"Our Savior's Love"

Episode 20: The history behind “Our Savior’s Love”: Edward LeRoy Hart was a professor of English at Brigham Young University for 30 years and held a Fulbright Fellowship for study in Pakistan. Edward stated that the hymn “Our Savior’s Love” grew out of a figure of speech. “The simile,” he said, “goes back to seeing people in a fabric or clothing store take material outside and into the sunlight to test its color in the only true or ‘perfect’ source of light. In the same way, the only true test of love is the source, our Savior’s love.” In 1977 the Church Music Committee asked composer Crawford Gates to create a setting for Brother Hart’s text. Crawford says of the experience, “Though I am aware that all creativity comes from God, perhaps three times in my career I have been very aware of melodic ideas coming as a direct gift from Him. This was one of those times.” This program includes renditions of the hymn by the following artists: Brigham Young University’s Young Ambassadors, Todd McCabe and April Moriarty, Michael Dowdle, the Gibbons Family, Kay Hicks Ward and Meredith Campbell, Clayne Robison, Doug Bush, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square.