Ep. 107
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, the theme is Inner Peace — inspired by a vision over the weekend. We open with a Today in History pick: on this very date in 1907, Prince’s Military Band recorded The Dream of the Rarebit Fiend for Columbia Records, a chaotic, lurching musical portrait of the nightmare state that reminds us what peace is not. From there we move to something quieter — the Revillon Trio’s 1915 instrumental recording of Somewhere a Voice Is Calling, a melody written by Arthur F. Tate on holiday in Whitby, England, in which the voice of the title goes unheard and the listener is left simply waiting, still, in the dusk. We close with one of the most hard-won declarations of peace in the entire hymn tradition: It Is Well With My Soul, recorded in 1906 by William F. Hooley and the Handel Mixed Quartet, the text written by Horatio Spafford as his ship crossed the spot in the Atlantic where his four daughters had drowned. Three recordings, three different ways of arriving at the same place — because inner peace, it turns out, is never simply given. It has to be found.
Dusk and the shadows falling O’er land and sea; Somewhere a voice is calling Calling for me
Dusk and the shadows falling O’er land and sea; Somewhere a voice is calling Calling for me
Night and the stars are gleaming Tender and true; Dearest, my heart is dreaming Dreaming of you
Night and the stars are gleaming Tender and true; Dearest, my heart is dreaming Dreaming of you
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. Refrain: It is well with my soul, It is well, it is well with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul. My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!— My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: If Jordan above me shall roll, No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul. But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait, The sky, not the grave, is our goal; Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord! Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul! And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.