Fred A. Fillmore: gospel songs from Cincinnati

About Fred A. Fillmore

Fillmore was born in Paris, Illinois, on 15 May 1856, and grew up in Cincinnati, a son of Augustus Damon Fillmore and Hannah Maria Lockwood. His father ran a music business in the city, and after Augustus died in 1870 the firm passed to his sons. Fred and his elder brother James Henry Fillmore built it into the Fillmore Music House, issuing church hymnals and Sunday-school books and later band and orchestral music. Fred served as vice-president and house composer, credited with more than 200 hymns and the editing of two hymnals in the firm's catalogue.

He was a temperance man as well as a hymn writer. He contributed to Fillmore's Prohibition Songs, a 224-page collection issued for prohibitionist meetings, and stood unsuccessfully for the Ohio state legislature on the Prohibition ticket in 1910. He died on 16 November 1925 at Terrace Park, Ohio, after an operation, survived by his wife Laura and four children.

His best-known piece is Seeds of Promise, written with the lyricist Jessie H. Brown and published in 1923, two years before his death; it appeared under its opening line, O Scatter Seeds of Loving Deeds. Most other titles here are first lines too, which is how gospel-song books indexed their contents. The 21 entries run from complexity index 0 to 2, with nine at the busiest level: short pieces, but not all of them plain.

Listening and playing notes

These are strophic gospel songs, built for a congregation rather than a recital platform: a square four-part harmonisation under a verse, then a refrain that repeats word for word. Keep the tempo brisker than the notation suggests, because the words carry the momentum and a slow account of a four-line chorus soon sags. The tenor line is usually the most interesting inner part, so bring it out in the refrain. Check the repeat signs before you start, since some files write the chorus out in full and others rely on a dal segno.

Selected scores

1. O Scatter Seeds of Loving Deeds

   The most-viewed score on the page and the piece Fillmore was known for: published in 1923 as Seeds of Promise, with words by Jessie H. Brown.

2. What the Lord Has Done for Me

   A testimony hymn built on a repeated personal refrain, the second most-viewed entry in the collection.

3. Rejoice and Be Glad, All Ye Faithful

   An opening hymn of praise, and one of the few titles here that begins with an invitation rather than a personal pronoun.

4. He Knows the Bitter, Weary Way

   A consolation hymn whose first line carries the whole argument of the text; the file gives no author for the words.

5. I Have Wandered Far Away

   One of several prodigal-and-return texts in the collection, titled by its opening line alone.

6. Are You Sowing the Seed Over Soil Rich and Fertile

   A Sunday-school sowing hymn, titled here by its full opening line rather than by a tune name.

7. We Are Little Soldiers

   A children's march, the kind of number the Fillmore firm placed in its young people's collections.

8. Bless the Lord, O Soul Within Me

   A paraphrase of Psalm 103's self-address, one of the few psalm texts in the collection.

9. O Silvery Sea of Galilee

   A Gospel narrative piece on the Sea of Galilee, among the calmer entries in the collection.

10. O, I Am So Glad That Salvation Is Free

    A brisk assurance chorus with a repeated refrain; one of eight files carrying lyrics.