Hymns are not concert music. Perhaps this should go without saying, but I’m starting here because one of the ways we increasingly evaluate hymns is by listening to them on recordings.
Hymn recordings have been made ever since the dawn of recording technology. Any complete recording or broadcast of a service would naturally include hymns too. But the balance has changed with the advent of online streaming of liturgies. More hymns are being recorded than ever before.
And I wonder if this reality is beginning to challenge our common sense about hymn singing and how it works. I suspect it has for me, and I need to guard against this.
In April, I had a chance to give a talk at Sewanee about the hymnody of Herbert Howells. One of his hymn tunes that I inadvertently neglected was the tune he wrote for Charles Wesley’s “Love divine, all loves excelling.”
This tune was unpublished during Howells’s lifetime (it was not published until 1999, when Oxford University Press included it in a collection of four 20th-century tunes called Love Divine), so I felt only a little guilty about ignoring it. The night before the lecture, I listened to the fine recording by the Choir of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, just so I could be prepared to say something intelligent about how the tune goes.
I wasn’t much impressed by that nocturnal listening, and I said as much the next day. But I also realized that, despite having copies of the Love Divine collection in our choir library, we had never performed the eponymous tune. I resolved to fix this, and this summer, with its need for simpler, more straightforward choral music, seemed the right time to sing it.
Returning to the tune just this week, I can see that I underestimated the effect it would have on me and, I hope, the singers who are preparing it now. And this is perhaps because I decided to judge the tune by how it sounded (a secondary theology) rather than by the experience of singing it (a primary theology).
When one hears “Howells hymn tune,” most people think of his blockbuster tune “Michael” for the hymn “All my hope on God is founded.” But many of Howells’s other tunes are quite different, more reserved. That’s true of “Love divine.” And this is a good thing; it offers a real alternative to more familiar tunes for this text. “Hyfrydol” peaks early at “joy;” Blaenwern peaks later at “unbounded love.”
Howells’s tune, though, seems to have a different physiognomy altogether. You could point to little peaks and valleys, but they’re more like ebbs and flows. The hymn has a quieter, gentler energy. At the outset, the melody is quasi-pentatonic until it decidedly is not. The alternative harmonization that Howells writes for the final stanza turns up the intensity and gets the tune to near-smoldering, but still with a heart full of “faithful mercies.”
Like all of Howells’s hymn tunes, “Love Divine” rewards study. But even more rewarding is to experience the tune as Howells or any composer actually intends: sing it.
Labels: Charles Wesley, Howells, Hymn 665, hymns
There are better times to sing that fabulous hymn than a holiday weekend when it doesn't relate to the lectionary.
Furthermore, there are other hymns in the Hymnal 1982 that mention “labor.”
So here's a sort of tongue-in-cheek list of replacements for the Labor Day weekend “Come, labor on” selection.
- Hymn 226/227: ”Come, thou Holy Spirit bright”
Did I just write about this recently? You betcha. The relevant verse is in the second stanza:In our labor, be our aid
- Hymn 228: “Holy Spirit, font of light”
Unsurprisingly, the above verse also gets translated in this version of ”Veni Sancte Spiritus.”On our journey grant us aid, freshening breeze and cooling shade, in our labor inward rest. - Hymn 278: “For all the saints, who from their labors rest”
Why not set our human labor in contrast with those who have been set free? - Hymn 424: “For the fruit of all creation”
The second stanza of this hymn, by F. Pratt Green, might genuinely be perfect for Labor Day.In the just reward of labor, God’s will be done. In the help we give our neighbor, God’s will be done. In our world-wide task of caring for the hungry and despairing, in the harvests we are sharing, God’s will be done.
- Hymn 482: “Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy”
Here, again, we need look no further than stanza two:Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith, whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe, be there at our labors, and give us, we pray, your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.
- Hymn 564/565: “He who would valiant be”
The end of this Percy Dearmer hymn has something to say about the direction in which we should labor.Then fancies flee away; I’ll fear not what men say, I’ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.
- Hymn 586: “Jesus, thou divine Companion”
The second stanza of Henry Van Dyke's hymn speaks to Jesus' presence among those who work:Where the many toil together, there art thou among thine own; where the solitary labor, thou art there with them alone; thou, the peace that passeth knowledge, dwellest in the daily strife; thou, the Bread of heaven, art broken in the sacrament of life.
The third stanza, too — just perfect for Labor Day. We don't sing this hymn enough.
- Hymn 705: “As those of old their first fruits brought”
Another brilliant summation of the work of the Christian life is found here in the second stanza.A world in need now summons us to labor, love, and give; to make our life an offering to God that all may live;
Labels: Hymn 226, Hymn 227, Hymn 228, Hymn 278, Hymn 424, Hymn 482, Hymn 564/565, Hymn 586, Hymn 705, hymns, Percy Dearmer
In short, no.
Nor could we celebrate Easter without the sun, for Easter requires both the sun and the moon.
The date of Easter, which is always different from year to year, is derived from the interaction of the earth's rotation around the sun (the vernal equinox), the lunar cycle (the full moon), and our calendar (Sunday).
And at first blush, maybe it seems a little weird that we need the heavenly bodies to tell us when to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But Jesus Christ became incarnate on this very earth and under this same sun and this same moon, the "greater light" and the "lesser light" mentioned in Genesis 1:16.
A star in Matthew 2 heralds Jesus' birth, so is it incongruous that Christians would think to celebrate his resurrection by an annual astronomical calculation?
This year, the total solar eclipse on the Monday following the Octave of Easter (called Easter Week in the Book of Common Prayer) has sent my eyes and my thoughts heavenward.
How marvelous is it that, having done their annual dance leading up to Easter Day, the two converge for a spectacular and rare astronomic display on Eastertide's first "regular" day?
I might be reading too much into this. But it's hard not to when the Daily Office readings for this week give us this:
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. (I Corinthians 15:41)
Yes, each has a glory, and many will behold their glory on April 8, 2024.
But even in the face of the sheer spectacularity of a solar eclipse, scripture calls us to remember the nature of these created bodies and that they, too, shall pass away. In the little apocalypses in Matthew and Mark, the sun, moon, and stars all fail. In Revelation (and in many Advent Carol Services that include the music of Paul Manz), we are reminded that "…the [New Jerusalem] has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb." (Revelation 21:23).
Still, Christianity has proved we cannot resist these signs. Not in our keeping of calendars and feasts. Not in the Church's song.
And so I revisit here some thoughts on our sun and moon in song first published for the last great American solar eclipse in 2017.
It’s interesting to look closely at the processional cross used at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, St. Louis, and find both the sun and the moon peering out at you in the midst of the four Evangelists.
And why shouldn't they be on the cross of Christ? The date of Easter, the central mystery of the Christian faith, is determined by both the sun and the moon. It is the Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox (see page 880 of the Book of Common Prayer).
And just as the sun and moon appear together on this church's cross, they often appear together in the Church's song.
St. Patrick (372-466) invokes these two bodies in his glorious hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity
I bind unto myself today the virtues of the starlit heaven the glorious sun’s life-giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even,
Hymn 370 (all hymn numbers in this essay refer to the Hymnal 1982), translated by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895)
A few centuries later, an anonymous office hymn for Vespers, “Caeli Deus sanctissimae” has the natural order of day and night as one of its themes. It’s second and third stanzas receive a glorious free translation from Anne LeCroy in the Hymnal 1982.
Quarto die qui flammeam solis rotam consituens, lunae ministras orini vagos recursus siderum, Ut noctibus vel lumini diremptionis terminum, primordiis et mensium signum dares notissimum:
for you the dazzling star shines forth which in its gleaming path declares the wonders of your glorious power, And beckons us to worship you. The day departs, the evening stars serenely light the darkening sky; the moon with cool reflected glow will bring the silences of night.
Hymn 31 and 32. (I find the hymn tune Dunedin at Hymn 31 particularly irresistible with these words.)
The sun and the moon provided great inspiration to another beloved Christian figure and hymn writer St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voices, let us sing: Alleluia! Alleluia! Bright burning sun with golden beams, pale silver moon that gently gleams,
Hymn 400, tr. William H. Draper (1855-1933), alt.
Episcopalians get to enjoy not one, but two translations of St. Francis’s marvelous text. A less commonly sung version by Howard Chandler Robbins (1876-1952) is found at Hymns 406 and 407. I have a great fondness for the hymn texts of Robbins, who was a Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
My Lord be praised by brother sun who through the skies his course doth run, and shines in brilliant splendor: with brightness he doth fill the day, and signifies thy boundless sway. My Lord be praised by sister moon and all the stars, that with her soon will point the glittering heavens. Let wind and air and cloud and calm and weathers all, repeat the psalm.
There’s so much to admire in this language! “Signifies” – who knew that could be such a musical word? And in the moon stanza: the use of the verb “point”. The final sentence contains a chain of natural elements culminating in the peculiar “weathers”. There is much to savor here.
And the Calvin Hampton hymn tune “Lukkason” at Hymn 407 has much to recommend it.
John Mitlon (1608-1674) dresses up these spheres with some nifty descriptions in an often overlooked paraphrase of Psalm 136.
He the golden-tressèd sun caused all day his course to run: The hornèd moon to shine by night, mid her spangled sisters bright:
Hymn 389
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) has a particularly florid paraphrase of Psalm 19:1-6
The unwearied sun from day to day does his Creator’s power display;
And in the second stanza he begins with the moon:
Soon as the evening shades prevail, the moon takes up the wondrous tale, and nightly to the listening earth repeats the story of her birth:… and it concludes gloriously with stars and planets.
whilst all the stars that round her burn, and all the planets in their turn, confirm the tidings, as they roll and spread the truth from pole to pole.
Hymn 409
Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the “Father of English hymnody,” included the sun and the moon in several of his hymns.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day; the moon shines full at his command, and all the stars obey.
Hymn 398
Growing up in the Presbyterian church, it seemed as though we sang “Jesus shall reign” every other week! And yet, I still never tire of it.
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.
Hymn 544
Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) is the author of that beloved Anglican hymn text “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,” with that achingly glorious concluding stanza
Angels, help us to adore him; ye behold him face to face; sun and moon, bow down before him, dwellers all in time and space”
Hymn 410
The familiar hymn "Fairest Lord Jesus" begins with earthly comparisons (Jesus, of course, outshines them all), and then reaches heavenward to drive it's point home.
Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, and all the twinkling, starry host: Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer, than all the angels heaven can boast.
Hymn 383, German composite; tr. pub. New York, 1850, alt.
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint (1835-1917), wrote an enduring hymn of thanksgiving for creation, “For the beauty of the earth” when he was twenty-nine years old.
For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light,
Hymn 416.
Some marvelous twentieth-century texts have looked heavenward as well. In the era of space exploration, some of these texts take on a more “scientific” feel.
One of my very favorite hymns, which we don’t sing often enough is "Creating God, your fingers trace". The phrase “farthest space” could only appear in the age of space exploration when congregations could really conceive of what that might mean.
Creating God, your fingers trace the bold designs of farthest space; Let sun and moon and stars and light and what lies hidden praise your might.
Hymns 394 and 395, Jeffrey Rowthorn (b. 1934)
Labels: Easter, Hymnal 1982, hymns, science and nature
Songs in the Desert (songsinthedesert.org) is a collaborative conversation about Christian hymns which comes out every weekday in Lent.
A friend recently commented on an episode this week "This is the first one of these I listened to. Are they all this good?" The answer, of course, is yes!
Each episode is around five minutes and comes from a different contributor. As we get further into Lent, I have more appreciation for the variety of voices and perspectives in this project.
This week, we heard episodes on
- Monday - a throwback episode to one of the first episodes in this project from its short run in 2017. Abby Schoppe from Boston talks about the fabulous hymn "How shall I sing that majesty" sung to COE FEN.
- Tuesday - The Rev. Loren Lasch, Youth Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, on "I come with joy to meet my Lord".
- Wednesday - Jonathan Wessler, Minister of Music at the First Lutheran Church in Boston, on "Lord, thee I love with all my heart".
- Thursday - Scott Elsholz, Director of Music at the Catholic Church of the Nativity in Bartlett, Tenn. on "Just as I am".
- Friday - David Kurtenbach, freelance singer and chorister trainer at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco on the carol "The Crown of Roses".
Labels: hymns, Songs in the Desert
Songs in the Desert (songsinthedesert.org) is a collaborative conversation about Christian hymns which comes out every weekday in Lent.
Each episode is around five minutes and comes from a different contributor.
This week, we heard episodes for
- Monday - Jillian Smith, the director of Deaconess Anne House, a branch of the Episcopal Service Corps in St. Louis Missouri, on "Come, thou fount of every blessing"
- Tuesday - Michael Kurth, who this very morning is being ordained to the transitional diaconate in the Episcopal Church, on "My song is love unknown"
- Wednesday - Yotin Tiewtrakul, choirmaster at the Anglican Church of St. Thomas Becket in Hamburg, Germany on "Of the Father's heart begotten".
- Thursday - Mary Davenport Davis, digital communications manager at Trinity, Boston on "I bind unto myself today".
- Friday - The Rev. Gary Schultz, kantor at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Terre Haute, Indiana on "A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth".
Labels: hymns, Songs in the Desert
Songs in the Desert (songsinthedesert.org) is a collaborative conversation about Christian hymns which comes out every weekday in Lent.
Each episode is around five minutes and comes from a different contributor.
This week, we heard episodes for
- Monday in the Second Week of Lent - Andrew Klein, a choral singer from Minneapolis, on 'Ar hyd y nos'.
- George Herbert, Priest, 1633 - Jessica Nelson, the organist and choirmaster at St. Andrew' Cathedral, Jackson, Miss. on the Herbert poem "Love bade me welcome", which she thinks should exist in a hymn setting for congregational use. An intriguing possibility!
- Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent - Michael Monnikendam, the director of music at St. Stephen's, Seattle, on another Herbert hymn: "King of glory, King of peace" to the tune 'General Seminary'
- David, Bishop of Menevia, Wales, c. 544 - Meg Carter, who lives in Oakland, Calif. and works in humanitarian aid, on Welsh hymn signing and "Watchman, tell us of the night"
- Friday in the Second Week of Lent - the Rev. Jennifer Deaton, canon for pastoral care at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Jackson, Miss. on a change in the way she hears the words of the hymn "Peace before us" after the Parkland school shooting on Ash Wednesday.
Labels: hymns, Songs in the Desert
Dear readers,
I apologize for neglecting this blog, but I have a pretty good excuse, or two.
But fear not, Sinden.org still has a place in all this. I owe you all a Sinden.org polemic railing against this ludicrous article from Steven Markowitz called "Digital Organs are the Future – It's Time to End the Schism" (reprinted here.)
But until then, here's a rundown of the Songs in the Desert episodes since Ash Wednesday. Each episode is around five minutes and comes from a different contributor.
- Ash Wednesday - an episode from yours truly. I introduce the Songs in the Desert project and talk about Isaac Watts's "When I survey the wondrous cross".
- Thursday after Ash Wednesday - Michael Smith, the organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas, Whitemarsh, Penn. on "Come thou fount of every blessing".
- Friday after Ash Wednesday - Derek Olsen, an Episcopal layperson and author who runs the St. Bede Blog, schools us on "The glory of these forty days".
- Monday in the First Week of Lent - The Rev. Kara Slade, newly of Trinity, Princeton, N.J., also chimes in on "Come thou fount of every blessing".
- Tuesday in the First Week of Lent - The Rev. Wallace Adams-Riley, an Episcopal priest in Richmond, Va. on "They cast their nets in Galilee".
- Wednesday in the First Week of Lent - Sumner Jenkins, the organist and choirmaster at St. Paul's, Lynchburg, Va. on "Christ mighty Savior, Light of all creation" and the Richard Dirksen tune Inisfree Farm.
- Thursday in the First Week of Lent - Mary Larew, one of my friends from college, now a composer and arts administrator living in Bristol, Conn., on the Doxology ("Praise God from whom all blessing flow").
- Friday in the First Week of Lent - Max Thornton, a parishioner of Grace Church, Newark, N.J. on "When in our music God is glorified" and finding a "new dimension" of praise with his transfigured voice.
If you like what you hear, I hope you'll check in for new episodes this week at songsinthedesert.org or subscribe to the podcast.
Labels: hymns
Dear friends,
I want to start talking about Lent. Yes, already!
Seems early, doesn't it? But here's what I'm thinking:
It was only in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday 2017 that I decided to attempt to compile a collaborative Lenten devotional on hymns.
We called it Songs in the Desert, and the project was such a big success last year that I want to re-imagine this project for 2018.
This year, with more lead time, I want to ask for more submissions to create another collaborative podcast that would serve as a Lenten reflection around hymns.
I could see that there was tremendous interest in what we were doing, and I thought that with a little more notice we could sustain the project for the full season of Lent.
Who: You! If you're reading this, you should probably just go ahead and sign up. If you submitted a reflection last year, I hope you'll submit again.
When: Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2018. Hey, that's Valentine's Day! (More on this in a minute.) Beginning on Ash Wednesday I'd like to have reflections to send out for every weekday before Palm Sunday.
What: A short reflection on a hymn. It can be any hymn you want. Because Ash Wednesday is Valentine's Day, I thought it would fun if the theme was "Love" (but is that too cheesy?). Did you know the word "love" appears 867 times in hymns of the Hymnal 1982?. You can address this theme any way you want. If your chosen hymn is about God it's probably about love (because God is love, right?).
How:
- STEP 1: If you're interested, I hope you'll sign up for a reflection here: Songs in the Desert 2018. (If you have any trouble with the sign-up thingamajig just send me an email at dsinden@gmail.com)
- STEP 2: Send me a reflection (at dsinden@gmail.com. Submissions may be written text or audio. If written, I, or another member of the project, will read it aloud. Audio files may be recorded on whatever you have available (even the voice memo on your smartphone can work). Submissions should be no more than 600 words, or five minutes long.
Where: I'll post updates on the project on this blog and at Sinden.org/hymns. The podcast is still live on iTunes, so new episodes will start showing up there too.
Why: Because it will be fun! Because hearing each other's stories about hymns changes the way we sing, hear, and pray them. Because Lent is a great time to examine our faith, and a close reading of hymns can help us do just that.
Thanks for your interest in this year's Songs in the Desert project, and I hope you'll sign up to submit a reflection in 2018!
Songs in the Desert is a Sinden Production of Anglican Media (SPAM)
Labels: hymns, Lent, Songs in the Desert
The total solar eclipse in the United States on Monday, August 21 will be quite an event. And it’s one that seemingly everyone is already talking about.
Why is this astronomical event such a big deal to us? I mean, we live in an age when we can carry around supercomputers in our pockets. (And these same supercomputers can tell us exactly how much of the eclipse we’ll be experiencing based on our precise location).
Are we really going to look up from our smartphones and gaze heavenward on Monday?
Well, if and when we do, we’ll be joining in one of those great human acts: pondering the mystery and majesty of the natural world.
For centuries, Christians have had a tendency to look up to these celestial bodies in their song. They are part of our world and part of God’s creation. Their movement orders our days and our lives and therefore our worship of almighty God. So, let's take a look at some of the hymns found in the Hymnal 1982.
It’s interesting to look closely at the processional cross used at St. Peter’s, St. Louis, and find both the sun and the moon peering out at you in the midst of the four Evangelists.
And why shouldn't they be on the cross of Christ? The date of Easter, the central mystery of the Christian faith, is determined by both the sun and the moon. It is the Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox (see page 880 of the Book of Common Prayer).
St. Patrick (372-466) invokes these two bodies in his glorious hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity
I bind unto myself today the virtues of the starlit heaven the glorious sun’s life-giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even,
Hymn 370 (all hymn numbers in this essay refer to the Hymnal 1982), translated by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895)
A few centuries later, an anonymous office hymn for Vespers, “Caeli Deus sanctissimae” has the natural order of day and night as one of its themes. It’s second and third stanzas receive a glorious free translation from Anne LeCroy in the Hymnal 1982.
Quarto die qui flammeam solis rotam consituens, lunae ministras orini vagos recursus siderum, Ut noctibus vel lumini diremptionis terminum, primordiis et mensium signum dares notissimum:
for you the dazzling star shines forth which in its gleaming path declares the wonders of your glorious power, And beckons us to worship you. The day departs, the evening stars serenely light the darkening sky; the moon with cool reflected glow will bring the silences of night.
Hymn 31 and 32. (I find the hymn tune Dunedin at Hymn 31 particularly irresistible with these words.)
The sun and the moon provided great inspiration to another beloved Christian figure and hymn writer St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voices, let us sing: Alleluia! Alleluia! Bright burning sun with golden beams, pale silver moon that gently gleams,
Hymn 400, tr. William H. Draper (1855-1933), alt.
Episcopalians get to enjoy not one, but two translations of St. Francis’s marvelous text. A less commonly sung version by Howard Chandler Robbins (1876-1952) is found at Hymns 406 and 407. I have a great fondness for the hymn texts of Robbins, who was a Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
My Lord be praised by brother sun who through the skies his course doth run, and shines in brilliant splendor: with brightness he doth fill the day, and signifies thy boundless sway. My Lord be praised by sister moon and all the stars, that with her soon will point the glittering heavens. Let wind and air and cloud and calm and weathers all, repeat the psalm.
There’s so much to admire in this language! “Signifies” – who knew that could be such a musical word? And in the moon stanza: the use of the verb “point”. The final sentence contains a chain of natural elements culminating in the peculiar “weathers”. There is much to savor here.
And the Calvin Hampton hymn tune “Lukkason” at Hymn 407 has much to recommend it.
John Mitlon (1608-1674) dresses up these spheres with some nifty descriptions in an often overlooked paraphrase of Psalm 136.
He the golden-tressèd sun caused all day his course to run: The hornèd moon to shine by night, mid her spangled sisters bright:
Hymn 389
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) has a particularly florid paraphrase of Psalm 19:1-6
The unwearied sun from day to day does his Creator’s power display;
And in the second stanza he begins with the moon:
Soon as the evening shades prevail, the moon takes up the wondrous tale, and nightly to the listening earth repeats the story of her birth:… and it concludes gloriously with stars and planets.
whilst all the stars that round her burn, and all the planets in their turn, confirm the tidings, as they roll and spread the truth from pole to pole.
Hymn 409
Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the “Father of English hymnody,” included the sun and the moon in several of his hymns.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day; the moon shines full at his command, and all the stars obey.
Hymn 398
Growing up in the Presbyterian church, it seemed as though we sang “Jesus shall reign” every other week!
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.
Hymn 544
Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) is the author of that beloved Anglican hymn text “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,” with that achingly glorious concluding stanza
Angels, help us to adore him; ye behold him face to face; sun and moon, bow down before him, dwellers all in time and space”
Hymn 410
The familiar hymn "Fairest Lord Jesus" begins with earthly comparisons (Jesus, of course, outshines them all), and then reaches heavenward to drive it's point home.
Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, and all the twinkling, starry host: Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer, than all the angels heaven can boast.
Hymn 383, German composite; tr. pub. New York, 1850, alt.
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint (1835-1917), wrote an enduring hymn of thanksgiving for creation, “For the beauty of the earth” when he was twenty-nine years old.
For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light,
Hymn 416.
Some marvelous twentieth-century texts have looked heavenward as well. In the era of space exploration, some of these texts take on a more “scientific” feel.
One of my very favorite hymns, which we don’t sing often enough is "Creating God, your fingers trace". The phrase “farthest space” could only appear in the age of space exploration when congregations could really conceive of what that might mean.
Creating God, your fingers trace the bold designs of farthest space; Let sun and moon and stars and light and what lies hidden praise your might.
Hymns 394 and 395, Jeffrey Rowthorn (b. 1934)
Labels: Hymnal 1982, hymns, science and nature
Two years ago, I wrote about the "new worlds" sentiment found in two different hymns: new worlds - thousands of.
Frederick William Faber writes of "thousands / Of new worlds as great as this" in a stanza that has been cut from the Hymnal 1982.
And the midst of Robert Bridges's famous hymn gives us: "newborn worlds rise and adore"
But I had not realized how ancient the "many worlds" sentiment was in Christian liturgy.
Stephen Buzard, the director of the 2017 St. Louis Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) course drew our attention to a similar line in the Phos hilaron.
The Phos hilaron is truly ancient – the oldest known Christian hymn outside of the Bible.
While it's often rendered as "O gracious light," Lutheran theologian Marva Dawn loved to translate this literally: "O laughing light" or "O hilarious light".
The Phos hilaron was introduced to the Evening Prayer (Both Rite I and Rite II) with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
Here it is in the Rite I version:
O gracious Light, pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven, O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed! Now as we come to the setting of the sun, and our eyes behold the vesper light, we sing thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices, O Son of God, O Giver of life, and to be glorified though all the worlds.
There it is again – right there in the very last line – the "many worlds" idea. The plural is deliberate.
This year is the 20th anniversary of St. Louis RSCM course, and a new setting of the Phos hilaron has been commissioned to honor the course's founders: Phillip Brunswick and Brother Vincent Ignatius, OSB. The composer is Gary Davison.
Yesterday, Mr. Buzard drew our attention to that last phrase of the Phos: "through all the worlds".
There is an exceptional, mystical way in which Gary Davison has set those words.
And so here we have it, the best of the Anglican choral tradition: an ancient Christian text in a brand new, beautiful, thoughtfully-composed setting.
It will be sung for the first time at Evensong on Saturday.
Labels: Evensong, Gary Davison, hymns, Phos hilaron, RSCM, Stephen Buzard
So many people think that Lent is about giving something up rather than taking something on to go deeper into the faith.
I have so many wonderful, thoughtful readers of this blog. I wonder if you might be willing to team up to create an online Lenten devotional? I was thinking especially about hymns.
This can really take any form you want. I don't have any guidelines, but here are some thoughts to get you started.
Here's the plan: use the voice memo app on your phone to record a thought or two about your chosen hymn and send it to me at dsinden@gmail.com
- What's your favorite hymn, and why?
- What do you wish other people knew about this hymn?
- what words do you think we should notice?
- what's a hymn that you really like, or find interesting, that not many people know about
- in a hymn that has fallen out of favor (e.g. "Onward Christian soldiers") what have we lost by not singing it?
- what hymn makes you weep?
- what hymn makes you laugh?
- if there is a particular passage that speaks to you, feel free to read that as part of your recording
Finally, don't forget to say who you are, where you live, and what you do so we can add that in.
You can speak informally, or write out a script first. It doesn't matter to me. You can talk for as long as you like, but I'll probably edit it down to about 2-3 minutes or so.
My plan is to edit these together with some music and then push them out during Lent.
Labels: hymns, Songs in the Desert
We argue a lot about Advent, don't we?
Let's settle one question this year: what's the best Advent hymn of all time?
Vote for your favourite(s) or add your own.
I'll never forget the first time I sang the hymn tune SAN ROCCO. It was at a Choral Evensong sung by the choir of Hereford Cathedral in October 2002 at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio.
I believe that this service was just one of the regular Wednesday Evensongs still offered regularly at Trinity, Cleveland, which, while a bit smaller, bears a striking resemblance to Hereford.
I can't remember how full the building was, but I would wager it was a bit fuller than they typically get on a Wednesday night. On the other hand, it certainly wasn't full or even close to it, which was a real shame because this service was something.
At least, it was to me.
Trinity Cathedral
Cleveland, Ohio
At the time I was a junior in college and just a few weeks earlier had begun working in an Episcopal church. I was excited about going to this Evensong but I didn't really know what to expect. Had I even ever been to an Evensong at that point in my life? Probably not.
But I'd picked up a Prayer Book and, having done a bit of homework, I sort of knew what it was about.
This was also the first time that I had heard an English cathedral choir in person. I remember being surprised that at least one boy seemed to have forgotten his white surplice back in England. He was easy to spot in the procession because he came down the aisle in only his blue cassock (the cathedral in Hereford is officially "Cathedral Church of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Ethelbert the King"; churches named after the Blessed Virgin Mary typically wear blue, I would learn later). How embarrassing for him, I thought. Then I saw another chorister dressed the same way. And then another. And I remember thinking that this must mean something too, but what?
I was on the edge of my seat because everything was new that night. There was the newness of the Prayer Book, this American document that prescribed liturgy in the Episcopal Church, but was a direct descendent of a book of the same name from England. It was this English book that the Hereford Choir would know, so a close observation of the service might tell me more about the worship tradition in which I was now engaged.
I vaguely remember checking the lectionary in the back of the book to see if they had chosen the right lessons. I still do this today when I get distracted (though now only with the daily lectionary).
It was all so much to take in, and it was all so grand. And the singing was fabulous. The Psalm was beautifully chanted. The liturgy was seamlessly conducted and very dignified.
But the thing I remember the most clearly was the final hymn.
It was SAN ROCCO, and it was glorious.
Trinity, Cleveland is a bit unusual in that there is not a big organ up front the way you would expect to be. Rather, there is a great big Flentrop in the back. It's more the kind of organ that Bach would have known and less the kind of organ you expect to find as the main instrument in a large Episcopal church.
Flentrop was big presence in northeastern Ohio in the second half of the last century. A small Flentrop was installed in Christ Church, Oberlin in 1964. A three-manual Flentrop was installed in Warner Concert Hall in the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music just a short ways away in 1974. Trinity, Cleveland put in a similar instrument in 1977. (They also have a 14-stop Choir Organ that was installed in 1976).
If you enter from the liturgical West doors at Trinity, Cleveland, you walk under the lofted organ to enter the nave. In plain view is a tall metal spiral staircase that one must ascend to reach the organ.
And so it was at the end of this Evensong that whosever it was who had climbed the stairs and was accompanying the service cracked open the Hymnal 1982 and launched in with the introduction to SAN ROCCO. And – here I rely on my more than a dozen-year-old memory of this event, but I believe it to be credible – the introduction to this hymn was in D-flat.
The reason I feel somewhat confident in this assessment is for two reasons: 1) I was working on my pitch identification with great intensity back then. I would keep track of key areas and such whenever I attended a concert or recital (and would often notate them in my program to keep myself honest); and 2) it sounded a ever so slightly funky in the temperament on that Flentrop, which leads me to believe that it wasn't C Major.
If all this is correct it means that the experience I remember so vividly involved hymn 253: "Give us the wings of faith to rise", the words of Isaac Watts, and a splendid modern hymn tune by Derek Williams.
Earlier on this blog: A few years after I attended this service the words of this same hymn were included in fallenness - flatness as.
I was swept up in the drama of the music, and they paired so well with the words we were singing (the more I think of it, I'm sure it had to be Hymn 253. The tune pairs well with Brian Wren's "When Christ was lifted", but it's just not the same!).
And part and parcel of the drama that I was experiencing was this viscerally propulsive two-bar interlude that comes out of one stanza and leads seamlessly back into the next.
Embellishing the space around the break in the stanzas is a modern hymn tune trope that began with the pedal thumpery of Stanford's ENGELBERG. It's a quest to eliminate the amorphous pause between stanzas (the organist's perpetual necessity and dilemma) and offer a musical unification of the poetry that is (mostly) whole.
As an aside, it's the kind of linkage we so sorely need between the last two stanzas of Frank Mason North's long-lived Social Gospel hymn "Where cross the crowded ways of life" by Frank Mason North.
O Master, from the mountain side, make haste to heal these hearts of pain; among these restless throngs abide, O tread the city's streets again; Till all the world shall learn thy love, and follow where thy feet have trod; till glorious from thy heaven above, shall come the city of our God.
It's perhaps the most final sounding semi-colon in all of hymnody, and without one of these "revolving door" tunes, how can it be otherwise? Maybe someone will give us a Long Meter equivalent of SAN ROCCO. Maybe someone already has!
But, in the mean time, we still have SAN ROCCO, the "richly textured, thoroughly modern tune". Its sweeping ascents and its and audacious range. It defies gravity a bit, this tune.
And maybe that's what that interlude is about. It's so bold, the hymn tune, that it needs something else a bit more weighty to bind it to earth before it goes soaring through the air once again like an exuberant albatross. It's touching base, perhaps.
I'm talking here of the two-bar "Optional Interlude Between Stanzas" in the Hymnal 1982. You can hear it employed on the very find recording The English Hymn, Vol. 1 - Christ Triumphant recorded by the Wells Cathedral Choir under Malcolm Archer.
I have to say, I've learned that the Hymnal 1982 can slightly sanitize some of the more pioneering elements in modern hymnody, and I wonder if the word "optional" might be an American editorial insertion. At any rate, I'd be curious to see the original publication of the tune and figure out if the composer really considered it "optional" at all.
Because for me personally, this interlude is part of the whole experience.
And when I start this hymn up this morning for All Saints' Sunday I'll be transported back, once again to that Evensong – back to a chilly October evening in Cleveland.
It will take me back to that soaring gothic nave and the stained glass. It will take me back to the sounds of that Flentrop organ and the airy lightness of the Hereford Choir. It will take me back to the sense that I had stepped into a tradition that was much older than I was -- a tradition that I was eager to absorb, study, and be a part of.
But not a stodgy immovable tradition that never innovates. It's the kind of living tradition that would attempt the breadth of Anglican music but with a Flentrop organ, not an Aeolian Skinner. It's the kind of tradition that would allow for an Optional Interlude Between Stanzas.
About a year and a half after my first visit to Trinity, Cleveland I returned to that same cathedral on a May morning to be confirmed into the Episcopal church.
And though it wasn't included in the festive Eucharistic liturgy again that day, the words and the inspiration I drew from that hymn at Evensong were with me. It had kindled in me a zeal. This hymn had started me on a path and led me back again, to seek Confirmation and a committed life in the Episcopal expression of the Christian faith.
In a very real way, SAN ROCCO changed my life.
Give us the wings of faith to rise within the veil, and see the saints above, how great their joys, how bright their glories be. We ask them whence their victory came: they, with united breath, ascribe their conquest to the Lamb, their triumph to his death. They marked the footsteps that he trod, his zeal inspired their quest; and following their incarnate God, they reached the promised rest. Our glorious Leader claims our praise for his own pattern given; while the long cloud of witnesses show the same path to heaven.
Labels: All Saints' Day, BCP, Derek Williams, Evensong, Flentrop, Frank Mason North, Hereford, Hymn 253, Hymn 603/4, Hymn 609, hymns, Isaac Watts, liturgy, Malcolm Archer, San Rocco, Trinity Cathedral (Cleveland)
Good thoughts on Communion Hymns from Kyle Babin and the Center for Liturgy and Music:
At the end of the day, though, what liturgical purpose and theological statement do communion hymns provide? Are they viewed merely as “filler” while people receive communion? If so, that rationale hardly seems justifiable. Why not have silence during communion? It is not theologically defensible to consider liturgical music as “wallpaper.”
Read the whole thing here: To Sing or Not Sing Communion Hymns
The descant is a high line for the trebles of the choir that soars above the melody of a hymn – a melody that everyone has already sung three, four, five, or even seven times in a row already.
In writing a descant, sometimes you need to leave a word or two out for the music to flow. The work of the descant is done by the notes, and the words can be an unnecessary encumbrance. If you do use words, you might not necessarily use all of them. Or you might use just "alleluia", or even "ah".
So it is no surprise that the great composer Herbert Howells takes some liberties with texting his own descant to his glorious hymn tune MICHAEL.
Here is a spectacular recording of this hymn sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. It's an arrangement brass, percussion, and organ by Christopher Palmer, but the harmonization and descant are Howells's own. Hear the whole thing below, or just go straight to the final stanza to hear Howells's descant.
It's really lovely, I think. And not every church musician seems to be aware that this is out there!
A couple points: the descant seems especially strong because it begins as a modified canon at the fourth. It's a highly effective way to draw the ear, and it staggers the descant away from the beginning of the melody. It's almost a surprise when it comes in. As in, "Oh, a descant too!". This technique is probably not used often enough in our hymn singing.
Furthermore, Howells does something rather interesting with the words. The descant is initially texted with the first stanza of Robert Bridges poem:
All my hope on God is founded; he doth still my trust renew, me through change and chance he guideth, only good and only true. God unknown, he alone calls my heart to be his own.
While the choir and congregation have progressed to the final stanza:
Still from man to God eternal sacrifice of praise be done, high above all praises praising for the gift of Christ, his Son. Christ doth call one and all: ye who follow shall not fall.
But it should be said that the descanters sing only an abbreviated version of the first stanza. After the first two verses they skip to the fifth and then to the first part of the seventh for the peculiar turn of phrase: "God unknown calls my heart."
This really jumped out at me this last time I read it. I suppose it's not all that strange given that the only missing phrase here is "he alone". But it got me thinking about our unknown God.
What is it to say that God is "unknown"? We know him to a degree in the person of Jesus Christ. And so isn't it fascinating that these words about "God unknown" are paired with praise "for the gift of Christ his son"?
And the arrival of the descanters to the words of the final stanza pack a particular punch as they pivot on the word "call".
In the first stanza God "calls my heart to be his own". In the final, "Christ doth call" – and it should be noted that it is the same Christ for whom we praise the unknown God.
The cascading spirals of ascending praise are already rapturous at this point, and Howells's text setting makes them even more so.
But does it help us know God any better? Are we supposed to? Or is the person of God to be mysterious, and known, as his Christ, by his "call"?
We also often sing of "love unknown", as it is in the beginning of the anonymous 18th century hymn "Come, thou almighty king":
Come, thou almighty King, help us thy Name to sing, help us to praise. Father whose love unknown all things created own, build in our hearts thy throne, Ancient of Days.
And in the famous Samuel Crossman hymn that bears the phrase in the first line:
My song is love unknown, my Savior's love to me, love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.
"Pop" Music Tangent: See also: Coldplay: "A Message" - relation to "My Song is Love Unknown"
And again in Charlotte Elliott's beautiful hymn "Just as I am, without one plea"
Just as I am, thy love unknown has broken every barrier down; now to be thine, yea, thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come.
But one of the most fascinating "unknowns" in Christian hymnody is that of the unknown Traveler. Charles Wesley's hymn picks up on the anonymity of Jacob's wrestling partner in the hymn he called "Wrestling Jacob".
Come, O thou Traveler unknown, whom still I hold, but cannot see; my company before is gone, and I am left alone with thee. With thee all night I mean to stay, and wrestle till the break of day.
And so it is that Jacob does engage in a prolonged stalemate with the Traveler, despite injury, and then the sun rises on the scene. It is the Traveler who asks to be let go in the story from Genesis, "for day is breaking". (I suppose that the rising sun would "shine too much light" on this conflict!)
And then there is the great ordeal of naming and identity. Jacob demands a blessing. The Traveler asks his name. Jacob gives it. The Traveler says, "now you shall be called Israel".
Then, in the Genesis story, remarkably, Jacob asks the Traveler's name. He seems to have forgotten for a moment that he really just wanted a blessing. Or, maybe he thinks knowing God in this way would be a greater blessing?
The Traveler responds, "why is it that you ask my name"?
In the story, we never get a name for the Traveler, but in Charles Wesley's hymn, there is a profound poetic resolution to all this wrestling.
... Speak, or thou never hence shalt move, and tell me if thy name is Love. 'Tis Love, 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me! I hear thy whisper in my heart: the morning breaks, the shadows flee. Pure Universal Love thou art; thy mercies never shall remove, thy nature and thy name is Love.
God may be "unknown", but we know enough.
"God is love", or even better, "Pure Universal Love".
And what about us, called by God? How are we known?
If the spiritual has it right, and we do too, "they'll know we are Christians by our love".
Labels: Charles Wesley, Charlotte Elliott, church music, Howells, hymns, Jacob, Robert Bridges, Samuel Crossman
The sad result, though, was a reaction by academic elites against the whole concept of substitution, depriving the ordinary person in the pew of a great consolation that has struck the hearts of many throughout Christian history. I was one of those in the pew who was badly hurt by being told that “we don’t believe that idea of atonement any more.” And yet we continue to sing, on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, “ ‘Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered/ The slave hath sinned and the Son hath suffered…’ Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee/ I crucified thee.” In other words, I am the guilty one, and the innocent one dies in my place, “for my salvation.” Thank God for our great hymns.Saunders, Laura. "An Interview with the Rev. Fleming Rutledge." The Episcopal New Yorker, Spring 2016
Labels: Fleming Rutledge, Good Friday, hymns, Palm Sunday
I'm going to set down some scattered thoughts on a subject that has preoccupied me for a week or so: how do we sing the Lord's song in the face of the graphic, violent acts of murder in our society?
This question has come to me from colleagues both this past week (as the country witnessed the real-time murders of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and five policemen in Dallas) and last month (after the mass shooting in Orlando).
The United States is no stranger to mass shootings, and clergy and church musicians naturally turn their attention to the question of an appropriate liturgical response.
An obvious answer is prayer. As Christians we are called to pray all the time. I think Christians find themselves praying as they learn of violent events and in the days and weeks that follow. Surely collecting this desire to pray around these events in the Prayers of the People is a good thing.
And I don't want to put words in the mouths of the clergy, but the sermon is also a possibility. Though not a requirement, I don't think. I do know Karl Barth is said to have drawn attention to the intersection of the Bible and the newspaper, and this certainly holds great homiletic potential. But this isn't really my area, so I have to leave it to the professionals.
But then what about the music?
Well, maybe after a mass shooting we could change a hymn to something meaningful. Like "Amazing Grace". That would be nice.
According to one definition not a week would go by without us needing to sing that hymn. And our call as church musicians is not to annoy people with the same hymn.
Or maybe we could find a few other options, but is having a "tragedy" hymn list really necessary?
Please don't get me wrong. I am not insensitive to the very real problem and pain of violence. And liturgical responses in the streets and cities where these events happen are absolutely necessary. But I think we must be rather more thoughtful about the intersection of our weekly Sunday worship and the CNN Breaking News banner.
A story about this: several years ago I had finished the Thursday night choir rehearsal for the Third Sunday of Advent ("Gaudete Sunday"). This particular Sunday comes at the midpoint of the Advent season and is typically marked by joy (Gaudete is Latin for "rejoice"). The music chosen for the day certainly relied on this. But the next morning 20 elementary school children were dead at wrong end of a gun. Other than the Virginia Tech shooting, this was the most deadly mass shooting in the United States. This was awful, even 400+ miles away.
And still, the music was chosen, the services were set. I remember that I made a remarks to the choir on Sunday morning before rehearsing the music again. I said something to the effect that "yes, we are all deeply troubled by the news this week, and, yes, this music is all quite joyful in tone, I know, but here's the thing -- this Advent waiting that we're engaged in, we know the result of this, and the result of this is the coming of Jesus, our Redeemer, who wipes away all tears. So, no, even in light of this kind of news, we're not going to be any less joyful in our Salvation. And this kind of joy doesn't make our grief at what happened unchristian."
As it turned out, there were extensive remarks and prayer planned for the beginning of the service toward the young children of the parish, including the reading of the names of the dead. And while I can't comment on the act's appropriateness, I do not think that it quite extinguished the liturgical ethos of the day. The pink candle was lit, the Word was preached, the Bread was broken and shared.
I've turned to an essay by James Alison called "Worship in a Violent World" which I think has something to say about all of this.
The true worship of the true God is in the first instance the pattern of lives lived over time, lives which are inhabited stories of leaving the world of principalities and powers, and gradually, over time, giving witness to the true God in the midst of the world by living as if death were not, and thus in a way which is unmoved by death and all the cultural forces which lead to death and depend on death.
As I do this church music thing a bit more, and as these violent events occur more and more frequently, I find that I have less interest in trying to reinvent the hymnody or the choral music to "fit the bill". I am beginning to believe that the Church's best response to events like these is to be the Church–in a way which is unmoved by death!
There are those who seek an alarmingly high degree of specificity in their church music in response to violent events.
One hymn writer promptly provided lines in response to last week's news. The first stanza reads:
When people die by hatred, when people die by fear, When people die defending our right to protest here, When young black men are murdered, when heroes die in blue, When people die for justice, O God, we cry to you.
http://www.carolynshymns.com/when_people_die_by_hatred.html
But I wonder if James Alison doesn't point out the problem with this kind of creativity:
He writes of liturgy being "an ordered and relaxed way of habitually making ourselves present…to the one who is just there"
[worship] is an orchestrated detox of our mimetic fascination with each other which is the only way we are going to be able to glimpse the other Other who is just there, and who has been inviting us, all along, to his party.
If we bring in images of our mimetic fascination into our hymn singing wholesale, does this not work at cross purposes with our being able to "glimpse" God, the forgiving victim? The hymn above might be just the thing for a prayer or memorial service in Dallas, but is it appropriate at a Sunday gathering of a faith community in Detroit? I wonder if it isn't better to speak to it without needing to speak about it? The old English teacher's "show, don't tell".
Again, I am not advocating that church musicians adopt the familiar posture of the ostrich and bury their heads in the sands of complacency, but I think that the same kinds of questions we raise for our church generally should be asked of "current event" music, even if the timetable is hours instead of weeks.
And yet sometimes something else does feel needed. The the mass shooting in Orlando was at a gay nightclub. I don't even know how to speak to this. Many of my fellow church musicians are LGBT and I believe they experienced this more profoundly and personally than I did as a straight person. We musicians are not cogs in a wheel, we are people too. Our own responses must take different forms. And we must minister to each other and ourselves.
I was grateful this past week for the gifts given in two twentieth-century hymns that I had chosen weeks earlier: "Where cross the crowded ways of life" (to give credit where credit is due, this is listed among the "tragedy" hymn list from Ponder Anew) and "When Christ was lifted from the earth." And the gifts of a shared lectionary and shared hymnal meant that these lines were sung by many in the Episcopal Church this past Sunday.
O Master, from the mountain side,
make haste to heal these hearts of pain;
among these restless throngs abide,
O tread the city's streets again;–Frank Mason North
Reading "restless throngs" I could not help but see the images of the Dallas protest scattering in the streets when the first shots were fired.
Where generation, class or race
divide us to our shame,
[God] sees not labels but a face,
a person and a name.–Brian Wren
And what more can be said about this stanza but that it may as well be the anthem of Black Lives Matter?
Finally, I think Rowan Williams and James Alison have both written elsewhere on the meaninglessness of violence. It is truly demonic in that it has no meaning.
Meanwhile, the dying and rising of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is rich with meaning, and it is this that we must place at the center of our liturgy and music.
If I may quote the words of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
…there’s a side of me that says we’ve got work to do…I really do believe that Jesus Christ changes lives. If I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t be here… Change of heart is very much what I think Jesus was getting at when he said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again to see the kingdom.”So the more I lament, the more I’m ready to go preach and go live and go help the church be the church and do our work.
Curry: ‘Jesus doesn’t allow us the option of self-righteousness’ Episcopal News Service. 11 July 2016.
I'm ready to help the church be the church too, through our song, for the sake of the world.
Labels: Black Lives Matter, Brian Wren, church music, Frank Mason North, Gaudete, Hymn 603/4, Hymn 609, hymns, James Allison, racism, violence
The Center for Liturgy and Music at Virginia Theological Seminary and Ellen Johnston should be commended for their recent guide to designing service leaflets for the service of the Holy Eucharist in the Episcopal Church ("A Resource on Designing Service Leaflets" PDF)
This kind of attention to detail is sorely needed, and I hope it sparks close examination of printed service leaflets in many parishes.
But there is a widespread discrepancy in service leaflets in the Episcopal Church that this guide does not address: the question of when the service begins.
It's quite common to see various locations in the service leaflet for the printed subtitle "The Word of God".
Often the prelude, introit (if there is one), and hymn are all listed prior to the subtitle "The Word of God". This makes it appear as though the Acclamation ("Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit") is the beginning of the liturgy.
In other cases the subtitle "The Word of God" appears after the Collect of the Day and before the first Lesson.
I would respectfully suggest that both of these approaches confuse the shape of the service and the place of church music in our worship.
The subtitle of "The Word of God" is the first thing given on p. 355 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. After this, the first item is a rubric: A hymn, psalm, or anthem may be sung.
It is apparent from this order that the first hymn of the service (and the introit, if there is one) qualify as the beginning of the service and fall under this heading of "The Word of God". To be clear: the only thing that should appear before "The Word of God" is the Prelude (if there is one).
If a subheading is desired before the lessons themselves, it should simply be "The Lessons" as seen on p. 357. This should not rise to the level of the subtitle that we see on p. 355 of the Prayer Book.
Why is this important?
Because listing the subtitle after the hymn affords this piece of church music second class status. The Prelude music before the service is precisely that: before the service. But church music which reflects the both the historic tradition of the church and careful selection by those persons called to a ministry of church music (propers, hymns, psalms, anthems, motets, etc.) is rightly a genuine part of the community's worship.
And getting this distinction right is the responsibility that we take on with printing the content of the Prayer Book in a service leaflet: faithfulness to the Book of Common Prayer. Reprinting the liturgy in a disposable leaflet is not an excuse to alter the liturgy as we see fit. This is contrary to the Anglican spirit of common prayer.
It is surely for this reason, among others, that the esteemed bloggers of Sed Angli, advocates of "straight up" Anglicanism, advocate for a minimal bulletin.
Reprinting the whole service obviates the need to have the Prayer Book around, and we are well not only to have the Prayer Book, but also to use it. Page numbers will suffice, thank you.How it’s done, VI, 21 March 2012
Now for those who disagree with my assertion about the liturgy beginning with the first hymn, surely some will quote the puzzling statement by Marion Hatchett in A Manual for Clergy and Church Musicians: "The real beginning of the liturgy is the first lesson." (p. 106)
I would beg to differ.
If your service starts at 11:00 a.m. the "real beginning" of the service is 11:00 a.m. It is surely not a "fake beginning".
In the vast majority of places, this means the music before the service is ended, and the first hymn (or the introit) begins the service proper.
In order make a "real beginning" with the First Lesson, one would simply read it at the start of the service without fanfare. This kind of logic dismisses the historic pattern of the entrance rite of the liturgy–a rite that is designed to honor the Word of God. Not surprisingly, the Prayer Book doesn't allow for it; the Acclamation, Kyrie/Trisagion or Gloria, and Collect of the Day are all required elements.
And though we should cherish this historic pattern of entrance we should not make the mistake of elevating the entrance rite to a capital letter "Entrance Rite" in the service leaflet. The Prayer Book avoids this designation and so should we. Worship in the Episcopal Church can be convoluted enough without superfluous monikers.
We are indeed well to use the Prayer Book, whether in its hardbound format, on our iPad, or reprinted in a parochial service leaflet.
I implore my brothers and sisters in the Episcopal Church to utilize the very clear outline of the Holy Eucharist provided in the 1979 Prayer Book.
- The Holy Eucharist
- The Word of God
- The Holy Communion
Please note that if you sing the hymn "Watchman, tell us of the night" at Epiphany, or at any other time of the year, that there is a very serious author/composer synergy available to you.
In the previous edition of the Episcopal Hymnal, the Hymnal 1940, the tune WATCHMAN is one of the two tunes paired with this text. This tune is fondly remembered by at least one parishioner in the parish where I presently serve.
The words are by John Bowring. The music is by Lowell Mason.
Bowring was born in 1792. Mason was also born in 1792.
Bowring died in 1872. Mason also died in 1872.
Clearly the similitude of lifespans is a strong argument for this text-tune pairing.
And this might be notable on its own, but that's not all.
If you sing the hymn "Where is this stupendous stranger?" to the hymn tune ST. THOMAS – as Ana Hernández suggests you do – you'll notice some more hymnodic synergy. (The text and tune are both included separately in the Hymnal 1982).
The tune ST. THOMAS is by John Francis Wade (1711-1786) and harmonized by Vincent Francis Novello (1781-1861). They have the same middle names, and they shared six years on earth.
Epiphany is January 6.
Coincidence? You decide.
Labels: Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982, hymns
There's some marvelous hymnody by a man named Godfrey Thring (1823-1903).
He is the author hymn 454 in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 "Jesus came, adored by angels". The original first line of this hymn is "Jesus came—the heavens adoring".
But this time of year I want to draw attention to his marvelous hymn for an Epiphany procession, "From the eastern mountains". The hymn is included in the English Hymnal of 1906. It contains numerous alliterative turns of phrase in the first part of the hymn.
- wise men in their wisdom
- deep devotion
- There their
- lowly lay
- Light that led
- onward on their way
- lowly lain
With this much wordsmithing early on, the familiar "Jew and Gentile" and "heavenly home" really lose their punch. But the double whammy "nor sin nor sorrow" gives a final zing.
It's fun writing, I've never been to a service where it has been sung, and it matches marvelously to the Vaughan Williams tune KING'S WESTON.
From the eastern mountains, pressing on, they come, wise men in their wisdom, to his humble home; stirred by deep devotion, hasting from afar, ever journeying onward, guided by a star. There their Lord and Savior meek and lowly lay, wondrous Light that led them onward on their way, ever now to lighten nations from afar, as they journey homeward by that guiding star. Thou who in a manger once hast lowly lain, who dost now in glory o'er all kingdoms reign, gather in the heathen who in lands afar ne'er have seen the brightness of thy guiding star. Onward through the darkness of the lonely night, shining still before them with thy kindly light. Guide them, Jew and Gentile, homeward from afar, young and old together, by thy guiding Star. Until every nation, whether bond or free, 'neath thy starlit banner, Jesus, follows thee. O'er the distant mountains to that heavenly home, where nor sin nor sorrow evermore shall come.
Labels: English Hymnal, Epiphany, Hymnal 1982, hymns, Thring, Vaughan Williams
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