Hymn of the Day: “Beloved God’s Chosen” ELW 648
TEXT: Susan Palo Cherwien (1953-2021)
TUNE: ANDREW’S SONG, Robert A. Hobby (1962)

Susan Palo Cherwien wrote this "versification of Colossians 3:12-16" in response to a commission by First Lutheran Church, Freeport, Illinois, to honor Twila K. Schock on the occasion of the rededication of the church's pipe organ." In deceptively simple yet elegant language it summarizes the verses in Colossians by enclosing the thankful peace of singing within the community's raiment of love.

Robert A. Hobby wrote ANDREW'S SONG in response to a request from Augsburg Fortress for a tune that would go with this hymn in Cherwien's book O Blessed Spring. Hobby says he "eagerly accepted the invitation" since "the portion of the Colossians 3 text which this hymn paraphrases was read at my wedding." Following Calvin Hampton and David Hurd he felt the hymn "called for a warm, ballad-like treatment…. My efforts resulted in a rather pianistic setting, with slow harmony under the melody and a simple interlude to offer a pause between stanzas." This interlude is included in the Accompaniment Edition of Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Hobby says he chose ANDREW'S SONG to name the tune "as a tribute to the English composer Andrew Carter who has so graciously offered me compositional coaching for a number of years."

Opening Voluntary: “UNION SEMINARY,” James Biery (1956)

James Biery is an American organist, composer and conductor who is Minister of Music at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where he directs the choirs, plays the 66-rank Klais organ and oversees the music program of the church. Prior to this appointment Biery was music director for Cathedrals in St. Paul, Minnesota and Hartford, Connecticut.

Biery’s setting of UNION SEMINARY is in 3 parts, or ABA. The A sections are based on a melody that he constructed from the hymn tune. He has changed the rhythm slightly, and has built the melody on the inverted form of the original tune. The middle section, combining the tune in its original key and rhythm with the tune a fifth below and a half-note apart, creates a delightfully off-center canon. Enjoy!

Closing Voluntary: “Earth and All Stars,” Wayne L. Wold (1954)

Currently Professor, College Organist, and Chair of the Music Department at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, and Director of Music Ministry at First Lutheran Church in Ellicott City, Maryland, Wayne L. Wold wrote this setting on “Earth and All Stars,” a tune composed by David N. Johnson (1922-1987) for the text of the same name by Herbert Brokering. (Some hymnals title the tune DEXTER.) It first appeared with the text in Twelve Folksongs and Spirituals (1968) and the next year was included as one of the tunes for this hymn in Contemporary Worship 1: Hymns (1969). It works with the text, "Alleluia! Jesus is risen," but it fits its namesake better for two reasons. First, the stanzas there have an inner refrain, "Sing to the Lord a new song." Second, the melismas on the word "Lord" in the inner refrain and on "mar" of "marvelous" in the refrain itself disappear here so that the tune loses some of its cascading exuberance. The melody in the refrain still grows out of what preceded it and presses higher to a climax, but the syllabic shape of the text clips its wings a bit. Comparing the meters of #377 and #731 illustrates this at a glance.