Music Ministry Musings from Mary
Music Ministry Musings from Mary
Good morning, everyone. Today we will look at a couple of the hymns coming up in our worship for next Sunday, July 5. First up, Hymn #657, Love divine, all loves excelling, enjoys great popularity across denominations. The text by noted Methodist evangelist and hymn-writer Charles Wesley was first printed in his anonymous Hymns for Those that Seek and Those that Have Redemption in the Blood of Jesus Christ (London, 1747). Interestingly, Charles spent about a year in the American colonies in 1735-36 serving as chaplain at St. Simon’s Island, Georgia Colony. Things did not go well for him there, and he returned to England, where he followed a call to preach the Gospel to ordinary people, and continued his large output of over 6000 hymns, including notably Hark, the herald angels sing, and Lo, he comes with clouds descending. Meanwhile, back to Love divine, all loves excelling, scholars have noted that the first verse of the hymn seems to be a parody of the “Song sung by Venus in honour of Britannia” in John Dryden’s play King Arthur (1691):
Fairest Isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasures and of loves;
Venus here will choose her dwelling
And forsake her Cyprian groves.
John Dryden (1631-1700), by the way, was the first-ever Poet Laureate in England, and Henry Purcell, among the greatest of English composers, wrote the music to Dryden’s King Arthur. Both of these men led incredibly interesting and colorful lives during interesting times, which you can read all about on Wikipedia!
Love divine, all loves excelling has stood the test of time, and since its appearance in the Hymnal 1940 has been married to the Welsh tune Hyfrydol, composed by Rowland Hugh Prichard around 1830.
Our second hymn #599 Lift every voice and sing, known as the Black National Anthem, entered the Episcopal hymnal for the first time in our Hymnal 1982. The music was composed by James Weldon Johnson and the text by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1900 for a special assembly at the all-black Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, in honor of Abraham Lincoln and his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The hymn gained rapid popularity and by the 1940s was being sung by black Americans throughout the United States. It gained in popularity as a freedom song in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, spreading from there across the globe to other countries fighting oppression. We sing this hymn this Sunday to honor our National holiday in solidarity with our black brothers and sisters, and the recognition that liberty and justice belong to all in our nation.
Have a listen to the St. Thomas-Epiphany Choir singing the first verses of each of these hymns by clicking on the link, and have a most blessed and safe holiday weekend!
