Why exactly was this hymn inserted into the Purple Joy Killer anyway? Those who deny that it was a conspiracy by Dwight and his brother to thought-reform the membership completely, have yet to provide a satisfactory answer to that one.

As a classical music aficionado, I thought I would drop you a line regarding your comments on the hymn “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.”

I’m familiar with the purple hymnbook and find your site to be very interesting, although I think you are much too kind – I thought most of the hymns in that book were absolutely dreadful.

The melody for “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” was written by Franz Joseph Haydn as a birthday hymn for the Holy Roman Emperor Franz II. He also used the melody in his String Quartet in C major, Op 76 No3, subtitled “Emperor.” For the second movement, Haydn wrote a set of variations on the theme.

The poem which begins “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles” was written in 1841, and was intended to be sung to Haydn’s melody. The correct name is “Das Deutschlandlied,” or “The Song of Germany.” The melody predates the Nazis by about 130 years, and the lyrics by about 90. The subsequent uses to which the song was put by the Nazis has unfortunately stigmatized it. The song has been the German national anthem since 1922, and during the Nazi era was sung along with the Horst Wessel Song, which was the official Nazi party’s anthem. After the Second World War, the song was banned by the occupying powers because of its Nazi associations, but it was reinstated as the national anthem in 1952.

John Newton, the composer of “Amazing Grace,” wrote the lyrics to “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.”

Thanks to anonymous, for providing a little more background on the song. Whatever unfortunate uses the Nazis may have put the song to, it’s even more telling that Herbert W. Armstrong decided to put the song to much the same uses, many decades after the fall of Nazism itself.

I still get chills, every time I hear trrumpet blasts, even though I know they really mean nothing.

That’s one positive thing about ILFPRW — at least his trumpets were/are/will be SILENT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8one2PpV1aQ

(I actually performed in this in Dayton. It’s one of my better memories. I think this actual arrangement, actually.)