♪ Music Notes ♪

MARK PATTERSON (b. 1969) is a nationally acclaimed American composer, conductor, clinician and teacher, who currently serves as the Director of Music at Salisbury Presbyterian Church in Midlothian, Virginia, US. He has worked with choral groups of all ages in public school, university, and church settings, and his compositions feature poetic texts, soaring melodies and stirring rhythms.

Various legends, registering differing degrees of reality and truth, inevitably surround such a famous and long-lived composition as Messiah by GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759). It is known that he wrote most of the work in an astonishingly short three weeks time, beginning on August 22, 1741. Another legend attached to the work relates to his inspiration, which casts the frenzied composition as a sort of divine dictation. Handel is said to have emerged at some point (usually, it is noted, after finishing the Hallelujah Chorus) and proclaimed: “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself!” The first performance of Messiah took place in Dublin, on April 13, 1742. Handel gave the London premiere less than a year later at Covent Garden, and in the almost 300 years since then, Messiah has taken its rightful place as one of the most frequently performed and most beloved choral works of all time.

JOHN M. C. CRUM (1872-1958) was an English Anglican theologian and poet. In 1900, Crum was ordained a priest, and from 1928 to 1943, he was the Canon of Canterbury Cathedral. His most famous hymn text is “Now the Green Blade Riseth”.

EDMOND LOUIS BUDRY (1854-1932) was a Swiss Hymn writer, most famous for writing the lyrics to “Thine Be the Glory”, to music from Judas Maccabeus by George Frederic Handel. He studied theology in Lauzanne, Switzerland, and was a pastor for 42 years. Besides writing original hymn texts, he translated German, English, and Latin lyrics into French.

RICHARD BIRCH HOYLE (1875-1939) served as a Baptist minister in various churches in England for twenty-six years. Following that, he worked with the YMCA, and for some time edited their publication The Red Triangle. Hoyle translated about thirty French hymns into English – his most famous being “Thine Be the Glory.” He also translated hymns from twelve other languages, all of which he read fluently. In 1934 he went to the United States, where he taught at Western Theological Seminary in Philadelphia for two years. When he returned to England, he became the pastor at a Baptist church in Kingston-upon-Thames.