We hope you have enjoyed the Online Summer Concert Series! Stay tuned for information on our Fall and Winter events, which will be revealed in the coming weeks, along with our new John-Paul Buzard op. 47 Pipe Organ! The concerts are available on demand at www.countrysideuccc.org/concerts.
If you are watching on KMTV and would like to view the prelude, you can do so on our YouTube page by viewing today’s service video. The prelude will take place live on YouTube at 10:20 each Sunday.
Air from Holberg Suite – Edvard Grieg (performed by Dr. Kristín Jónína Taylor)
Amazing Grace (performed by Justin Payne)
Precious Lord, Take My Hand – Thomas A. Dorsey
Tragedy has inspired countless musical compositions through the ages, and religious music is no different. Precious Lord was written following the death of Thomas Dorsey’s wife Nettie during childbirth and their infant son shortly thereafter.
Dorsey (1899-1993) is known as the “Father of Black Gospel Music,” and pioneered the combination of African American church hymns with blues and jazz, and was one of the first to use the term “gospel music.”
The verses paint a picture of a journey through grief. The first verse conveys a suffering soul pleading for help – “Precious Lord, take my hand. . . .,” and “I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m worn.” Verse two continues the imagery of a journey, where the traveler’s “way grows drear.”
According to some commentators, the third verse follows the theme of Psalm 23:4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . ..” beginning with the words “When the darkness appears…” Though the journey is left unfinished, the text is concluded on a hopeful note: “at the river I stand,” “Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.”
It was Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite song, and his last words before his assassination were a request to play it at a service he was going to attend that night.
Precious Lord, take my hand. Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call, hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When the darkness appears and the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand. Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
Pie Jesu from Requiem op. 9 – Gabriel Fauré
A Requiem is a setting of the Mass of the Dead, used for centuries as a musical setting to accompany a funeral liturgy. The Requiem has inspired quite a few notable composers to try their hand at the genre – Mozart, Hector Berlioz, Guiseppe Verdi, Camille Saint-Saëns, Antonín Dvořák, Benjamin Britten, Andrew Lloyd Weber, John Rutter, and many more. The Pie Jesu setting from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem is perhaps the single most famous movement of any Requiem setting.
Fauré’s composed his Requiem through a hopeful lens: “It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. The music of Gounod has been criticised for its inclination towards human tenderness. But his nature predisposed him to feel this way: religious emotion took this form inside him. Is it not necessary to accept the artist’s nature? As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different.”
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Pie Jesu Domine, Pie Jesu Domine, |
Pious Lord Jesus, Pious Lord Jesus, |
It Is Well With My Soul
This hymn was written in 1873 by Horatio Spafford and set to music in 1876 by Phillip Bliss (an itinerant music teacher who traveled by horseback). Spafford wrote the hymn after a number of traumatic incidents. In 1871, his four year old son passed away and the Great Chicago Fire caused him financial disaster. In 1873, after further suffering from the economic downturn he made arrangements to travel with his family to Europe. After a business dispute caused him to be delayed, his family went ahead and set sail for Europe on the SS Ville du Havre. While crossing the Atlantic, a collision with another vessel caused the ship to sink. All four of Spafford’s daughters died. His wife Anna survived, and sent a telegram upon arriving in Wales: “saved alone…”
Spafford penned the text on his journey across the Atlantic to join his wife, inspired to write the words as his ship approached the area where his daughters had died. The composer, Phillip Bliss, named the hymn SS Ville du Havre, after the stricken vessel. Understanding the context of the hymn is important to engaging with the text – the steadfast nature of a river, the ups and downs of waves on the open sea, storm clouds giving way to light.
Another note of interest about Spafford: he would eventually move to Jerusalem, where he and his wife would establish the American Colony, a Christian utopian society engaged in philanthropic activities among Jews, Muslims and Christians. After decades of benevolent activities, the Colony ceased to be a communal society in the 1950s, and became the American Colony Hotel, and hosted talks between Palestine and Israel that led to the 1983 Oslo Peace Accords.
When peace like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say: It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Refrain
It is well, with my soul, it is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though evil should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The earth shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul!