A Lowry Triptych - David Evan Thomas

Composer: David Evan Thomas

Instrumentation: Solo piano

Duration: Approx. 10 minutes

Date Written: 2025

Additional Information: 

How Can I Keep from Singing?
I Need Thee Every Hour
Shall We Gather at the River

Robert Lowry (1826–1899) was one of the most prolific and lyrical hymn-writers of the nineteenth century.  Raised Presbyterian, a religious experience at seventeen sent him into the Baptist fold. He studied at the University of Lewisburg (now Bucknell University), was ordained in 1854, and went on to serve congregations at several churches in the East.

Lowry considered preaching his main vocation, and he was a spellbinding orator. Hymn-writing was a sideline, but he penned more than 500 hymn tunes, often writing text as well as music. And his rhetoric infects his music. His tunes are splendid, full-throated melodies that are great fun to sing.

Though he was essentially self-taught as a musician, music was always nearby: “My brain is a sort of spinning machine,” he said, “for there is music running through it all the time.” Lowry pursued the study of music later in life, and he shaped the American-style gospel hymn as the editor of more than two dozen hymnals.  

The arrangements here treat three of Lowry’s most popular hymns. “How Can I Keep from Singing?” echoes in tones what those words express. “I Need Thee Every Hour” presents the tune in the left hand between the hours of eleven and midnight, with Verdi’s ingenious bell-harmonies from Falstaff worked into the coda.

“Shall We Gather at the River” was conceived during a heat wave while Lowry was pastor of the Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn. It was inspired by the text from the Book of Revelation: "And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." Lowry dismissed “Shall We Gather…” as “brass band music.” I’ve taken him at his word, recasting the tune as a brash revival march with a saucy countermelody.

I have Lowrys on my father’s side of the family. In 1892, my great-great-uncle Charles Doak Lowry encountered Robert Lowry aboard the SS City of Paris, finding him quite affable. “He is far from young, is quite deaf, but he has a new-oldish bride.” A direct connection between these Lowrys has yet to be confirmed, but both share roots in Northern Ireland.