Music Notes 3-15-26
William Dawson is an icon in the world of spirituals, but he was, in fact, a classically trained
musician. Born in Anniston, Alabama in 1899, he studied at the Homer Institute of Fine arts,
where he got his bachelor’s degree in music. He later studied at the Chicago Musical College
and then at the American Conservatory of Music, where he got his master’s degree. His body of
music includes chamber, orchestral and choral music, but his spirituals are what he’s best known
for. It was during his 25-year tenure at the Tuskegee Institute (1931-1956) that he developed the
Tuskegee Institute Choir into a world-renowned ensemble, and he published many of his best-
known spiritual arrangements. Every Time I Feel The Spirit is a classic he wrote in 1946. He
passed away in May of 1990.
Sarah McLachlan is a Canadian singer/songwriter known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-
soprano vocal range. As of 2015 she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her best-
selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four Juno
Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which
showcased female musicians on an unprecedented scale. The Lilith Fair concert tours took place
from 1997 to 1999, and resumed in the summer of 2010. She also funds an outreach program in
Vancouver that provides music education for inner city children. In 2007, the provincial
government announced $500,000 in funding for the outreach program. Originating at the "Sarah
McLachlan Music Outreach", this program evolved into the Sarah McLachlan School of Music.
This program provided children with high quality music instruction in guitar, piano, percussion
and choir. In 2011 McLachlan opened the Sarah McLachlan School of Music in Vancouver, a
free music school for at-risk youth. The School of Music provides group and private lessons to
hundreds of young people every year. It is their goal that through music education, students will
develop a love of the arts and have greater self-esteem. On May 25, 2016, the Sarah McLachlan
School of Music expanded to Edmonton, Alberta (my hometown), opening in Rundle
Elementary School and Eastglen High School. The music school contains the same initiative as
the Vancouver school. Her version of The Prayer of St. Francis, simple and meditative, was
released in 2015 on the album Surfacing, noted above as her best-selling album to date.
Now Thank We All Our God is a popular Christian hymn. Catherine Winkworth translated it from
the German Nun danket alle Gott, written around 1636 by the Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart.
Its hymn tune, Zahn No. 5142, was published by composer Johann Crüger in the 1647 edition of
his Lutheran hymnal Praxis Pietatis Melica. Martin Rinkart was a Lutheran pastor who came
to Eilenburg , Saxony, at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. The walled city of Eilenburg
became the refuge for political and military fugitives, but the result was overcrowding,
deadly pestilence and famine. Armies overran it three times. The Rinkart home was a refuge for
the victims, even though he was often hard-pressed to provide for his own family. During the
height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor in Eilenburg, conducting
as many as 50 funerals in a day. He performed more than 4000 funerals in that year, including
that of his wife. Rinkart was a prolific hymn writer. In Rinkart's Jesu Hertz-Buchlein (Leipzig,
1636), "Nun danket alle Gott" appears under the title "Tisch-Gebetlein", as a short prayer before
meals. Composer Johann Crüger was active during the 1600’s, living most of his adult life in
Berlin, working as a teacher in a Gymnasium (basically, a college prep high school) and as
cantor at the Nicolaikirche, the oldest church in Berlin. In addition to numerous concert works
and editing the hymnal Praxis Pietatis Melica, the most important Lutheran hymnal of its time,
he also wrote the tune to Johann Franck’s hymn Jesu, Meine Freude (in English, Jesus, My Joy),
and Rinkart’s Nun danket alle Gott, which was set to it’s now standard harmonization by Felix
Mendelssohn in 1840 when he used it for the chorale for his Symphony #2. Translator Catherine
Winkworth was born in London and spent a year in Dresden, Germany, where she took an
interest in German hymnody. She published several books of translations of classic German
hymns, including From Heaven Above to Earth I Come ( Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich
her , Martin Luther, 1534), Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying ( Wachet auf, ruft uns die
Stimme , Philipp Nicolai, 1599), How Brightly Beams the Morning Star! (Wie schön leuchtet der
Morgenstern, Nicolai, 1597), and the Christmas hymn A Spotless Rose (Es ist ein Ros
entsprungen), known in our hymnal as Lo, How A Rose E’re Blooming. According to The
Harvard University Hymn Book, Winkworth “did more than any other single individual to make
the rich heritage of German hymnody available to the English-speaking world”.