The Greatest of These--SATB Choral Octavo
4-Part - Digital Sheet Music

This is a sacred SATB choral piece, accompanied by piano and flute (opt. oboe or violin). Duration: 2:30. Suitable for Pentecost Sunday or any time that love is the theme for the day (or 1 Cor. 13 is the Epistle reading). Also available is a piano/organ duet edition, posted separately on SMP.

Here are some program notes:

Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885) came from a distinguished English family. His father was first a minister in the Church of England and later Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. His uncle was none other than the famous poet, William Wordsworth. In this devout and scholarly environment he flourished–and after graduating with highest honors from Cambridge, he became Classical Lecturer and Public Orator at his alma mater. At the age of 29 he was appointed headmaster of Harrow, a renowned school for boys. At age 41, he was named Canon of Westminster Abbey. Two years later, he began a pastorate in a humble, rural parish–Stanford in the Vale–which was to last for 19 years. It was during this time that he published The Holy Year, a collection of hymns for every festival and season of the Church Year. Included were several texts which were to later find their way into the canon of standard hymnody, e.g., "O Day of Rest and Gladness," "See, the Conqueror Mounts in Triumph," "Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost" (later altered to "The Greatest of These"), and "Alleluia! Alleluia!" Wordsworth’s belief in the importance of congregational song in public worship was elegantly stated in the preface of The Holy Year:

            "A hymn in public worship is the collective voice of the congregation speaking to God, and singing His praise, or
              supplicating His grace. The Church triumphant thanks God for His great glory; and while she duly remembers
              what the Lamb who has been slain has done for her, it is not by decomposing herself into individuals that she
              glorifies Him, but by a universal chorus of praise for the salvation He has wrought for the whole company of
              faithful people in every nation under heaven."

In 1869, when he was 62, Wordsworth was named Bishop of Lincoln, a position in which he served until a few months before his death 16 years later.

Lyndell Leatherman (b. 1953) was born into a Nazarene parsonage in southeast Kansas. After studying church music and
composition at Olivet Nazarene University (Kankakee, Illinois) and Illinois State University (Bloomington-Normal, Illinois), he was named Music Editor at a denominational publishing company in Kansas City, Missouri, where he served from 1977 to 1997. He has enjoyed a diverse career as church musician, composer, and music editor–placing choral and instrumental compositions with nine publishers. In 1986 he discovered Wordsworth’s metrical rendering of the Apostle Paul’s immortal ode to love found in I Corinthians 13. Wishing to introduce it to the local congregation where he served as Minister of Music at the time, he was unable to match it with a suitable tune that was already familiar in his tradition, so he composed this new melody for the occasion.

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