Music Spotlight (August 22, 2021)

Special Music

This week, we are performing "Flourishing" by Sandra McCracken--as requested by popular vote on social media! Look forward to hearing this performed by talented musicians in our congregation, including Allister Banasiak, Doug Young, Leo Adames, and Charles Anderson.

Sandra McCracken is a contemporary singer/songwriter who navigates among folk, religious, and adult alternative material. Hailing from St. Louis, Missouri and eventually relocating to Nashville, Tennessee, she pursued a career in music after graduating from Belmont University in the late '90s. She currently lives in Nashville with her husband and kids.

Teach me, oh God to follow your decrees

Give me understanding, your word, I want to keep

Direct me in the path, of your commands

For there I find delight, my will is in your hands

Turn my heart away from worthless things

Preserve my life, according to your ways

Take away disgrace

You hold me in my place--flourishing.

Fulfill your promise to the ones you love

Within your ways we walk, for your laws are good

Temptation loses pow'r, my soul's revived

In righteousness, oh God, preserve my life

Offertory

"Oh Happy Day" is a gospel music arrangement of the 1755 hymn text by clergyman Philip Doddridge and 19th cent. tune attributed to Edward F. Rimbault. Recorded by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, it became an international hit in 1969. Our very own Leo Adames will perform his own arrangement this Sunday.

Notice the differences between the original hymn, "O Happy Day that Fixed My Choice," and the gospel version. Namely, the time signature becomes 4/4 with a rock beat rather than the original lilting 3/2. Melodic alterations and call-and-response between leader and choir make the Edwin Hawkins version inventive and unique. 

Original Hymn:

Edwin Hawkins Singers:

Opening Hymn

#450 "Be Thou My Vision" (SLANE)

The original poem of this favorite hymn, found in two Irish manuscripts in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, may be dated as early as the 8th century. The folk melody was taken from a non-liturgical source, Patrick Weston Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs: A Collection of 842 Airs and Songs hitherto unpublished (1909).

"One of the essential characteristics of the text is the use of 'heroic' imagery to describe God. This was very typical of medieval Irish poetry, which cast God as the 'chieftain' or 'High King' (Ard Ri) who provided protection to his people or clan. The lorica is one of the most popular forms of this kind of protection prayer and is very prevalent in texts of this period." READ MORE.

Our recording of "Be Thou My Vision" arr. by Hannah Cruse:

Middle Hymn

#726 "Will You Come and Follow Me" (KELVINGROVE)

This hymn, also called "The Summons," is set to the tune of Kelvingrove, a traditional Scottish melody. Its text contains thirteen questions asked by Jesus in the first person. The initial four stanzas with the questions are in Jesus' voice, and the fifth stanza is the singer's response to them.

John L. Bell (b. 1949) composed this in 1980 after being accepted into the Iona Community--an artistic ecumenical Christian community on the Scottish Isle of Iona consisting of people from different walks of life within Christianity. Bell commented:

"I discovered that seldom did our hymns represent the plight of poor people to God. There was nothing that dealt with unemployment, nothing that dealt with living in a multicultural society and feeling disenfranchised. There was nothing about child abuse…that reflected concern for the developing world, nothing that helped see ourselves as brothers and sisters to those who are suffering from poverty or persecution." READ MORE.  

Our recording feat. Leo Adames:

 

Closing Hymn

#718 "Take Up Your Cross, the Savior Said" (BOURBON)

As is the case with many hymns from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, faithfulness and even suffering in this life leads to heaven. Charles W. Everest states in the text "For only those who bear the cross, May hope to wear the glorious crown!" READ MORE.

Tunebook compilers often changed or “corrected” songs they selected from other books. Below is the first published version of the song, from Freeman Lewis’ Beauties of Harmony (1814). Find the tune on the third line (tenor). Notice how much it has changed in 200 years! If you want to see all the iterations of this tune--and there are many--go here.

1814 version:

Modern version: