Music Notes 5-24-26

Pepper Choplin is a composer and conductor based in Raleigh, North Carolina, who has literally

hundreds of anthems in his catalogue. With a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of

North Carolina at Greensboro, he went on to earn a Master of Music degree in composition from

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Currently, he serves as Minister of Music at

Greystone Baptist Church in Raleigh, a position he’s held for over 22 years. His gospel-inspired

anthem Hold On To The Rock was commissioned in 2014 by 1 st Presbyterian Church of Haddon

Height, NJ for the retirement of their music director, Marjorie Wendler.

Fanny Crosby, who lived 1820-1915, is legendary in the world of Christian hymns. She’s been

called the "Queen of Gospel Song Writers" and the "Mother of modern congregational singing in

America", having written more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs. In fact, she wrote so many

songs, some publishers were hesitant to have so many hymns by one person in their hymnals, so

Crosby used nearly 200 different pseudonyms throughout her career. She was blind all her life

and wrote a poem about her blindness at age 8. At 6 weeks old, she caught a cold and developed

inflammation in her eyes. Mustard plasters were applied to her eyes to treat the inflammation,

and, according to Crosby, damaged her optic nerves. Modern physicians think it was more likely

that the blindness was congenital, and her parents simply hadn’t noticed it yet. She later stated:

"It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I

thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not

accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the

beautiful and interesting things about me." She also once said, "when I get to heaven, the first

face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior". According to biographer Annie

Willis, "had it not been for her affliction she might not have so good an education or have so

great an influence, and certainly not so fine a memory".

She wrote more than 1,000 secular poems and had four books of poetry published, as well as two

best-selling autobiographies. Additionally, she co-wrote popular secular songs, as well as

political and patriotic songs and at least five cantatas on biblical and patriotic themes,

including The Flower Queen, the first secular cantata by an American composer. She was

committed to Christian rescue missions and was known for her public speaking. In 1851, she

met George Root, with whom she was teaching at the North Reading Musical Institute in

Massachusetts. From 1851 to 1857, they wrote more than 60 “parlor songs” or “people’s songs”,

many of them written for the popular minstrel shows of the time. Sadly, the minstrel shows had

a negative connotation with Christian and classical musicians, so their involvement was

deliberately obscured. She was also heavily involved in the politics of the time, as a strict

abolitionist and supporter of Abraham Lincoln. After the election of Franklin Pierce in 1856, she

wrote “The election’s past and I’m pierced at last. The locos have gained the day.”

Her hymn To God Be The Glory, with music by William Howard Doane, was written in 1872 and

published in 1875. It was popular in England but failed to find wide usage in the United States

until 1954, when Cliff Barrows, song leader for Billy Graham, was handed a copy with the

suggestion that it be included in the songbook for the London Crusade. It was so popular that it

was included in the songbook for the Nashville Crusade that same year, and the rest is history.

They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love was written by Peter Scholtes, who was born in

1938 in Evanston, Ill., while he was a parish priest at St. Brendan's on the South Side of Chicago

in the 1960s. At the time, he was leading a youth choir out of the church basement and was

looking for an appropriate song for a series of ecumenical, interracial events. When he couldn't

find such a song, he wrote the now-famous hymn in a single day. His experiences at St.

Brendan's, and in the Chicago Civil Rights movement, influenced him for the rest of his life.

The tune, called ST. BRENDAN’S, was named after the parish where he was assigned when he

wrote the song. This tune has become a classic and has been published in 45 hymnals to date.