I’m thrilled that I get to write this month’s newsletter article! Before I begin, I want to thank you all for the kind and encouraging letters Alexandra and I have received from you since taking on the roles of SFJ program host and music director. We have loved hearing from you and learning more about what this program means to each of you. What a blessing to be in community via the airwaves!
As you know, Sing For Joy follows the scripture lessons assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that churches of various denominations around the world follow. Therefore, the number-one criterion for selecting the anthems and hymns for each week’s program is their text.
One of my mentors in high school was the longtime organist at my home church, Jack Swanson. From my early days of taking organ lessons and learning how to lead a worshiping congregation in song, Jack would say, “play the text!” As a young organist, I was so concerned about making sure that each chord was correct, my feet were in the right place, I was using proper “legato” technique, that I often overlooked the words of each stanza. How do I have time to look at each word when there’s SO MUCH music to focus on?
Jack’s gentle yet insistent advice helped me realize early on that the music is there to serve the text, not the other way around. Sure, the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah is good music, but imagine it without the repetitive “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” It doesn’t have the same effect. William Bradbury’s tune for Jesus Loves Me would not be as well-known or beloved without the deceptively simple text of Anna Bartlett Warner.
Lest you’re thinking to yourself that the Sing For Joy music director is saying that music isn’t necessary, let me say: of course it is! I continue to marvel and give thanks for the infinite variety of ways composers throughout the generations have interpreted the texts of great Christian poets. On the program for July 14th are two very different musical settings of the hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Each one colors the text in a different way. As you listen, notice which words or phrases stick out to you. You may hear something different in one version than you did in the other.
At its best, the marriage of text and tune allows each to highlight the beauty of the other. When this happens, these unions allow us to know God in a variety of ways; from triumphant and majestic hymns, to the most prayerful a cappella anthems we are given the gift of stretching our own understandings of the Divine.
