Marika Lee's Hymn & Scripture Study Sundays "Be Still My Soul"

This week’s song “Be Still, My Soul” is a wonderful one when you need the calming influence of the Holy Ghost in your life. I couldn’t find free sheet music due to copyright restrictions, but here are the lyrics and below you can watch and listen to a wonderfully peaceful, calming performance.



Scriptures for this song:

Psalms 37:3-9 Much of the doctrine in these verses is found within the lyrics of the song. We must commit our ways to the Lord and wait patiently. One of my favorite phrases from these verses is that we should “fret not thyself”.
Psalms 46:10 Hear the opening line?
D&C 101:14-16, 35-38 http://scriptures.lds.org/dc/101 I especially like the part about the need to care for the soul in these verses.

Various facts:
Text by Katharina von Schlegel (1697- c.1768)
Music by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
English translation by Jane L. Borthwick about 100 years after it’s original writing.
Tune name is Finlandia

The story behind the song:
During a time of revival, congregational hymns were making a reappearance. It was during this period that this song was written. The author of the text is said to have written lyrics to several spiritual songs. She was a Lutheran who new her Bible well, as is evidenced by the way she wove biblical themes and references abundantly in this song. Notice in the second verse how she eludes to the story of Jesus calming the winds and waves.

The music is a section of a symphonic poem. The whole song is rather turbulent, written during a time when the Finnish people were rebelling against harsh censorship by the Russians. However, there is a section towards the end that is calm and melodic and that is the music used for this hymn. Much of the author’s inspiration for his music came from nature.

I am doing a little research online to find these things out. I also have a book entitled "Our Latter-day Hymns The Stories and the Messages" by Karen Lynn Davidson from which I am finding information on these songs. If you want more info, the aforementioned book and the internet search engines can get you much more than the little bit I shared.