Hymn of the Day: “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” ELW 597
Text: Edward Mote (1797-1874), alt.
Music: MELITA, John B. Dykes (1823-1876)
As Edward Mote was walking to work one day in 1834, the thought popped into his head to write a hymn on the “Gracious Experience of a Christian.” As he walked up the road, he had the chorus, “On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.” By the end of the day, he had the first four verses written out and safely tucked away in his pocket. Later that week, he visited his friend whose wife was very ill, and as they couldn’t find a hymnal to sing from, he dug up his newly written verses and sang those with the couple. The wife enjoyed them so much she asked for a copy, and Mote went home to finish the last two verses and sent it off to a publisher, saying, “As these verses so met the dying woman’s case, my attention to them was the more arrested, and I had a thousand printed for distribution” (Lutheran Hymnal Handbook). Almost two centuries later, we continue to sing these words of hope and assurance, our declaration that in the midst of all trials and storms, we will cling to the rock that is our Savior. Indeed, hymns with this text are published in 1008 hymnals.
Originally a chant melody associated with the text "Eternal Father, strong to save" MELITA is found in most hymnals of denominations where chant has played a role, including the Lutheran tradition, which has produced much organ music on this well-known chant. The setting here is by John B. Dykes, originally composed as a setting for William Whiting's "Eternal Father, Strong to Save." Published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) with that text, MELITA is often referred to as the "navy hymn." The tune is named after the island of Malta where Paul was shipwrecked. A fine tune, MELITA is marked by good use of melodic sequences and a harmony that features several dominant sevenths, both Dykes's trademarks.
Offertory: Suite for Three Flutes - Movement II
Domenico Cimarosa
Noted composer and scholar Thom Ritter George has taken four movements from Domenico Cimarosa’s piano works and created an elegant suite of 18th-century jewels for flute trio. Suzanne, Claire and Carole are playing the second movement.
Opening Voluntary: “Jesu, Still Lead On” (Jesu geh vorhan), Op. 65
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1879-1933)
"Seelenbräutigam, Jesu, Gotteslamm!" (Soul's bridegroom, Jesus, God's Lamb) is an Adam Drese hymn of 15 six-line stanzas set to the associated melody, first published in Geistreiches Gesang-Buch, then in the Darmstadt Geist-reiches Gesang-Buch, and the Freylinghausen Gesang-Buch. In Wagner's Gesang-Buch it begins, "Jesu, Gottes Lamm." It makes numerous references to Jesus in pietist terms of "Lamb" and "Bridegroom" as well as the traditional "Hero From David's tribe" and "Prince of Peace" In English its title is "Jesus, still lead on.”
The 66 Chorale improvisations for organ, Op. 65, were composed by Sigfrid Karg-Elert between 1906 and 1908, and first published in six volumes in 1909. The composition was dedicated to "the great organist Alexandre Guilmant".
Closing Voluntary: “Olivet”
Karl Osterland (1956)
Today’s Closing Voluntary is a setting of the tune OLIVET (“My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” The original tune was composed by Lowell Mason, who was an American music director and banker and a leading figure in 19th-century American church music. Lowell composed over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His best-known work includes an arrangement of Joy to the World and the tune Bethany, which sets the hymn text Nearer, My God, to Thee. Mason also set music to Mary Had A Little Lamb. He is largely credited with introducing music into American public schools, and is considered the first important U.S. music educator. He has also been criticized for helping to largely eliminate the robust tradition of participatory sacred music that flourished in America before his time.
As so often happens in America, the so-called arbiters of good taste looked across the Atlantic for their models and scorned that which was home-grown. And such was their influence that an uncertain population, striving for cultural respectability, embraced the common practice of European art music. These arbiters of taste did not represent the mean of the population. Their influence left the many congregations without a music to which they could identify. An interest in church singing waned, giving way to the quartet choir. New England would not hear again the stimulating strains of the fuge-tune coming from all parts of the sanctuary.
As a farm boy, Karl Osterland began playing the organ at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, in Fair Haven, Michigan when he was ten years old. He has his BA and MM in Organ Performance from the University of Michigan, studying with Robert Clark and Marilyn Mason. He also studied composition with William Bolcom