"Then the Glory," Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal, #218
Last Christmas season I reviewed a CD issued by Concordia Publishing House called The Marvel of This Night. This CD featured the Christmas hymns of a hymn writer named Jaroslav Vajda. Several of his hymns have made their way into Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal and Let All the People Praise You, a spiritual songbook published by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Northwestern Publishing House. This year I thought I would share several of Vajda's hymns this Advent and Christmas season and some thoughts on these hymns.
Jaroslav Vajda is the son of a Lutheran pastor of Slovak descent who received musical training in childhood. Vajda began translating classical Slovak poetry at age eighteen but did not write his first hymn until age 49. He has written over 200 original and translated hymns, which appear worldwide in more than 65 hymnals. He also published two collections of hymn texts, numerous books, translations, and articles. Vajda served on hymnal commissions for Hymnal Supplement (1969) and Lutheran Book of Worship (1978). After 18 years in a mostly bilingual ministry, he became the editor of This Day Magazine and then became a book editor and developer at Concordia Publishing House. Jaroslav Vajda retired in 1986.
The two hymns for this week are short-each is one verse long. Technically they are not Christmas hymns. "Now the Silence" is placed in the "Opening of Service" section of Christian Worship. "Then the Glory" is in the "End Time" section. "Now the Silence," however, brings us into that silent, reverent mood-indeed, a mood fit to meet the baby king who created each one of us. A focus on Advent is the coming of our Savior to judge the world and gather his saints to heaven. Thus "Then the Glory" fits this aspect of our Advent meditation.
Both hymns use the tune "Now," which was composed by Carl F. Schalk. Vajda's hymns are often set to Schalk's compositions.
Carl Flentge Schalk was born in Chicago in 1929. He earned a B.S. in Ed. from Concordia College, River Forest, Illinois, and advanced degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester , N.Y., (M.Mus) and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (M.A.R.). Schalk is a Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus at Concordia University, in River Forest, Illinois, where he taught graduate courses in church music since 1965. He served in the parish as a teacher and director of music at Zion Lutheran Church in Wausau, Wisconsin. He served the church-at-large as the director of music for the International Lutheran Hour, as the editor of the journal Church Music from 1966-1980, and served on various boards and committees for The Hymn Society, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, and the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW). The ILCW prepared the Lutheran Book of Worship and developed a new periscope reading schedule. His choral compositions and hymn settings for congregational use are widely used and he has written over 50 hymn tunes and carols.
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