My Journey as a Hymn Writer
Joao Wilson Faustini
I have had intense interest in hymns since my early years as an organist in Pirajuí, a small town in the interior of Brazil. I was only 12 when I had the full responsibility of playing the small reed pump organ for all the services of a small Presbyterian Church. For a time, that congregation had to be limited to sing only the hymns I could play. In getting acquainted with SALMOS E HINOS, the mostly used Congregational Hymnal in Brazil at that time, I soon realized that most hymns were translations, either from the English or German hymnody, and that no music was to be found, written by Brazilian composers. It was not until I was 18 and prompted by my Portuguese Literature teacher, who was also a pastor, that I tried to write my first hymn text, and at his suggestion, I used the very familiar tune CONVERSE, (What a Friend We Have in Jesus) as my guideline for the proper meter and musical accents. At that time I was also taking choir conducting lessons from an American Missionary and had a choir of my own in another small Presbyterian Church in Osasco, a suburb of São Paulo. I had to provide a repertoire of hymns and anthems for that choir and that was no easy task. There was very little material published or available in the Portuguese language for choirs and I often ended up having the choir sing many hymns from the hymnal in use. Many times I had to find suitable texts for unknown new tunes or tunes for suitable new texts. Strictly out of the dire need for suitable material, and because of my own interest in hymns, I also began writing my own texts and tunes at age 18.
Although familiar with THE HYMNAL 1940 since it was used for our conducting classes with the American missionary teacher, when I came to the Westminster Choir College, in Princeton, NJ, I came into direct contact with many of the great hymns of the church in hymnology classes and in the regular chapel services, where these hymns were sung. As I became familiar with new hymns not yet translated to Portuguese, I often ventured to translate them.
Back in Brazil, after my graduation, my first translated hymns began to be used in different churches. A pastor came to me one day and clearly said that I should not try to translate hymns or write hymn texts. He believed that I was a musician and not a poet, and that I should let the poets take that responsibility. This pastor tried to “improve” my translation of “God of Our Father’s Whose Almight Hand” but this dear old man had no idea where the musical accents should go, and did a terrible work. The hymn was unsingable because he included more syllables than the meter allowed. Shortly after that I tried to redo my previous translation of that same hymn. Without telling him that I had done it, I showed it to him, but now using the pseudonym of J. Costa. He read it aloud with interest and said: “This is an excellent hymn text. One can clearly see that it was written by a very good poet.” This incident helped me to realize that without doubt, because I was a musician, my name was a barrier that hindered the acceptance of my texts and translations. From then on, I began using J.Costa as pseudonym for most of my translations.
In 1964 the World Students Federation sponsored by The World Council of Churches was organizing a new hymnal called VENITE EXULTEMUS, and was searching for translations of many of the standard hymns of the church which they wanted to publish in many different languages. João Moreira Coelho, an old friend of mine was stationed in Geneva at the time, and he suggested my name to the committee, hoping that I could help with the translations for that project. A long list of hymns the committee wanted to include in that hymnal was sent to me, many of which had not yet been translated to Portuguese. I worked hard for several weeks to complete the missing translations and sent to them the newly translated hymns under the pseudonym of J. Costa, along with others I had translated previously, using my own name. Amazingly, all six translations of J. Costa’s hymns I had sent were included in that edition of Venite Exultemus. They were Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart, Come Down, O Love Divine, Erhalt Uns Herr bei deinem Wort, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, All Praise to Thee and O Jubilee Day. Only one hymn, The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll not want translated by João W. Faustini made the list! This proved that my reputation as a hymn writer was obscured by being also a musician. According to that pastor and obviously other people as well, I was supposed to be a musician and not a poet!
Ten years later, in 1974, the World Council of Churches published a new edition of an old ecumenical hymnal called CANTATE DOMINO, and in it were included four of my translations (Be Thou My Vision, Let Us Break Bread Together, God is Working His Purpose Out and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. The first two appeared with my own name as the translator and the last two had my pseudonym, J.Costa.
As I exercised the art of translation I could see that it was becoming easier to take up this task and the result seemed to be improving as the years went along. The demand for new hymns in Portuguese for the different seasons of the year was great, and I continued to produce many more translations. By 1972 I was able to publish SEJA LOUVADO, a whole new bilingual hymnal with 315 hymns, for St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, the oldest Portuguese speaking church in USA, founded in 1929, in the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, where I was serving as minister of music. For the first time ever, 56 hymn texts originally written in Portuguese were translated into English and more than 60 tunes were from Brazil. The Hymn Society of America and its president then, Mr. J. Vincent Higginson and Mr. William Watkins Reid, Executive Secretary at the time, played an important part in helping me to locate capable English speaking hymn writers who were willing to write metrical versions of these hymns I had translated from the Portuguese.
After SEJA LOUVADO was published, copies of this hymnal were sent to several pastors and churches in Brazil, in hopes that some might be interested in adopting this new hymnal for their congregational use. However, only a few large churches adopted it: Three in São Paulo and one in Rio de Janeiro. Although SL was not widely circulated among smaller churches, many of its newly translated hymns first published in SL, soon found their way into other hymnals published thereafter by other denominations in Brazil, such as the Baptist Hinário para o culto Cristão, which used 29 texts and 3 tunes and the Presbyterian Cântico Novo, which used 7 tunes and 24 texts. Other hymnals, to a lesser degree, such as the Salvation Army hymnal, the Congregational Church hymnal Salmos e Hinos and the Mormon Hymnal. All of these hymnals borrowed from the new translations I had prepared for Seja Louvado.
1964
Venite Exultemus 7 Portuguese translations
1970
Hinos (Mormons) 1 Portuguese translation
1972
Seja Louvado 169 Portuguese texts – originals and translations 15 English Translations from the Portuguese
1978
Hinário Evangélico 5 Portuguese translations
1990
Hinário Para o Culto Cristão 35 Portuguese Translations
1991
Novo Cântico 29 Portuguese Translations
1996
Hinário Adventista do Sétimo Dia 3 Portuguese Translations
1999
Cancioneiro do Exército de Salvação 10 Portuguese Translations
2005
When Breaks the Dawn 66 Translations from the Portuguese
2006
Cantai Todos os Póvos 74 (Originals or translations)
2007
Outra Opção 69 (Originals or translations)
2008
Cantai ao Senhor 8 (Originals or translations)
2009
Queremos te Louvar 9 (Originals or translations) Dádiva Divina 13 (Originals or translations)
