#638: Blessed Assurance
Dec. 17th, 2020 10:57 pmFairly boring alto part. Composer has a pretty awesome name, "Fanny Crosby"? Although apparently "Fanny" was just a nickname for "Frances," so maybe not that impressive/bizarre.
...And upon wiki'ing, apparently she was phenomenally prolific as a lyricist. A lot of her stuff may come across as kind of cheesy/over-the-top gospel style now, but in the late 1800s that was in vogue and she wrote so much she had to keep using different pseudonyms so people didn't get sick of her. And she was also blind. I get the sense that in her career there was a little bit of "aww, the blind lady writes sweet things about Jesus, let's give her a big stage" kind of patronizing, but also it's pretty neat that one of the most prolific hymnists in the US was a disabled person and her blindness isn't even interesting enough to make it "above the fold" in her Wikipedia page.
...And upon wiki'ing, apparently she was phenomenally prolific as a lyricist. A lot of her stuff may come across as kind of cheesy/over-the-top gospel style now, but in the late 1800s that was in vogue and she wrote so much she had to keep using different pseudonyms so people didn't get sick of her. And she was also blind. I get the sense that in her career there was a little bit of "aww, the blind lady writes sweet things about Jesus, let's give her a big stage" kind of patronizing, but also it's pretty neat that one of the most prolific hymnists in the US was a disabled person and her blindness isn't even interesting enough to make it "above the fold" in her Wikipedia page.