Had to take a little road trip tonight, for no interesting reason. So this post won’t even be up to my usual low standards.
The other day I got a call in the library from someone who wanted information on an old Lutheran hymn. You benighted Calvinists and Catholics probably don’t even know about this one, but it’s quite good . There are various translations, but the one I know is entitled “O Take My Hand, Dear Father.” I was able to use a resource we have in our collection to relate to the caller the story of the hymn’s writing.
Julia von Hautzmann (d. 1901), the poet, was born to a German family living in Estonia. As a young woman she married a missionary, but he left almost immediately for the far east (exactly where he went slips my mind). Sailing out to join him, she learned on arrival that he had died of a tropical disease. So she had to sail home again, a widow. On the voyage home she put her submission to God’s will into a poem:
Oh, take my hand, dear Father, and lead Thou me,
Till at my journey’s ending I dwell with Thee.
Alone I dare not journey one single day,
So do Thou guide my footsteps on life’s rough way.
Apparently she never married again. She wrote many Christian poems over her lifetime, but had them published only reluctantly, and even then insisted on anonymity.
My resource had something to say about the composer of the hymn tune, Friedrich Silcher, as well. But his story seemed a lot duller. He studied music, had a career as a church musician, wrote a number of hymn tunes, and that was about it.
What struck me was that, in most of the hymn stories I’ve heard over the years, the interesting part has almost always been the poet’s story. Contrary to their reputations, musicians always seem rather dull. Most of the time they come up with a tune to fit a poem. But it’s rarely a matter of much drama.
Which proves to me (word guy that I am) that words are more important than music.
And that bodes ill for contemporary church music.