Author: Hilton Kean Jones

When we were much, much, much younger my sister and I would slap-dash our way through the 4-hands transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies, collapsing in giggles whenever one or the other of us would beat the other to the end of a movement!

So, out of that memory springs the approach for this final Earth Day hymn-a-day marathon: Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee. #4 in the New Century Hymnal. Here’s a representative text: https://hymnary.org/text/joyful_joyful_we_adore_thee.

But — back to the symphonies, 4-hands — before the hymn itself, there’s two fragments from the final movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony from which this famous hymn is drawn: first, the little Turkish march theme in which you can hear the famous hymn melody lurking but not entirely exposed, then the main theme as it first appears with the melody in augmentation in the upper voices with a rumbling stream of eighth notes in the lower voices. Both those fragments are from a 4-hands edition of the 9th symphony, with me playing both parts since Lucy, my sister, is in Hawaii and I’m in Florida.

After those two fragments, then comes the hymn as we know it but with me improvising a 4-hands version as if Lucy and I were doing it. “4-hands” means literally, four hands, or two people with two hands each, playing on the same piano. The literature for piano, 4-hands is very, very extensive and is considered much more important that literature for 2 pianos! It’s a medium I love. It’s VERY social and a lot of fun. I often require composition students to write in it when learning to write for orchestra because it teaches them to not mask the counterpoint of the different voices.

The picture above is Lucy and I playing some 4-hands music at Lakewood UCC way back in 2013.

At Lakewood UCC we’re very concerned that the words to our prayers, hymns, and anthems all use inclusive language for humanity and expansive language for God. That’s a deep statement, and if you ponder it for a bit — inclusive language for humanity…expansive language for God — you might glimpse how our language for humanity in the past may have been exclusionary and our language for God, restricting. I asked Rev. Wells for suggestions for hymns during this week when we’re celebrating Earth Day. This Is My Father’s World was one of her suggestions! When I queried her about the patriarchal language of the title, her response was, as always, enlightened and compassionate. Here’s what she said, “Many of us grew up singing This Is My Father’s World and know it. Yes, it uses masculine language for God, but we do our best. Don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Or become legalistic.” It’s great working for someone who really thinks things through.

Here’s words to the hymn so you can sing along: https://hymnary.org/text/this_is_my_fathers_world_and_to_my.

This is a simple rendition, just piano and a string pad. It’s what I would have heard at night as a child as almost every night my mother (violin) and father (piano) would play together in the front room while I feel asleep on the couch. I assume they treated my sister to the same pleasure, but I don’t remember as she’s about 10 years older than me. They favored a romantic style of rubato, improvisational playing of the Fritz Kreisler sort. Guess that accounts for my eclectic tastes.

There is probably no more archetypal Thanksgiving Day song than this. It should easily be the quintessential Earth Day song as well.

It’s a song every child probably knows by hear. As such, it deserves a simple, childlike, reverent simplicity. That’s what I’m shootintg for her with organ flute stops and a woodwind quartet.

To sing along, here’s a link to a representative text of four verses: https://hymnary.org/text/for_the_beauty_of_the_earth.

The title in the New Century Hymnal is To You, O god, All Creatures Sing, #17. It has 6 verses. The only representative texts I could find only have only have 5, so when/if you sing along, and I hope you do, you’ll have to improvise that final verse!

The descant I use on verse 4 is the one given in the NCH. I don’t mind using my own descants, but I also like to use given ones because they become favorite, personal pleasures of soprano and tenor members of the congregation…so why deprive them of their guilty pleasures–indulge, indulge!

In verse 6 I put the tune in the pedals and inverted the counterpoint in the hands. The harmonization of this magnificent tune, is of course, by Ralph Vaughn Williams.

This morning’s Earth Day hymn is this famous Native American hymn. #3 in the New Century Hymnal, both verses are given in the original Dakota language as well as in an English translation. Hymnary.org gives just the English translation.

The NCH suggests the 4 quarter note drum throughout. I debated using that since I don’t want to err in the direction of tasteless cultural approbation any more than I already have by using this hymn. But…it seemed to work if done very softly and it gives a sense of forward motion.

The footnotes in the NCH give Joseph Renville, 1842, as having adapted the tune and James Murry, 1877, as having provided the harmonization. Renville helped establish the Lac qui Parle mission in Minnesota and Frazier, a Native American, was a Congregational minister.