master of the Choirs at the King's School,...
BRIDGE, Basil Ernest. b. Norwich, 5 August 1927; d. Norwich, 11 September 2021. He was educated at the City of Norwich School and Fitzwilliam House, Cambridge (BA, 1948). He trained for the Congregational ministry at Cheshunt College, and was ordained in 1951. He served in Congregational (after 1972 United Reformed Church) churches at Knowle, Warwickshire (1951-55), Leicester (1955-74), Stamford and Bourne, Lincolnshire (1976-89), and Harrold, Bedforshire (1989-94). He has written over 30 texts...
HARWOOD, Basil. b. Woodhouse, Olveston, Gloucestershire, 11 April 1859; d. Kensington, London, 3 April 1949. He was the eighth son and youngest of nine children of Edward Harwood, banker and JP, and his first wife, Mary Sturge (daughter of Young Sturge of Bristol, the famous Quaker). He entered Trinity College, Oxford in 1878 to study classics and history and also took the B.Mus. degree in 1880, studying theory with C. W. Corfe, choragus to the university. After leaving Oxford he travelled to...
BBC Songs of Praise was published in 1997. It traced its origins from two sources: the original Songs of Praise (SofP, 1925, SofPE, 1931), and the popular BBC television programme, 'Songs of Praise', in which congregations from various parts of the British Isles were seen, and individuals were invited to choose hymns. That programme, in the words of the Preface, 'has made churchgoers aware of songs and hymns from beyond their individual traditions, and has been able to popularize newer music on...
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Irish, 8th century, translated by Mary E. Byrne* (1880-1931), versified by Eleanor Hull* (1860-1935).
This text is found in two manuscripts in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, dating possibly from the 8th century, one a poor copy of the other. The Irish text begins:
Rop tú ma baile a Choimdiu cride:
ní ní nech aile acht Rí secht nime.
It had sixteen 2-line stanzas, many beginning 'Rop tú' ('Be thou'). The stanzas were translated by...
Beams of heaven as I go ('Some Day'). Charles Albert Tindley* (1851-1933).
'Some Day' is an evocative and emotional title which connects with other hymns, such as 'We shall overcome'* of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s (a development of Tindley's 'I shall overcome someday'), and with many 'By and by'* hymns, including Tindley's 'We'll understand it better by and by'*. Early printings, such as the one in Soul Echoes (Philadelphia, 1909) mark the hymn as 'copyright, 1906'. The title is...
Because you live, O Christ. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
The author described the impetus for this hymn: 'The creative irritant to write this came from the outdated words in our parish hymnbook and my love of this great tune. I wanted a fresh expression of community joyfulness, with light, color and the vision of the covenant rainbow through the Resurrection' (Murray, 1992, Notes).
The tune is the buoyant 17th-century Dutch melody VRUECHTEN, music usually associated with Easter, most...
Before I take the body of my Lord. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958-2019).
From Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989), where the title is 'These I lay down'. It was written for a Thursday night Eucharist at Iona Abbey, in which the participants are seated round tables rather than facing the altar. It is a hymn of confession, although John Bell is on record as saying that he sometimes feels that 'we overdose ourselves in confession' at Holy Communion (Companion to...
Before the cock crew twice. Hallgrim Pjetursson* (1614-1674), translated by Charles Venn Pilcher* (1879-1961).
Hallgrim Pjetursson (Hallgrímur Pétursson) wrote fifty hymns on the Passion of Christ, which he completed in 1659. This is from the twelfth hymn, entitled 'Um ithran Péturs' ('The Remorse of Peter'), beginning 'Péter þar sat í sal'. It is still sung in Iceland at Passiontide and during Lent.
The translation of selected portions of Pjetursson's hymn was made by Pilcher in 1921 and...
Before the world's foundation. Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926- ).
This hymn was written in 1998. Like many of Dudley-Smith's hymns, it was his response to a commission. The Methodist Publishing House, which traced its history back to the time of John Wesley*, had moved from London to Peterborough in 1988. Its Chief Executive, Brian Thornton, planned a Service of Thanksgiving to mark ten years since the move, and Dudley-Smith responded to a request for a hymn to be sung to mark the occasion (2003,...
'Behold the Bridegroom draweth nigh'. Robert Maude Moorsom* (1831-1911).
First published in Moorsom's Renderings of Church Hymns (1901). It was a translation of a Greek text, 'Idou ho nymphios', in four stanzas. The Greek text may be found in Hymns Ancient and Modern, Historical Edition (1909), edited by Walter Howard Frere*, pp. 62-3. It is based on the story of the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew 25: 1-13. Moorsom translated the four Greek stanzas as follows:
'Behold the Bridegroom...
The Believers Hymn Book, with supplement, for use at Assemblings of the Lord's People, was published in 1959. It is the most recent edition of The Believers Hymn Book of 1884. The title has no apostrophe. See Brethren hymnody, British*.
From 1 to 326 the hymns are arranged alphabetically. From 327 to 360 they appear in random order. From 361 ('All hail the power of Jesu's name'*) to 464 ('Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim'*) the hymns are again arranged alphabetically, followed by a...
CRAWFORD, Benjamin Franklin. b. Madison County, Ohio, 12 May 1881; d. Delaware, Ohio, 20 June 1976. Christened after the great American philosopher, Crawford taught school before attending Ohio Wesleyan University (BA, 1906); Boston University (STB, 1909); Dennison University (1917-18); and the University of Pittsburgh (PhD, 1937). Crawford's dissertation, 'Changing Conceptions and Motivations of Religion as Revealed in One Hundred Years of Methodist Hymnology, 1836-1935', was a study of the...
TYAMZASHE, Benjamin John Peter. b. Kimberley, South Africa, 5 September 1890; d. East London, Republic of South Africa, 5 June 1978. Also known affectionately was B-ka-T, Tyamzashe was the son of a Congregational minister in South Africa and a prolific composer of over 200 works (Dargie, 1997). He followed John Knox Bokwe*'s footsteps in adding innovations to the makwaya* style of singing, a choral form often sung by large groups of people in church and civic settings.
Tyamzashe was educated at...
WINCHESTER, Benjamin Severance. b. Bridport, Vermont, 20 February 1868; d. Danbury, Connecticut, 29 April 1955. He was a pastor, educator, and administrator. His parents were Warren Weaver Winchester (1823–1889), a minister, and Catherine Mary Severance Winchester (1821–1915). He married Pearl Adair Gunn (1874–1971) in 1897, and they had five children, Margaret, Katharine, Pauline, Alice, and John Henry.
Winchester earned the BA degree from Williams College in 1889, after which he taught...
Benson Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary.The Louis F. Benson Hymnology Collection is one of the premier collections for the study of the history of Christian hymnody in North America. It consists of over 12,000 volumes of hymnals and printed materials related to the study of Christian hymnody. The collection was originally received by Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, in 1931 from the estate of Louis F. Benson*. Benson was the author of a number of works on...
ACKLEY, Bentley D. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 27 September 1872; d. Winona Lake, Indiana, 3 September 1958. Rising to prominence as pianist for the Billy Sunday and Homer A. Rodeheaver* revival meetings, B. D. Ackley became a prolific composer of gospel songs and editor of gospel hymnals. He was born into a family of musicians in Bradford, Pennsylvania, including his younger brother Alfred Ackley*, who also became a gospel song composer. Their father, Stanley Ackley, served as a Methodist...
FARRELL, Bernadette. b. Altofts, West Yorkshire, 1957. Farrell was educated at King's College London and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She quickly made her mark as one of the founder members of the St Thomas More Group*. She has worked as diocesan music advisor for Southwark and Westminster and as a workshop presenter both in the UK and in the USA. Her ministry flows in to social action and reflects her strong commitment to justice and peace. In addition to her work with the St...
HUIJBERS, Bernard . b. Rotterdam, 24 July 1922; d. Espeilhac, France, 15 April 2003. Huijbers studied under Ernest Mulder during his Jesuit course of training, graduating as a schoolmaster in 1960 and serving (in the tradition of many continental liturgical musicians) as school master and master of music at the St Ignatius College, Amsterdam, until 1969. More importantly he became associated with the Dominicuskerk where he collaborated with the librettist Huub Oosterhuis*. He left the Jesuits...
KYAMANYWA, Bernard. b. Kagera Region, Tanganyika (now Tanzania); 10 May 1938. A teacher, Lutheran pastor, and hymnwriter, Kyamanywa studied to be a schoolteacher at Kigarama Teacher's College (Bukoba, Tanzania) where he received his basic musical training. He continued his study at Lutheran Theological College (now Makumira University College) in Arusha (Diploma in Theology, 1968). He became known for his exceptional mastery of Hebrew, a skill that earned him the position as a representative of...
MANNING, Bernard Lord. b. Caistor, Lincolnshire, 31 December 1892; d. Cambridge, 8 December 1941. The 'Lord' in Manning's name was a given name at his Baptism, not a peerage. He was the son of a Wesleyan Methodist, George Manning, who later became a Congregational minister. His son also became a member of the Congregational Church.
Manning was educated at Caistor Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He became a bye-Fellow at Magdalene College (1916-1918) and was elected a Fellow of...
MASSEY, Bernard Stanford. b. Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, 22 June 1927; d. Redhill, Surrey, 28 October 2011. He was educated at Watford Boys' Grammar School and Queen Mary College, University of London. From 1952 to 1984 he was successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, and Tutor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, University College, London; he was the author of three text-books.
Massey was the editor of the Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland from 1975 to...
POLMAN, Bert Frederick. b. Rozenburg, the Netherlands, 28 August 1945; d. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1 July 2013. Polman spent part of his childhood in Indonesia with his missionary parents. After the family immigrated to western Canada, Polman received his education at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa (BA, 1968); University of Minnesota (MA, 1969; PhD in Musicology, 1981); and did postgraduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He taught music at the Ontario...
LUARD SELBY, Bertram. b. Ightham, Kent, 12 February 1853; d. Winterton, Brigg, Lincolnshire, 26 December 1918 (usually known as 'Luard Selby' with or without hyphen; he introduced the hyphen, ca. 1905). He studied under Reinecke and Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatorium (where Stanford* was a fellow pupil) before returning to England in 1876, when he became organist at St Barnabas', Marylebone, and Highgate School. He was organist of Salisbury Cathedral (1881-83), before he decided to move,...
HEAD, Bessie Porter (Elizabeth Ann Head). b. 1849/1850, exact date unknown; d. Wimbledon, Surrey, 28 June 1936. Born, probably in Belfast (though nothing is known of her life before 1897), the youngest daughter of Tobias Porter, a manager for a firm of flour millers. For some years, ca. 1897, she served as a missionary with the South Africa General Mission (now the Africa Evangelical Fellowship), working mostly at Port Elizabeth with some time at Cape Town. During her time in South Africa, she...
HOWARD, Beverly Ann. b. New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 22 February 1951. A professor in church music, researcher in hymnology, journal editor, member of hymnal committees, church musician, and organist, Howard received degrees from University of Oklahoma in organ performance (BM, 1973, MM, 1974) and the University of North Texas in organ performance, music theory, and harpsichord (DMA, 1986). She served as organist for forty years in two congregations in Riverside, California, First Christian...
Bevor die Sonne sinkt. Christa Weiß* (1925- ) based on Kurt Rommel* (1926-2011).
Rommel wrote a text beginning 'Bevor die Sonne sinkt' at a 'composition weekend' at Bad Cannstatt, Stuttgart, in 1963, and published it in the same year in Lieder von heute ('Songs of Today'). It was entitled 'Abendlied', and had four stanzas. This was set to two tunes, one by Friedrich Endorf, another by Martin Striebel and Kurt Schmid. The second of these was used by Christa Weiß, who had worked with Rommel on...
Gaither, Bill (William James). b. Alexandria, Indiana, 28 March 1936. Gaither was one of four children of the marriage of George W. (1913-2005) and Lela (née Hartwell) (1914-2001). The farming family attended the Church of God in Alexandria, a restoration group with Wesleyan holiness roots headquartered in Anderson, Indiana, (not related to Pentecostal denominations with the same name). Early on Gaither studied piano and organ, 'performing wherever he could in recitals and as an accompanist'...
TAMBLYN, Bill. b. Birmingham, 5 December 1941. He was educated at University College, Durham, during which time he began to study plainchant with Fr Laurence Hollis at Ushaw College and converted to Roman Catholicism. On leaving university, he became, first, cantor and then for ten years, director of music at Our Lady of Grace and St Edward, Chiswick, West London. Tamblyn edited Church Music until 1974, and during the late 1960s he travelled with John Michael East (director of the Church Music...
KWILLIA, Billema. b. ca. 1925. (also known as Belema Kwelea and Belema Kollia). Kwillia is a literacy teacher and evangelist from Liberia in West Africa. She is best known for the hymn 'Come, Let Us Eat' ('A va de laa mioo'), which has been included in several hymnals and ecumenical collections. Kwillia composed the hymn in the 1960s.
Margaret D. Miller (b. 1927), a missionary to Liberia from the United States who served in the Lutheran Literacy Centre in Wozi, transcribed this communion hymn...
WIANT, Bliss Mitchell. b. Dalton, Ohio, 1 February 1895; d. Delaware, Ohio, 1 October 1975. Wiant [Chinese name Fan Tian-xian] was a Methodist Episcopal Church [MEC] missionary from 1923 to 1951. He was an authority on Chinese music, a choral director, composer and arranger, hymnal editor, pastor, and teacher. His widely acclaimed settings of newly written indigenous Chinese Christian hymns to traditional Chinese melodies are an abiding contribution to 20th-century contextualized Chinese...
BLUMHOFER, Edith Lydia (née Waldvogel). b. New York, 24 April 1950; d. Naperville, Illinois, 5 March 2020. A church historian, biographer, and researcher on the role of hymns in American religious culture and thought, Edith Blumhofer was born the oldest child of three to Edwin and Edith Waldvogel. She was raised in Woodhaven, New York, then a municipality of Queens. Her father was pastor of Ridgewood Pentecostal Church, Brooklyn. She married Edwin Blumhofer on 13 September 1975: they were the...
Gillman, Robert (Bob). b. West Ham, London, 16 June 1946. Bob Gillman received his education in the Borough of West Ham, including the local Catholic Junior School followed by South West Ham Technical School, finishing his education at Abbs Cross Technical School in Hornchurch. Retired now, his career included performing, composing, and pursuing his interest in steam-driven trains while managing a printing company. After passing the qualifying exams, Gillman worked for the London Underground...
HURD, Bob (Robert L.). b. Lakewood, Ohio; August 9, 1950. Bob Hurd is a Catholic composer, teacher, liturgist, and author who is known for his many English-language and bilingual compositions in Spanish and English. He studied at St John's Seminary College (Camarillo, California; BA 1973) and De Paul University (Chicago; MA 1976; PhD 1980). Hurd has served in several academic and pastoral settings including Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), the Franciscan School of Theology (Berkeley,...
ORD, Boris. b. Bristol, 9 July 1897; d. Cambridge, 30 December 1961. The son of Clement Ord, a lecturer in the University of Bristol, and Joanna Anthes, a German, he was christened 'Bernhardt', but was invariably known as 'Boris'. He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and the Royal College of Music (1914-1920, interrupted by war service in the Royal Flying Corps). At the RCM he was taught by Walter Parratt*. In 1920 he moved to Cambridge as organ scholar of Corpus Christi College, where...
See 'I was there to hear your borning cry'*.
Break, day of God, O break. Henry Burton* (1840-1930).
According to Telford, annotating the 1904 Wesleyan Methodist Hymn Book, this was written on Christmas Eve 1900 at Blundellsands, near Liverpool: stanza 1 was written on a railway bridge, the remainder at Burton's home (Telford, 1906, p. 165). It was later printed in Burton's Songs of the Highway (1924). It had four stanzas:
Break, day of God, O break, Sweet light of heavenly skies! I all for thee forsake, And from my dead self rise: O...
FOLEY, (William) Brian. b. Waterloo, Liverpool, 28 November 1919; d. Crosby, Liverpool, 11 October 2000. He was educated at St Mary's Irish Christian Brothers' School at Crosby, Lancashire, and at Upholland College, near Wigan, where he trained for the Roman Catholic priesthood. He was ordained in 1945. His parish ministry was in Liverpool for ten years; Bootle for eleven; Birkdale for five; and eventually, from 1971, in Clayton Green, Chorley, Lancashire. He died at Nazarene House,...
HOARE, Brian Richard. b. Upminster, Essex, 9 December 1935. Hoare was educated at Southwell Minster Grammar School, at Westminster College, London, and at Richmond College, University of London. After teaching Religious Education at Calverton, Nottinghamshire, he became Secretary of the Colleges of Education Christian Union (Inter-Varsity Fellowship) in London (1962-68). He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1971, and was chaplain at Hunmanby Hall School, Filey, Yorkshire. He then served...
Broadcast Praise (1981). This collection of 101 hymns, published in 1981, was a supplement to The BBC Hymn Book* of 1951, intended to fulfil a purpose similar to the parent book. The foreword by Colin Semper acknowledged the development of hymnody since 1951, and hoped that the supplement would attract a younger audience.
A few classic hymns omitted from the earlier book were included, and (in one or two cases) a text already provided there was re-printed with a new, and usually more popular,...
Broadcasting Hymns in Britain
In the long history of hymns and hymn singing, broadcasting is a development that dates from the early 20th century. It is of considerable significance. The coming of what was at one time called 'the wireless', and its transition to 'radio', was followed by the advent of television, at first in black and white and subsequently in colour. Throughout the last century, and into the present one, broadcasters have been quick to seize the opportunities provided by media...
Brother, sister, let me serve you. Richard Gillard* (1953-). Written in 1976/7 by New Zealand author and composer Richard Gillard when he was a member of St Paul's Church, Auckland, and known as 'The Servant Song', this hymn began as a verse (now the third verse) and a tune jotted down in 1976, then further developed in 1977. The author says,
In the back of my mind was the passage in John's Gospel [John 13: 2-9] where Jesus washes the disciples' feet, and the re-enactments of that moment I...
COBB, Buell Etheridge, Jr. b. Cullman, Alabama, 25 June 1944. He graduated from Alabama College, Montevallo, Alabama, (now University of Montevallo), 1966; Auburn University (MA in English, 1969). Cobb became closely acquainted with the early American shape-note singing tradition while on faculty at West Georgia College (now University of West Georgia), and authored The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music (Athens, Georgia, 1978), which has been favorably compared with the groundbreaking...
By all your saints still striving. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984) and Jerry D. Godwin (1944-).
This is a modern version of 'From all Thy saints in warfare'*, written by Tucker and revised by Godwin for H82. In addition to using the 'you' form, it has been described as 'an edited version of the Tucker revision that reflected concern for language that was both nonmilitaristic and inclusive, yet remained faithful to the lives of the saints as the Church has received them' (The H82 Companion).
Like...
'By and by'
The phrase 'by and by', meaning 'in a little while' or 'at some time in the future' has been common in American English parlance since the 19th century. In spite of its simplicity, it is a haunting phrase, much more powerful than any alternatives such as the two above.
'By and by' is the title given to an African American spiritual of unknown origin. It was printed in Folk Song of the American Negro (Nashville, Tennessee: Fisk University, 1907), an account written and edited by...
By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered. Dietrich Bonhoeffer* (1906-1945), translated by Fred Pratt Green* (1903-2000).
This poem was sent by Bonhoeffer from prison to his mother in a letter dated 28 December 1944, as a New Year Greeting to her and his friends at the opening of the final year of his life, before his tragic execution on 9 April 1945. The German text, beginning 'Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen', was printed in a hymn book for young people, Die singende Schar ('The...
MILES, C. (Charles) Austin. b. Lakehurst, New Jersey, 7 January 1868; d. Pitman, New Jersey, 10 March 1946. Educated at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and the University of Pennsylvania, Miles ended his pharmaceutical career in 1892 and turned to writing gospel music. His first song 'List, 'tis Jesus' voice' was accepted by the Hall-Mack Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which led to his appointment as editor and manager, a post he continued after that company's merger in...
Woolston, C. Herbert. b. Camden, New Jersey, 7 April 1856; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 May 1927.A pastor, gospel song writer, and sleight-of-hand magician, Clarence Herbert Woolston claimed that he had 'addressed many more than 1,000,000 children' (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1927, p. 4).
The son of Isaiah S. and Sarah B. Woolston, Herbert attended public schools in Camden, New Jersey, and the South Jersey Institute at Bridgeton. He entered the ministry under the influence of evangelist...
HAWN, (Charles) Michael. b. Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 22 September 1948. An eminent multi-cultural/global hymnologist, singer, teacher, and author, his scholarly articles and books on global music and worship, cross-cultural worship, and enlivening congregational song are premier resources. Hawn is noted for his engaging, hands-on style of teaching, the mentorship of former students, many of whom are now an international group of scholars, church musicians, ministers, professors, teachers, song...
DOUGLAS, Charles Winfred. b. Oswego, New York, 15 Feb 1867; d. Santa Rosa, California, 18 Jan 1944. Douglas was raised as a Presbyterian. His first contact with the Episcopal Church came in 1888 as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral, Syracuse, New York, while a student at Syracuse University (BM, 1901). He attended St. Andrew's Divinity School, Syracuse; and Matthews Hall, Denver, Colorado. He was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church 1893, priest 1899, serving as a minor Canon of St John's...
Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, is an interdisciplinary study and ministry center. It is dedicated to promoting academic teaching and learning about the history and theology of Christian liturgical practices in worshiping communities. Within this broad framework, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) has pursued specific initiatives to strengthen congregational singing such as psalmody and...
LAUFER, Calvin Weiss. b. Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, 6 April 1874; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 September 1938. Calvin Weiss Laufer was a minister, editor, writer of hymn texts and tunes, and a founder of The Hymn Society (now The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*). The eldest child of Nathan Laufer, a farmer and miller, and Angelina Weiss Laufer, he was baptized at Zion German Reformed Church in Brodheadsville. His parents settled in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood in...
One does not immediately connect Christian hymnody with the country of Cambodia, whose population historically has been approximately 98% Buddhist and minority Christians have been mostly Protestant and Roman Catholic, whose tradition did not emphasize congregational singing.
The first Christian hymnal in the Cambodian language (Khmer) was published in July 1958 by the Rev Arthur Hammond (1898–1979), a missionary of the Christian Missionary and Alliance Church. Two thousand copies were printed....
The Cambridge Carol-Book was published in 1924 by SPCK (reprinted 1951). It was the work of George Ratcliffe Woodward* (words) and Charles Wood* (most of the music; occasional items were harmonized by GRW and one by George Herbert Palmer*). Its full title was The Cambridge Carol-Book, being fifty-two songs for Christmas, Easter, and other seasons. In fact it contained 53 songs, of which 34 were for Christmas-tide, including 'Ding! dong! merrily on high'* and 'Past three a clock, and a cold...
Cambridge Hymnal (1967). This hymnal, published in 1967, was the work of David Holbrook* (1923-2011) as literary editor and Elizabeth Poston* as music editor. It originated in discussions between Holbrook (tutor at Bassingbourn Village College, Cambridgeshire, 1954-61, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, 1961-65) and local teachers, concerning the quality of hymns used at morning assemblies in English schools. Holbrook argued that 'little or no attention was paid to the meaning of what was...
Camina, pueblo de Dios (Walk on [Go forth], O people of God). Cesáreo Gabaráin* (1936–1991)
'Camina, pueblo de Dios' (1979) looks at the Resurrection of Christ, not only as the most significant event in Christian history, but also as a sign of hope for God's people on the journey toward reconciliation and justice. The standard English translation was prepared by George Lockwood* in 1987 for UMH. His translation of the refrain follows:
Walk on, O people of God;Walk on, O people of God!A new law,...
Can I forget bright Eden's grace. William Williams* (1717-91), translated by Herbert Arthur Hodges* (1905-76).
This translation of Williams's 'Yn Eden, cofiaf hynny byth' was first printed for the Hymn Society's 'Act of Praise' at its conference in Cardiff in 1975 with the title 'Eden and Calvary'. As this title suggests, the hymn is a highly charged and compressed account of the Fall and the Redemption. The translator's article on Williams (Bulletin of the Hymn Society, 135, 1976) notes that...
Caneuon Ffydd (2001). In 1993 the five major denominations in Wales (Anglican, Baptist, Congregationalist, Methodist, Presbyterian) appointed a joint committee to produce a hymnbook for the use of all the Welsh-speaking churches. A hope that such a book might be produced had been expressed in 1927, but never realized. The book, Caneuon Ffydd ('Songs of Faith') appeared in 2001 with 873 Welsh texts and 704 tunes, and, in addition, 86 English texts without tunes, and 33 Psalms and Canticles.
The...
Cantate Domino (1924-1980). The phrase 'Cantate Domino' is from Psalm 96: 1, 'Sing to the Lord a new song'. Its opening Latin words were used as an extra-territorial title by the World's Student Christian Federation for a succession of books published during the 20th century for Christian students from all countries. The editions were as follows:
1. Geneva: World Student Christian Federation (1924)
No date, but given as 1924 in the Second Edition. Many translations are dated 1924. The...
Cantemos al Señor. Carlos Rosas* (1939-2020).
This is Rosas' best known hymn. It was composed for 'Rosas del Tepeyac: misa en honor de Nuetra Señora de Guadalupe', a setting of the Mass found in Díez Canciones Para la Misa (San Antonio, 1976). It was originally entitled '¡Aleluya!'. Tepeyac is the hill where Juan Diego (1474-1548) is said to have had his vision of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, in December 1531. The Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City was constructed on this site....
ROBERTS, Caradog. b. Rhosllanerchrugog, Denbighshire, 30 October 1878; d. Wrexham, Denbighshire, 3 March 1935. He trained as a carpenter but became a full-time musician, studying with J.C. Bridge, organist of Chester Cathedral. He was organist of Mynydd Seion Congregational Church, Wrexham (1894-1903), and of Bethlehem Congregational Church, Rhosllanerchrugog (1904-35). He was director of Music at University College of North Wales, Bangor (1914-20). As a hymn tune composer he is known outside...
BONNER, Carey. b. Southwark, London, 1 May 1859; d. Muswell Hill, London, 16 June 1938. Born in London, the son of a Baptist minister, who gave him his Christian name in admiration of the great Baptist missionary, William Carey (1761-1834). After working in London for a publisher, Bonner trained for the Baptist ministry at Rawdon Baptist College, Leeds, and was ordained in 1884. He was minister at Oakfield Union Church, Sale, Cheshire (1884-95), and at Portland Chapel, Southampton (1895-1900)....
DØVING, Carl. b. Norddalen, Sunnmøre, Norway, 1 March 1867; d. Chicago, Illinois, 2 October 1937. Døving left Norway as a young man and lived in South Africa (1883-90), where he taught at a mission school, the Schreuder Mission in Natal, founded by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder (1817-1882). Døving emigrated to the USA in 1890 and attended Luther College, Decorah, Iowa (AB, 1893) and Luther Seminary of the Norwegian Synod, St Paul, Minnesota (CT [Candidatus theologiae], 1896). He was a...
PRICE, Carl Fowler. b. New Brunswick, New Jersey, 16 May 1881; d. New York City, 12 April 1948. Pioneering hymnologist, historian, author, prominent layperson in The Methodist Episcopal Church, Price attended Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (BA music, 1902; MA, 1932), and worked as a general insurance broker in New York City from 1902 to 1946. He served as secretary of The National Board of the Epworth League, and historian of the Methodist Historical Society.
Price was a founder...
BOBERG, Carl Gustav. b. 16 August 1859; d. 7 January 1940. Born at Mönsterås, Sweden, he was the son of a ship's carpenter. He began life as a sailor. He was converted at the age of 19, and then attended Kristinehamn Bible School. He then became a preacher at Mönsterås, later becoming its member in the Upper House of the Swedish Parliament from 1912 to 1931. He edited a religious magazine, Sanningsvittnet ('Witness of Truth') from 1890 to 1916. He was a poet and hymn writer: many of his hymns...
DAW, Carl Pickens, Jr. b. Louisville, Kentucky, 18 March 1944. Carl Daw was born into a Baptist preacher's family. He received degrees in English from Rice University, Houston, Texas (BA 1966), and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (MA, PhD, 1970); he taught English at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia (1970-78). In 1981 he received a divinity degree from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. After ordination in the Protestant Episcopal Church, he...
SCHALK, Carl Flentge. b. Des Plaines, Illinois, 26 September 1929; d. River Forest, Illinois, 24 January 2021. Schalk attended Concordia Teachers' College (now Concordia University) in River Forest, Illinois (BS, 1952), the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York (MM, 1958) and Concordia Theological Seminary in St Louis, Missouri (MA, 1965).
After serving at Zion Lutheran Church in Wausau, Wisconsin (1952-1958), Schalk was a music director for the International Lutheran Hour (1958-1965),...
ROSAS, Carlos. b. Linares, Nuevo León, Mexico, 4 November 1939; d. San Antonio, Texas, 12 February 2020. Catholic hymn writer, composer, church musician, and lecturer, and son of Anastacio Rosas and Isabel Delgado, he was the tenth of twelve children. He and his wife María Teresa de León (1940-2011), a citizen of the United States, were married on December 26, 1965. He resided in San Antonio, Texas, near his five children, ten grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Rosas's compositions...
YOUNG, Carlton Raymond ('Sam'). b. Hamilton, Ohio, 25 April 1926; d. Nashville, Tennessee, 21 May 2023. He was the son of J. Otis Young , a pastor, and Mary Leibrook, an elementary school teacher. Following his mother's death he was raised by maternal grand parents, who started his piano lessons at age six. He attended Fairfield High School in Butler County, Ohio, where music was a requirement not an elective, and where he played brass instruments and string bass. He studied at Cincinnati...
MILLIGAN, Carman Hilliard. b. York, Ontario, 20 March 1909; d. Ottawa, 14 April 1999. He was educated at the University of Toronto (MusBac in composition, 1937), and the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York State (MA in musicology, 1956). In 1982 he was made an Honorary Fellow in the Canadian College of Organists. He served as organist and choirmaster at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, from 1937 to 1984. Editor (1964-72) and chair of the Committee for the revision of The Book...
Carmina Gadelica (1900, and after).
The full title of this remarkable collection is Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations, with Illustrative Notes on Words, Rites,and Customs, Dying and Obsolete: orally collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Translated into English. Volumes I and II were the work of Alexander Carmichael* (Gaelic name Alastair MacGillemhicheil) (1832-1912). Carmichael was an exciseman who collected Gaelic hymns, prayers, charms, and songs from the Highlands...
Carol our Christmas. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written in 1986 as a reaction to Northern hemisphere carols and their imagery of holly and snow which dominated New Zealand Christmas celebrations well into the 20th century, despite the fact that New Zealanders actually celebrate the festival in high summer. This carol joyfully plays with the term 'Antipodean', offering itself as an 'Up-side-down' vision of Christmas where snow is not falling and trees are not bare, a time when the Christ...
OWENS, Carol. b. El Reno, Oklahoma, 30 October 1931. She was educated at San Jose State College in California. Her husband Jimmy* (they married in 1954) was a jazz band arranger who directed music in several churches in southern California. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement' (see Christian popular music, USA*), the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
CAMERON, Catherine Bonnell Arnott Oskamp. b. St John, New Brunswick, Canada, 27 March 1927; d. Claremont, California, USA, 26 July 2019. She was born into a Presbyterian preacher's family, which immigrated to the United States in 1935, at which point she became an American citizen. She was educated at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (BA in English, 1949); and at the University of Southern California (MA, 1970, PhD 1971, in Social Psychology). She married Robert Arnott, a minister, from...
TAYLOR, Cecily. b. Coulsdon, Surrey, 25 March 1930. She was evacuated during the war, and enjoyed what she calls a 'considerably varied' primary school career, attending six schools by the age of twelve. She worshipped in the local Anglican Church, but returned after the war to her home, where she was introduced to a Congregational youth group by a friend. At the age of 17 she joined the church and remained in membership for 40 years. There also she met her husband, and was involved in church...
GABARÁIN, Cesáreo. b. Hernani, Gipúzkoa, Basque Country, Spain, 16 May 1936; d. Antzuola, Spain, 30 April 1991. Monseñor Cesáreo Gabaráin was one of the best-known composers of Spanish liturgical music following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). He was inspired by the feelings and actions of the humble people he met during his ministry. His hymns were recorded on thirty-seven albums (the last completed posthumously). He is the only Roman Catholic Church composer to receive...
Change my heart, O God. Eddie Espinosa* (1953– ).
Written in 1982, this is is Eddie Espinosa's best-known song. Espinosa tells the song's story:
The year was 1982. I had been a Christian since 1969, but I saw a lot of things in my life that needed to be discarded. I had slowly become very complacent. I acknowledged my complacency, and I prayed to the Lord, 'The only way that I can follow you is for you to change my appetite, the things that draw me away. You must change my heart! . ....
CLARKE, Charles Erskine. b. 10 February 1871; d. 8 March 1926. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (BA 1892, MA 1896). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1896, priest 1897), serving curacies at St Luke's, Southampton (1896-99), St Mary's, Battersea, London (1899-1900), and St Luke's, Battersea (1900-14). He was vicar of St Luke's (1914-24), and Perpetual Curate of St John the Evangelist, Redhill, Surrey (1924-26).
Clarke's 'O, David was a shepherd lad'* was written for a hymn...
LLOYD, Charles Harford. b.Thornbury, Gloucestershire, 16 October 1849; d. Eton, 16 October 1919. He was educated at the local grammar school, and at Rossall School, Lancashire. He showed early promise as a musician, and was playing the organ in a local church at the age of ten. He studied at Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford (BA 1872), during which time he became friendly with C.H.H. Parry* and John Stainer*, and founded the Oxford Musical Club (Dibble, 1992, p. 50). He became a...
GABRIEL, Charles Hutchinson. b. Wilton, Iowa, 18 August 1856; d. Hollywood, California, 14 September 1932. Following in his father's footsteps, Charles Gabriel became a singing school teacher at the age of 16, and after 1887 served as music director in the Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco. He settled in Chicago, the center for evangelical and revivalist publishing, in 1892, where he devoted the rest of his life to writing, composing, editing, and publishing. A list of his works includes...
HUTCHINS, Charles Lewis. b. Concord, New Hampshire, 5 August 1838; d. Concord, Massachusetts, 17 August 1920. Hutchins, an Episcopal priest, was editor of several music editions of 19th-century Episcopal hymnals and related materials. He was a son of George Hutchins (1797-1868) and Sarah Rolfe Tucker (1801-1868). Both parents were born to well-established New England families. Of particular note is Sarah's grandfather, the Rev Dr John Tucker (1719-1792), described in Shipton's New England...
ALEXANDER, Charles McCallon. b. Meadow, Tennessee, 24 October 1867; d. Birmingham, England, 13 October 1920. He was the son of John D. Alexander, a well-known musical leader, and Martha McCallon. A singing evangelist in the style of Ira D. Sankey*, young Alexander was influenced by his family's singing Gospel hymns around the fireside and by his mother's reading Dwight L. Moody*'s sermons to the family each night. Alexander attended Maryville Preparatory School and College, Maryville, Tennessee...
PARKIN, Charles. b. Felling on Tyne, England, 25 December 1884; d. Portland, Maine, 3 March 1981. Charles Parkin studied at Oxford University and served in the British Army during World War I. Following the War, he was secretary of the British Poetry Society. In 1922, Parkin moved to the United States and was ordained a minister in the Maine Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. From 1950 to 1952, Parkin was the superintendent of the Portland District of the Maine Conference, and then...
ROBERTSON, Charles. b. Springburn, Glasgow, 22 October 1940. He was educated at The Orphan Homes of Scotland Primary School (Quarrier's), Bridge of Weir; Camphill Senior Secondary School, Paisley; and New College, University of Edinburgh (MA). After studying divinity at New College, he was licensed to preach on 22 April 1964, and ordained and inducted to Kiltearn Parish Church, near Dingwall, Ross-shire, on 21 October 1965. He married Alison Robertson* in 1965. In June 1978 he was translated...
NUTTER, Charles Sumner. b. Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, 19 September 1842; d. Melrose, Massachusetts, 2 August 1928. Charles Nutter and Wilber Fisk Tillett* (1854-1936) wrote The Hymns and Hymn Writers of The Church, an Annotated Edition of The Methodist Hymnal (New York and Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern, 1911). Nutter was an avid collector of hymnological materials, and his collection together with that of Frank Metcalf (1765-1945) total more than 2500 volumes, comprising the core of...
TILLMAN, Charles Davis. b. Tallassee, Alabama, 20 March 1861; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 2 September 1943. Charlie Tillman was a gospel songwriter and publisher. He was the youngest of five children born to James Lafayette Tillman (1829–1904), a Baptist preacher and evangelist, and Mary Fletcher Tillman (née Davis) (1827–1904), who was active in her husband's evangelistic efforts. He married Anna Tillman (née Killingsworth) (1869–1949) in 1889, and they had five children. As a child, he traveled with...
PILCHER, Charles Venn. b. Oxford, 4 June 1879; d. Sydney, Australia, 4 July 1961. He was educated at Charterhouse School (1892-98) and Hertford College, Oxford (BA 1902, MA 1905, BD 1909). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1903, priest 1904), becoming curate of St Thomas', Birmingham (1903-05) and Domestic Chaplain to Handley Moule*, Bishop of Durham (1905-06). In 1906 he left for Canada, where he taught Greek at Wycliffe College, Toronto, later becoming a curate at St James's Church (later the...
Child of Joy and Peace. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Shirley Murray wrote this text in 1987. It was entitled 'Hunger Carol'. She described it as 'a protest at our consumer society'. It was first published in the Asian hymnal Sound the Bamboo (1990) and the author's American collection In Every Corner, Sing (1992) before reaching New Zealand publication in Alleluia Aotearoa (1993) and Carol our Christmas (1996).
Fired by indignation, the text steadily extends its assault on the secular...
Singing is a natural activity for children, and one of the most certain ways of passing on doctrine and history of faith is through hymn singing. Because of its ability to draw people into community while teaching doctrine, singing hymns strengthens the fostering of religious values. There is evidence that the teaching of hymnody happened with boys in monasteries as early as the fifth century, and after 1200 there is evidence of girls taking part in monastic liturgical singing. Though we may...
Choristers Guild
The Choristers Guild, Dallas, Texas, is a global, ecumenical and educational organization, and publisher, that serves more than 4000 directors of children's and youth choirs, worship leaders, teachers, and accompanists. The Guild describes itself as 'a Christian organization [which] enables leaders to nurture the spiritual and musical growth of children and youth through publication of choral music, hand bell music and educational resources, member benefits,...
BOWATER, Christopher Alan (Chris). b. 1947. Bowater is a British songwriter and pastor. Between 1978 and 2006 he had published some 51 songs through Sovereign Lifestyle Music, Kingsway and Thankyou Music. Many of these have featured in various editions of series such as Mission Praise* and Songs of Fellowship*, as well as in denominational hymnals. Among his most popular and enduring songs are 'Faithful God' (1985) and 'Jesus shall take the highest honour' (1998). He has also published new...
Christ has risen while earth slumbers. John Bell (b. 1949) and Graham Maule* (1958-2019).
'Christ has risen' first appeared in the collection Enemy of Apathy: Songs of the Passion and the Resurrection, and the Coming of the Holy Spirit (1988), the second of three early volumes of songs developed with over a dozen dialogue partners in the Wild Goose Worship Group (WGWG). The collaborative creative process with the WGWG was evident in the production of the early volumes: they sought to prepare a...
Christ is our light! The bright and morning star. Leith Fisher* (1941-2009).
This hymn was written for the first Sunday after the Epiphany, which also marks the Baptism of Christ. It was written while Fisher was minister of the Old Parish Church of Falkirk (1979-90). On being invited back to Falkirk from his new parish of Wellington in Glasgow (1990-2006) to conduct a wedding, the author added a third stanza, based on the wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11). The first stanza refers to 'the bright...
Christ is the heavenly food that gives. Timothy Rees* (1874-1939).
This hymn for Holy Communion was first published in The Mirfield Mission Hymn-Book (Mirfield, 1922) with the first line 'Christ is the Sacrifice we plead', in three 8-line stanzas with a refrain, and subsequently in John Lambert Rees's Sermons and Hymns by Timothy Rees, Bishop of Llandaff (1946). Stanza 1 was as follows in 1922:
Christ is the Sacrifice we plead Before th'eternal Throne;His Cross alone can cancel guilt And for...
Christ, the fair glory of the holy Angels. Latin, ca. 9th century, translated by Athelstan Riley* (1858-1945).
The Latin text, 'Christe sanctorum decus angelorum', ascribed to Hrabanus Maurus*, exists in various forms (see JJ, pp. 229-30). Riley's translation is of JJ's text 2, with line 2 as 'Rector humani generis et auctor', and references to the three archangels: 'Angelum pacis Michael', 'Angelum fortis Gabriel' and 'Angelum nobis, medicum salutis,/ Mitte de caelis Raphael'. It is designated...
Christ, when for us you were baptized. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
Written in 1973 at the request of an Australian theology student at Trinity College, Melbourne, Dirk van Dissel. It is interesting to note that at the same time van Dissel was writing to Fred Pratt Green*, the British Methodist hymn writer, with a similar request. He was asking these two great hymn writers for a hymn on the Baptism of Christ for the forthcoming Australian Hymn Book (WOV, 1977). However, neither hymn was used...
Christ, you are the fullness. Bert Polman* (1945-2013).
This is a Bible song on Colossians 1:15-18 and 3:1-4, 15-17; written in 1986 for the Psalter Hymnal (1987). Bert Polman wrote this unrhymed paraphrase of the New Testament epistle to ensure that a Korean folk melody, ARIRANG, would be included in this Christian Reformed hymnal. The biblical text reaffirms the new life in Christ. The tune was adapted by Bert Polman for congregational singing, and harmonized by composer Dale Grotenhuis who...
Christian Hymns (1977, 2004). Published in 1977 by the Evangelical Movement of Wales, this collection of 901 texts provided a rich selection of hymns by Isaac Watts* (71 hymns) and almost certainly the fullest representation of Charles Wesley* (93 hymns) outside Methodism. It also retained much classic Victorian hymnody, while introducing contemporary writers such as Alan Clifford, Eluned Harrison* and Vernon Higham* to a wider audience. A revision of the book appeared in 1985 and a full new...
Christian popular music, USA
Introduction and antecedents
Christian popular music (hereafter CPM) is an umbrella category for a sonically diverse repertoire of late 20th- and early 21st-century evangelical Protestant commercial popular music. It encompasses several distinct subcategories based on musical genre, industrial context, or function, including, but not limited to, Jesus Music, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), Praise & Worship music, and Christian rock. CPM is characterized by...
Christian Praise (1957). In a decade not often admired for innovation, 1957 saw the arrival of Christian Praise, a collection of 401 hymns designed not as a church hymn-book but for student fellowships, schools, Bible classes and other groups outside denominational structures. The quality of the hymns marked a clear advance on what was normally available hitherto; published by the Tyndale Press, it came from a small committee chaired by Derek Kidner*, who was experienced in both parish ministry...
Hymnody and Hymnals of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. The Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) is an offshoot of the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk in the Netherlands, and the Reformed Church in America (RCA), which was established in North America about two centuries before the arrival of the Dutch who would form the core of the CRC. Whereas the RCA grew out of a 17th-century emigration at a time when the Dutch were engaged with the world, prosperous, and...
The Christian Social Union, and its hymns
The Christian Social Union was founded in 1889. However, its concerns had been exercising thoughtful church people, and many others, throughout the 19th century: movements such as those of the Chartists in the 1840s, and the writings of such thinkers as Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) and Charles Kingsley* provided a background to the practical experience of clergy such as Percy Dearmer* in the East End of London. The Salvation Army was founded...
Christian, do you struggle. Bert Polman* (1945-2013).
This is based on an ancient New Testament hymn text about Christian experience of conflict. Polman comments, in the Psalter Hymnal Handbook (p. 751):
The Christian battle is 'not against flesh and blood' but against the 'powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil.' It is a deadly serious battle that requires Christians to 'put on the full armour of God,' which his Word and Spirit provide. This spiritual warfare is...
Christlicher Sängerbund
This is the name of a German free church choral organisation founded at Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal) in 1879 by Wilhelm Elsner (1833-1892) to encourage the musical life of what is now the Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in Deutschland (mainly Baptists), the United Methodist Church, and other German speaking free churches all over Europe. When Elsner died in 1892, Ernst H. Gebhardt* was appointed chairman. It is estimated that during the 1930s there were...
WILLCOCK, Christopher John. b. Sydney, 8 February 1947. He attended De La Salle College, Armidale (1960-63), then studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, becoming an Associate in Music in theory and piano. At the University of Sydney he completed a BMus with honours in composition (1974), and took a BD at the Melbourne College of Divinity, followed by a Master's degree in Sacramental Theology at the Catholic Institute, Paris (1982). He then completed doctoral studies in liturgical and...
NORTON, Christopher Garth. b. Dunedin, New Zealand, 22 June 1953. Educated at Otago Boys' High School, Norton showed early promise as a musician; he began composing at the age of 14, and by the age of 16 he had had an orchestral work performed and broadcast. In 1974, already a talented pianist studying under Maurice Till, he gained a first-class degree in music from the University of Otago, and went on to teach music in a number of Wellington high schools, where he worked as a...
WALKER, Christopher Dixon Harvey. b. London, 9 June 1947. Walker became a chorister at Bristol Cathedral and later studied composition at Bristol University and Trent Park College. On leaving university he became director of music at the (then newly opened) Roman Catholic Cathedral at Clifton in Bristol. He met members of (and subsequently joined) the St Thomas More Group* before emigrating to the USA in 1990, where he became a lecturer at Mount Saint Mary College and director of music at St...
Christ's is the world in which we move. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958-2019).
From Love from Below (Wild Goose Songs 3) (1989) and reprinted in When Grief Is Raw (1997), this is a fervent plea for Christians to feel compassion for others. The hymn, with its title 'A Touching Place', has four stanzas with a refrain, and 'Feel for' are the opening words of stanzas 2-4. It names those for whom we should care, including the people whom we most avoid (stanza 2 line 2), those...
The Church Army Mission Hymn Book. This was published in Britain ca. 1960 (no date is given, and there is no indication in the very brief preface). It was a successor to Hymns for the Church Army (ca. 1894), edited by Wilson Carlile*, the army's founder, and Hymns and Choruses of the Church Army (n.d., but ca. 1910, and frequently reprinted).
The front cover was embossed with the Church Army shield, a crown and crossed swords, and the words 'Fight the good fight'. The book contained 133 hymns,...
MARTIN, Civilla Durfee (née Holden). b. Jordan, Nova Scotia, 21 August 1866; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 9 March 1948. Civilla Durfee was a village schoolteacher with some musical training. She wrote some gospel songs with her husband, Walter Stillman Martin (1862-1935), formerly a Baptist minister but later an itinerant evangelist, teacher, and pastor for the Disciples of Christ, based in Atlanta. She is best known for two very comforting gospel songs: 'Be not dismayed whate'er betide'* ('God will...
BENOIT, Claire-Lise de. b. Calcutta 28 August 1917; d. Geneva (?) 15 November 2008. She was the eldest of seven children born to Pierre and Renée de Benoit. Her father was a Missionary Doctor in India. She became a Scripture Union pioneer worker in French-speaking Switzerland, and a well known Evangelical hymnwriter.
From 1939, remaining single, she developed children's work over forty years through holiday camps and publishing. She represented the Scripture Union at an international level....
Clarendon Hymn Book (1936). This was the title given to a collection published in 1936 by Oxford University Press. It was compiled by an anonymous 'committee of Public School masters' (i.e., masters teaching in fee-paying Independent Schools: see 'Public School hymnody'*). The word 'Clarendon' in the title (presumably to associate the book with the distinguished imprint of the OUP) conceals its predominantly Charterhouse origins.
Although it was not a publication of the Headmasters' Conference,...
McAFEE, Cleland Boyd. b. Ashley, Missouri, 25 September 1866; d. Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 4 February 1944. Educated at Park College in Parkville, Missouri (founded in 1875 by his father) (BA, 1884; MA, 1888) and Union Theological Seminary in New York City (dipl. 1888), Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (PhD, 1892). McAfee returned to Park College, served the campus church as Presbyterian preacher and led its choir while he taught philosophy there (1888-1901). Later, he was pastor of First...
GALE, Clement Rowland. b. Kew, Surrey, England, January 1860, d. New York City, 10 May 1934. Gale was a founding member of the American Guild of Organists* (1896), a member of the music faculty of General Theological Seminary in New York, and composer of several hymn tunes.
Several published accounts give Gale's date of birth as 12 March 1862, but official records show that he was born in January 1860 to William Frederick Gale (b. 1823?) and Elizabeth Gale (b. 1824?) and was baptized at St...
BARROWS, Clifford Burton. b. Ceres, California, 6 April 1923; d. Charlotte, North Carolina, 15 November 2016. 'Cliff' Barrows, longtime music and program director for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, majored in sacred music at Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina (BA, 1944), and in 1944 was ordained by a Baptist congregation in his hometown of Ceres, California.
After serving as assistant pastor at Temple Baptist Church in St Paul, Minnesota for one year, he joined the...
GIBSON, Colin Alexander. b. Dunedin, New Zealand, 26 March 1933; d. Dunedin, 10 December 2022. He was educated at Otago Boys' High School and the University of Otago (he studied English, classics and music and completed a doctorate in English literature), Christchurch Training College and the University of Canterbury. He became Donald Collie Professor of English and chairman of the Department of English at the University of Otago, where he taught for 42 years. From 1956 until his death he was...
The Colored Sacred Harp (Ozark, Alabama, 1934; Montgomery, Alabama, 2004) is a collection of 77 shape-note pieces. It was the result of the work of Judge Jackson (1883-1958) and members of a committee appointed by the Dale County Colored Musical Institute and the Alabama and Florida Union State Convention.
Sacred Harp singing had started with the publication of B. F. White* and Elisha J. King*'s The Sacred Harp (Philadelphia, 1844). Since the 1870s, African Americans had held singing...
Come and find the quiet centre. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
This hymn, a favourite among North American congregations, was originally written in 1989 for a New Zealand Presbyterian Women's Conference whose theme was 'Making Space'. There it was sung to a Gaelic folk melody from the island of Lewis, also used in the Scottish CH4. When it was published in Shirley Murray's first major American collection, In Every Corner, Sing: The Hymns of Shirley Erena Murray (1992), it was set to a...
Come and journey with a Saviour. T. Herbert O'Driscoll* (1928-2024).
In his hymn notes (in Praise, My Soul) O'Driscoll recalled a teaching of Dag Hammarskjṏld, second Secretary General of the United Nations (1953-61), that 'The longest journey is the journey inwards'. The hymn writer/priest commented: 'true as long as the whole of one's journey is not inward. A healthy spirituality also hears a call to journey outward and upwards. Above all is the call to journey, so that one's spirituality is...
Come and let us drink of that new river. John Damascene* (ca. 655- ca. 745), translated by John Mason Neale* (1818-1866).
This hymn by St John of Damascus, or St John Damascene, 'Δευτε πόμα πίωμεν', was Ode III of the 'Canon for Easter Day, called the Golden Canon, or, The Queen of Canons', from the Pentekostarion Kharmosynon ('Joyful Pentecostarion'), used from Easter Day to the first Sunday after Pentecost (see Litvack, 1994, p. 131, and the entry under 'The Day of Resurrection'). It had nine...
Come into my heart, blessed Jesus ('Into my heart'). Harry D. Clarke* (1889–1957).
This hymn began as a short chorus, composed in 1924; Clarke expanded the chorus into a gospel hymn with four stanzas in 1927. The earliest publication is unclear, but the refrain without the stanzas appears in Homer A. Rodeheaver*'s Praise and Worship Hymns (Chicago, 1927), with the subtitle 'My Prayer', an inscription occasionally used in later publications. The entire hymn was included in several...
Come Sunday. Duke (Edward Kennedy) Ellington (1899-1974).
The music of this jazz spiritual is adapted from the similarly titled section of Ellington's instrumental suite, Black, Brown and Beige, premiered at Carnegie Hall, New York City, (January 23, 1943). Ellington introduced the work at the premier as 'a tone parallel to the history of the negro in America.'
The lyrics resulted from a two-year collaboration of Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) and Ellington, as described by Irving Townsend in his...
Come, let us join with faithful souls. William George Tarrant* (1853-1928).
Written in 1915, and published in the Congregational Hymnary (1916). It was one of four hymns by Tarrant in the revised Fellowship Hymn Book (1933). It remained in use in Unitarian churches (Hymns of Worship, 1927, Hymns of Worship Revised , 1962) and it remains in HFF (1991), though not in HFL (which prints only two hymns by Tarrant). It had six stanzas:
Come, let us join with faithful souls Our song of faith to...
Community of Christ. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written to provide a hymn on the theme of social justice, this hymn was first officially sung at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in that year, linked as it has been since with the familiar tune LEONI. It was then taken up in Australia and published first in an inclusive language collection Out of the Darkness, then in Songs for the Journey (1991) and Together in Song: the Australian Hymn Book II (1999). It...
Cowley Carol Book. This was a two-part collection of Christmas carols edited by George Ratcliffe Woodward*. The 'First Series' (1901, revised 1902) consisted of 39 carols, many already published. The Second Edition (1902) had 65 items. The 'Second Series' was delayed by the First World War, and appeared in 1919, with a further 37 carols. Charles Wood* co-edited this second volume. The origin of the title lies in a request for a carol book from the Church of St John, Cowley, Oxford, home of the...
Crashing waters at creation. Sylvia Dunstan* (1955-1993).
A member of the National Worship Committee of the United Church of Canada, Sylvia Dunstan was the editor of the trial 1986 liturgical resource 'Baptism and Renewal of Baptismal Faith' that contained her own 'Prayer of Thanksgiving and Pouring of Water'. She wrote 'Crashing waters' to accompany that prayer, calling to mind the richness of salvation history. Published in the first volume of Dunstan's collected works, In Search of Hope and...
Creating God, your fingers trace. Jeffery Rowthorn* (1934- ).
This is a metrical version of Psalm 148, 'Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights above.' It was written in 1974 and submitted in 1979 for a competition set by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada* to find 'New Psalms for Today'. It was printed in The Hymn (April 1979).
It has four stanzas, beginning 'Creating God...', 'Sustaining God...', 'Redeeming God...' and 'Indwelling God...'. It was printed in...
Creation sings. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
This hymn was written for a Hymn Search by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians to celebrate the gift of music. It was first published in four 4-line stanzas in the meter of 11.10.11.10 in the author's collection, Faith Makes the Song: New Hymns Written between 1997 and 2002 (Carol Stream, Illinois, 2003). This collection paired the text with the tune CREATION SINGS by Hal H. Hopson* (1933- ). It appeared in the collection Hope Is Our...
Creator of the earth and sky. Ambrose of Milan* (339/340-397), translated by Charles Bigg* (1840-1908).
This translation of 'Deus Creator omnium'*, a hymn regarded as certainly by St Ambrose, was made by Bigg for EH (1906), where it had eight stanzas, the last of which was a doxology:
Creator of the earth and sky, Ruling the firmament on high, Clothing the day with robes of light, Blessing with gracious sleep the night.
That rest may comfort weary men, And brace to useful toil again, And...
HAMBLY, Cyril Grey. b. Cardiff, 6 January 1931; d. Shrewsbury, 4 December 1999. He was educated at the University of Wales (where he studied music), and trained for the Methodist ministry at Hartley Victoria College, Manchester. He was ordained in 1954, and held appointments in a number of circuits, principally in Wales and East Anglia. He was a contributor to Partners in Praise (1979) and published A Hymn for the Lectionary (1981), a collection of 70 hymns written by him to accompany the...
TRUEBLOOD, David Elton. b. Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa, 12 December 1900; d. Meadowood Retirement Community, near Lansdale, Pennsylvania, 20 December 1994. Some records indicate that Elton was born 'near Indianola', but he writes that 'On rare occasions we drove sixteen miles to either Indianola or Knoxville…' (While It Is Day, p. 10). Other records state that he was born at the family farm (near Waveland, in Warren County); he himself, however, states that he was born at Pleasantville...
GARRATT, Dale. b. Auckland, New Zealand, 1939. With her husband David Garratt (b. Wellington, 1938), whom she met in 1962 through the Youth for Christ movement, she worked as a musical evangelist, singing at youth conventions and gospel meetings. In 1963 the pair withdrew to refocus their ministry on incorporating scripture into contemporary worship music. They were married in 1964. Their first album, Scripture put to Song (1968) has been recognised as the initiator of the modern praise and...
LUNDY, Michael (monastic name: Damian) FSC. b. Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, 21 March 1944; d. Oxford, 9 December 1996. The son of a master baker, he was educated at West Vale Catholic Primary School, then at the De Salle (Christian Brothers) Grammar School, Sheffield. He joined the De Salle Religious Order in 1960, and trained at St Cassian's Juniorate, Kintbury, Berkshire; then at Inglewood Novitiate, and at various establishments in Germany and France. He then read English at Magdalene...
Dance and sing. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958-2019).
This text was first published in Heaven Shall Not Wait (Wild Goose Songs 1) (1987), paired with the Scottish traditional melody PULLING BRACKEN. The authors' advice is that it should be sung (and danced?) unaccompanied, but a recorder or violin might provide extra confidence. The theme is God's creation; the verses follow the pattern of the first chapter of Genesis while the refrain urges the whole earth to 'dance and...
DAMON, Daniel Charles. b. Rapid City, South Dakota, 2 July 1955. Damon was educated at Greenville College in Illinois and at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. After serving parishes in Sutter, Meridian, Modesto, and Richmond, all in California, he is currently retired as an Elder in the United Methodist Church in 2020. He also teaches church music at the Pacific School of Religion on an adjunct basis, plays in jazz clubs, and leads jazz vespers for the students at the...
IVERSON, Daniel. b. Brunswick, Georgia, 26 September 1890; d. Asheville, North Carolina, 3 January 1977. Iverson studied at the University of Georgia, the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Columbia Theological Seminary in New York City, and the University of South Carolina. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1914, he initially served congregations in Georgia and North and South Carolina, and then founded and pastored the Shenandoah Presbyterian Church in Miami, Florida (1927-51). An...
MALGAS, Daniel. b. Eastern Cape, South Africa, ca.1853; d. Fort Beaufort, South Africa, March 1936. Malgas was an ordained Anglican priest, whose career was based in the eastern part of the Cape Colony near Kwa Maqoma (formerly Fort Beaufort). An official record of his exact birth date has not been found. It is possible that his birth was not registered because his parents converted to Christianity when Malgas was in his late teens. He began formal education in 1872 at St Luke's Mission....
SCHUTTE, Daniel L. b. Neenah, Wisconsin, 28 December 1947. Schutte was educated at St Louis University, St Louis, Missouri (BS, 1972). After three years teaching Oglala Sioux high school students at Red Cloud Indian School at Pine Ridge, South Dakota (1973-76), he went to the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California (1976-80, MDiv 1980) to complete his formal theological training in preparation for priestly ordination. He also holds an MTh degree from the Graduate Theological Union,...
NILES, Daniel Thambyrajah. b. Jaffna, north Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) 4 May 1908; d. 17 July 1970. He was born into a Tamil Christian family: his grandfather was a Methodist minister, and his father was a lawyer. He studied law, but then chose to become a Methodist minister; he was ordained in 1936. As a young district evangelist, he was a delegate to the International Missionary Council Tambaram Conference of 1938; he then became YMCA evangelism secretary in Geneva (1939-40), before returning to...
ZSCHECH, Darlene Joyce. b. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 8 September 1965. She was given an early training in music and dance as a child at Brisbane. By the age of ten she was performing on and hosting segments of a children's weekly television programme, and went on to record commercials for a number of international companies and form backing choirs for touring singers. During her teenage years she led various gospel bands in Brisbane, then with her husband Mark joined a youth band which...
TERRY, Darley. b. Brighouse, Yorkshire, 19 January 1847; d. Prestatyn, North Wales, 21 January 1933. Terry was a printer at Dewsbury, Yorkshire and a Sunday-school superintendent. He represented Yorkshire on the council of the National Sunday School Union. He was an active member of the Methodist New Connexion, serving on its Sunday schools committee from 1877 to 1899, and on its Young People's and Temperance Department. He is said to have published Poems and Hymns (1904, 1914, second series,...
NIXON, Darryl. b. Vancouver, British Columbia, 1953. His musical training began in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with Donald Hadfield and Lawrence Ritchey. In Geneva he completed his formation at the Conservatoire de Genève with Lionel Rogg (organ) and Christianne Jaccottet (harpsichord), winning the Premier Prix de Virtuosité avec Distinction, and teaching at the Conservatoire as assistant to Rogg. While in Geneva, between 1975 and 1983, he served the Lutheran Church of Geneva as organist.
In 1983 he...
Das ist mir lieb, daß du mich horst. Heinrich Vogel* (1902-1989).
This is a paraphrase of verses from Psalm 116, published in Vogel's Psalmen (Munich, 1937), entitled 'Psalm 116'. It was included in Vogel's Gesammelte Werke (Suttgart, 1982) among the items 'aus dem dichterischen Tagebuch eines alten Theologen' ('from the poetic diary of an elderly theologian'). It is found in EG in the 'Psalmen und Lobgesänge' setion (EG 292). EG omits stanzas 5 and 6 of the original, corresponding to verses...
Das Kreuz ist aufgerichtet. Kurt Ihlenfeld* (1901-1972).
This was the product of two 'Kirchentags', one at Cologne in 1965, the other at Hannover in 1967. It was first published in an experimental book, Werkbuch Gottesdienst. Texte – Modelle –Bericht (Wuppertal, 1967), and then in Liederheft. Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag (Hannover, 1967). It was included by Dieter Trautwein* in Der Frieden ist unter uns. Neue Geistliche Lieder vom Evangelischen Kirchentag (Regensburg, 1967). It has echoes...
Das Volk, das noch im Finstern wandelt. Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt, translated by Jürgen Henkys* (1929-2015).
This was published in the collection, Steig in das Boot (Berlin, 1981), edited by Henkys. It is a translation of a Dutch hymn by Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt, 'Het volk dat in duisternis wandelt' ('The people that wandered in darkness'). It is based on Isaiah 9: 1-6. It has a strong resemblance to the Scottish paraphrase of the same chapter beginning 'The people that in darkness sat'*,...
CHERWIEN, David Mark. b. West Union, Iowa, 1 July 1957. Cherwien, organist, conductor and composer, studied at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, (BM 1979) and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (MM 1995, DMA 2001). Additional studies in conducting, composition and organ were taken at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule, Spandau, Germany. He has held positions as organist at the American Church (LCA) in Berlin; director of music at the First Lutheran Church of Richmond Beach (ELCA) Shoreline,...
DARGIE, David. b. 29 July 1938. David Dargie is one of South Africa's leading ethnomusicologists. He studied with Andrew Tracey at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa (on Andrew Tracey, see African hymnody*). Dargie is also a foremost encourager of compositions by Africans for the church. Of Scottish descent, Dargie is a third-generation South African raised in the coastal town of East London. Following seminary training in Pretoria and his ordination in 1964, he served in New...
EICHER, David Eugene. b. Harrisonburg, Virginia; 11 June 1954. An organist, church musician, music educator, denominational administrator, and hymnal editor, David Eicher's ecclesial roots were in the Church of the Brethren. He was born to the Rev. William C. Eicher (1923–2008) and Elsie Williard Eicher (1927–2011), the second of two children. His father served churches in Southern Virginia until he was called to Springfield, Ohio when Eicher entered the tenth grade.
Showing a great interest...
EVANS, David Emlyn. b. Pen'ralltwen, Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthen, 21 September 1843; d. Cemmaes, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, 19 April 1913. He began life as a draper's assistant, but became a distinguished Welsh musician, much in demand as an Eisteddfod adjudicator. With David Jenkins* he edited Y Cerddor ('The Musician') from 1889 to 1913. He was the music editor of several Welsh hymnbooks, including the Congregationalist Y Caniedydd Cynulleidfaol (1895) and the Wesleyan Methodist Llyfr...
KAI, David. b. Toronto, Ontario, 14 May 1955. David Kai is a composer, songwriter, and arranger whose extensive body of work reflects his own background as a Sansei (a third generation Canadian of Japanese descent), and his eclectic musical training and experience. Kai grew up in Toronto, highly involved in the music ministry of Centennial-Japanese United Church, where he began playing piano for Sunday school by about age 10. By the age of 13 he was playing for services.
Influences upon him...
RITCHIE, David Lakie. b. Kingsmuir, Angus, Scotland, 15 September 1864; d. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 14 December 1951. He was educated at Forfar Academy and at the University of Edinburgh. He was ordained to ministry in the Congregational Church in Scotland, with a pastorate at Dunfermline (1890-96) and then in England at St James's Congregational Church, Newcastle upon Tyne (1896-1903). He was Principal of Nottingham Theological Institute from 1903 to 1919; and, after a year in Montreal as...
McCORMICK, David Wilfred. b. Lehighton, Pennsylvania, 6 May 1928; d. Richmond, Virginia, 21 September 2019. The son of a printer and volunteer church organist, he received his bachelor's degree (1949) and his master's degree (1950) from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey. He began his church ministry at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas where he established a life-long friendship with composer Jane Manton Marshall*. His service at Highland Park was...
WILLIAMS, David McKinley. b. Caernarvonshire, Wales, 20 February 1887; d. Oakland, California, 13 March 1978. One of the most dynamic 20th-century leaders of American church music, he is often identified with the music of St Bartholomew's Church in New York City, where he was organist and choirmaster from 1920 to 1947. Williams served on the Joint Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church and the Joint Commission on Revision of the Hymnal (H40). He composed hymn tunes and descants,...
HAAS, David Robert. b. Saginaw, Michigan, 4 May 1957. Haas studied at Central Michigan University and achieved proficiency in voice, keyboard, guitar and trumpet. His studies at the (College) University of St. Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota centered on theology and liturgical music. He was later appointed composer in residence at the university's St Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He also served as composer in residence at Benilde-St Margaret High School in St Louis Park, Minnesota, and he is...
MUSIC, David Wayne. b. Ardmore, Oklahoma, 28 January 1949. Music was educated at California Baptist College (BA in music, 1970), and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MCM 1973, DMA 1977). From 1977 to 1980 he served as a full-time minister of music in Tennessee. At California Baptist College in Riverside (1980-1990) he directed the Chamber Singers, Concert Choir, and College Singers, and was a member of the faculty Baroque ensemble. He taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological...
Day by day, dear Lord. Richard of Chichester* (ca. 1197-1253).
This prayer was printed on a card of 1915 in the British Library collection, with the words 'Partly — at least — by St Richard, Bishop of Chichester…'. It was used by Percy Dearmer* in SofPE, in Part VIII, 'Verses and Other Doxologies', as the first of 'Graces and Other Verses':
Day by day, Dear Lord, of thee three things I pray: To see thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, Follow thee more...
Day of Arising. Susan Palo Cherwien* (1953– )
This hymn was commissioned for the 1996 annual assembly of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The opening line recalls Christ's encounter with those traveling on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13–35) on the afternoon of Easter Day. Carl P. Daw, Jr.* comments:
Because our liturgical calendar has traditionally separated the reading of this story from the other Resurrection narratives, we usually do not hear about...
Dearest Jesu, we are here. George Ratcliffe Woodward* (1848-1934), after Tobias Clausnitzer* (1619-1684).
This is a hymn loosely based on Clausnitzer's 'Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier dich und dein Wort anzuhören'*. It was printed in three stanzas in Woodward's Songs of Syon (1904). Two were included in the Second Supplement (1916) to the Second Edition of A&M.
Dearest Jesu, we are here, At thy call, thy Presence owning; Pleading now in holy fear That thy Sacrifice atoning:Word Incarnate,...
LOFTIS, Deborah Carlton. b. Richmond, Virginia, 7 November 1951. Loftis grew up in a family that sang together. Although neither of her parents had formal musical training, she learned her first songs on the piano from her father. Once in school, she took piano lessons and sang in school and church choirs. While reared in the Southern Baptist church and ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1983, when that denomination underwent changes in the last decades of the 20th century, her...
Deep in our hearts. John Wesley Oldham* (1945– ).
Though John Wesley Oldham (b. 1945) has written more than eight thousand hymns and songs, 'Deep in our hearts' is his most popular and beloved. Written in 1994 while walking in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the text came to Oldham over the course of about an hour and a half. He subsequently sent it to composer Ronald Klusmeier* to be set to music, which did not occur until 1996, just prior to its performance in concert. It was subsequently published with...
Deep in the human heart. William (Bill) Wallace* (1933- ).
Written by New Zealand Methodist minister Bill Wallace, the received text was written in November 1977 for a 'People's Night' of the combined Methodist and Presbyterian Churches held in the Christchurch Town Hall. It has its biblical model in Luke 4: 18-19 and calls for 'a vision of a world renewed through radical concern'. It sets out a social and political programme to build a world of peace, justice, truth and freedom, a world...
DUFNER, Delores (OSB). b. near Buxton, North Dakota, 20 February 1939. Born in the family farmhouse during a winter blizzard, Dufner's elementary education was in a one-room country school; she was later educated by the Benedictine Sisters in Crookston, Minnesota. She entered St Joseph's Benedictine Monastery in St Joseph, Minnesota, and was awarded graduate degrees in Liturgical Music (1973) and Liturgical Studies (1990) from St Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana, and the University of...
MONAHAN, (Carl) Dermott. b. Ikkada, South India, 1 January 1906; d. Lambeth, London, 23 May 1957. He was the son of a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, educated at Kingswood School, Bath, the school founded by John Wesley* for the sons of ministers. From there he went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA 1927); after a year (1927-28) as a Colonial Administrator in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), he studied at Handsworth College, Birmingham. He served in educational work in India in the Hyderabad District...
TUTU, Desmond. b. Klerksdorp, North West Province, Republic of South Africa, 7 October 1931; d. Cape Town, RSA, 26 December 2021. After a short period as a teacher, he was ordained an Anglican priest in 1960. He went to Britain to pursue theological studies at King's College, London (1962-66). Returning to South Africa, he taught at UBLS (the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) before becoming Director of the Theological Education Fund for Africa (1972-75). He was Dean of St Mary's...
HUNTINGTON, DeWitt Clinton. b. Townshend, Windham, Vermont, 27 April 1830; d. Lincoln, Nebraska, 8 February 1912. One of a family of nine children, he was the son of Ebenezer Huntington (1780-1866) and Lydia Peck (1786-1857). He was educated at Syracuse University, New York, after which he was ordained as a Methodist Episcopal Church minister in 1853. He was the pastor of churches in New York State and Pennsylvania: Rochester (1861-71); Syracuse (1873-76); Rochester again (1876-79); Bradford,...
The Dictionary of North American Hymnology (DNAH) was conceived in the early 1950s by the Hymn Society of America (in 1991 renamed Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*, HSUSC) and Henry Wilder Foote (II)* (1875-1964) as an American version of John Julian*'s Dictionary of Hymnology (1892, 1907). Originally titled the Dictionary of American Hymnology, its primary goal soon focused on indexing every hymnal published in the Americas. In 1952, the editorship fell to Leonard W. Ellinwood*...
RIMAUD, Didier. b. Carnac, Morbihan, Brittany, 6 August 1922; d. Lyon, 24 December 2003. Rimaud was educated at l'Externat St Joseph and the Lycée St Marc at Lyon. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1941, and after studying classics and philosophy in addition to his training as a Jesuit, he was ordained priest in 1955. He taught in colleges in France before being appointed to the Centre National de Pastorale Liturgique in 1950. This institution was engaged in producing a modern...
TRAUTWEIN, Dieter. b. Holzhausen, Biedenkopf, near Marburg, 30 July 1928; d. Frankfurt/Main, 9 November 2002. He was educated at the Landgraf Ludwig Gymnasium at Giessen (1938-46) and the University of Marburg, with further study at Mainz and Heidelberg. He was awarded the Doctorate of Theology from the University of Tübingen in 1971 for his thesis on 'Lernprozeß Gottesdienst' ('developments in worship'). He trained for the ministry at Königstein in Taunus, and took up appointments at Bad...
BONHOEFFER, Dietrich. b. Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), 4 February 1906; d. Flossenburg, 9 April 1945. Bonhoeffer studied at Tübingen, and then in Berlin (doctorate in theology, 1924-27; Habilitation 1930). He was a curate in Barcelona (1929-30), and was ordained in 1931, after his return from a year at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1930-31). He was a lecturer in systematic theology at Berlin University (1931-33), and then moved to the German Evangelical Church, Sydenham, and the...
Dieu, nous avons vu ta gloire en ton Christ. Didier Rimaud* (1922-2003).
This canticle, with music by Jean Langlais*, was first sung in July 1957 at a Catholic conference at Strasbourg when Rimaud was working for the Centre National de Pastorale Liturgique. The canticle was sung at the Vigil before Mass on the Sunday as the Bible was shown to the 3,000-strong congregation. It has since become well known and frequently used, especially in the English translation by Brian Wren* (verses) and Sir...
FISHEL, Donald Emry. b. Hart, Michigan, 1 November 1950. Fishel, a flautist, attended the University of Michigan, studying under Nelson Hauenstein and Michael Stoune (BM, 1972). Brought up a Methodist, he turned to Roman Catholicism in 1969, and worked for the charismatic Roman Catholic 'Word of God Community' in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as publications editor of their Servant Music and as director of the parish orchestra, until 1981. He was principal flautist with Dexter Community Orchestra and...
SALIERS, Don E. b. Fostoria, Ohio, 11 August, 1937. Don Saliers is an eminent ecumenical liturgical scholar, author, teacher, composer and keyboardist, and ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He grew up in Ohio where he began the study of piano at age eight, played clarinet and violin, and sang in many high school ensembles. His father, Harold A. ('Red') Saliers, (1898 – 1981), was a classical violinist who also played jazz in New York and later formed a dance band in Ohio. Other...
HUGHES, Donald Wynn. b. Southport, Lancashire, 25 March 1911; d. Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, 12 August 1967. The son of a Methodist minister, Hughes was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He took First Class Honours in the English Tripos, after which he taught at the Leys School, a Methodist foundation in Cambridge (1935-46). He was a distinguished cricketer, playing first-class cricket as an amateur for Glamorgan, for whom he took part in a...
POTTER, Ethel Olive Doreen (née Cousins). b. Panama, 1925; d. Geneva, 24 June 1980. She was a Jamaican citizen, born in Panama, but growing up in Jamaica, where she studied piano and violin at school. She moved to England and trained as a teacher of music at St Katherine's College, Liverpool. In 1957, she gained her Licentiate of Music degree at Trinity College, London, and was violinist for a number of orchestras.
She married Philip Potter, the General Secretary of the World Council of...
AKERS, Doris Mae. b. Brookfield, Missouri, 21 May 1922; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 26 July 1995. Doris Akers had an active career as singer, choir director, songwriter, and recording artist, though she had no formal training in music. She wrote her first song at age ten, and afterwards composed hundreds of gospel songs and hymns (some sources indicate 500[1]) including 'Lead me, guide me'* and 'There's a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place'* which have influenced developments in Black Urban...
RAMBO, Dottie (Luttrell, Joyce Reba). b. Madisonville, Kentucky, 2 March 1934; d. Mount Vernon, Missouri, 11 May 2008. Raised during the Great Depression in the poverty-stricken coalfields of western Kentucky, Dottie expressed an early affinity for country music, taught herself to play guitar by listening to country music radio performances broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry, and began writing songs at the age of eight. Four years later she had a born-again Christian experience and made a...
GALBRAITH, David Douglas. b. Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, 22 June 1940. Douglas Galbraith was educated at the High School of Dundee: he was organist in his local church while still at school. He went on to the University of St Andrews (MA 1961, BD 1964). As a student he had the opportunity of being seasonal musician at Iona Abbey, which was a formative experience in terms both of liturgy and music. He became a member of the Iona Community* in 1964. Following ordination as a minister in...
Dove Awards. These are awards given annually by the Gospel Music Association (GMA)* for outstanding achievement in the Christian music industry: i.e., that part of the commercial music industry that markets electronic and print mass-mediated products in popular musical styles to English-speaking Protestants worldwide, but especially in North America.
Modeled on the Emmy, the Oscar, and the Grammy, the Dove was established by GMA ca. 1969. The earliest awards ceremonies were held in Memphis,...
Draw the circle wide. Gordon S. Light* (1944- ).
Inclusive language for humankind and for God was a strong current in the tide of liturgical renewal among mainstream Canadian churches in the 1980s and 1990s. Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and United Churches responded to the call for new congregational song with collections that included not only strophic hymns new and revised, but also songs in many genres and languages from writers and composers around the globe. How seriously the hymnal...
Du hast uns, Herr, gerufen. Kurt Rommel* (1926-2011).
Written in 1967 at Schwenningen am Neckar (Villingen-Schwenningen), and first sung there. It was originally in two separate parts of three stanzas each (1-3, 4-6). It was published in a local collection for family worship at the Pauluskirche in 1968, and then in Gott schenkt Freiheit. Neue Lieder im Gottesdienst (Berlin, 1968) and 111 Kinderlieder zur Bibel. Neue Lieder für Schule, Kirche und Haus, edited by Gerd Watkinson (Freiburg im...
Dunblane Praises (1965, 1967). The two collections under this title, published in 1965 and 1967 in manuscript form by the Scottish Churches' Music Consultation, were intended as a means of 'field testing' new hymns in congregations and as a stimulus for further new writing. Only two hundred copies of the first volume were printed, but the need to print another 1,200 copies indicated a demand for new material. As the Consultation came to the end of its work, selected items were republished, with...
MacGREGOR, Duncan. b. Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, 18 September 1854; d. Inverallochy, near Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, 8 October 1923. He attended the University of Aberdeen in the years 1870-71 and 1873-74, but did not take a degree. He was a 'missioner' in parts of Scotland, including the Orkney Islands, before becoming minister of Inverallochy from 1881 until his death.
He became an authority on the early Scottish church, publishing Early Scottish Worship: Its General Principles and...
McNEIL (sometimes McNeill), Duncan. b. Glasgow, 15 February 1877; d. Glasgow, 28 January 1933. McNeil was a travelling Scottish evangelist, based in Glasgow. He continued to live there, apart from a visit to the USA in 1927-30, where he was associated with Kimball Avenue United Evangelical Church, Chicago (1928-30).
McNeil published Duncan McNeil's Hymn Book (London and Glasgow: Pickering and Inglis, n.d., but dated 1923 in British Library Catalogue). It is said to include 'Song Testimonies'...
EACC Hymnal (1963). This pioneering hymnbook was published in 1963 for the East Asia Christian Conference. The general editor was Daniel Thambyrajah Niles*, and the music editor was John Milton Kelly, assisted by his wife Edna and by Shanti Rasanayagam. The book was printed in Japan.
The language used was English, the international language of Asia. The words and music were European/American for the first 'General Section' of 100 hymns (including 11 'Spirituals'), followed by an 'Asian...
MARLATT, Earl Bowman. b. Columbus, Indiana, 24 May 1892; d. Winchester, Indiana, 13 June 1976. His father was a Methodist Episcopal minister. He and his twin brother, Ernest F. Marlatt, were the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, all of whom graduated from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana (a Methodist foundation, originally Indiana Asbury University). Earl Bowman graduated in 1912 and then studied at Harvard and Boston Universities, and at Oxford and Berlin. He taught school in...
HARPER, Earl Enyeart. b. Coffey, Missouri, 28 March 1895; d. St Petersburg, Florida, 1 March 1967. Pastor, hymnist, educator, author, director of hymn festivals, arts curator, Harper attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, Nebraska (BA, 1918) and Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts (STB, 1921), with additional study at Harvard and the University of Chicago. Harper began his professional career as the pastor of Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, Auburndale,...
Easter people, raise your voices. William Marcus James* (1915-2013).
Following in the tradition of many pastors who write hymns, James wrote 'Easter people, raise your voices' for his congregation at Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church in New York City in 1979. In 2005 James told the present writer 'I wrote hymns for my congregation whenever I needed one. “Easter People” is not the greatest hymn I have, but it took better than the others. Most of my hymns have themes around the...
Eat this bread. Robert Batastini* (1942– ) and Jacques Berthier* (1923–1994).
John 6:35, one of the 'I AM' sayings of Jesus, provides the basis for the text of 'Eat this bread': 'Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”' (NIV):
Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to me and never be hungry.Eat this bread, drink this cup, trust in me and you will not thirst.
©1984 Ateliers et Presses de Taizé,...
ESPINOSA, Eddie. b. Los Angeles, California, 10 September 1953.
Eddie Espinosa is an educator, counselor, administrator, worship leader, composer, and producer. His family moved to Phoenix when he was in first grade. Though raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy, he made a profession of faith on August 24, 1969. Soon afterward, he attended a Dave Wilkerson Youth Rally and experienced Andraé Crouch* 'taking people into the presence of God'. At that point, he understood his calling...
BUDRY, Edmond Louis. b. Vevey, 30 Aug 1854; d. Vevey, 12 Nov 1932. Born in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, Budry was educated at Lausanne, studying at the theological faculty of the Église Évangélique Libre du Canton de Vaud, a breakaway church from the National Reformed Church of Vaud. He served as a pastor of that church at Cully and Ste Croix, between Lausanne and Vevey (1886-89) and of the Free Church at Vevey (1889-1924). He died at Vevey and is buried at Cully. He is famous for...
PIDOUX, Edmond.b. Mons, Belgium, 25 October 1908; d. 17 April 2004. He was a poet and dramatist, the son of the pastor-hymnwriter Louis Samuel Pidoux (1878-1953), and brother of the musicologist Pierre Pidoux*. He was educated at the University of Lausanne and became a teacher and lecturer. He published a collection, Anthologie romande de la litérature Alpestre (Lausanne, 1982) in a career which included theatrical pieces, such as L'Histoire de Jonas and L'Arche de jonc (on the Exodus). He was...
KREMSER, Eduard. b. Vienna, Austria 10 April 1838; d. Vienna 26 November 1914. A distinguished conductor, arranger, editor/compiler of folk and popular music and music critic, Kremser attended business school, studied piano and music theory, and sang in amateur choral societies in Vienna. In 1861 he joined the famed Männergesangverein as rehearsal accompanist and member of the solo quartet. In 1869 he was appointed one of several co-directors: for example, Rudolph Weinwurm (1835-1911)], was...
HONTIVEROS, Eduardo. b. Molo, Iloilo City, 20 December 1923; d. 15 January 2008. This Filipino Jesuit musician was educated at Manila High School and the San Jose Seminary (1939-45). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1945, took novice's vows in 1947, studied theology in the USA, and was ordained in 1954. He is known as 'the father of Filipino liturgical music'. In October 2000, Pope John Paul II conferred on him the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice bestowed on clergy and laypersons who have served...
DARLING, Edward Flewett. b. Cork, Republic of Ireland, 24 July 1933. Edward Darling was educated at Cork Grammar School, Midleton College, Co. Cork, and St John's School, Leatherhead, Surrey. Following further study at Trinity College, Dublin (where he graduated and qualified for ordination in the Divinity School), he took Holy Orders (deacon, 1956, priest 1957), serving two curacies: at St Luke's, Belfast (1956-59) and St John's, Orangefield, Belfast (1959-62). He was appointed first...
ELGAR, (Sir) Edward William. b. Broadheath, Worcestershire, 2 June 1857; d. Worcester, 23 February 1934. At Broadheath his father, William Henry Elgar, ran a music retailing business and was organist of St George's Roman Catholic Church. Educated at Littleton House School and self-taught as a composer, Elgar was later to receive honorary degrees from several major universities. He was knighted in 1904, received the O.M. in 1911, and was appointed Master of the King's Music in 1924.
Elgar was...
BOATNER, Edward Hammond. b. New Orleans, Louisiana, 13 November 1898; d. New York City, 16 June 1981. Edward Boatner was a multi-talented musician recognized as a composer, choral conductor, and singer as well as author of plays, stories, and music education materials. He was especially noted for essays in African American history and his concertized arrangements of African American spirituals*.
He was the son of an itinerant Methodist minister Dr. Daniel Webster Boatner (?1854— ). His surname...
PRUDEN, Edward Hughes. b. Chase City, Virginia, 30 August 1903; d. Richmond, Virginia, 1987. After school in Chase City, Pruden was educated at the University of Richmond, Virginia, a Baptist school attended by pre-ministerial students (graduated 1925), followed by the Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky (MDiv). Further graduate study followed at Yale, and Edinburgh, Scotland (PhD). He was awarded a DD at the age of 29 from the University of Richmond (the youngest person ever to...
SHILLITO, Edward. b. Hull, 4 July 1872; d. Buckhurst Hill, Essex, 1 March 1948. He was educated at Silcoates School, Wakefield, Yorkshire (founded as the Northern Congregational School), and Owens College, Manchester (later the University of Manchester). He trained for the Congregational ministry at Mansfield College, Oxford, and was ordained as an assistant at Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester (1896). He subsequently served at Tunbridge Wells (1898-1901), Brighton (1901-06), Harlesden,...
BLAXILL, (Edwin) Alec. b. Colchester, Essex, 16 March 1873; d. Colchester, 25 June 1953. He was educated at the Grammar School (later the Royal Grammar School) at Colchester, and lived all his life in the town. After leaving school he worked in the family business, which included a builders' merchants (which still exists). He was a member of Lion Walk Congregational Church at Hythe ( part of Colchester), and a teacher, and later Superintendent of the Sunday School there. He was elected to the...
EXCELL, Edwin Othello. b. Uniontown, Stark County, Ohio, 13 December 1851; d. Chicago, Illinois, 10 June 1921. Publisher, singer, and gospel song composer best known for his Sunday-school songs, including the standard arrangement of the shape-note melody, AMAZING GRACE, and his tune, BLESSINGS (see following), Excell was born to Rev. Joshua James Excell (1825-1911), a singer and minister in the German Reformed Church, and Emily (née Hess, d. 1888). Before his musical career became successful,...
Effata is the title of a Catholic hymn book for young people published at Passau, Germany, in 1990, sub-titled 'Neue religiöse Lieder für Gottesdienst' ('New songs for Sunday worship'). The title is explained as 'öffne dich', open thyself, probably best rendered in English as 'open up!' Continuing the metaphor, it encourages young people to have open minds to meet with God and other people.
Its structure is strikingly traditional. It is within the context of the normal Sunday service that these...
HOVLAND, Egil. b. Råde, Norway, 18 October 1924; d. Fredrikstad, Norway, 5 February 2013. Hovland was one of the most prolific and multifaceted church music and mainstream composers of his generation. One of two sons of a butcher and sausage-maker (a profession intended for both sons), Hovland's family relocated to Fredrikstad in 1928. Here, his father was active as choir leader for a revivalist congregation. It was in this context that Hovland was introduced to church music. Hovland studied...
El cielo canta alegría. Pablo Sosa* (1933— ).
El cielo canta alegría ('Heaven is singing for joy') was Sosa's earliest hymn to incorporate an indigenous Argentine musical form, the carnavalito, a style derived from huayno, a kind of Argentine folk jazz. The pentatonic melody drawns upon a simpler form of folk music characterized by an arpeggiated base line with an eighth note followed by two sixteenth notes (quaver followed by two semiquavers). This celebrative musical dance-song was written...
FARJEON, Eleanor. b. Westminster, London, 13 February 1881; d. Hampstead, London, 5 June 1965. Born into a distinguished literary family, she became a writer herself, publishing books for both adults and children. Two of her books were memoirs: A Nursery in the Nineties (1935), about her childhood, and Edward Thomas: the Last Four Years (1958), recording her friendship with the poet who was killed in the Great War of 1914-1918. She published a book of poems, Pan Worship, in 1908; her Nursery...
HULL, Eleanor Henrietta. b. Cheetham, Manchester, 15 Jan 1860; d. Wimbledon, Surrey, 13 Jan 1935. Born into an Irish family, Eleanor Hull was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin, and the Royal College of Science. She was evidently very proud of her Irish background, and devoted her life to the study of Irish culture. In 1899 she was one of the founders of the Irish Texts Society, and she acted as its London secretary for thirty years.
Before 1899 she had already edited The Cuchulain Saga in...
See 'Howell Elvet Lewis'*
HEWITT, Eliza Edmunds. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 June 1851; d. Philadelphia, 24 April 1920. Eliza Hewitt spent her entire life in the city of her birth. She taught school there, after being educated at the Girls' Normal School, until she was incapacitated by a spinal injury for some time. Initially active in Olivet Presbyterian Church, Hewitt worked at the Northern Home for Friendless Children, and later as a Sunday-school superintendent at Calvin Presbyterian Church. Publishing various...
SMITH, Elizabeth Joyce. b. Stawell, Victoria, Australia, 27 February 1956. The daughter of Churches of Christ parents, she was educated at Euroa High School and Monash and Melbourne Universities (1974-78); Trinity College Theological School (the Anglican member of Melbourne's United Faculty of Theology), where she took a BD (1986); and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. There she completed her PhD in 1995; it was published as Bearing Fruit in Due Season: Feminist Hermeneutics...
ARMITAGE, Ella Sophia (née Bulley). b. Liverpool, 3 March 1841; d. Leeds, 20 March 1931. Born into a distinguished Congregationalist family, she was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was one of the first five undergraduates (Newnham was one of the first colleges for women). She was a notable linguist, historian and archaeologist, working at Manchester University, from which she received an Honorary Degree. She married the Revd. Elkanah Armitage, a professor at the Yorkshire...
GOREH, Ellen Lakshmi. b. Benares (now Varanasi), India, 11 September 1853; d. Cawnpore (Kanpur), 1937. Her father, Nehemiah Goreh (later to become an influential priest of the Indian Church) had been excommunicated from his Brahmin caste for converting to the Christian faith. Her mother, Lakshmibai Jongalekar, died less than three months after her birth. Ellen was adopted by a Mrs Smailes, an indigo planter's wife. The Smailes lost their estate in the Indian Mutiny (1857-8) and were unable to...
HARRISON, Eluned (née Cornish). b. Cardiff, South Wales, 19 December 1934. She grew up in Dinas Powys, and was educated at Penarth County School for Girls and University College, London. She taught science at both school and college level. In 1960 she married Graham Stuart Harrison*, who was soon to become a long-serving church pastor in Newport. Of more than fifty hymns she has written, originally for use in personal devotion, the most in demand has been 'O Lord my God, I stand and gaze in...
English Hymnal (1906; new edition, 1933). The English Hymnal (EH) of 1906 (new edition, 1933) was a remarkable landmark in English hymnody. Its bright green covers, though initially associated with the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England, found their way into places of much broader churchmanship and the book influenced congregational hymn-singing and the contents of other hymn books throughout the 20th century.
By the end of the 19th century, the resources for hymn singing in the...
English Praise (1975) was sub-titled 'A Supplement to the English Hymnal'. It was the result of two perceived needs: the sense that the revised edition of EH, published in 1933 (with a revision of the music only, so that the texts dated back to 1906) was becoming out-dated; and the requirements of the Church of England at a time when liturgical practice was changing. These are clearly stated on p. v of the introduction, which discusses the hymns, none of which had been in EH:
Some have already...
Episcopal Church Hymnody, USA
The Introduction is by Raymond F. Glover. The historical survey is by Robin Knowles Wallace.
Introduction
Among the vast number of persons who came as settlers beginning in 1607 to what is now known as the United States of America were many who brought with them a pattern of worship consistent with the liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer, the singing of metrical Psalms from the 'Old Version'* of Thomas Sternhold* and John Hopkins*, perhaps a few hymns of human...
REID, Eric James. b. Banff, 24 February 1936; d. near Aberdeen, 20 August 1970. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen. He studied in Germany as a postgraduate, where he became deeply interested in twelve-tone music. He was director of music at Turriff Academy, Aberdeenshire (1961-67); lecturer in music, Dundee College of Education (1967-69); exchange teacher, Trenton State College, New Jersey, USA (1969-70). After his return to Scotland he was tragically killed in a car accident near...
WERNER, Eric. b. Lundenburg, (Břeclav), 40 miles north of Vienna, Austria-Hungary, 1 August 1901; d. New York City, 28 July 1988. Werner was a distinguished and controversial musicologist, ethnomusicologist, and liturgiologist whose life-long goal, as stated in his The Sacred Bridge (Werner 2:x-xii), was to correct the errors and misrepresentations of European scholars, especially of those who were anti-Semitic. Werner's parents (his father was a scholar of Greek) nurtured him in classical...
ROUTLEY, Erik Reginald. b. Brighton, Sussex, 31 October 1917; d. Nashville, Tennessee, USA, 8 October 1982. He was the only child of John, a businessman and town councillor who was Mayor of Brighton in 1936-37, and Eleanor, a homemaker and musician. He attended Fonthill Preparatory School, 1925-31 and Lancing College, 1931-36. He read Literae Humaniores (nicknamed 'Mods' and 'Greats': classics/ ancient history and philosophy) at Magdalen College, Oxford (BA 1940, MA 1943). He became an...
RYDEN, Ernest Edwin. b. Kansas City, Missouri, 12 September 1886; d. Providence, Rhode Island, 1 January 1981. Born into a Swedish family, Ryden attended the Manual Training School in Kansas City, worked for a newspaper published by the Kansas City Railway, and was a telegraph editor for a newspaper in Moline, Illinois. He attended Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1910 (BA, honorary DD, 1930; he was later President of the Board); and Augustana Theological Seminary, Rock Island (BD,...
DODGSHUN, Ernest James. b. Leeds, 8 March 1876; d. St Briavels, Gloucestershire, 24 August 1944. He was educated at Silcoates School, Wakefield, founded for the children of nonconformist clergy; and then at St John's College, Cambridge. Although brought up in a Congregationalist family, he joined the Society of Friends in 1908. He gave up work as a businessman and became closely associated with the National Adult School Union (cf. George Currie Martin*), of which he became Secretary (1924-44)....
MERRINGTON, Ernest Northcroft. b. Newcastle, New South Wales, 27 August 1876; d. 26 March 1953. He was educated at Sydney Boys' School and the University of Sydney (MA in Philosophy, 1903, by which time he had completed his theological training and had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister, 1902). After a period in Edinburgh, he undertook further study at Harvard (PhD, 1905).
He held parish appointments in New South Wales and Queensland, while lecturing in philosophy at the University of...
SANDS, Ernest. b. 1949; d. Oswestry, 11 April 2016. A bucolic, witty and charismatic priest and composer, 'Ernie' Sands sprang to fame and ultimately (in the USA) notoriety as the composer of 'Sing of the Lord's goodness'* described by one critic as 'a rip-off from Dave Brubeck's “Take Five”'. A founder member of the St Thomas More Group*, Sands had a number of pieces published in the UK and USA in group song collections. 'Sing of the Lord's goodness'* was chosen for the enthronement in 1991 of...
SHURTLEFF, Ernest Warburton. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 4 April 1862; d. Paris, France, August 1917. He was educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University, with a further period of study at the New Church (Swedenborgian) Theological Seminary. He trained for the Congregational ministry at Andover Theological College, graduating in 1888. For the graduation ceremony he wrote the hymn by which he is still known, 'Lead on, O King eternal'*. He subsequently served as a minister at...
WHITE, (Elizabeth) Estelle. b. South Shields, County Durham (now in Tyne and Wear), 4 December 1925; d. Dewsbury, Yorkshire, 9 February 2011. Born into a musical family, she learned to play the guitar and saxophone in her youth. She joined the army in 1943, and was based at Fenham Barracks, Newcastle upon Tyne, until she was moved to London with an army band to play the saxophone. After coming out of the army, she trained as a physiotherapist. She worked with children with cerebral palsy for...
CARPENTER, (Joseph) Estlin. b. Ripley, Surrey, 5 October 1844; d. Oxford, 2 June 1927. He was born into a distinguished Unitarian family: his grandfather, Lant Carpenter, was a noted Unitarian minister and schoolmaster, who taught James Martineau*, who in turn taught Estlin ('Joseph' was usually dropped). The family moved to Hampstead, north London, and Estlin was educated at University College School, London, and the University of London, where he read mental and moral philosophy. He trained...
Lauluraamat Piiskoplikule Metodistikirikule Eestis (Tallinn, 1926; The Estonian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal). The Estonian Methodist Episcopal hymnal (cited as ESMEH 1926), like its Lithuanian and Latvian counterparts (see 'Lithuanian Methodist hymnody'* and 'Latvian Methodist hymnody'*), was strongly dependent on the Gesangbuch der Bischöflichen Methodisten Kirche in Deutschland und der Schweiz ('Hymnbook of the German and Swiss Methodist Episcopal Church', Bremen, 1896, cited as GBMK 1896). It...
Eternal Father bless our land. Hugh Sherlock* (1905-1998).
Written in 1962, this was entitled 'Jamaica, land we love'. It has two stanzas, each ending with the same three lines:
Justice, Truth be ours forever,
Jamaica, land we love
Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica land we love.
It was given a tune by Robert Lightbourne, arranged by Mapletoft Poulle. Words and music were chosen as the national anthem by a committee of the Jamaican Parliament, and sung at the independence ceremonies of 1962. It is...
Eternal, Unchanging, we sing to thy praise. Robert Balgarnie Young Scott* (1899-1987).
Written in 1937 for the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, this is one of four hymns by Scott, who was president of the Fellowship. It was published on a broadsheet for an organization dedicated to world peace. Then Professor of Old Testament at United Theological College in Montreal, Scott began to write hymns about peace and social justice. The penultimate line is 'His comfort in sorrow, his patience...
BARTLETT, Eugene Monroe Sr. b. Waynesville, Missouri, 24 December 1885; d. Siloam Springs, Arkansas, 25 January 1941. Bartlett received his education at the Hall-Moody Institute in Martin, Tennessee, and at the William Jewell Academy, Independence, Missouri (1913-14). He served as president of the Hartford Music Company, in Hartford, Arkansas (1918-35), publishing songbooks and editing the company's music magazine, Herald of Song. He was associated later with the Stamps-Baxter Publications* in...
The Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book (ELHB 1912) was the first, official English-language hymnal of the Missouri Synod branch of American Lutheranism. It was published at a time when the Missouri Synod was slowly, and reluctantly, making the transition from German to English in its worship forms and ecclesial culture. As such, ELHB 1912 assisted in a far-reaching transformation of this immigrant, Lutheran church body by bringing a large portion of its German hymnody into English, while at the...
BASH, Ewald Joseph (Joe). b. Portland, Indiana, 4 November 1924; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 17 July 1994. Bash graduated from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio (1948), and served Lutheran parishes in New Lexington and Eagleport, Ohio (1948-53), and Cleveland, Ohio (1953-56). After being a campus pastor at Ohio State University (1956-60), he was appointed Associate Youth Director of the American Lutheran Church. Later he taught extension courses for Augsburg and other schools in the...
TUCKER, Francis Bland. b. Norfolk, Virginia, 6 January 1895; d. Savannah, Georgia, 1 January 1984. The son of an Episcopalian Church bishop, he was educated at school in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (BA 1914). After service with the Medical Corps in World War I, he trained for the priesthood at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria (BD, 1920, h. c. DD, 1942). He was ordained (deacon 1918, priest 1920), serving parishes at Brunswick County, Virginia...
Faith of our Mothers, living yet. Arthur Bardwell Patten* (1864-1952).
This is a praiseworthy attempt to assert the rights of women in opposition to the gender-exclusive language of 'Faith of our fathers! living still'* the famous hymn by Frederick William Faber* of 1849 (each stanza of Patten's hymn ends, as Faber's does, with the stirring 'We will be true to thee till death'). The earliest page scans in Hymnary.org print 'living yet', which suggests that Patten was attempting to make his...
Father in heaven. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
This touchingly simple hymn in three stanzas was written for the EACC Hymnal (1963) to fit the tune HALAD by Elena G. Maquiso* . The tune had been composed in 1961 for an offering hymn (HALAD means 'offering') in the Cebuano dialect (see 'Philippine hymnody'). Niles's hymn celebrates Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was originally in the second person singular ('Father in heaven,/ Grant to Thy children'). It has been altered to the 'you'...
Father most holy, merciful and loving. Latin 10th century, translated by Alfred Edward Alston* (1862-1927).
This is Alston's translation of a 10th-century Latin hymn found in many breviaries, beginning 'O pater sancte, mitis atque pie'. It is in the common Sapphic metre, popular in medieval hymnody, which Alston retains. The hymn is unusual in allowing one sentence to run over three stanzas:
Father most holy, merciful and loving,Jesu, Redeemer, ever to be worshipped,Life-giving Spirit,...
Father most holy, merciful and tender. Latin, 10th century, translated by Percy Dearmer* (1867-1936). This is a translation of 'O pater sancte, mitis atque pie', a hymn of the 10th century on the Holy Trinity (see 'Trinity hymns'*), written for EH. It appeared in EH and SofP, and was retained in NEH:
Father most holy, merciful and tender;Jesus our Saviour, with the Father reigning;Spirit all-kindly, Advocate, Defender, Light never waning;
Trinity sacred, Unity unshaken;Deity perfect, giving...
Father we praise thee, now the night is over. Attributed (wrongly) to Gregory the Great* (ca.540-604), translated by Percy Dearmer* (1867-1936).
This is a translation of the Latin hymn 'Nocte surgentes vigilemus omnes'*, which was attributed to Pope Gregory the Great by Benedictine editors, ca. 1700. This is no longer accepted. As early as 1933 Percy Dearmer questioned it: 'the mendacity of the old monastic writers, which so often baffles the historian, makes it impossible to be sure which, if...
Father, we thank thee who hast planted. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
Written in 1939, and published in H40, this hymn has been published throughout the world. It is a paraphrase of the Didache*, consisting of the supposed teaching of the twelve apostles: it provides 'rules for baptism, fasting, prayer, visiting teachers and apostles, and the Lord's Supper, and containing the fine prayers which F. Bland Tucker has effectively paraphrased' (Young, 1993, p 332).
Stanza 1 corresponds to 10: 2 of...
PAGURA, Federico José. b. Arroyo Secco, Santa Fe, Argentina, 9 February, 1923; d. Rosario, Santa Fe, 6 June 2016.
Life and Ministry
In the second half of the 20th century Federico Pagura was among the most notable leaders of the church in South America and one of the leading authors and translators of congregational hymnody from this continent. Not only was he a pillar of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Argentina; he was also a resilient and compelling voice for human rights (derechos...
Fellowship of American Baptist Musicians
The Fellowship of American Baptist Musicians (FABM) is a volunteer organization for church musicians with denominational affiliation to the American Baptist Churches, USA. The Fellowship was officially formed in February 1964 when Dr Jet Turner and several other interested persons met in Cincinnati, Ohio with Dr Kenneth L. Cober*, who was at that time Executive Director for the Division of Christian Education for the American Baptist Convention. At that...
The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts (now the Fellowship of Worship Artists)
The Fellowship is in part the successor to the National Fellowship of Methodist Musicians (NaFOMM), whose founding in the mid 1950s was prompted by that denomination's educational leaders' and curriculum editors' articulation of the theological discrepancies and inadequacies, the pedagogical practices of children's choir directors, and the texts of songs in the denomination's Sunday school...
Filey Conference and its hymns
The Filey Christian Holiday Conference, sometimes called the 'Filey Convention' in imitation of the Keswick one, began in 1955. It was founded by an evangelist, A. Lindsay Glegg (1882-1975), President of the Movement for Worldwide Evangelization, following the Billy Graham 'Greater London Crusade' of 1954. It was held each September for a week at Butlin's holiday camp at Filey from 1955 until 1983, when Butlins closed its Filey camp. It moved to a similar camp at...
The original Jubilee Singers was a choral group of students sponsored by Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee (founded 1866), and sponsored by the American Missionary Association (see Anderson 2010). From Oct. 1872 until June 1878 the singers toured the northern U.S. and England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany singing a repertory of hymns, parlor songs, and most significantly, spirituals. They were responsible for popularizing spirituals in mainstream white society and...
Flor y Canto (flower and song) is a hymnal that represents the diversity of Latino/a cultures in the United States. Published by Oregon Catholic Press in four editions (1989, 2001, 2011, 2023), the title indicates the symbolism of flower and song found in Aztec culture and the experiences of indigenous peoples in Hispanic cultures. Unlike earlier Spanish-language Protestant hymnals, this Catholic publication includes a limited number of hymns in Spanish translation from traditional Western...
For all the faithful women. Herman G. Stuempfle* (1923–2007).
Several recent hymn writers have contributed hymns that acknowledge the role of women in the biblical narrative and their contribution to the history of Christianity. These include, among others, 'For ages women hoped and prayed' (1986) by Jane Parker Huber* (1926–2008), 'Woman, weeping in the garden' (1991) and 'God, we praise you for the women' (2006) by Daniel C. Damon* (b. 1955), 'Of women, and of women's hopes we sing' (1988) by...
For beauty of prairies, for grandeur of trees. Walter Farquharson* (1936- ).
Written in 1966, this hymn celebrates the prairie landscape and calls for responsible stewardship of the gifts of God's creation. Stanley Osborne*described it as a prayer: 'It asks us the question what have we done with the garden God has leased to us? Says the author, 'We threaten all existence with our blindness.' In the warnings of ecologists we may even hear the voice of God today, and it is clear that the author...
For everyone born, a place at the table. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
This was written in 1996 from Murray's involvement in the work of Amnesty International, and the liberal theology of her husband, John Stewart Murray*, in his church at Wellington, New Zealand. It has its origins in the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' of the United Nations (December 1948), which stated that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights', and that 'Everyone has the right to...
For the music of creation. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written in 1988 as a contribution to a Festival of Praise celebrating the Arts at an ecumenical event at the Civic Centre in Shirley Murray's then home town, Wellington.
It was first published in Murray's collection, In Every Corner, Sing: The Hymns of Shirley Erena Murray (1992) set to her preferred tune RUSTINGTON by C.H.H. Parry* (1848-1918). It has since been included in New Zealand, Canadian and North American hymnals such as...
WILE, Frances Whitmarsh. b. Bristol Centre, New York, 2 December 1878; d. Rochester, New York, 31 July 1939 (places and dates from Henry Wilder Foote, American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns, compiled for the Hymn Society of America, Cambridge, Mass., 1959), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53833/53833-h/53833-h.htm). She was an active member of the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, of which William Channing Gannett* was the pastor from 1889 to 1908. According to Ronander and Porter (1966,...
WHITELEY, Frank J. b. Sheffield, England, 22 December 1914; d. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, 20 October 1998. Whiteley's parents emigrated to Dryden, Ontario, in 1919, when he was four years old. He graduated from Peterborough Normal School in 1941 and taught elementary school for one year. He studied at Queen's University in Kingston (BA 1944), Queen's Theological College (BD 1946) and the Victoria University of Toronto (MDiv 1970). He was ordained in the United Church of Canada in 1946 and...
GRAHAM, Fred Kimball. b. Oshawa, Ontario, 8 April 1946. He was educated at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT 1966) and the University of Toronto (Mus. Bac. in Education 1967), winning a graduating scholarship and a Canada Council bursary which took him to Germany for three years to study sacred music and conducting. He completed a Fellowship in the Royal College of Organists in London in 1970.
Returning to Canada as a parish musician, he taught instrumental and choral music in Ottawa, and...
HOSMER, Frederick Lucian. b. Framingham, Massachusetts, 16 October 1840; d. Berkeley, California, 7 June 1929. Following graduation from Harvard (BA, 1862) he served for two years as headmaster of Houghton School, Bolton, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard Divinity School (BD 1869), and in the same year he was ordained into the Unitarian ministry. He served the First Congregational Church at Northboro, Massachusetts (1870-72), and the Second Congregational Church, Quincy, Illinois (1872-77);...
SPITTA, Friedrich Adolf Wilhelm. b. Wittingen, near Lüneburg, 10 January 1852; d. Göttingen, 7 June 1924. He was the son of Karl Johann Philipp Spitta*, born at Wittingen when his father was pastor there, and educated at Hildesheim when the family moved to Peine nearby. He followed his father and two elder brothers to the University of Göttingen, with a period at Erlangen, followed by a post at a seminary in Halle (1877), as an assistant pastor at Bonn (1879) and as pastor at Oberkassel (1881)....
Friends of the English Liturgy was founded in Chicago in 1963 in the midst of the Second Vatican Council. Dennis J. Fitzpatrick (nda) began the firm to sell his own 'Demonstration Mass in English'. Within a few years he had signed a contract with songwriter Ray Repp and published Hymnal for Young Christians, subtitled 'A supplement to adult Hymnals', and one of the first hymnals intended for guitar accompaniment. The music of Repp and many other composers in the collection became widely...
MEHRTENS, Frits (Frederik August). b. 1922; d. 1975. Mehrtens was a Dutch protestant church musician of great influence. Initially he studied medicine, but this was interrupted by the Second World War. He switched to music and studied organ with Jacob Bijster en Anthon van der Horst at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Nevertheless his medical knowledge played an important role in his work as a choir director and leader of congregational singing. He was fascinated by the physical aspect of singing...
From the dead, on Sunday morning. Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig* (1783-1872), translated by Alan Gaunt* (1935-2023).
This hymn, 'Sondag morgen fra de dode', is found in Volume 1 of the Sang Vaerk, in the context of one or two of Grundtvig's strongest translations of Sunday hymns from the Greek. It is full of the conviction that at the heart of Christianity is the triumph of life over death. In conversation with a distinguished German visitor who asked his views on the use of dialectical...
Gadsby's Hymns
William Gadsby* (1773-1844) is famous for his Selection of Hymns for Public Worship (Manchester, 1814), which he published in the same year as a collection of his own work, The Nazarene's Songs: being a Composition of Original Hymns by William Gadsby (Manchester, 1814). Edition after edition followed, with enlargements and supplements (1838, 1844, 1850, 1854, and thereafter) and it is still in print. These were words-only books: tune books, Companion Tunes to Gadsby's hymn book,...
THURMAIR, Georg. b. München/Munich, 7 February 1909; d. München, 20 January 1984.
After education at Business School in München/Munich, Thurmair moved in 1926 to Düsseldorf to be assistant to Ludwig Wolker, then in charge of the Catholic youth movement which became Sturmschar in 1929. He edited a weekend magazine, Jungen Front, which was critical of the up-and-coming National Socialist movement. It was compelled to change its name to Michael, and in 1936 it was forbidden. At this time Thurmair...
SIMONS, George Albert. b. LaPorte, Indiana, 19 March 1874; d. Brooklyn, New York, 2 August 1952. Son of a Methodist pastor, George Henry Simons and his wife Ottilie Schulz, Simons attended Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, New York; German-Wallace College (now Baldwin-Wallace College), Berea, Ohio (AB, 1899; DD, 1908); New York University (AB, 1903); the Theological School of Drew University, Madison, New Jersey (BD, 1905). In 1899, after finishing theological studies, he was ordained in the Methodist...
KNIGHT, George Litch. b. Rockford, Illinois, 2 January 1925; d. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 6 October 1995. Hymnologist, historian and clergyman, Knight attended Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana, the University of Chicago, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky (BA, 1947), and Union Theological Seminary, New York City (BD, 1951).
Ordained by the Freeport Presbytery (Illinois) in 1951, Knight served the West Side Presbyterian Church of Englewood, New Jersey, first as assistant minister (1951-1956),...
MULRAIN, George MacDonald, b. Caribbean Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, 30 March 1946. Pastor, educator, author, and composer, Mulrain attended the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI), Kingston, Jamaica (Dipl. Ministerial studies, 1973), the University of the West Indies (BA Theology, 1973), and the University of Birmingham, UK (PhD, 1982: dissertation, 'Theological Significance of Haitian Folk Religion'). Mulrain, an ordained elder of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean...
LATTY, Geraldine. b. 1963. Latty is a British songwriter and performer of West Indian descent. Her diverse religious background includes time spent in Pentecostal, Methodist and Baptist churches. A music graduate of Bath University, she taught music in a Catholic school in Bristol for twelve years. She has also taught a range of music courses at the London School of Theology and Dordt University, Iowa. She has released six solo albums of her own music and has also featured prominently in...
CARTFORD, Gerhard M. b. Madagascar, 21 March, 1923; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 8 February 2016. He was the son of missionary parents. He studied at St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota (BM, 1948), The School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York (MSM, 1950), Luther Northwestern Seminary (now Luther Seminary*) St Paul, Minnesota (1954-1955), St John's University, St Cloud, Minnesota (1955), and the University of Minnesota (PhD in musicology, 1961). As a Fulbright scholar, he...
HANCOCK, Gerre. b. Lubbock, Texas, 21 February 1934; d. Austin, Texas, 21 January 2012. He was an organist, professor, choir trainer, and composer, known especially for his book Improvising: How to Master the Art, which is largely based on hymn tunes.
His father, Edward Ervin Hancock (1902-1965) was Lubbock County Superintendent of Schools, and his mother, Flake (née Steger) Hancock, was a pianist for several churches. Gerre began playing the piano at age four and took lessons from his mother....
GIA Publications Inc. The Gregorian Institute of America, later renamed GIA Publications, Inc., was founded on December 8, 1941 by Clifford A. Bennett (1904-1987) at Sacred Heart Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Shortly after establishing the company, Bennett moved the firm to Toledo, Ohio. The Gregorian Institute of America became known for its Catholic Choirmasters' Correspondence Course; by 1950, nearly 1000 musicians had completed the coursework through home study and national...
Give me a clean heart. Margaret Pleasant Douroux* (1941- ).
This was Douroux's first song, written in 1970. It caught on after Thurston G. Frazier (1930-1974), founder of the 'Voices of Hope' choir, who was Douroux's mentor and predecessor at the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, introduced it at a national gospel convention (Gordon, 2006).
Douroux composed the song when encouraged by her grandmother to pray for the people of Mount Mariah Baptist Church, where her father...
Give of your best to the Master. Howard B. Grose*(1851-1939).
This was published in The Endeavor Hymnal (New York, 1902). It had three stanzas with a refrain:
Give of your best to the Master, Give of the strength of your youth, Throw your soul's fresh, glowing ardor Into the battle for truth. Jesus has set the example, Dauntless was He, young and brave: Give Him your loyal devotion, Give Him the best that you have.
Refrain:
Give of your best to the Master, Give of the strength of...
Gloria, gloria
This chant, a version of the doxology ( see Doxology*), is very ancient, but with the progress of ecumenism it has recently become very popular in hymnals. The normal text begins with the first part of Luke 2: 14:
Gloria, gloria,in excelsis Deo,
Gloria, gloria,alleluia, alleluia.
This is sometimes repeated. It is found in many books, sometimes with a translation, 'Glory to God, Glory to God in the highest'. It has been found useful for worship by many denominations,...
God is love: let heaven adore him. Timothy Rees* (1874-1939).
From The Mirfield Mission Hymn-Book (1922), and republished in J.L. Rees's Sermons and Hymns by Timothy Rees, Bishop of Llandaff (1946). Its first appearance in a major hymn-book was in BBCHB (1951), set to ABBOT'S LEIGH. It was included in 100HfT and thus in A&MNS, and has been retained in A&MCP and A&MRW. There have been a number of alterations to the original text. It has subsequently become one of the most popular of...
God of eternity, Lord of the ages. Ernest Northcroft Merrington (1876-1953).
This was the first, and for many years the only Australian hymn to gain international recognition. It was written in 1912 for the Jubilee of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Brisbane, where Merrington was the minister. He wrote of his hymn: 'The main thought in my heart was of thankfulness to the Giver of all good for the splendid services rendered in the [British] Colonies of our blood and creed, and thankfulness for...
God of freedom, God of justice. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Described by its author as one of her first 'gap-fillers', this hymn was written in 1980 for Amnesty International's Campaign Against Torture when she could find nothing relevant to sing at a service for prisoners of conscience.
It was first published in Murray's New Zealand collection, In Every Corner, Sing: New Hymns to Familiar Tunes in Inclusive Language (Wellington, 1987) where the suggested setting was PICARDY. It has...
God of love and truth and beauty. Timothy Rees* (1874-1939).
From The Mirfield Mission Hymn-Book (1922), where it is dated 1916. It was included in BBCHB, to a tune, CAROLYN, commissioned from Herbert Murrill (1909-1952), then head of music at the BBC. It appeared subsequently in 100HfT (1969) and thus in A&MNS, headed 'Hallowed be thy name'; it is also in HP. It is little known outside Britain, although in the USA it was included in Rejoice in the Lord (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1985), of...
God sends us the Spirit. Tom Colvin* (1925-2000).
Written in Ghana during Colvin's period of missionary service, 1959-1964, and set to the melody of a Gonja folk song originally in praise of the tribe and its past leaders. The text was written, according to the author, for 'churches, particularly new churches, where the Spirit is experienced as a powerful presence'. It is included in several standard collections, and captures both the intimacy and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit....
God weeps. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
Shirley Erena Murray explores the profound and complex reality of God's Incarnation in this hymn. She describes the context for the composition in her collection, Every Day in Your Spirit (1996), where it was first published: 'God Weeps (1994). A protest at violence, including child abuse and the battering of women, as well as violence on a world scale' (Murray, 1996, n.p.).
As is common with Murray's texts, she sets the structure and tone in the...
God, who art the Lord of Harvest (Prayer for a Labor Force). D. Elton Trueblood* (1900-1994).
This hymn is also known by its title, 'Prayer for a Labor Force'. For more than eleven years, Trueblood wrote a monthly column entitled 'Plain Speech' for Quaker Life. In the column 'Hymns for Today', (April 1968, vol/series 8, issue 4, p. 118), he notes that 'The period when Quakers refused to sing ended a hundred years ago… It must have been hard for our ancestors to neglect “And when they had...
God, your glory we have seen in your Son. Didier Rimaud* (1922-2003), translated by Ronald Johnson (1913-1996) and Brian Wren* (1936- ).
This was originally a French canticle written for a Roman Catholic conference in Strasbourg on the theme of 'The Bible in Liturgy' in 1957, beginning 'Dieu, nous avons vu ta gloire en ton Christ'*. Erik Routley* heard a recording and requested translations from Sir Ronald Johnson and Brian Wren. A composite version was made (Johnson's antiphon, Wren's...
SADOH, Godwin. b. Lagos State, Nigeria, 28 March 1965. An Anglican organist, composer, hymn writer, church musician, and professor of music, Godwin Sadoh received certificates in piano, theory, and general musicianship from the Royal School of Music, London (1982-1986), and degrees in piano and composition from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (BA, 1988); in African ethnomusicology from University of Pittsburgh (MA, 1998), in organ performance and church music from University of...
Golden breaks the dawn. (Qing zao qi zan-mei Shen). Tzu Chen Chao* (1888-1979).
First published in Mien ZhuengSheng Ge Ji ('Hymns for the People', Peking, 1931), it gained wider use from its inclusion in Pu Tian Sueng Zan (Hymns of Universal Praise (Putian Songzan, 普天頌讚) (Shanghai, 1936)*, a collection by six major Christian churches in China.. There are two translations, 'Rise to greet the sun', by Bliss Wiant* (1895-1975) and Mildred Wiant (1898-2001), in their small collection of Chinese...
Good people all, this Christmas time. Irish traditional.
'The Wexford Carol', sometimes called 'The Enniscorthy Christmas Carol' ('Carúl Loch Garman, Carúl Inis Córthaidh'), originates from Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the north-eastern corner of Ireland. The precise origins are unknown, though some commentaters suggest that its roots extend to the 12th century. Though the only carol known by this name, several carols come from Wexford (Costello, 2016). The Wexford Carol is often confused...
Goodness is stronger than evil. Desmond Tutu* (1931–2021).
The text for this poem, 'Victory is Ours', by Archbishop Desmond Tutu is from his An African Prayer Book (New York, 1995), a compilation of writings ranging from the Xhosa and Coptic traditions, to St Augustine and the worldwide African diaspora. This is one of only two prayers in the book written by him.
The prayer's compact structure, and its version as a one-stanza hymn, reflects the rhetorical style of paired opposites common...
Gospel Music Association (GMA). This is an industry organization created in 1964 and based in Nashville, Tennessee. It promotes the commercial interests and mass-media products of mostly English-speaking, North American, Protestant musicians and those making up the industry that supports them. That industry is centered around Nashville and includes persons employed by electronic mass-media companies such as record companies and radio and television stations; producers; concert promoters;...
DEANS, Graham Douglas Sutherland. b. Aberdeen, 15 August 1953. He was educated at Mackie Academy, Stonehaven, and the University of Aberdeen (MA 1974, BD 1977). He was licensed by the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 1977; he has served as assistant minister, Corstorphine, Edinburgh (1977-78), minister of Denbeath with Methilhill, Fife (1978-87), of St Mary's Parish Church, Dumfries (1987-2002), of South Ronaldsay and Burray, Orkney (2002-08), and of Queen Street Church, Aberdeen (2008- ).
Deans holds...
KENDRICK, Graham Andrew. b. Blisworth, Northamptonshire, 2 August 1950. He was the son of a Baptist minister; the family later moved to Essex and London. He started composing songs at 15 years of age, having taught himself to play the piano. In response to the Church's lack of connection with youth culture during the 1960s, he formed an early interest in the use of rock and folk music for outreach and evangelism.
He trained as an English/Ceramics teacher at Avery Hill College, Kent, but...
MAULE, Graham Alexander. b. Glasgow, 24 September 1958; d. Glasgow, 29 December 2019. The eldest of four children born to Margaret and Tom Maule, he studied architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, University of Glasgow, 1975-80 (B.Arch., 1978); he then studied sculpture at the Leith Art School and Edinburgh College of Art (MFA, 2002). He completed a doctoral degree in sculpture at the University of Edinburgh (PhD, 2013).
In a tribute to Graham Maule that was read during his...
HAY, Granton Douglas. b. Devonport, Tasmania, Australia, 26 August 1943. Hay received his primary and high school education at Devonport. After early work in the retailing industry he studied for the Congregational ministry at Parkin Theological College, Adelaide, and at the University of Adelaide (BA, 1974). He was ordained in 1964 and served in a joint-pastorate parish in Adelaide, and Uniting Church parishes in Canberra and Melbourne.
He has contributed articles to various church magazines,...
Great Awakenings, USA
The Great Awakenings is the name given to periods of religious revival that occurred in colonial British North America and the United States in the early to mid-18th century, in the early national period to the middle of the 19th century, and in the Reconstruction era to about 1910. These awakenings profoundly changed the course of American religious history, and to a lesser degree that of other countries. By the middle of the 19th century, the dominant character of...
GRESFORD is the name of a British hymn tune without words, to be played (usually by a brass band) while the congregation are silent in memory of a tragic event. It was written in the north-east of England in 1936 to commemorate the name of Gresford colliery at Wrexham (Wrecsam), North Wales, where there was a mining disaster in September 1934, when 266 miners were killed in an underground explosion.
It was composed by Robert Saint (b. Hebburn, South Tyneside, 20 November 1905; d. 15 December...
WILLIAMS, Gwilym Owen. b. East Finchley, North London, 23 March 1913; d. Bangor, 23 December 1990. Although born in London he was brought up in the North Wales village of Penisarwaun, and educated there and at Brynrefall Grammar School, Llanberis. From there he went to Jesus College, Oxford, where he read English (BA 1933) and then Theology (BA 1935). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1937, priest 1938) in the Church in Wales, and became successively curate of Denbigh (1937-40), chaplain and...
Hail thee, Festival Day. Venantius Fortunatus* (ca.540-early 7th century), translated by George Gabriel Scott Gillett* (1873-1948).
The origins of this hymn are in a poem, or verse epistle, by Fortunatus, addressed to Felix, Bishop of Nantes (d. 582), beginning 'Tempora florigero rutilant distincta sereno'. It is a poem of nature in spring welcoming the risen Saviour. A section of the poem (No 9 in Book III of Fortunatus' poems) begins
Salve festa dies toto venerabilis aevo
qua Deus infernum...
KÖBLER, Hanns. b. Hof, Oberfranken, Bavaria, 10 August 1930; d. Friesing, 1 August 1987. Köbler studied at the Melanchthongymnasium at Nürnberg, followed by theological studies at Neuendettelsau, Heidelberg, and Erlangen. He was pastor at Selb, near his birthplace (1955-57), and then Stadtvikar at St Anna, Augsburg (1957-60) before becoming a teacher of religious studies at Friesing, Bavaria. As is befitting for the work of a local figure, Köbler's hymn, with his own tune, 'Du schenkst uns...
Hark! the herald angels sing (Jesus the light of the world). Arranged by George D. Elderkin (1845–1928).
Gospel musical traditions in the United States have enlivened the 18th-century hymns for over 150 years. Those by Isaac Watts*, Charles Wesley*, and John Newton* were among those heard by those influenced by the Second Great Awakening (c. 1795–1835), during which rural whites and enslaved Africans reinvented and reinterpreted hymns from England for their own situation. The enlivening of...
WOOD, Harold D'Arcy. b. Nuku'alofa, Tonga, 9 December 1936. He is the son of Methodist missionary parents who for 13 years directed Tupou College, a school for boys in Tonga. His father, Alfred Harold Wood (1896-1989), played the piano, conducted choirs and published extensively on hymns. He was chairman of the Australian Hymn Book Committee from its formation in 1968 to the publication of the hymnbook in 1977.
On the family's return to Australia, D'Arcy Wood was educated at Wesley College and...
FRIEDELL, Harold William. b. Jamaica, Queens, New York, 11 May 1905; d. Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, 17 February 1958. Friedell was an organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer of over 100 choral, organ and instrumental works. A 'Profile' in the Hudson Dispatch (New York), 16 September 1936, compared Friedell's anthems, in 'artistic temperament to the school of English composers who are writing a new chapter in the music on the ancient “modes” as opposed to the schools which are...
HARP (as a title). As early as 1795, hymn collections with Harp or Harfe in the title were published in the USA, without music, and thereafter, a number of tunebooks were published with 'Harp' in the title.
The most widely-known Harp, as a collection of hymns, is The Sacred Harp*, by B. F. White* and Elisha J. King*. This usage of Harp probably started in connection with the Psalms of David, as in Dauids harpe ful of moost delectable armony, newely stringed and set in tune, by Theadore...
SPAETH, Harriet Reynolds Krauth (Harriet Krauth). b. Baltimore, Maryland, 21 September 1845; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 May 1925. Spaeth was an author and translator of hymn texts and composer of hymn tunes, and a music editor. Her best known translations are 'As each happy Christmas' and verses 3 and 4 of 'Lo, how a rose e'er blooming' (see 'Es ist ein' Ros entsprungen'*). She was the daughter of Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823-1883) and Susan Reynolds Krauth (1821-1853). C. P. Krauth,...
COOPERSMITH, Harry. b. Russia, 2 December 1902; d. Santa Barbara, California, 31 December 1975. Coopersmith was a pioneer in the dissemination of Jewish music in America. The hymn tune YISRAEL V'ORAITA (TORAH SONG)*, introduced by Coopersmith, is one of the most widely sung Jewish melodies published in Christian hymnals.
Harry Coopersmith immigrated with his parents, Max Coopersmith (1868? - ?) and Pauline (Liptzen) Coopersmith (1878? - ?) in 1911, and settled in New York, where Harry...
FOSDICK, Harry Emerson. b. Buffalo, New York, 24 May 1878; d. Bronxville, New York, 5 Oct 1969. Fosdick was educated at Colgate College, Hamilton, New York (BA, 1900); Union Theological Seminary (BD, 1904), and Columbia University (MA, 1908)., the latter two in New York City. Following Baptist ordination in 1903, he was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey (1904-15), and then taught homiletics and practical theology at Union Theological Seminary in 1915, interrupted by a...
He came down. Cameroon traditional.
In the mid 1980s, John Bell* officiated at a wedding in Frankfurt. 'He came down' was chosen for the ceremony by a couple from Cameroon. They requested that it be sung unaccompanied with the guests in a circle, reminiscent of the ring shout prevalent in the music of enslaved Africans in North America and the Caribbean (see 'Ring shout'*). First printed by Wild Goose Publications in Many and Great: Songs of the World Church (Glasgow, 1990), it was copyrighted...
He came singing love. Colin Gibson* (1933-2022).
Written in 1972, when it was submitted for a national hymn competition organized by Television New Zealand, this has become an iconic hymn sung by congregations throughout New Zealand and far beyond its shores. It has received several arrangements and been recorded by choirs and solo singers.
It was first published in the local hymn book supplement of the Mornington Methodist Church, Dunedin, then in WOV, in Colin Gibson's own 1988 collection...
He is arisen! Glorious word! Birgitte Katerine Boye*(1742-1824), translated by George Alfred Taylor Rygh* (1860-1942).
Boye's one-stanza hymn began 'Han er opstanden! Store Bud!' from Psalme-bog eller En Samling af gamle og nye Psalmer (Copenhagen, 1778), edited by Ove Høeg Guldberg. Rygh's translation was dated 1909 (Polack, 1942, 1958, p. 144). The single stanza was written in the metre of Philipp Nicolai*'s 'Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern'*, and sung to his tune.
The Companion to...
He who by a mother's love. George MacDonald* (1824-1905).
This two-stanza poem appeared in MacDonald's 'Organ Songs', in his Works of Fancy and Imagination (1871), and then in his Poetical Works (1893). It was entitled 'Christmas Meditation':
He who by a mother's love Made the wandering world his own, Every year comes from above, Comes the parted to atone, Binding Earth to the Father's throne.
Nay, thou comest every day! No, thou never didst depart! Never hour hast been away! Always...
He whose confession God of old accepted. Laurence Housman* (1865-1959).
This is a translation of 'Iste confessor domini sacratus'*, a Latin hymn of unknown origin but probably written in the 8th century. The original was widely used: it was written for the feast of a confessor, that is, one who avowed the Christian faith in the face of danger, but did not suffer martyrdom. The translation appeared in EH, to be sung to plainsong or to the tune ISTE CONFESSOR. The third stanza in the Latin text...
VOGEL, Heinrich. b. Pröttlin, Kreis Prignitz, 9 April 1902; d. Berlin, 26 December 1989. He was educated at the Gymnasium of the Grey Cloister in Berlin, and then at the Universities of Berlin and Jena. He became a priest at Oderburg and then at Dobbrikow, near Potsdam. During the 1930s he was a courageous member of the 'Bekennenden Kirche', the confessing church, in opposition to the 'Deutschen Christen' and their accommodation with National Socialism. He taught in an underground school run by...
CAPIEU, Henri. b. Bizerte, Tunisia 1909; d. Meudon, France 1993. Capieu was a French Reformed Pastor, ordained in 1933, who served at Clairac and at Les Salies de Béarn (1946-47). He was inspired by the discreet piety of his mother, biblical narratives, and the Protestant poet Antoine de la Roche Chandieu (1534-1591). He pastored the church in Algiers (1947-61) where he befriended Albert Camus, and worked against torture during the Algerian war. He then became pastor in central Paris at the...
McFADYEN, Henry Richard. b. Bladen County, near Elizabethtown, North Carolina, 1 February 1877; d. High Point, North Carolina, 22 June 1964. The son of Rev. Archibald McFadyen (1836–1911) and Miriam Eliza McFadyen (née Cromartie; 1844–1907), he was one of eight children. He married Myrtle Louise Angle (1884–1976) in 1907, and they had two children. Henry's father was a Lieutenant in the North Carolina Cavalry for the Confederate cause in the Civil War, studying for the ministry while a...
VAN DYKE, Henry Jackson. b. Germantown, Pennsylvania, 10 November 1852; d. Princeton, New Jersey, 10 April 1933. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he was at school at Brooklyn, New York before studying at Princeton University (BA 1873, MA 1876). After a further period of study at Princeton Theological Seminary (1876-77) and in Berlin, he was ordained to the ministry, serving at a Congregational Church at Newport, Rhode Island (1878-82) and Brick Presbyterian Church, New York (1882-99). During...
FOOTE, Henry Wilder (II). b. Boston, Massachusetts, 2 February 1875; d. Southwest Harbor, Maine, 27 August 1964. Highly respected author, scholar, and hymnologist, Foote was a Unitarian minister, teacher, and progressive figure whose ministry highlighted music, poetry, and art. Born to Frances Anne Eliot (1838-1896) and Henry Wilder Foote (1838-1889), the younger Foote had strong connections with Unitarianism and Harvard University. His grandfather, Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798-1862) was mayor of...
STUEMPFLE, Herman G. Jr. b. Clarion, Pennsylvania, 2 April 1923; d. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 13 March 2007. Distinguished pastor, teacher and hymn writer, Stuempfle attended Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania (AB, 1945), Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg (BD, 1946), Union Theological Seminary, New York City, New York (STM, 1967), and Southern California School of Theology, Claremont, California DTh, 1971). He pastored congregations in Baltimore, Maryland; Gettysburg,...
Herr, mach uns stark im Mut, der dich bekennt. Anna Martina Gottschick* (1914-1995).
Written at the suggestion of the composer Heinz Werner Zimmermann to fit the tune SINE NOMINE by Ralph Vaughan Williams*. It is a prayer for bravery: 'Lord, make us strong in courage, who confess Thee'. It appeared in a CD of hymns for the period from Advent to Epiphany, Freude, die überflieβt. In EG, where it is dated 1972, it appeared in five stanzas in the 'Ende des Kirchenjahres' section, with an...
Holiness hymnody refers to a body of song associated with the Holiness Movement that grew out of American Methodism in the late 1830s, associated with Phoebe Worrall Palmer and Walter C. Palmer (nda), Sarah Lankford (1806-96 ), Thomas Upham (1799-1872), William Boardman (1810-86), Hannah Tatum Whitehall Smith (1832-1911) and her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith (1827-98). Their collective teachings emphasized a second work of grace by the Holy Spirit in the believer's life to cleanse from sin and...
Holy Spirit, breathe on me. Baylus B. McKinney* (1886-1952).
This hymn was copyrighted by the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and published in Songs of Victory (of which McKinney was the music editor) in 1937. It was published in The Broadman Hymnal (Nashville, 1940: McKinney was again music editor). It is a rewriting, with a refrain, of 'Breathe on me, breath of God'* by Edwin Hatch*, dated 1878. In The Broadman Hymnal it was attributed to Hatch; McKinney was named as...
Holy Spirit, ever dwelling. Timothy Rees* (1874-1939).
From The Mirfield Mission Hymn-Book (Mirfield, 1922), where the date of composition was given as 1922, and in John Lambert Rees's Sermons and Hymns by Timothy Rees, Bishop of Llandaff (1946). It was written in four 8-line stanzas, but it was shortened to three in Sermons and Hymns. The original stanza 4 was:
Holy Spirit, fount and channel
Of the sevenfold gifts of grace,
May we in our hearts for ever
Give to holy fear a place.
Fill...
How can I say that I love the Lord ('Koinonia'). V. Michael McKay* (1952— ).
In the context of Christian worship, this worship song functions as a song of greeting near the beginning of worship or at the passing of the peace—a time of reconciliation before receiving communion when God's love for us in Christ is visible in a shared meal at the table. This intimate family meal is an expression of the fellowship, sharing, and participation of the Body of Christ.
The text is as follows:
How can...
GROSE, Howard Benjamin. b. Millerton, New York, 5 September 1851; d. Ballston Spa, New York, 19 May 1939. Educated at the University of Chicago (BA) and the University of Rochester, New York State (MA), he worked as a journalist before becoming a Baptist minister in 1883. He pastored congregations in Poughkeepsie, New York (1883-87) and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1888-90) before turning to academic life. He had spoken at a memorial service for a classmate, Edward Olson, President of the...
ROBBINS, Howard Chandler. b. Philadelphia, 11 December 1876; d. Washington, DC, 20 March 1952. Educated at Yale (BA 1899) and the Episcopal Theological Seminary (BD 1903). He was ordained (deacon 1903, priest 1904), serving a curacy at St Peter's, Morristown, New Jersey (1903-05). He was rector of St Paul's Church, Englewood, New Jersey (1905-11), rector of the Church of the Incarnation, New York City (1911-17), and Dean of the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York (1917-29). He became...
OLSON, Howard. b. St Paul, Minnesota, 18 July 1922; d. Sun City Center, Florida, 1 July 2010. Howard Olson has a well-deserved reputation for his African hymns, such as 'Christ has arisen, Alleluia (Mfurahini, Haleluya)*, 'Neno lake Mungu' ('Listen, God Is Calling'), and 'Njoo kwetu, Roho mwema' ('Gracious Spirit, Heed Our Pleading'). They have have found their way into hymnals around the globe. Olson's Tumshangilie Mungu: Nyimbo za Kikristo za Kiafrika has gone through six successive...
LEWIS, Howell Elvet. b. Cynwyl Elfed, Carmarthenshire, 14 April 1860; d. Penarth, Glamorgan, 10 December 1953. Lewis was born into a farming family. He trained for the ministry in the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, but in fact he read so widely that he was largely self-taught. He was ordained in the Congregational ministry in 1880, serving from then until 1904 in English-speaking churches in Wales and England. It was, however, during this period that he was most active as a poet in Welsh,...
MARTIN, Hugh. b. Glasgow, 7 April 1890; d. East Grinstead, Sussex, 2 July 1964. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Baptist College. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Student Christian Movement in 1914, and worked for the SCM until 1950; he was one of the founders of the SCM Press, and later editor of the Press. An eminent Baptist, he was Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council, 1953-54. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1955.
For the SCM Press he wrote or...
SHERLOCK, Hugh Braham. b. Portland, Jamaica, 21 March 1905; d. 19 April 1998. Educated at Beckford and Smith School (now St Jago High School) and Calabar High School, Sherlock worked as a civil servant before attending Caenwood Methodist Theological College. He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1932, and served as a missionary in the Turks and Caicos Islands, before returning to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1940. At Kingston he did remarkable work under the name of 'Operation Friendship' in a...
McELRATH, Hugh Thomas. b. Murray, Kentucky, USA, 13 November 1921; d. Penney Farms, Florida, USA, 8 May 2008. McElrath was a renowned Southern Baptist hymnologist, seminary professor, church musician, and music missionary who combined high intellectual achievement and skilled musicianship with a devout Christian faith rooted in Baptist tradition. He attended Murray State College [today Murray State University], Murray, Kentucky (BA, 1943), and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary...
KERR, Hugh Thomson. b. Elora, Ontario, Canada, 11 February 1871; d. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 27 June 1950. Kerr was educated at the University of Toronto, and at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. After being ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1897, he was pastor of congregations in Kansas and Illinois before having a distinguished and lengthy ministry through two world wars at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh (1913-46). He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the...
DISTLER, Hugo. b. Nürnberg, 24 Jun 1908; d. Berlin, 1 Nov 1942. Distler was educated in Nürnberg, where he also trained as a musician. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatoire (1927-30), quickly replacing conducting and piano studies with organ and composition, the two areas in which he later made his name. He was taught composition by Hermann Grabner and organ by Friedrich Högner, a member of the Orgelbewegung, who taught him the sound and style of the German protestant tradition of the...
Humbly in your sight we come together, Lord. J.P. Chirwa (d. 1940), translated by Tom Colvin* (1925-2000).
This is a translation of 'Tiza Pantazi Pinu', a hymn in Tumbuka, a Bantu language spoken in northern Malawi and some neighbouring countries. The first line appears as above in Colvin's Fill us with your love (1983), and then in Songs of God's People (1988), World Praise (1993), Glory to God (1994), and Sing Glory (1999). In Colvin's last book, Come, let us walk this road together (1997),...
OOSTERHUIS, Huub (Hubertus Gerardus Josephus Henricus). b. Amsterdam, 1 November 1933; d. Amsterdam, 9 April 2023. Oosterhuis was educated at the Jesuit Ignatius College and met Bernard Huijbers* in the Liturgical Choir there. He entered the Jesuit Novitiate, singing again under Huijbers in the Gregorian Choir. He studied Philosophy and History, Language and Theatre, and published his first devotional song (to Mary) in 1954. Working with Huijbers he published Fifty Psalms (eventually published...
The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada (HSUSC) is comprised of poets, composers, publishers, teachers and scholars, institutional and public libraries, church musicians, clergy, and laypersons, and is uniquely devoted to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational song. Throughout its history of more than a century, The Hymn Society has worked steadily and creatively to promote congregational singing, encourage the creation of new and excellent texts and tunes, and support...
Hymnary.org
Hymnary.org is an online hymn and worship music database for worship leaders, hymnologists, and amateur hymn lovers. The site allows users to search or browse hymns by title, tune, meter, key, scripture reference, as well as advanced specialized queries.
In partnership with The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada* Hymnary.org houses the Dictionary of North American Hymnology*, adding over one million first lines of hymns, collected and organized by Leonard W. Ellinwood*...
Hymns for Prayer and Praise (1996). Hymns for Prayer and Praise was published by the Canterbury Press for the Panel of Monastic Musicians in 1996. It was intended primarily for use in monastic and religious communities, but also in churches in which daily prayer is offered with music. It acknowledges a debt to the Liber Hymnarius of the monks of Solesmes (1983), but its texts are in English, with a small selection of Latin hymns at the end of the book (501-515). The first five hundred hymns...
Hymntune Index and Related Hymn Materials is a three-volume compilation by D. DeWitt Wasson*, published in 1998, and on CD-ROM in 2001 (Studies in Liturgical Musicology, no. 6, Michael Fry, technical advisor of the CR-ROM version, by Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland). Most of the tunes indexed were first published after 1810, so that there is relatively little overlap with Nicholas Temperley*'s Hymn Tune Index*.
Volume I includes a Foreword by Robin A. Leaver*, and a Compiler's Preface...
I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship. William Young Fullerton* (1857-1932).
This four-stanza hymn was written to be sung to LONDONDERRY AIR, the plangent tune from Fullerton's native Northern Ireland. Probably the first use of the tune with a hymn was in SofP (1925), when it was set to Frank Fletcher*'s 'O Son of Man, our hero strong and tender'*.
The date of composition of the words is uncertain, but must be before 1930, when they were printed in a Baptist supplement for young...
I have decided to follow Jesus. Simon Kara Marak* (1877–1975). Formerly attributed to Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929).
Very few hymnals ascribe an author or composer to this widely sung piece, usually indicating 'Source unknown' or 'Anonymous'. Several hymnals produced during the decade of the 1950s include it, the earliest catalogued in Hymnary.org being Choice Light and Life Songs (Winona Lake, IN, 1950). It has appeared in over fifty collections in North America published since 1950.
Baptist...
I know that my Redeemer. Hallgrim Pjetursson* (1614-1674), translated by Charles Venn Pilcher* (1879-1961).
This hymn by Hallgrim Pjetursson (Hallgrímur Pétursson) exists in manuscript form in the museum at Reykjavík. It was printed in Magnús Jónsson's Hallgrímur Pétursson (Rekjavík, 1947). It begins 'Allt eins og blómstrið eina' ('Even as a little flower') and has 13 verses. Pilcher translated seven stanzas for his Icelandic Christian Classics (Melbourne, 1950). The selection used in the...
I sought him dressed in finest clothes. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ).
This hymn is entitled 'Carol of the Epiphany'. Written in 1988, it first appeared in the collection Innkeepers and Light Sleepers: Seventeen New Songs for Christmas (Chicago: 1992). It may be seen as completing a trilogy of hymns that provide insightful socio-political commentary on the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany cycle:
Carol of the Advent ('From a woman and a weary nation')
The Carol of the Nativity ('A pregnant...
I was there to hear your borning cry ('Borning Cry'). John Ylvisaker* (1937-2017).
Ylvisaker was the author of the text and composer of the music. The following narrative from the author's website described the circumstances surrounding the composition of this song:
During 1985, the ALC [American Lutheran Church] was doing a series on baptism called 'Reflections'. John began work on the song before any footage for the video had been shot. When the media team met to put the music with the video...
BRADLEY, Ian Campbell. b. Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, 28 May 1950. Ian Bradley was educated at Tonbridge School and New College, Oxford (BA 1971, MA, DPhil, 1974), where he won the Arnold Historical Essay Prize in 1971 and was Harold Salvesen Junior Fellow from 1972 to 1975. After a period working at the BBC and on The Times, followed by a time as a schoolmaster, free-lance author and broadcaster, he entered the University of St Andrews, where he studied for the BD and for the Church of...
FRASER, Ian Masson. b. Forres, 15 Dec 1917; d. Alva, near Stirling, 10 April 2018. He was the son of a butcher whose family were required to become involved from an early age in the business. Educated at Forres Academy and the University of Edinburgh (MA, BD, PhD). He was one of the earliest members of the newly-founded Iona Community and, in tune with its emphasis on the importance of witnessing to the Gospel within the political and industrial life of society, became a 'pastor-labourer' in a...
PITT-Watson, Ian Robertson. b. Dalmuir, Glasgow, 15 October 1923; d. Westminster, London, 11 January 1995. He was the son of a Church of Scotland minister, James Pitt-Watson, who became Moderator of the Church of Scotland. Ian was educated at Dollar Academy and Edinburgh University, before training for the ministry at New College, Edinburgh. After ordination as assistant minister at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh (1950-52) he was appointed chaplain to the University of Aberdeen (1952-58),...
If when you give the best of your service (He Understands; He'll Say, ''Well Done''). Lucie Eddie Campbell-Williams* (1885-1963).
This was composed in 1933 for the annual gathering of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., and quickly became one of the all-time Convention favorites. African American scholar Horace Clarence Boyer* notes:
From 1930 to 1962, [Campbell] introduced a new song each year at the National Baptist Convention. Her songs became gospel standards, sung by all races...
In Adam we have all been one. Martin Franzmann* (1907-1976).
This hymn, based on Genesis 3 and 4, was written in 1961, and first published in 1963 by the Augsburg Publishing House as a supplement to their bulletin, with the tune ST FLAVIAN. It was then printed in another Lutheran context in A Selection of 13 Hymns… for use in public worship as a supplement to present hymnals (St Louis, 1967). It has appeared in subsequent Lutheran collections, including LBW and LSB. The Companion to LSB draws...
In God's most holy presence. Ernest James Dodgshun* (1876-1944).
This was published in the Fellowship Hymn-Book (1909). It was one of the earliest hymns by Dodgshun, who had joined the Society of Friends in 1908, and who later gave up work as a businessman to join the National Adult School Union, of which he became Secretary in 1924. It remained in the 1933 revision of FHB, published by the NASU and The Brotherhood Movement, Incorporated. Dodgshun and his wife Mary were members of the...
In unity we lift our song. Ken Medema* (1943 – ).
This hymn was composed in 1983 and premiered by Medema at a Southern Baptist Women in Ministry Conference held at Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, on 8 June 1985. It was also sung at the first convocation of the Alliance of Baptists, a reforming offshoot of the Southern Baptist Convention, in March 1987 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Set to the tune of Martin Luther*'s EIN FESTE BURG, the music combines with the text to invoke a Reformation...
Infant holy, infant lowly. Edith Margaret Gellibrand Reed* (1885-1933).
This is a translation of a Polish carol, beginning 'W Żłobie Leży', found in Spiewniczek Piesni Koscielne (1908), thought to be from the 13th or 14th century (Milgate, 1982, p. 104). Gillibrand's translation was published in Music and Youth I/12 (December 1921), and later published in the Congregational Church's School Worship (1926), after which it became very popular:
Infant holy, infant lowly, For his bed a cattle...
Inspired by love and anger. John Lamberton Bell* (1949- ) and Graham Maule* (1958-2019).
This song, 'Inspired by love and anger, disturbed by endless pain', was the title piece to Love & Anger: songs of lively faith and social justice (Wild Goose Publications, 1997). It was reprinted from Heaven Shall Not Wait (Wild Goose Songs 1) (1987), with the first line as 'Inspired by love and anger, disturbed by need and pain'. With the first line as '…endless pain…' this was reprinted in a 1997...
The Iona Community was founded in Scotland in 1938 by the Revd George MacLeod, later Lord MacLeod of Fiunary. It rebuilt the ancient monastic buildings on the island of Iona, from which St Columba* sent out missionaries such as St Aidan to convert Scotland and the north of England in the 6th century. With the rebuilding of the abbey of Iona, the Community has sought also the 'rebuilding of the common life', bringing together (in the words of its website) 'work and worship, prayer and politics,...
Irish Church Praise (1990-2000).
When the Church of Ireland published its first edition of the Church Hymnal in 1864, with the approval and blessing of the House of Bishops, it was understood that hymns being used in public worship should always be selected from what is contained in its own official hymnbook. That was still the attitude by the time the Fourth Edition of the Church Hymnal was launched in 1960.
In some ways, however, while this latest edition was both comprehensive and...
PROKHANOFF, Ivan Stepanovich. b. Vladikavkas, Russia, 17 April 1869; d. Berlin, Germany, 6 October 1935. Prokhanoff was a gifted author, preacher, poet and hymn writer, and a primary leader of the evangelical community in Russia. St Petersburg was the center of his activity. Here he founded the Russia Evangelical Association (1905), and the All-Russian Evangelical Association (1908).
His parents grew up in the Molokan ('milk drinkers') tradition of Russia, a pietistic movement that emerged...
ORR, James Edwin. b. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 12 January 1912; d. Asheville, North Carolina, 22 April 1987. As a young man he became a travelling evangelist, beginning in 1933, visiting many countries. It was during one of these visits, to an Easter Conference at Ngaruwahia, New Zealand in 1936, that he wrote the hymn by which he has become known, 'Search me, O God, and know my heart today'*. He later became assistant pastor of the People's Church, Toronto, Canada; he was ordained to the...
MARASCHIN, Jaci C. b. Bagé, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 12 December 1929; d. São Paulo, 29 June 2009. At the end of his career Maraschin was Emeritus Professor at the São Paulo Methodist University and an ordained priest of the São Paulo Anglican Diocese of the Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church, part of the Anglican Communion. He started his musical education early in life with private tutors for music theory and piano. He held a Diploma from the Instituto Musical de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and...
BERTHIER, Jacques. b. Auxerre, France, 27 June 1923; d. Paris, 27 June 1994. Berthier was the son of the organist of Auxerre Cathedral. After initial encouragement and training in Auxerre, he went to the César Franck School in Paris. One of his teachers there was Guy de Lioncourt, whose daughter Germaine he later married. He was organist of the Jesuit church in Paris, St Ignace (named after Ignatius of Loyola), where he worked until his death on his 71st birthday.
In 1955 he was asked by the...
SYDNOR, James Rawlings. b. Floyd County, Georgia, 8 March 1911; d. Richmond, Virginia, 28 November 1999. Sydnor was one of five children born into the marriage of Presbyterian minister, G. G. Snyder (b. 1864), whose family name was changed to Sydnor in a census of 1900, and Evelyn Aiken Sackett (1875-1939). Sydnor was educated at Hampton-Sydney College, Hampton-Sydney, Virginia (1929-1931), Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey (BM 1935, MM 1938), Rutgers University, New Brunswick,...
BENDER, Jan Oskar. b. in Haarlem, Holland, 3 February 1909; d. Hanerau, Germany, 29 December 1994. Jan Bender was a distinguished church musician, organist, educator, and composer, for whom hymnody was very important. His mother, Margarette Schindler (1874-1951), was German. His Dutch father, Hermann Bender (1870-1908), a piano dealer, died the year in which Jan was born. In 1922 his mother moved back to her native town, Lübeck, Germany, where Jan studied organ, and began to compose at the...
HUBER, Jane McAfee Parker (née Parker). b. Jinan, China, 24 October 1926; d. Hanover, Indiana, 15 November 2008. Born to Presbyterian missionary parents, Jane Parker spent her youth in Hanover, Indiana. She attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts, married William A. Huber in 1947, and graduated from Hanover College (BA, 1948). An active Presbyterian, Huber emphasized peacemaking, justice, and inclusiveness in her ministry and her hymn texts. For many years she ran a feature, 'Ask Jane', in...
Jazz is a unique type of 20th-century music created by African Americans characterized by melodic variation, the use of 'blue notes', syncopated rhythms, extended and altered harmonies, improvisation by the performers, and an open-sounding timbre. Initially, jazz was the music of the dance hall and club, but it gradually gained acceptance in the church. Jazz used in worship now includes keyboard, instrumental, and choral music, as well as accompaniments of sung liturgies and congregational...
SIBELIUS, Jean (Julius Christian). b. Hämeenlinna, Finland, 8 December 1865; d. Jārvenpāā, 20 September 1957. An able violinist as a child, he studied with Martin Wigelius in Finland before moving abroad to Vienna and Berlin for further study. His symphony Kullervo was first performed in 1892, and it was this work that gained attention in his homeland. Other works with a national flavour, such as the Karelia Suite (1893) followed, and with Finlandia (1899-1900), written for a Finnish pageant...
STEELE, Jean Woodward. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 22 February 1910; d. 1 September 1984. Jean Steele received a BA degree from Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (1932). Four years later she joined the music publishing arm of Westminster Press, of the United Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, remaining there until her retirement in 1975. Working with two music editors, Calvin Weiss Laufer* (1874-1938) and W. Lawrence Curry (1906-1966), Steele collaborated on a number of...
LANGLAIS, Jean-Marie-Hyacinthe. b. La Fontenelle, Brittany, 15 February 1907; d. 8 May 1991. The eldest of four children born to a stonecutter and seamstress, Langlais became completely blind by the age of three. His handicap and the poverty of his family prevented him from studying music until the age of ten when he obtained a scholarship to study at the School for the Young Blind in Paris where his teachers were René Clavers, violin, Maurice Blazy, piano, and André Marchal, organ. In 1927, he...
ADAMS, Jessie. b. Ipswich, Suffolk, 9 September 1863; d. York, 15 July 1954. She was educated at Ipswich and at York (her family moved to York in 1878). She continued to live with her parents in various parts of London (Tottenham, Twickenham, Forest Gate) from 1889 until 1900, when they moved back to East Anglia. She returned to York in her final years.
Adams was a member of the Society of Friends; she was very interested in the Adult School Movement (the National Adult School Organisation...
See 'Kneels at the feet of his friends'*
Jesus, Lord, Redeemer. Patrick Miller Kirkland* (1857-1943).
This moving Easter hymn was first published in the English Presbyterian hymnbook, Church Praise (revised edition, 1907). It is unusual in hymnody because it includes the story of the road to Emmaus and the ten disciples (without Judas and Thomas) in hiding on the first Easter day:
Faithful ones, communing, Towards the close of day, Desolate and weary, Met Thee in the way...
In the upper chamber, Where the ten, in fear,...
Jesu, Son of Mary. Edmund Stuart Palmer* (1856-1931).
This touching funeral hymn was originally written in Swahili sometime before 1901, during Palmer's first period in Africa. It was written for the Requiem of a colleague in the UMCA (Universities' Mission to Central Africa). According to Frost (1962, p. 381) it was included in the Mission's Swahili Hymn Book, but it is not in Kitabu cha Sala za Kanuni ilivyo desturi ya kanisa la unguja (Swahili Zanzibar prayer and hymns) (SPCK, 1950).
The...
Jesus calls the children dear (Jesus loves the little children). C. Herbert Woolston* (1856–1927).
C. Herbert Woolston's extensive ministry to children as a magician and author led to the composition of this text. Most children connected to Christian churches in the United States between 1930 and 2000 most likely learned the refrain of the original hymn either in Sunday (Church) School, a children's choir, or a domestic setting:
Refrain:
Jesus loves the little children,All the children of the...
Jesus es mi Rey soberano. Vicente Mendoza* (1875-1955).
This is the most widely used original hymn by Mendoza. Fernández comments as follows:
The best known hymn to Hispanics is one written by Dr. Vicente Mendoza. It is said that while he was waiting for a bus on a street corner in Los Angeles on a foggy night the words for 'Jesus es mi Rey Soberano' came to his mind. Even today this hymn is sung in all Hispanic churches throughout the world (Fernández, p. 67).
Translated by Esther Frances...
Jesus the Lord said, 'I am the Bread'. Urdu hymn, translated by Dermott Monahan* (1906-1957).
These words were set to an Urdu melody, YISU NE KAHA, recorded by an ethnomusicologist, Kate Greenfield, and arranged by Francis Westbrook*. The hymn was written to fit this beautiful melody; Westbrook's arrangement was made ca. 1940 for a booklet of hymns for Sunday School anniversaries. Words and music were included in the School Hymn-Book of the Methodist Church (1950) and in the EACC Hymnal (1963)....
Jesus, our mighty Lord. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
This was printed in H40 with a first stanza beginning:
Master of eager youth,
Controlling, guiding,
Lifting our hearts to truth,
New power providing;
Shepherd of innocence,
Thou art our Confidence;
To thee, our sure Defence,
We bring our praises.
This first stanza was omitted and stanza 2 changed from 'Thou art' to 'Jesus' in H82. The reason given was that the imagery seemed 'more congenial to modern thought' than the original stanza 1 had...
Jesus, Savior Lord, lo to you I fly ('Saranam, saranam'). Traditional Pakistani, translated by Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
Asian hymns are perhaps the most neglected repertoire in Western hymnals. Hymns that are available in Asian musical idioms are rarer. The normative practice in Asian churches is to sing Western classic hymns in translation or use contemporary Christian music. Because of their experience with many Western missionaries who did not encourage composition in Asian...
OWENS, Jimmy Lloyd. b. Clarksdale, Mississippi, 9 December 1930. After school at Jackson, Mississippi, he attended Millsaps College, and was a jazz band arranger; after a conversion he directed music in several churches in southern California. He married Carol Owens* in 1954. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement', the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
KLEPPER, Jochen. b. Beuthen-an-der-Oder (in Silesia, now Bytom Odrzański in Poland), 22 March 1903; d. Berlin, 11 December 1942. He was christened Joachim Georg Wilhelm Klepper (he later called himself Jochen). His father was a Lutheran pastor. Beginning in 1922, he studied theology at Erlangen and Breslau, but cut short his doctoral work in church history in 1926 to help support his family, taking a position with the Evangelischer Presseverband für Schlesien [Silesia], where he produced daily...
DALLES, John Allan. b. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 13 September 1954. Dalles graduated from Penn State University (BS, 1976) and Lancaster Seminary in Pennsylvania (MDiv, 1982). He served as associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church, South Bend, Indiana (1982-86) before becoming associate pastor of Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh (1986-97). Dalles received the DMin. degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1994. Since 1997 he has served as senior pastor of the Wekiva...
STOREY, John Andrew. b. Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, 24 March 1935; d. Yeovil, Somerset, 5 December 1997. He was born into a Congregationalist family. Instead of two years of National Service, he engaged for three years in order to become a medical orderly in the Royal Air Force. He then trained for the Congregational ministry at the Western College, Bristol (1956-61), where he became interested in the study of comparative religion.
Storey became minister of a group of Congregational churches...
GEYER, John Brownlow. b. Wakefield, Yorkshire, 9 May 1932; d. Tayport, Fife, 26 July 2020. He was educated at Silcoates School, Wakefield, the Congregational foundation for the sons of nonconformist ministers. After National Service (1951-53), he read Theology at Queens' College, Cambridge (BA 1956), and trained for the Congregational ministry at Mansfield College, Oxford (1956-59), with a period studying at Heidelberg (1957-59). He was minister of the Congregational Church, St Andrews, Fife,...
PARK, John Edgar. b. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 7 March 1879; d. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 4 March 1956. Park was educated at the Queen's University of Belfast (then Queen's College), and thereafter at Universities of Dublin, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Munich, Oxford and Princeton. His time at Princeton was followed by permanent residence in the USA: he became a Presbyterian minister, serving in the lumber camps of the Adirondack Mountains in upper New York State. He then became a Congregational...
HOLMES, John Haynes. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 29 November 1879; d. New York City, 3 April 1964. Pastor, hymn writer and social activist, Holmes attended Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts (BA 1901) and Harvard Divinity School, (STB 1904). Following ordination by the American Unitarian Association, he served as minister to the Third Religious Society of Dorchester, Mass. (1904-1907), and then accepted the pastorate at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, New York City (after 1919...
HUGHES, John. b. Dowlais, Glamorgan, 22 November 1873; d. Llantwit Fardre, Pontypridd, Glamorgan, 14 May 1932. Like so many of the leading musicians in Wales, John Hughes, the composer of CWM RHONDDA, worked in the coal industry. He started work at the age of twelve at the Glynn Collery at Llanilltud Faerdref. In 1905 he was appointed clerk at the Great Western Railway, Pontypridd, at the southern end of the Rhondda Valley, where he remained for over forty years. He was active as a deacon and...
See 'Zimbabwean hymnody#John Kaemmer'*
BOKWE, John Knox. b. 15 March 1855; d. 21 July 1922. Bokwe studied with William Kolbe Ntsikana, grandson of Ntsikana Gaga* (or 'Gaba'), and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in Scotland (1906). He was a member of the Ngqika Mbamba clan (Xhosa), born at Ntselamanzi near Lovedale, the Presbyterian mission. Bokwe was the first to adapt John Curwen's Tonic Sol-fa* system to Xhosa music. Bokwe's transcriptions of Ntsikana's songs, published in 1878, conveyed in notation aspects of the oral...
OXENHAM, John. b. Manchester, 12 November 1852; d. Worthing, Sussex, 23 January 1941. 'John Oxenham' was the pseudonym of William Arthur Dunkerley, the name taken from a character in Charles Kingsley's* novel Westward Ho! (1855). Dunkerley was educated at Old Trafford School and the University of Manchester. He worked in his father's business as a wholesale provision merchant, with periods in France and the USA.
His interest in writing was stimulated by a friendship with Jerome K. Jerome,...
POLLOCK, John. b. Glasgow, Scotland, 27 October 1852; d. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 4 January 1935. The son of Janet, née Riddell, and Alexander Pollock, a grocer and tea merchant, John was baptized into the Free Church of Scotland, where his father was an Elder of the Kirk. His lively grasp of ideas and propensity for instructing others were in evidence at an early stage: he became a Sunday School teacher at the age of twelve.
At first attracted to a career in business, he entered the Arts...
GELINEAU, Joseph. b. Champ-sur-Layon, Maine et Loire, France, 31 October 1920; d. Sallanches, France, 8 August 2008. Gelineau studied music at the École César Franck in Paris, and theology in the seminary at Lyon Fourvière. He became a member of the Society of Jesus in 1941, and was ordained in 1951. He was sent to Paris, to the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique, and also taught at the Institut Catholique. He became one of the most influential and best known sacred musicians in the Catholic...
Jubilate Hymns
The British Jubilate Group was founded in November 1980 as a limited liability company with the title Jubilate Hymns Ltd. It still retains its legal title but is now commonly known as the Jubilate Group.
Prior to their adoption of the Jubilate name, a team, chiefly of young Anglican clergy led by Michael Baughen*, later Bishop of Chester, began in the early 1960s to write hymn texts and tunes, initially for the church youth groups for whom they had pastoral responsibility. They...
HENKYS, Jürgen. b. Heiligenkreutz, East Prussia (now Russian Krastnotorovka) 6 November 1929; d. 22 October 2015. He was educated at Heiligenkreutz and at Königsberg (Russian Kaliningrad), Wyk auf Föhr, and Leverkusen. He studied theology at Wuppertal, followed by further study at Göttingen, Heidelberg and Bonn. He was ordained in 1956, and worked until re-unification in the German Democratic Republic, first at Brandenburg/Havel, west of Berlin (1956-65) as a lecturer and an instructor in...
GETTY, (Julian) Keith. b. 16 December 1974. Getty is a Northern Irish hymn-writer, composer and performer. His work is often collaborative, working together with his wife, Kristyn Getty* and Stuart Townend*. In partnership with Townend, he has been responsible for some of the most popular hymns of the early 21st century, most famously 'In Christ alone my hope is found'* (2001). This hymn has become one of the best known of all 21st-century hymns; it has frequently featured at or near the top of...
COBER, Kenneth Lorne. b. Dayton, Ohio, 12 July 1902; d. Penney Farms, Florida, 21 September 1993. Born the son of missionaries, Cober was raised in Puerto Rico. He was educated at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, New York. He held pastorates at First Baptist Church, Canandaigua, New York, and Lafayette Avenue Baptist Church, Buffalo, New York; then served as executive director of the Division of Christian Education for the American...
The Keswick Convention and its hymns
The Keswick Convention, a non-denominational and evangelical annual meeting, was founded in 1875 by an Anglican, Canon T.D. Harford-Battersby, Vicar of St John's, Keswick, in collaboration with a Cumberland Quaker, Robert Wilson. It was a product of the 'Holiness movement' of the period (see 'Holiness hymnody, USA*), inspired in part by a book by William Edwin Boardman (1810-1886) called The Higher Christian Life (1859). After a series of revival meetings,...
Kneels at the feet of his friends. Tom Colvin* (1925-2000).
Often known by the first line of its refrain, 'Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love', this song was written in Ghana during Colvin's period of missionary service, 1959-64, and set to an indigenous love-song melody collected at Chereponi in northern Ghana. The text, based on John 13: 12-16, had its birth during a lay training course for evangelists, where the curriculum also included agricultural and community development, reflecting the...
Komm, Herr, segne uns. Dieter Trautwein* (1928-2002). Trautwein was actively involved in the 'Kirchentag' movement in Germany, and the words and music of this hymn were written in 1978 and used at a Kirchentag festival at Nürnberg in 1979 (published the same year in Lieder zum Kirchentag. Liederheft zum 18. Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag). It was included in a 1984 supplement to the Evangelisches Kirchengesangbuch of 1950. It is found in EG in the 'Eingang und Ausgang' section (EG 170)....
GETTY, Kristyn (née Lennox). b. 22 May 1980. She is a Northern Irish singer and hymn-writer. Best known for her work in collaboration with her husband Keith Getty*, and Stuart Townend*, she features prominently as a soloist or lead singer on their albums and continues to perform with her husband as part of an Irish-American folk band. She and her husband are frequently cited as co-authors and their work features strong Celtic influences, both in words and music. Their series New Irish Hymns has...
Kum ba yah, my Lord. African American spiritual*, of Gullah origin.
The origins of this song are unknown. It was recorded in the 1920s; the recording is found in the American Folklife Center Archive of the Library of Congress. There is a detailed account of various possible histories in the Archive's Folklife Center News, 32, Nos. 3-4 (Summer/Fall, 2010) available on-line (see below). The article suggests that it was known 'fairly early throughout the American south, including Texas, Alabama,...
IHLENFELD, Kurt. b. Colmar, Alsace, 26 May 1901; d. Berlin, 25 August 1972. His family moved to Silesia at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and he was at school at the Gymnasium at Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz, Poland). He then studied theology and art history at Halle and Greifswald. In 1923 he was awarded the Dr.phil. degree for a thesis on the medieval gravestones of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. He became a pastor in various parts of Silesia. During his time as pastor in Breslau (Wroclaw),...
ROMMEL, Kurt. b. Kirchheim unter Teck, 20 December 1926: d. Bad Cannstatt, Stuttgart, 5 March 2011. On taking the abitur and leaving school, the young Rommel was conscripted into the army. Taken prisoner, he spent time in a French prisoner-of-war camp near Montpellier, taking the opportunity to study at the University on day release. Returning to Germany, he studied at Tübingen and Heidelberg. In 1954 he became a priest at Friedrichshafen on the Bodensee (Lake Constance), followed by Bad...
Dseesmu Grahmata Biskapu Metodistu baznizai Latwija (Rigâ, 1924) [The Latvian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal].
The Latvian Methodist Episcopal hymnal (cited as LAMEH 1924) has some similarities with that of the Lithuanian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal (cited as LIMEH 1923, see 'Lithuanian Methodist hymnody'*). Both hymnals included a preface by George Albert Simons*, the Methodist Episcopal Superintendent of the Baltic States; both were heavily dependent on the Gesangbuch der Bischöflichen Methodisten...
HOUSMAN, Laurence. b. Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, 18 July 1865; d. Glastonbury, Somerset, 20 February 1959. He was the son of a solicitor, and the younger brother of the poet and scholar A.E. Housman (1859-1936). He was educated at home and at Bromsgrove School, before training in London as a graphic artist. He worked as a book illustrator, and was art critic of The Manchester Guardian for 16 years from 1895. He wrote poems, novels, and plays, and journal articles on topics such as feminism,...
ELLINWOOD, Leonard Webster. b. Thomaston, Litchfield County, Connecticut, 13 February 1905; d. Washington, DC, 8 July 1994. Leonard Ellinwood was a musicologist, hymnologist, librarian, choral singer, and minister. The son of George Francis Ellinwood (1873–1924) and Lois May Ellinwood (née Magoon) (1874–1925), Leonard grew up in Littleton, New Hampshire and had one younger brother, David (1909–1969). He attended Amherst College (1922–23), graduating from Aurora College (now Aurora University,...
Lietuviška Giesmių Knyga (Kaunas, 1923) [The Lithuanian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal]. This hymnbook (cited as LIMEH 1923) was published in 1923 with Lithuanian Methodist Episcopal pastors Karlas Metas and Jonas Tautoraitis as editors. Like the other Methodist hymnbooks of the Baltic states (see 'Estonian Methodist hymnody'*and 'Latvian Methodist hymnody'*) it was heavily dependent on the Gesangbuch der Bischöflichen Methodisten Kirche in Deutschland und der Schweiz ('Hymnbook of the German...
Liturgia horarum (1971). The daily ritual celebrated by most monastic congregations today is the Liturgia Horarum, or Liturgy of the Hours, first published in 1971. The modern Liturgy is a much less demanding regimen than the Medieval Office. The office of Prime is no longer included, and the office of Matins is now an office of readings which may be observed at any time of the day. Lauds and Vespers are given the most emphasis, and Terce, Sext, None, and Compline retain their traditional...
Lo! now the time accepted peals. Robert Maude Moorsom* (1831-1911). First published in Moorsom's Renderings of Church Hymns from Eastern and Western Office Books (1901). It was translated from the Latin 'En tempus acceptabile', beginning
En tempus acceptabile,
Tempus salutis nuntium,
Quo paenitentis fletibus
Patet thronus clementiae.
This comes from French 18th-century breviaries beginning with that of Carcassonne (1745), but the first line, and part of the general sentiment, is taken...
KROEHLER, Lois Clara. b. Saint Louis, Missouri, 9 September 1927; d. Bremerton, Washington, 3 August 2019. Missionary, translator, music teacher, hymn writer, and hymnal editor, Lois Kroehler lived in Belleville, Illinois, Ft. Collins, Colorado, and Lyman, Nebraska during her childhood. She graduated from the University of Nebraska (1949) with a major in Spanish and went immediately to Cuba upon graduation to serve as an English language secretary for the Cuban Director of Presbyterian Schools...
Long ago the lilies faded. William George Tarrant* (1853-1928).
Tarrant was one of the editors of the Essex Hall Hymnal (1890), a book for the use of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, and named after Essex Hall in London, the headquarters of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. None of his hymns was found in that book, but in the Revised Edition of 1902 this hymn, with its beautiful first line, was included. It was entitled 'The Constant Presence'. It was loosely based on the...
Lord, thy church on earth is seeking. Hugh Sherlock* (1905-1998).
Written in 1965 for the Jamaica District of the Methodist Church, to be sung at a service inaugurating a 'year of renewal'. It was printed in a pamphlet containing seven of Sherlock's hymns (n.d.), with the title 'Renewal'. It had no tune in this printing, but was set to ABBOT'S LEIGH by Cyril Taylor* in the Methodist Supplement Hymns and Songs (1969).
Some subsequent books have used other tunes (EVERTON, by Henry Smart* in HFTC,...
Founded in 1890 by E.S. Lorenz* in Dayton, Ohio, the company has been under the management of his descendants since that time. In the 1970s and 1980s the company changed its name to Lorenz Industries, and then The Lorenz Corporation. The mainstay of the company for half a century was the gospel hymn and its elaborations in vocal, choral, and keyboard arrangements appearing in subscriptions services and separately published. Under the leadership of Karl K. Lorenz (c.1880-1965) the company...
Louange et Prière (1939). Louange et Prière ('Praise and Prayer'), for the French Protestant churches, was published in 1939. It originated with the General Assembly at Marseilles in 1929, and the Commission interecclésiastique of 1931. Delegates from the different churches – Reformed (Calvinist), Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, and Independent - were invited to join a Souscommission, which began work in 1932.
The book was based on the preceding books of the various churches, notably the...
Loving Creator. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
This is the version in CH4 of Niles's Trinitarian hymn addressed in its three stanzas to the three persons of the Holy Trinity, beginning 'Father in heaven'*. In stanza 1 the CH4 version avoids the image of 'Father' for God, changing the first line, and also lines 7-8 from 'Father in heaven,/ Father, our God' to 'Loving Creator,/ Parent and God'. Stanzas 2 and 3 also have substantial alterations from Niles's...
The Society was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1958, the result of discussions and recommendations from a meeting in Des Moines, Iowa the previous year attended by distinguished musicians, including Walter E. Buszin*, Daniel T. Moe (1926–2012), and Gerhard Cartford*. That group visioned an organization of a national, inter-synodical body of Lutherans interested in the promotion of Christian worship, music, ecclesiastical architecture, art, and literature within the Lutheran church. The...
Make me a channel of your peace.
This is from a prayer sometimes attributed to Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), arranged by Sebastian Temple* (1928-1997). This text is often said to be by St Francis, but there is no evidence for this. It was first printed in French on 12 December 1912 in a religious magazine, La Clochette ('The Little Bell'), published by La Ligue de Sainte-Messe ('The Society of the Holy Mass'). It was entitled 'Belle prière à faire pendant la Messe' ('A good prayer to be said...
FERSCHL, Maria. b. Melk, Austria, 18 March 1895; d. Saulgau, Baden-Württemberg, 10 April 1982. She was the daughter of a superintendent in the imperial and royal post office of Austria. She was educated at High School, and a Teachers' Training College in Vienna. She taught German, history and singing in a technical school. From 1925 onwards she was involved with the movement for the development of Catholic liturgy at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, writing Kreuzweg der Klosterneuburger...
THURMAIR, Maria Luise (née Mumelter). b. Bozen, Süd Tirol, Austria (now Bolzano, Alto Adige, Italy), 27 September 1912; d. Germering, München, 24 October 2005.
Her father was District 'Hauptmann', or District Superintendent, the last under Austrian rule. When Süd Tirol was ceded to Italy at the end of World War I, the family moved to Innsbruck, where the child Maria Luise went to school at the Ursuline Gymnasium. At the University she studied philosophy, German, history and liturgy, with a...
COLLIHOLE, Marian (née Howells). b. Pontypridd, Wales, 14 August 1933. She was educated at Pontypridd Grammar School. She worked as a Primary School teacher in Smethwick, Birmingham. While there, she entered writing competitions, including a BBC TV hymn-writing competition in 1966. Her text, 'Where is God?' ('Woman racked and torn with pain') was written in response to the Aberfan landslide that year, which engulfed a primary school, killing 116 children and 28 adults. The entry was not...
HATCHETT, Marion Josiah. b. Monroe, South Carolina, 19 July 1927: d. Sewanee, Tennessee, 7 August 2009. Son of a United Methodist Church minister, he was confirmed as a member of the Episcopal Church while a student at Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina (AB 1947). He continued his studies at The School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee (BD, 1951, STM, 1967), and General Theological Seminary, New York City (THD, 1972).
Ordained in the Episcopal Church (deacon...
NYSTROM, Martin J. b. Seattle, Washington State, 1956. Following his graduation from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma (BME, 1979) he became an evangelist and musician in New York with the 'Christ for the Nations' movement, and for Hosanna! Music, Mobile, Alabama, for whom he produced five Praise-Worship albums. He has composed over 250 songs, mostly one-stanza worship songs such as: 'Times of refreshing, here in your presence', 'Jesus I am thirsty' (with Don Harris), 'I will come and...
BYRNE, Mary Elizabeth. b. Dublin, Ireland, 2 July 1880; d. Dublin, 19 January 1931. She was educated at the Dominican Convent in Dublin, and the National University of Ireland (the Roman Catholic university founded by John Henry Newman to provide higher education for Catholics parallel to that of Trinity College, Dublin). Her Irish name was Máiri Ní Bhroin, but she published much of her work as Mary E. Byrne. She was a research scholar who worked for the Board of Intermediate Education. With...
Mary Frances Reza. b. Dawson, New Mexico; 17 January 1932.
Mary Frances Reza, sometimes referred to as the 'godmother' of Hispanic liturgical music in the United States, is a Catholic leader in Hispanic music and ministry. She is known for her bilingual psalm settings and congregational settings of the Mass, her advocacy for unpublished composers of Spanish-language USA congregational song, her workshops on Hispanic congregational song, and her leadership in worship and music for the...
REDMAN, Matt. b. Watford, Hertfordshire, 14 February, 1974. He was raised in Chorleywood, attending St Andrew's Church, and being educated at Watford Grammar School until 1992.
He has been a full-time worship leader since the age of 20, helping to set up the 'Soul Survivor' movement in Watford, and developing an enthusiasm for Christian song-writing that reaches people normally outside the more established church circles. He has travelled internationally, settling twice in America (California...
Men go to God when they are sorely placed. Dietrich Bonhoeffer* (1906-1945), translated by Walter Farquharson* (1936- ).
Bonhoeffer's text, 'Menschen gehen zu Gott in ihrer Not', was sent by Bonhoeffer to Eberhard Bethge from prison at Tegel in 1944. It was printed by Bethge in Widerstand und Ergebung – Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft (1951), translated into English as Letters and Papers from Prison (1953). The translation in Bethge's edition begins 'Men go to God when they are sore...
Methodist Sunday-school hymnals and songbooks, USA
A list of collections with or without music published by or for the Methodist Episcopal Church (1784-1939), the Methodist Protestant Church (1830-1939), the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1845-1939) and the Methodist Church (1939-1968). Many collections were issued for general use, e.g. The Cokesbury Hymnal (MEC,S 1923+), The Abingdon Hymnal (MEC 1928+), Abingdon Song Book (MEC 1938+) and Upper Room Hymns (MC 1942+).
Methodist Episcopal...
Drury, Miriam (née Leyrer). b. Santa Ana, California, 1900; d. Pasadena, California,1985. Drury served as an organist in her Congregational church in her youth, and attended the University of California. In 1922 she married Clifford M. Drury, a Presbyterian ministerand professor of church history at San Francisco Theological Seminary (San Anselmo,California); after marriage, she continued her musical interests and education in the locations where his positions took them, including Edinburgh,...
Mission hymnody, USA
Beginnings
The beginnings of American churches' missions can be traced to the efforts of John Eliot (1604-1690) to gather 'Praying Indians' into towns for worship, preaching, language instruction and Bible study; the churches and day schools established by John Sargent (1710-1749) in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Eleazar Wheelock (1711-1779) in Connecticut; and the organization of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge among 'Indians' in North America in...
Montreat Conferences on Worship and Music. The forming of the Montreat Conferences began in 1952 with James R. Sydnor*'s letter to the General Council of the Presbyterian Church, US, (PCUS) which in part reads:
we have not thus far as a denomination made any serious effort to discover the exact state of music in our Church, or to outline some sensible goals, or to map out a practical strategy for church-wide development of this important phase of the Church's life. Almost every other...
TILAK, Narayan Vaman. b. Karajgaon Village, Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra, 6 December 1861; d. Bombay (now Mumbai), 9 May 1919. Born into a Hindu family of the Brahmin caste, he was greatly influenced by the writings of the 17th-century 'poet-saint' Tukaram (1608-1649), who wrote devotional poems and hymns in Marathi. Tilak was converted to Christianity (baptised 1895), encountering opposition from his family and friends. He worked for more than twenty years at the American Congregational...
NETO, Rodolfo Gaede. b. Ituêta, Minas Gerais, Brazil; 26 July 1951. Neto, a pastor in the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB), is a composer and hymnwriter. The son of Herman Carlos Ludwig Gaede and Hilda Dummer Gaede, Gaede Neto pursued the Bachelor of Theology, master's, and doctoral degrees from the Escola Superior de Teologia in São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul state.
From 1979 to 1985, Neto served congregations in the Parishes of Alto Jatibocas (Itarana,...
New College, Edinburgh, Hymnology Collection
New College was founded to serve the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption of 1843, when ministers, led by David Welsh and Thomas Chalmers but including such figures as Horatius Bonar*, left the Church of Scotland on the grounds that the church was becoming too closely identified with the state, and subject to the right of patronage (see 'Synod of Relief hymns'*). The buildings of New College, prominent on the Mound on the Edinburgh skyline, were...
This was the title of a Supplement to CP (1951). It was one of the first Supplements to a denominational hymnbook in Britain, and its contents were widely appreciated and used. For details, see Bernard Stanford Massey*.
BALLANTA, Nicholas George Julius. b. Kissy, Sierra Leone, 14 March 1893; d. Sierra Leone(?), 1961(?). Ballanta was an ethnomusicologist, hymnist, and composer, known especially for his collection, Saint Helena Island Spirituals (1925), which included the first musical setting of 'Let us break bread together on our knees'*.
At the time of Ballanta's birth, Sierra Leone was a British colony, and independence from Great Britain was not won until 1961 — the year that Ballanta is thought to have...
MacNICOL, Nicol. b. Catacol, Lochranza, Isle of Arran, 26 February 1870; d. Edinburgh, 13 February 1952. His father was minister of the United Free Church at Lochranza, later moving to Dunoon. Nicol MacNicol was educated at Glasgow High School and the University of Glasgow. He then studied at the United Free Church Theological College in Glasgow, before being ordained as a missionary to India in 1895. He spent six years at Wilson College, Bombay, before moving to the United Free Church Mission...
MOLDOVEANU, Nicolae. b. Movileni, Romania, 3 February 1922; d. Sibiu, Romania, 12 July 2007. Following the early death of his father, Nicolae was sent to live with an uncle who enrolled him in the Army's Children, a military program for destitute children. The conductor of the military's brass ensemble recognized his love for music and encouraged him to develop musically. Then as a young teenager, he began writing religious texts and original melodies under the influence of Oastea Domnului...
MARTÍNEZ, Nicolás. b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 7 October 1917; d. 19 August 1972. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he became an evangelical Christian as a young man. He was educated at the Evangelical Faculty of Theology, Buenos Aires, and in Puerto Rico. He was ordained by the Disciples of Christ in 1948, and worked in Argentina and Paraguay. He was one of the editors of Cantico Nuevo, Himnario Evangelico (Buenos Aires, 1962).
Martínez is best known for 'Christo vive, fuera el llanto', set...
Night has fallen. Malawian, translated by Tom Colvin* (1925-2000).
The original was written by a Scottish missionary, probably Clement Scott, about 1885, to a melody collected by him from boatmen on the Zambezi river, and which had become established as a Malawi evening hymn. Colvin made the translation while himself serving in Malawi. The melody is believed to be the remnant of a song about the Virgin Mary introduced by Jesuits some two or three centuries earlier. In performance, the hymn is...
This is the traditional pattern in Britain and elsewhere for a Carol Service. The basic template was laid down at King's College, Cambridge, beginning in 1918. The Dean of King's, Eric Milner-White, had been a chaplain in the army during World War I, which had ended a month earlier, and was seeking for a Christmas service that would appeal to many people.
He based the service on one devised at Truro by Edward White Benson*, ca. 1880, which was the true beginning of the tradition. It was...
RICHARDS, Noel. b. 1955. Richards is a Welsh singer-songwriter, guitarist and worship leader. His songs belong to the modern evangelical tradition and are characterised by direct language and strong rhythmic profiles. Among his best known songs are 'All heaven declares' and 'You laid aside your majesty.' The former, first published in 1987, has gained widespread popularity, and still features prominently in lists of most-used hymns and songs (http://www.ccli.co.uk/resources/top25.cfm, accessed...
Nos coeurs te chantent (1979). This book ('Our hearts sing to thee') is the successor to Louange et Prière* (second edition 1945), the hymnbook of the Fédération Protestante of France, published in Paris and (appropriately) in Strasbourg. It contains the 150 psalms in metrical form, many by Clément Marot*, Théodore de Bèze* and Valentin Conrart* (1679) all except seven (5, 43, 93, 96, 133, 137, 149) revised by Roger Chapal in the version of 1970 (75 Psaumes, published at Strasbourg and Paris)...
Now in holy celebration. Laurence Housman* (1865-1959).
This is a translation of a 15th-century Latin hymn, 'Festum matris gloriosae', celebrating the visit of the Virgin Mary to St Elizabeth (Luke 1: 39-45). Housman omits stanza 2 of the Latin, which refers to the curing of Elizabeth's barrenness (Luke 1: 7, 24-25); it is perhaps a weakness of his version that Elizabeth is never named directly. The hymn is rich in complex paradoxes, notably in stanza 2, in which Elizabeth's unborn child, John...
Numai harul ('Grace and mercy'). Nicolae Moldoveanu* (1922-2007).
This hymn, written in 1973, is the most familiar of Moldoveanu's compositions. It was written immediately after a severe trial, when he discovered that not even all he had done for the Lord could serve as groundwork for the people of faith. It is based on a famous excerpt from the Biblical Pauline letter to the church in Ephesus (Eph. 2: 8-9), and captures the message that Jesus' death on the cross alone is the foundational...
O Christ our joy, to whom is given. Laurence Housman* (1865-1959).
This is a translation of an early Latin hymn 'Tu Christe nostrum gaudium'*, itself the second part, for use at Lauds, of the hymn beginning 'Aeterne Rex altissime'* (other translations of 'Aeterne Rex altissime' include that by James Russell Woodford* ('Christ, above all glory seated'*) and J.M. Neale*'s 'Eternal Monarch, King most high'*). The hymn celebrates the Ascension, asking for help in this present life, and looking...
O crucified Redeemer. Timothy Rees* (1874-1939).
This hymn was printed in John Lambert Rees's Sermons and Hymns by Timothy Rees, Bishop of Llandaff (1946), where it was headed 'Calvary'. J.L. Rees said that it was taken from CR: the Chronicle of the Community of the Resurrection, but a careful search of the Chronicle has failed to reveal it there. It was included in BBCHB and crossed the Atlantic to find a place in The Hymn Book (1971) of Canada. In Britain it appeared in 100HfT and thus in...
O Holy Spirit, by whose breath. Latin, ca. 9th century, translated by John Webster Grant* (1919-2006).
Grant's translation of the 'Veni creator spiritus'* dates from 1968. It was made for The Hymn Book (1971) of the Anglican Church and the United Church of Canada, from the Latin office hymn for Pentecost written about the 9th century; it has appeared in numerous hymnbooks, including the Canadian Catholic Book of Worship (Ottawa, 1972, 1980 and 1994), The Australian Hymn Book (WOV, Sydney,...
O sleep now, holy baby. Mexican carol, translated by John Donald Robb (1892-1989).
This carol, 'Duérmete, Niño lindo', was translated by Robb, a lawyer who changed career to become Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico, and printed in Hispanic Songs of New Mexico (Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1954). It is one of many 'lullaby carols'. It was used in a folk play, Los Pastores, sung in villages in New Mexico during the Christmas season. Originally from Mexico, it tells of sorrows to...
O young and fearless Prophet. Samuel Ralph Harlow* (1885-1972).
To appreciate this prophetic text more fully, it is helpful to explore the writings of S. Ralph Harlow, a tireless advocate for social justice, world peace, race relations, and human rights in the context of his day. He was a pedagogical revolutionary in his biblical courses with young people, insisting that the Bible should speak directly to the realities of his current age:
The only religion with which [young people] seem...
OLUDE, (A. T.) Olajida. b. 16 July 1908; d. c. 1986. A Nigerian Methodist minister, Olude was educated at Wesley College, Ibadan, and at the Mindola training school. He was awarded the Order of Niger and, from the University of Nigeria, the Mus.D. degree (Young, 808).
A.M. Jones describes Olude as 'profoundly upset by the way European-type hymns murdered his language' (Jones, 1976). Jones also notes that Olude built up a collection of at least 77 hymns whose melodies followed precisely the...
HUCKEL, Oliver. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 11 January 1864; d. Orlando, Florida, 3 February 1940. He was a Congregationalist minister, lecturer, author, translator, poet, and hymn writer. Broadly educated and widely traveled, he was influential in denominational and ecumenical circles, and a Mason. His parents were William Samuel Huckel (1835–1898), a businessman, and Ruth Ann Sprowles Huckel (1837–1915). His brother, William Samuel Huckel, Jr., (1858–1917) was a well-known architect in...
See 'Zimbabwean hymnody#Olof Axelsson'*
On Christmas night. English Traditional, ascribed to Luke Wadding (1628–1691).
Paul Westermeyer* notes that this is a '“Wexford carol” (though not the carol most often called the “The Wexford Carol”' (Westermeyer, 2010, p. 50). The text and the tune of this favorite carol have distinct backgrounds, though the exact origins of each are unclear. The first printed version of an earlier form of the text appears with the ascription, 'Another short Carroll for Christmas day' in A Smale Garland of...
One who is all unfit to count. Narayan Vaman Tilak* (1861-1919), translated by Nicol MacNicol* (1870-1952).
Written in Marathi, and translated by MacNicol, who published it in a periodical, The Indian Interpreter, in 1919. It was subsequently published in J.C. Winslow, Narayan Vaman Tilak, the Christian Poet of Maharashtra (Calcutta, 1923). It was included in A Missionary Hymn Book (1922) and then in RCH, in both books to the tune WIGTOWN (or WIGTON) from the Scottish Psalter of 1635. It has...
Our Father, by whose name. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984).
Written in 1939 on the theme of the Christian home, and published in H40: it was written in a different metre (66.66.88.) for the Report of the Joint Commission on the Revision of the Hymnal, but modified to fit the tune RHOSYMEDRE, also called LOVELY (66.66.888). It then appeared in the Irish ICH4 (1960) and the Scottish CH3 (1973). It was included in MHfT (with the title 'The family') and thus in A&MNS. In the USA it is found in...
This is the name given to a movement within the Church of England which endeavoured to resist government interference in the church affairs and reaffirm the authority of the church as a holy and divinely authenticated institution. Its origins were political as well as religious (Nockles, 1994). The early adherents of the movement were concerned at the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832; at the appointment of bishops and Regius Professors of Theology by the government; at what they saw as a...
CAMPOS DE OLIVEIRA Jr, Oziel. b. Recife, Pernanbuco, Northeast Brazil, 26 July 1946. He studied theology at the Escola Superior de Teologia in São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and later at Luther Theological Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. Oziel has served as pastor of the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB, Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterano no Brasil) since 1973. Despite not having any formal training in music, Oziel has always maintained an...
SOSA, Pablo. b. in Chivilcoy, a province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 16 December 1933; d. Buenos Aires, 11 January 2020. Sosa was a composer, church musician and a local minister of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Argentina. He was emeritus professor of Liturgy and Hymnology at the Instituto Universitario ISEDET (Buenos Aires), and Choir Conducting at the National State Conservatory in Buenos Aires (1975-2005). He also established the musical group 'Música para Todos' in 1972, directing and...
Pan de vida (Bread of life). Bob Hurd* (1950– ) and Pia Moriarty (1948– ).
This eucharistic hymn is the best-known composition by Bob Hurd and his wife Pia Moriarty. Composed in 1988, it appeared initially in the first edition of Flor y Canto* (Portland, Oregon, 1989) and subsequently in most Catholic hymnals published in the United States.
The song, one of the first bilingual worship songs, was composed while Bob Hurd was living in Guatemala. During this time, he was searching for songs that...
RUPPEL, Paul Ernst. b. Esslingen am Neckar, 18 July 1913; d. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 27 November 2006. He came from a Baptist family, which moved to Kassel in 1924, where his father, an office manager, obtained a post with the Christian free-church publisher J.G. Oncken (with whom Ruppel junior later published Morgensternlieder in 1961). He studied music at the Württembergische Hochschule für Musik at Stuttgart, where he was taught choral singing by Richard Gölz, and orchestral work by Helmut...
Peculiar Honours (1998). Peculiar Honours was published in 1998 by Stainer & Bell for the Congregational Federation, marking the 250th anniversary of the death of Isaac Watts*. The title is taken from Watts' hymn, 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun'* ('Peculiar [i.e. special] honours to our king'). The book was designed as a resource to aid reflection on hymns: 'to reflect and encourage the traditions of hymn writing within Congregationalism' (Michael Durber, Preface, p. v). Hymns were...
Pelas dores deste mundo (For the troubles and the sufferings of the world). Rodolfo Gaede Neto* (1951—).
'Pelas dores deste mundo' was composed in 1999. It is known as the 'Brazilian Kyrie' (Daw, 2016, p. 728). Neto composed the song in the context of a liturgy course taken during his graduate theological studies at the Escola Superior de Teologia, a Lutheran seminary in South Brazil. The class was discussing each portion of the liturgy and, when they focused on the kyrie, Neto realized...
HARLING, Per. b. Bromma, Sweden, 20 June 1948. Harling is a prolific song and hymn writer as well as a composer of liturgical music and hymn tunes. He has written several books on worship life, hymn texts and biographies, including Ett ögonblick i sänder - Lina Sandell och hennes sånger (Libris, 2003). He is particularly noted for his work connected with service life reform in the Swedish church, especially as secretary for the hymnal supplement for the Church of Sweden, Psalmer i...
BLYCKER, Philip Walter. b. Chicago, Illinois, 22 March 1939; d. Roseburg, Oregon, 11 June 2023. Philip Blycker (also known as Felipe Blycker J. in Spanish publications), was a missionary, hymn writer, composer, and hymnal editor. He was raised in the evangelical tradition as a Baptist. Taking piano and trumpet lessons during his youth, he received degrees from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina (B.M.E., 1960) and VanderCook College of Music in Chicago (MMus Ed., 1966). He...
PIDOUX, Pierre. b. Neuchâtel 4 March 1905; d. Geneva 16 July 2001. He was the son of a pastor, Louis S. Pidoux (1878-1953), and elder brother of the writer Edmond Pidoux. He was a Swiss Romand protestant pastor, who was an authority on the Genevan Psalter*. He was also a composer and organist.
He gained a degree in theology at the Free Church University of Lausanne (1932). where he lectured in 'Hymnology between 1646 and 1965'. He received the degree of PhD, honoris causa from the Lausanne...
Porque él entró en el mundo ('Tenemos Esperanza'). Federico José Pagura* (1923-2016).
Written in 1979, this hymn first appeared in Cancionero Abierto ('Open Songbook') (six editions between 1974-1994) edited by Argentinian Methodist pastor and composer Pablo Sosa*. For many within the church, the hymn is known by its refrain 'Tenemos Esperanza' ('We have hope').
This is the third of three 'Porque' ('Because') hymns authored by Pagura with music by the then young Uruguayan composer Homero...
Presbyterian Church of England Hymnody
History
Presbyterianism traces its origins back to the Reformation, when one element in the Protestant tradition was the dislike of human authority in religious matters, and the preference for government by 'presbyters' (from the Greek 'presbuteros', or 'elder') rather than bishops or priests. In Scotland the Reformation was guided by the powerful John Knox (1505-1572), who had studied under Jean Calvin* in Geneva; in both Scotland and England...
Put forth, O God, thy Spirit's might. Howard Chandler Robbins* (1876-1952).
First published in New Church Hymnal (New York, 1937), edited by Robbins and three others, H. Augustine Smith*, Edward Shippen Barnes*, and James Dalton Morrison. It was set there to the Scottish 'common tune' DUNDEE. It was then included in H40, to a tune called CHELSEA SQUARE, 'hummed by the author to Ray Francis Brown at the General Theological Seminary, Chelsea Square, New York City, 1941' (The Hymnal 1940...
GUITIÉRREZ-ACHÓN, Raquel. b. Preston (now Puerto Guatemala), Province of Oriente, Cuba; 5 May 1927; d. Los Angeles, California, 5 January 2013. Raquel Gutiérrez-Achón was a church musician, pianist, choral conductor, hymnal editor, and promoter of Spanish-language hymns in the United States and Latin America. She studied music at the Instituto Santiago and the Conservatorio Provincial (Santiago de Cuba), Matin College (Pulaski, Tennessee), George Peabody College for Teachers (Nashville,...
PÂQUIER, Richard. b. Bursins (Switzerland), 25 October 1905; d. Vevey, 28 January 1985. The son of Ernest Henri, farmer, and Cécile Justine Masson, he became a Swiss Reformed pastor, ecumenical theologian, liturgist, and historian of the Vaud canton. A fellow student and friend of the philosopher Marcel Regamey (1905-82), he studied theology in Lausanne (1923-27) and at Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut (1929) . He was pastor in Bercher (1929-1943) and Saint-Saphorin (1943-1966). He...
COLLYER, Robert Staples. b. Keighley, Yorkshire, England, 8 December 1823; d. 1912. Collyer came from a poor family, which moved to Blubberhouses, near Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, when he was a baby. His father became a blacksmith. Robert left school at the age of eight, and worked 14-hour days in a linen factory. When he was older and stronger he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and found work at Ilkley and studied at night. Following the death of his wife and daughter in 1849 he became a...
WALLACE, Robin Knowles. b. Toledo, Ohio, 6 January 1952. Wallace is a hymnological scholar, editor, teacher of congregational song, and ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Her timely and influential published works are characterized by usability for scholars and practitioners, attention to language for inclusion and justice, and the centrality of congregational song in worship as a spiritual and theological formational practice.
Robin attended the University of Cincinnati, Ohio...
Rodeheaver Hall-Mack Co.
Homer A. Rodeheaver* formed the Rodeheaver-Ackley Co. in 1910, partnering with B.D. Ackley* to produce songbooks for tabernacle revival meetings. Rodeheaver had just joined the Billy Sunday revival team as songleader; Ackley played piano and served as Sunday's secretary. Early projects used the printing services of Edwin O. Excell* and rented offices from him in Chicago's Lakeside Building.
Though Rodeheaver and Ackley worked together for the rest of their lives, their...
TRUNK, Roger Ernest. b. Fortschwihr near Colmar, 1930; d. Strasbourg, 4 December 2013. Trunk was a Lutheran Pastor in Alsace, and a musician and hymnwriter, who studied music and theology at Strasbourg and Geneva. He was a minister in Strasbourg from 1985. Between 1984-2000 he was the Secretary of the European Conference for Protestant Church Music (EKEK). He took part in the making of the German Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG 1993) and the Franco-Swiss Protestant Hymnbook Alléluia (2005).
His...
The Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) is an educational charity that promotes the best use of music in worship, church life, and the wider community. It also publishes music and training resources, and organizes courses, short workshops and activities. With over 7,500 affiliates, members and 1,500 supporting friends in over 40 countries, it is an international network, supported by over 750 volunteers and a small team of staff based throughout the UK. RSCM in America, RSCM Australia, RSCM...
RUÍZ, Rubén Avila. b. Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico, 12 November 1945. The son of a Methodist minister (later a bishop), he was educated at the Instituto Mexicano Madero. During a period in Covington, Virginia, USA, ca. 1972, Ruíz wrote a hymn in Spanish for the choir of the United Methodist Church, 'Mantos y palmas' (literally 'Cloaks and Palms', based on the account in the Gospels of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The first stanza describes the scene; the second calls on the singers to follow...
SAILLENS, Ruben. b. 24 June 1855, Saint-Jean-du-Gard Cévennes; d. 5 January 1942, Condé-sur-Noireau, Normandy. He was a French Baptist Pastor, evangelist, journalist, poet and hymnwriter. Born into a Reformed family, his father served a Free Church in Lyon. He started work in a bank. During 1873-1874 he received Bible training at the East London Bible Institute. The Mission Populaire, founded in Paris after the Commune (1870-71) by a Congregationalist minister Robert W. McAll (1821-93),...
DUCK, Ruth Carolyn. b. Washington, DC, 21 November 1947; d. Claremont, California, 26 December 2024. Ruth Duck graduated from Southwestern-at-Memphis University (now Rhodes College), Tennessee (BA, 1969). She attended Chicago Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1973); University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana (MA, 1987); and Boston University School of Theology (ThD, 1989). The Chicago Theological Seminary awarded her a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1983. She was ordained in the United Church of...
CARTER, Ruth. b. Clapton, London, 22 August 1900; d. Clacton, Essex, 4 November 1982. From East London, her family moved to Buckhurst Hill, Essex, in 1909. She was educated at a Methodist girls' boarding school, Farringtons, at Chislehurst in Kent, and at Westhill Training College, Birmingham. There she trained as a Froebel teacher, thereafter returning to Buckhurst Hill, where she specialized in remedial teaching for children. She was a member of the Congregational (later URC) church at...
HARLOW, Samuel Ralph. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 20 July 1885; d. Northampton, Massachusetts, 21 August 1972. Harlow was ordained in the Congregational Church. He received his education at Harvard (BA) and Columbia (M.A.) Universities as well as Hartford Theological Seminary (PhD). Early in his career, Harlow served as a teacher and chaplain at the International College, Smyrna, Turkey. During World War I he was the religious director of the YMCA in France as a part of the American Expeditionary...
Send your Word. Yasushige Imakoma* (1926–2013), paraphrased by Nobuaki Hanaoka* (1944– ).
Yasushige Imakoma (1926–2013) prepared this text in 1965 for Pentecost Sunday to be sung by congregation he served in Kawasaki. Taiwanese educator and ethnomusicologist I-to Loh* describes the origins of this hymn:
The poet believes that the crisis and wars of the world are caused by the lack of verbal communication, as shown by God's interference in the building of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1–9)....
Shape-note hymnody
This is a tradition of rural American sacred music using unorthodox notations, associated with community singing schools and singings. Although the shape-note singing tradition of the 19th century flourished particularly in the South and Midwest, it spread to practically every section of the United States in the closing decades of the 20th century. Shape-note tunebooks contain introductory rudiments for reading the notation plus up to several hundred hymn tunes, fuging...
MONTEIRO, Simei. b. Belém, Brazil, 28 December 1943. She was born in the capital of Pará in the northern Amazon region of Brazil. As a child she was always listening to music: her father loved music, especially opera. Her mother could sing almost the entire hymnal by heart and was a public reciter of poetry. Both parents sang in the choir of the Baptist Church and also in events outside the church. Her uncle was the main piano tuner at the 'Teatro da Paz' in the city of Belém, and sometimes she...
MARAK, Simon Kara. b. near Kamrup, Assam, India, 1877; d. Jorhat, Assam, India, 16 February 1975. Simon Marak, an ethic A·chik (Garo) man, was a schoolteacher, pastor, and missionary in Assam, a state in far northeastern India. He received his primary education from the Guwahati Government School with the financial assistance of the Kamrup Baptist Association (1907–09) and continued his study at the Government Training School (1909–12), supplementing his early years of teaching with work as a...
Singers Glen, Virginia, is a hamlet in the Shenandoah Valley about eight miles north-northwest of Harrisonburg. It was originally named Mountain Valley by its German-speaking Mennonite settler, Joseph Funk*, who is buried in Singers Glen. It was renamed Singers Glen in 1860 when a post office was established there, and after Funk's music business had become successful.
Its significance is twofold: (1) it was the original base of the music-publishing business (known variously as Joseph Funk...
See 'We are marching in the light of God'*
Sois la semilla ('You are the seed'). Cesáreo Gabaráin*; translated by Raquel Gutiérrez-Achón* and Skinner Chávez-Melo*.
'Sois la semilla' is based on the Great Commission, Matthew 28: 19–20: 'Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world' (ASV). This is articulated in the...
Somos uno en Cristo ('We are one in Christ Jesus'). Author unknown.
This anonymous Spanish-language scripture chorus (corito) focuses on Ephesians 4:4–6. It was undoubtedly transmitted via oral/aural tradition before being included in Celebremos su gloria (Dallas, 1992), a collection produced by an association of evangelical churches in Central America. Philip Blycker* (1939-2023), the music editor of the collection, arranged the music under his Spanish name Felipe Blycker J. Most collections...
General
Southern Gospel is one of the multiple vernacular Christian music traditions that developed within American (and to some extent British) Protestant cultures during the 19th and 20th centuries, and part of the gospel music phenomenon that has flourished in Anglophone Christendom since the 1870s. It is also part of the Christian, but especially Protestant, practice of recreational musicking with vernacular songs and hymns.
'Southern Gospel' refers to a music tradition that dates arguably...
The first Spring Harvest conference, a week-long Easter-time event, was launched in Prestatyn in 1979. Some 2,700 people attended. This has since become an annual event which has rapidly grown in popularity and influence among evangelical Christians of varied denominational backgrounds (the organisation subscribes to the beliefs of 'The Evangelical Alliance Basis of Faith' and 'The Lausanne Covenant'). In 1986, the event expanded to two locations (Prestatyn and Minehead), and in 1988 the...
ORCHARD, Stephen Charles. b. Derby, 30 March 1942. He was educated at Derby School and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1965, reading English for Part I of the Tripos and Theology for Part II). He trained for the Congregational ministry at Cheshunt College, Cambridge, while studying for a PhD (awarded 1969). He was ordained in 1968, serving as a Congregational (later URC) minister at Abercarn, Caerphilly, South Wales (1968-70), Sutton, Surrey (1970-77), and Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire...
HINE, Stuart Keene. b. Hammersmith, London, 25 July 1899; d. Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, 14 March 1989. Born into a Salvation Army family in London, he was educated at Cooper's Company School. He served in the First World War from 1917 to 1918/1919, after which he and his wife became Plymouth Brethren missionaries, mainly in Eastern Europe between 1923 and 1939, when they were forced to return to Britain by the political situation. During the Second World War they worked with displaced persons....
TOWNEND, Stuart. b. Edinburgh, 1 June 1963. He was educated at Sowerby Bridge High School, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, then at the University of Sussex, Brighton (1981-1985), where he gained an honours degree in American Studies (Literature). Remaining in Brighton, after a year of training in evangelism at the Clarendon Church (now Church of Christ the King), he joined the staff at Kingsway Music, Eastbourne, initially as an in-house arranger and editor, and later as Head of Music, editing...
Sunday's palms are Wednesday's ashes. Rae E. Whitney* (1927- ).
This was published initially in the first of four collections of hymns, With Joy Our Spirits Sing: The Hymns of Rae E. Whitney (Pittsburgh, 1995). It begins:
Sunday's palms are Wednesday's ashesas another Lent begins;thus we kneel before our Makerin contrition for our sins.
We have marred baptismal pledges, in rebellion gone astray; now, returning, seek forgiveness; grant us pardon, God, this day!
(Words © 1991 Selah Publishing...
Sunset to sunrise changes now. Clement of Alexandria* (ca. 150- ca. 215/220), translated by Howard Chandler Robbins* (1876-1952).
This is described in The H40 Companion (p. 61)as 'a paraphrase and expansion' of a passage in Clement's Exhortation to the Greeks, or the Protreptikos. The original occurs in Chapter XI:
The universe has become sleepless light, and the setting has turned into a rising. For He who rides over the universe, 'the sun of righteousness', visits mankind impartially,...
ELLINGSEN, Svein Ørnulf. b. Kongsberg, Norway, 13 July 1929; d. Arendal, Norway, 5 April 2020.. Ellingsen was the son of master stonemason Fritz Frølich Ellingsen and Karo Enge. He was raised in Kongsberg; from an early age he was drawn towards a career in the arts. Initially intending to study theology, Ellingsen instead studied at the Art and Craft school at Oslo (Kunst- og håndverkskolen, 1950-1951) and the National Art Academy (Statens kunstakademi, 1952-1955), with additional study,...
Taizé is a tiny village in south-eastern France, not far from Cluny*, and is the name chosen by a community of brothers founded there just after World War II. A seminary graduate, Roger Schultz (1915-2005), resisted the career of pastoring a church in response to a strong inner call to live a monastic life (this was rather unusual for one coming from the Calvinist tradition).
In 1940, early in the Second World War, Brother Roger found a small house in this tiny village located a short distance...
The great love of God. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles* (1908-1970).
Published in the EACC Hymnal (1963), with the note 'the Thai original is a chorus, which here is the first verse'. That first verse was written by Charoen Vijaya, of Bangkok, and set to music by him to a tune that he called THAILAND. Niles translated the chorus and added three stanzas to make what has become his best known hymn outside East Asia. He entitled it 'The Love of God in Jesus'. In Australia it was in WOV (1977) and...
The Sacred Harp
The Sacred Harp (Philadelphia: T. K. & P. G. Collins, 1844) was a 'Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Odes, and Anthems; selected from the most eminent authors, together with nearly one hundred pieces never before published…well adapted to churches of every denomination, singing schools, and private societies, with plain rules for learners', by B. F. White* and Elisha J. King*, of Hamilton, Georgia.
The Preface consists of a main paragraph dated April, 1844 followed by the...
The Saviour's precious blood. Tai Jun Park* (1900-1986), translated by William Scott and Yung Oon Kim.
This hymn, 'Yu Yesu hul lin pi', was written in May 1949. It was written for a Korean student, who was attending an international youth rally in India and who wanted a Korean hymn to take with him. It was then printed in Cantate Domino (1951), with the English translation by Dr Scott and Miss Kim, and with further translations in French and German. The first book in England to print it was...
The voice of God is calling. John Haynes Holmes* (1879-1964).
Holmes' text was commissioned in early 1913 by The Young People's Religious Union of Boston, Massachusetts [Unitarian]. It was composed on board the S. S. Laconia during his voyage home from England. Holmes describes writing the hymn in his 'Introduction' to his Collected Hymns (p.18):
. . . here I was on a swift ship headed for New York, and not a line of my hymn written. I had tried my hand at composition several times...
CRIPPEN, Thomas George. b. London, 2 November 1841; d. Southwark, London, 13 December 1929. He was an eminent Congregationalist, educated for the Ministry at Airedale College, Bradford, Yorkshire. He served as a Congregational minister at Boston Spa, Yorkshire, (1866), Fulbourn (near Cambridge), Oldbury (West Midlands), Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, and Milverton, Somerset (1891) (Grieve, 1930).
In 1896 he was appointed Librarian at the Congregational Hall, Farringdon Street, London, where...
WILLIAMS, Thomas John. b. Ynysmeudwy, Pontardawe, Glamorgan, 25 April 1869; d. Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, 24 April 1944. He worked as an insurance man, and was organist of chapels in Pontardawe and Llanelli. He wrote hymn tunes and anthems. His best known hymn tune is EBENEZER, written in 1896 and named after Ebenezer Chapel, Rhos, Pontardawe. It was published in Yr Athraw ('The Teacher') in 1897, and used in Williams's anthem Goleu yn y Glyn ('Light in the valley') in 1899. It appeared in the...
Thou, whose purpose is to kindle. D. Elton Trueblood* (1900-1994).
This hymn is also known by its title, 'Baptism by Fire'. In the Preface to The Incendiary Fellowship, dated Labor Day, 1966, Trueblood comments that it was written 'because of the conviction that the message of this book may be expressed more succinctly in poetry than in prose.' He writes of his admiration for the hymn 'God of grace and God of glory'* by Harry Emerson Fosdick*, and of 'the Biblical basis for his own hymn: ...
Thy Kingdom come, O Lord. Frederick Lucian Hosmer* (1840-1929).
This was published in Unity Hymns and Chorals, Revised and Enlarged (Chicago, The Unity Publishing Co., The Abraham Lincoln Centre, 1913), edited by Hosmer with William Channing Gannett*, sub-titled 'A Book for Heart, Home, Church'. This hymn was entitled 'The Prophecy Sublime'. It is frequently said to have been written in 1905, but The Hymnal 1940 Companion (1951), gives 1904 (p. 317). It was certainly published before 1913,...
REES, Timothy. b. Llanbadarn, Trefeglwys, Cardigan (now Llanon, Dyfed), 15 August 1874; d. Llandaff, 29 April 1939. He was educated at St David's University College, Lampeter (BA 1896) and St Michael's College, Aberdare. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1897, priest 1898), serving as curate of Mountain Ash, Glamorgan (1897-1901), and returning to St Michael's College, Aberdare as chaplain (1901-06). He became a member of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, in 1907, and was a licensed...
FETTKE, Thomas Eugene, b. Bronx, New York, 24 February 1941. Composer, arranger, and music producer, Fettke attended Oakland City College (AA [Associate of Arts] 1962) California State University at Hayward (BA 1966). He was a secondary school teacher for more than three decades, teaching voice and directing both public and private school ensembles, including Redwood Christian School system (1978-84), a K-12 interdenominational school system located in the San Francisco East Bay area, where he...
Tú has venido a la orilla (Pescador de Hombres) (Lord, you have come to the lakeshore). Cesáreo Gabaráin* (1936–1991).
'Pescador de Hombres' ('Fisher of Men'), the original Spanish title, is the most published of Gabaráin's hymns. In translation, the first line is 'Lord, you have come to the lakeshore'. The hymn first appeared in the composer's Dios con nosotros: cantos de la iglesia (Madrid, 1974). The most used English translation in Protestant collections is by Raquel Gutiérrez-Achón*,...
A Generous Tribute: Twells on Lyte.
Henry Twells* paid a felicitous tribute to Henry Francis Lyte* that deserves to be better known. In Twells's Hymns and Other Stray Verses (1901), published after his death, there is a poem entitled 'The Rev. Henry Francis Lyte'. Twells described him as
A Parish priest, whose anxious post Was on South Devon's rocky coast, Through all his life at various times Had clothed his thoughts in graceful rhymes.
The poem goes on to describe Lyte's most famous hymn,...
Una espiga dorada por el sol. Cesáreo Gabaráin* (1936–1991), translated by George Lockwood*.
'Una espiga' ('Sheaves of summer', 1973), a hymn on the theme of Christian unity, first appeared in North America in Alabemos al Señor (Veracruz, Mexico, 1976), a collection published by the Seminario Regional del Sureste. Gertrude Suppe*, a collector of Spanish-language hymnody, described the song's hypothetical transmission from Spain to Latin America: 'Someone evidently came from Spain with a...
Unison hymn tune in Britain, 1861-1939.
1. Victorian hymn tunes in the late 19th Century.
One of the principal features that a student of 19th-century and early 20th-century music has learned about the hymnody of this period in Britain is its transformation from a legacy of the Old Version* and the New Version*. John Stainer* noted that the OV and NV tunes that were still in use at St Paul's Cathedral in the late 1840s were 'groaned through' with commensurate reluctance by choir and...
Uns wird erzählt von Jesus Christ. Kurt Rommel* (1926-2011)
Written in 1967, and first sung at a Family Service at Schwenningen am Neckar (Villingen-Schwenningen), where Rommel was pastor. It was published in 111 Kinderlieder zur Bibel. Neue Lieder für Schule, Kirche und Haus, edited by Gerd Watkinson (Freiburg in Breisgau, 1968) with the title 'Weihnachtslied' ('Christmas Song'). Each stanza begins with the same line repeated, 'Uns wird erzählt von Jesus Christ' ('The story of Jesus will be...
Vatican II and hymns
When the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was convened, most Protestant hymn collections contained few Roman Catholic hymns. The reform of the liturgical life of the Roman Catholic Church in the 'Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy' ('Sacrosanctum Concilium', 1963) made an immediate ecumenical impact on most mainline Protestant traditions. A deeper theology of Baptism and Eucharist, the recovery of Scripture, the revision of the church year and the appearance of a...
Vem, Jesus, nossa esperança. Jaci C. Maraschin* (1929–2009).
This Advent text first appeared in a Brazilian collection edited by the author, O Novo Canto de Terra (São Paulo, 1987), in four 8.7.8.7 stanzas. The musical setting, CRISTO É MAIS (1980), is by Baptist music professor Marcílio de Oliveira Filho (1947–2005). It was originally paired with the text 'Cristo é nossa esperança' (1981) by Guilherme Kerr Neto (1953– ) in the Brazilian Baptist hymnal Hinário para o Culto Cristão (Rio di...
We are climbing Jacob's ladder (Jacob's Ladder). African American spiritual*.
Enslaved Africans found fertile connections between the biblical story of Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28: 10-22 and their existential experience and spirituality. As with many spirituals, the origins are unknown. An undocumented account indicates that the spiritual dates between 1750 and 1875 (James, 1995, p. 58). Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax (1915–2002) suggests without documentation that 'This is one of the old...
We are marching in the light of God. South African Freedom song, translated by Anders Nyberg* (1955- ).
In 1978 Nyberg led a Swedish worship group called 'Fjedur' to South Africa, then under an apartheid regime. After the return to Sweden, ca. 1980, 'Fjedur' published the freedom songs of the black churches (see South African freedom songs*). These were then edited by Nyberg, who provided English translations, and published with the title Freedom is Coming (Church of Sweden Mission, 1984)....
Weil Gott in tiefster Nacht erschienen. Dieter Trautwein* (1928-2002).
Words and music of this modern Christmas hymn were written by Trautwein in 1963 for an ecumenical service in the Katharinenkirche at Frankfurt-am-Main, in which the Evangelical Church joined with the Greek Orthodox congregation. It was published in Gott schenckt Freiheit (Frankfurt/Main, 1964) and again in Trautwein's Neue Lieder aus drei Jahrzehnten (Munich, 1992). It is found in EG in the 'Weihnachten' (Christmas) section....
What service shall we render thee. Ernest James Dodgshun* (1876-1944)
Written shortly before the outbreak of World War I for inclusion on a 'Peace Hymn Sheet', and printed in a Supplement (1920) to the 1909 Fellowship Hymn Book. It was then included in RCH and MHB . It is a fine expression of Dodgshun's Quaker pacifism, turning the normal demands of the love of one's own country ('O Fatherland we love') into peaceful channels:
The service of the commonwealth Is not in arms alone; A nobler...
When Christmas morn is dawning. Abel Burckhardt (1805–1882); formerly attributed to Betty Ehrenborg-Posse (1818–1880); translated by. Joel L. Lundeen (1918–1990).
This Swedish Christmas children's hymn captures the moment of Jesus' birth when the shepherds followed the directions of the angel, heard the angel hosts singing, 'Glory to God', and 'found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger' (Luke 2: 16, NIV).
Nothing is known of the author of the hymn text. The hymn first...
HELD, Wilbur Caldwell. b. Des Plaines, Illinois, 20 August 1914; d. Claremont, California, 24 March 2015. Held was a composer, organist, and professor of organ and choral music at Ohio State University. He composed IN BETHLEHEM, several other hymn tunes, and many organ arrangements of hymn tunes.
Wilbur Held's parents were Walter Wilbur Held (1884–1981) and Amy Caldwell (née Greene) Held (1886–1937). Walter owned a heating business in Des Plaines, where he served on the school board for 13...
BARNARD, Willem (Wilhelmus). b. Rotterdam, 15 August 1920; d. Utrecht, 21 November 2010. Barnard was a Dutch protestant (Netherlands Reformed) theologian, pastor, writer and poet. He published about twenty volumes of poetry under the pseudonym Guillaume van der Graft. As a poet he was strongly influenced by Martinus Nijhoff.
After graduating from the Grammar School he studied Dutch Language and Literature at Leiden. However, he stated that 'I read more contemporary literature than Gothic...
GANNETT, William Channing. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 13 March 1840; d. Rochester, New York State, 15 December 1923. He was a member of a great Unitarian dynasty of the 19th century in the United States: he was the son of Ezra Stiles Gannett (1801-1871), a friend of the notable preacher and scholar William Ellery Channing (1780-1842, after whom William Channing Gannett was named, and by whom he was baptized); and the daughter of Anna Linzee Tilden (d. 1846: see Wider, 1997).
William Channing...
PIGGOTT, William Charter. b. Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, 9 August 1872; d. Streatham, London, 5 November 1943. He was educated at Huddersfield College, Yorkshire and trained for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry at Headingley College, Leeds. He was never ordained, but left Methodism and organised a 'Brotherhood Church' in Harrow Road, West London (1896-1900). He became a Congregational minister in 1901 with a charge at Greville Place, Kilburn (1901-04) followed by one at Bunyan Meeting,...
TARRANT, William George. b. Pembroke, South Wales, 2 July 1853; d. Wandsworth, London, 15 January 1928. He was born in a military barracks, the son of a soldier who was killed at the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War. He was apprenticed to a silversmith in Birmingham, where he fell under the influence of a Unitarian minister of the Churches of Christ, George Dawson. Encouraged by Dawson, he entered London University (BA, 1883), becoming the Unitarian minister of the church at Wandsworth in...
MATHIAS, William James. b. Whitland, Pembrokeshire, 1 November 1934; d. Anglesey, 29 July 1992. Mathias studied at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and at the Royal Academy of Music with Sir Lennox Berkeley. He established himself as one of the most distinctive and accessible composers of his generation and became particularly celebrated for his church and choral music.
In 1981 he composed an anthem 'Let the People Praise Thee, O God' (Psalm 67) — for the Wedding in St. Paul's...
ROWLANDS, William Penfro. b. Dan-y-coed, Cwmderi, Pembrokeshire, 19 April 1860; d. Swansea, 22 October 1937. Born William Rowlands, he adopted the middle name 'Penfro' in honour of his native county. He showed promise as a musician when only a boy, and at 17 became precentor of the Calvinistic Methodist chapel at Gwastad. Following his appointment as a teacher at Pentre-poeth boys' school in 1881 he moved to Morriston, near Swansea, where he served as precentor of Bethania Calvinistic Methodist...
Wir sagen euch an den lieben Advent. Maria Ferschl* (1895-1982).
This children's hymn is based on the four Sundays in Advent. Each stanza has a description of the candle-lighting ceremony in Advent worship: 'Sehet die erste…zweite…dritte…vierte Kerze brennt!' Each stanza has an allusion to a text: St. 1 to Matthew 3: 3, 'Machet dem Herrn den Weg bereit'; St 2 to Romans 15: 7, 'So nehmet euch eins um das andere an,/ wie auch der Herr an uns getan'; St 3 to John 1: 5, 'Nun tragt eurer Güte hellen...
YISRAEL V'ORAITA (TORAH SONG)
The earliest appearance in a hymnal of the tune YISRAEL V'ORAITA is probably as 'Song of Good News' in Orlando Schmidt's (1924-2002) Sing and Rejoice! (Scottsdale, Pennsylvania and Kitchener, Ontario, 1979), with copyright 1967 by Willard F. Jabusch*. Probably the copyright covers not only Jabusch's hymn ('Open your ears, O Christian people, Open your ears and hear good news!') but also the combination of the hymn and tune, which is printed as melody-only with...
KÉLER, Yves. b. Metz, 25 April 1939; d. Haguenau, 12 June 2018. Kéler was a conservative Lutheran Pastor in Alsace, and a hymn writer who translated Martin Luther*'s hymns, and chorales by Paul Gerhardt* and Johann Heermann*. He was the author of Le Culte Protestante (2006).
The son of Pierre Kéler and Lucie Lischer, he was catechised and confirmed in Metz by a Lutheran pastor, Alfred Griesbeck. Griesbeck encouraged Yves to teach in Sunday School and to study theology after his schooling in...