Rebel to Redeemed…Sharing HIS Kind of Love
“Jesus Saves” is often known with its opening line “we have heard the joyful sound”. The hymn was written by Priscilla J. Owens. She was born on July 21, 1829 and lived in Baltimore, where she worked in the public-school sector. Most of her hymns were written for children’s services with many of her works appearing in the Methodist Protestant […]
Read more“There Is A Balm in Gilead” is a traditional spiritual. While the date of composition is unknown, the song dates back to at least the 19th Century. A version of the refrain can be found in Washington Glass’s 1854 hymn “The Sinner’s Cure”. A “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament taken from Jeremiah 8:22.
Read more“All My Hope on God is Founded” began as the German hymn. The original words “Meine Hoffnung stehet feste”. Joachim Neander wrote the hymn around 1680. Neander was born in 1650 in Bremen (modern day Germany). He served as a German theologian and hymnwriter. He wrote over sixty hymns and is best known for the hymn Praise to the Lord, […]
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“In heavenly love abiding” is based on the fifteenth chapter of John’s gospel. Anna Laetitia Waring wrote the hymn, which explores heavenly love. Anna Waring was born in Wales in 1823, to a Quaker family. She would later join the Church of England. Many of her poems and hymns were published and very popular. Her love of writing seems to […]
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William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. In his epic collection Milton: A Poem in Two Books is a poem titled “And did those feet in ancienty time”. Various lines of the poem are drawn from either historical events or passages of scripture. Sir Hubert Parry composed the music to the poem in 1916. Today this is the […]
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“Who Shall Separate Us?” is an eight-part a cappella choir composition. It was written by James MacMillian and commissioned for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II sometime around 2011-2012 when the song was written. The commission is said to come as a surprise, but MacMillian is known as a “masterly composer of small-scale religious choral pieces”. MacMillian said he […]
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“O taste and see how gracious is the Lord” was composed for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Ralph Vaughan Williams married his melody with the scripture found in Psalm 34. The hymn was inspired by Psalms 34:8 “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” (KJV) Williams was born in […]
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Blaenwern is a Welsh hymn. The song was composed by William Penfro Rowlands during the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. Rowlands was born on April 19, 1860. He was a Welsh schoolteacher, composer, and conductor of the Morriston United Choral Society. He died on October 22, 1937. The song was first published in the 1915 Cân a Moliant by Henry H. Jones. This […]
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My Soul, There is a Country was written by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. He was the 1st Baronet and an English composer, teacher and historian of music. He was born February 27, 1848. He is best known for his choral songs “Jerusalem” and anthem “I was Glad”. He died on October 7, 1918 from the Spanish flu. “In May […]
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Every year we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Day, but where did it come from? Auld Lang Syne is a Scots poem that was written by Robert Burns in 1788. His poem was set to a traditional folk song. Music historians are unsure if the melody used today is the original melody Burns set to the song or […]
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The Hallelujah Chorus is the most well-known portion of Geroge Frideric Handel’s “Messiah”. Handel used the King James Bible and the Coverdale Psalter to compose his text. The “Messiah” was first performed in Dublin on April 13, 1742. The “Hallelujah Chorus” is at the end of part 2, which concentrates on the Passion of Jesus. This portion has become a […]
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The “Sussex Carol” is a popular Christmas Carol in Britain. Luke Wadding, a 17th Century Irish Bishop, first published the song in 1684. It is unknown whether he wrote the song himself or had recorded it from earlier coposers. The text and tune were discovered by Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The men wrote the song down as sung […]
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I have found two different stories for this hymn. The first states it is believed “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy” was written Jamaican singer-songwriter Oswald Dunbar sometime in the early 1960s. Legend states he adapted the lyrics from an earlier Jamaican folk song “Livvy’s Song” to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The text follows the story as […]
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“In dulci jubilo” means in sweet rejoicing in Latin. The original text is believed to have been written around 1328 by Heinrich Seuse, a German mystic. According to folklore, “Seuse heard angels sing these words and joined them in a dance of worship.” The tune first appears in a manuscript dating around 1400. Many historians believe the melody may have […]
Read moreEnglish poet Christina Rosetti published a poem under the title “A Christmas Carol” in January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly. Composer Gustav Holst composed a setting to her words in 1906. The new hymn appeared in The English Hymnal under the title “In the Bleak Midwinter”. In 1909, Harold Darke composed an anthem for the piece, which is widely performed […]
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At the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, the walled city of Eilenburg, Saxony struggled with overcrowding, deadly pestilence, and famine. This area is part of Germany today. Lutheran minister Martin Rinkart, and his family, opened their home to refuges. By 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor, conducting as many as fifty funeral a day throughout a severe plague. […]
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I thought we’d look at a popular Patriotic song, This Land is Your Land. The American folk song was written in 1940 by Woody Guthrie. During this time he hitchhiked from Los Angeles to New York City and continuously heard God Bless America played on the radio and jukeboxes. He is said to have written the song in a “flophouse […]
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Christ is Made the Sure Foundation was a Latin hymn written sometime in the late 6th or 7th Century under the title Urbs beata Jerusalem. The original hymn was sung as an unaccompanied plainsong melody. In 1851, John Mason Neale translated the hymn from Latin into English. Many modern versions of the texts vary greatly from his original translations. The […]
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God Be with You till We meet Again was written by Jeremiah E. Rankin around 1880. It is undated but he gave a copy to Sankey in 1882. Rankin was born on January 2, 1828 in Thornton, New Hampshire. He received his doctorate in 1869 and served as president of Howard University a few years. He wrote and published a […]
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“I Vow to Thee, My Country” is a British patriotic hymn. Sir Cecil Spring Rice wrote the poem “The City of God” or “The Two Fatherlands” in either 1908 or 1912. The poem described how a Christian owes his loyalties to both his homeland and the heavenly kingdom. In 1908, he was posted at the British Embassy in Stockholm. In […]
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