Church Music

One resource that the editors of Praise to God used when compiling their hymnal, was the work of Australian nuns. They took three songs from the book, I Hear You Calling by Sr Margaret Scharf OP. These makes sense as the Dominican Fathers put the hymn book together and she is a Dominican Sister. Looking at all she has been up to since then, she must have been very young when she wrote these songs.

It is very dispiriting sometimes researching old hymnals. When I look for traces on the internet of her book the only hit I get is my own website. I’ve decided that since there is no way to get copies of these out of print songs, I will post the sheet music, but I am happy to take them down if the copyright holder objects.

I suppose nuns are particularly qualified to write songs about Mary. Certainly this one isn’t over sentimental, so that is a start. The obvious inspiration is the Magnificat and as someone whose protestant upbringing has made me allergic to much Marian hymnody, this didn’t give me hives.

Chorus

Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

Be it done to me according to your word.

I stand before you hands outstretched, my soul is calm and still.

Lord I only want to do your will.

1 Through your love your vision has revealed to me,

The child that I will carry will set all mankind free.

You have blessed me with your grace; I am unworthy, Lord.

Your name is to be praised, and your kingship adored.

Chorus

2 The Lord has done great things for me and holy is His name.

The Spirit burns within my heart like an eternal flame.

He protects the poor of the wrld; fills the starving with good things,

And as he promised Abraham, He is our saving King.

I like looking for the origin of what are these days obscure hymns in the Praise To God Hymnal, which the editors found outside the major hymnbooks that were already available.

This song was taken from the Hymnal for Young Christians, and if you are quick about Amazon has a second hand copy. The song itself is an old text by Charles Wesley with a new setting in 1966 by Rev Ian Mitchell, an Episcopalian minister, active in their Folk Mass movement. This article gives a flavour of the times he was a part of.

This text has been set by a few others, Handel anyone, but good luck finding this out of print setting anywhere – hence its posting below. There are variations in the text from version to version – I note the text from PTG.

The instructions were “with vigor”, which I failed to do in one backing, so I did another.

1 Rejoice, the Lord is King:
Your Lord and King adore!
Mortals, give thanks and sing,
And triumph evermore.

Refrain
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice! x2

2 The Lord, the Saviour, reigns,
The God of truth and love;
When He had purged our stains,
He took his seat above;

Refrain

3 His kingdom cannot fail,
He rules o’er earth and heav’n;
The keys of death and hell
To Christ the Lord are giv’n:

Refrain

4 Rejoice in glorious hope!
Our Lord, the Judge shall come
And take His servants up
To their eternal home:

Refrain

Someone must have the sheet music in Malaysia and Singapore, as I found some clips:

The next two sources used by Praise to God, were Go Tell Everyone from the Medical Mission sisters, which had the the title track, which I’ve already looked at, and Leo Watt’s Go Where He Leads that had, “With a Gentle Love“.

Having done those I can look at this song from the collection, Go Up to the Mountain from the Weston Priory. They published the Gregory Norbet songs of the time and a few I haven’t met in other collections turn up in PTG, like “Something Which Is Known”. He based the text on 1 John 1 and it was apparently a song well known in its time.

The Priory posts both the lyrics and the sheet music if you after them.

I somehow made a peaceful version of this one, without my usual overdoing things.

1. Something which is known
   to have been from the beginning:
   this we have heard and seen with our own eyes;
   something we have touched
   and have carefully watched:
   the Word who is life, this we share with you.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

2. This is the life of our God, so gracious,
   Word become flesh:
   there is no greater wonder.
   All that we have witnessed became new vision:
   this our hope for you,
   alive in God’s own spirit.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

3. He it is in whom we have found the light of truth,
   source of our hope, abiding gift of God’s love.
   Through that love we pass and are born in life unending:
   Jesus, our Lord, the fullness of our joy.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

Our Priest has told me about a collection from his home in India called With Joyful Lips. I found a pdf of it online and it is a huge and somewhat terrifying melange of styles and layout that must mean the musicians in India are amazingly adaptable. I’m not sure have enough years yet to live to do a deep dive on that collection.

Anyway this tune even got to India with this wonderful version:

The other Christmas song from Five Australian Christmas Carols, that was used in Praise to God, is the well known – in Australia – song, “Carol of the Birds”.

Like “The Three Drovers”, his song has words by John Wheeler and music by  William G. James. It is also mentioned in the bemused article that I noted yesterday – it confused their correspondent.

It should not, as here we are merely adding our voices to the song of the “bushbirds” rejoicing in the birth of the Saviour. What could be simpler. You’ll hear this mainly by choirs or in schools. I’m afraid traditional Christmas carols are the go here, or risk the ire of the assembly who want to sing them.

Looking at this sheet music, it is identical to that in PTG – they just squashed it onto one page, so they have just copied and pasted. This practice leads to the messiness of this collection, with many different styles, unlike the informity of AOV for example. Even though their hand written style for their own arrangements is not the most user friendly, as a consistent style across all the pieces, it would have made more sense.

Well, making backings in 6/8 in BIAB isn’t always simple as yesterday and today’s backings demonstrate. I don’t like switching to waltz time but the results are rarely great in 6/8, so perhaps I should have.

1 Out on the plains, the brolgas are dancing.
Lifting their feet like horses prancing.
Up to the sun, the woodlarks go winging.
Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing.

Refrain
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day!

2 Down where the tree ferns grow by the river.
There where the waters sparkle and quiver.
Deep in the gullies, bellbirds are chiming.
Softly and sweetly their lyric notes rhyming.

Refrain

3 Friarbirds sip the nectar of flowers.
Currawongs chant in wattle-tree bowers.
In the blue ranges lorikeets calling.
Carols of bush birds are rising and falling.

Refrain

Continuing my Hymnal archeology of the Praise to God collection by looking at its sources, I can skip over a couple of Frank Andersen collections they used, because I have blogged everything he ever published already – happy to be proven wrong on that.

Chappell & Co. published a book called Five Australian Christmas Carols, from which two selections made their way into PTG and for all my bleating about eurocentric Carols, I have never looked at these Australian ones. This Guardian correspondent struggled with the whole concept of Australian Carols, including this one.

“The Three Drovers” text was written by John Wheeler and set by William G. James. Replacing the wise men with drovers and local wild life sounds fair, although maybe they are really angels. It looks like you can get the sheet music from the Australian Music Centre. Mary at Godsongs has once again done the heavy lifting with much background information.

Across the plains one Christmas night
Three drovers riding blithe and gay,
Looked up and saw a starry light
More radiant than the Milky Way;
And on their hearts such wonder fell,
They sang with joy. ‘Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!’
 
The air was dry with summer heat,
And smoke was on the yellow moon;
But from the heavens, faint and sweet,
Came floating down a wond’rous turn;
And as they heard, they sang full well
Those drovers three. ‘Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!’
 
The black swans flew across the sky,
The wild dog called across the plain,
The starry lustre blazed on high,
Still echoed on the heavenly strain;
And still they sang, ‘Noel! Noel!’
Those drovers three. ‘Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!’

 © 1948 Chappell & Co Ltd., Chappell Music Ltd., London W1Y 3FA.

The next book that Praise To God used as a source was Ray Repp‘s, Come Alive, from which they chose three selections. Oddly, these all appeared in the supplement in the revised version in 1990, so they were only catching up with these 1960s, folk mass era songs, when they were on the way out.

I’ve already blogged, “Hear, O Lord“and “Peace, My Friends“, so I will look at the other song, his paraphrase of Psalm 23, “And I Will Follow”.

OCP has a CD with this song on but no sheet music available. Hymnary notes it’s presence in the Canadian hymnal, the Catholic Book of Worship, and Godsongs notes it’s presence in the Hymnal for Young Christians, Volume 2. It may be as Mary at Godsongs suggested about another simple hymn from this era, that it is so simple that there is no need for sheet music. It is a four chord wonder (C,Am,F,G7), I suppose, so short of searching out old hymnals or looking for tattered sheet music in the back room at church you might have to work this one out yourself.

I made a backing:

Refrain

The Lord is my true shepherd; no want nor fear I know;

He leads me by safe paths, and I will follow.

1 Fresh and green are the pastures where my new home will be;

The waters will be clean and clear:

That’s where he leads me.

Though dark and lonely days, when hope seems gone,

He leads me to the place where peace is won.

Refrain

2 A banquet will be ready when I come home to stay;

My family will gather round on that great day.

Good and kindness will follow me for the rest of my days.

I’ll live in the house of my Lord;

Oh, grant that I may.

Refrain

This is the another of the songs in the Praise to God collection harnassing the talents of religious sisters in Australia.

I can’t find out a lot about the songwriter, Margaret Burgess RSM – all the usual sources are silent. Her song, “Mary” was from Songs for Children of the Kingdom Vol. 1, which is well and truly out of print. Otherwise I found out the book is 56 pages long and that’s about it. Try searching for songs called “Mary” written by nuns some time. If anyone has information let us know.

I find a lot of Marian hymnody hard to stomach, but this is a song for children about doubt and not fitting in, that I think is charming.

I made a backing:

Chorus

Mary you knew how to listen to what our Father had to say.

Help us to understand what He is saying to us .

In the things that happen everyday.

1 You kept His secret in your heart.

People would have scoffed at you, said that you were strange.

You must have wondered where His plan would lead.

You trusted and beleieved.

2 Each of us is called to something special.

Deep within our hearts the answer lies.

We’re not sure which way to turn when things go wrong –

Help us search with you.

© 1982 Margaret Burgess RSM

The chance of you finding a copy of this sheet music is close to zero, so I will put up a pdf. I am happy to take it down if someone can point to where it is available, but it is a shame songs like this aren’t archived somewhere.

It is interesting to me what sources the Dominican Fathers used to compile the Praise to God: Parish Hymn Book. A lot came from the Australian Hymn Book, the Catholic Worship Book, the Celebration Hymnbook, Glory and Praise, and the New Living Parish Hymn Book. There wasn’t that much OCP from Glory and Praise and it appears none at all from GIA, which is probably because Gather Australia was on the way. I am more interested in the the small collections they looked at, as that was where the Australian songwriters were to be found, so I will continue my illogical, but vaguely alphabetical, trawl through these collections – in their list of sources, while appearing alphabetical, within each letter the listings are random.

They took two songs from Leo Watt’s, The Altar of God, which I have already looked at, “Though Many We Are One” and “Go Now, You are Sent Forth“. A lot of Leo’s work is now available at Willow, but these two were Alberts copyrights – Yes, Leo Watt was on the same label as AC/DC.

Then they looked at Lucien Diess’s Biblical Hymns and Psalms, but all their selections I have blogged from other sources.

Which brings me to the first of the Spectrum Publications collections, Come As You Are. I’ve only been a Catholic since 1997, so I missed the Father Paul Gurr records. He used Australian songwriters such as Kevin Bates, Deirdre Browne and Brian Boniwell on his recordings and was apparently quite popular.

From this collection, PTG used “Mary’s Song” by Peter Gagen, and the famous title track, “Come As You Are” by Dierdre Browne, both of which I have blogged.

What I haven’t looked at is another Sister Dierdre Brown song that the editors sourced from here for PTG, “Carry Me, Lord”, which is a new one to me.

I should have listened to the clip, before I made a slightly bizarre backing – I revised it after hearing the version below. The sheet music in PTG was melody line only so I just made up some chords. The triplets jar when you go too fast, as I did the first time. I have had no luck finding this sheet music anywhere.

I used to post fail backings when I didn’t know how a song went but that hadn’t stoppped me making a dreadful backing. In my defence this time there was no tempo, no chords and no instructions on the sheet music, so the recipe failed with this backing.

1 Carry me, Lord, to peace and shelter.

O carry me Lord, from wind and rain.

Remember your promise O shepherd of Israel.

I will be yours and you will be mine.

2 Carry me, Lord, to light and safety.

O carry me, Lord from dark depair.

Remember your promise O shepherd of Israel.

I will be yours and you will be mine.

3 Carry me, Lord, to love and freedom.

O carry me, Lord from hate and fear.

Remember your promise O shepherd of Israel.

I will be yours and you will be mine.

4 No burden’s too heavy when you are near us.

No darkness too deep when you are near.

You’ve given your promise to all of God’s people;

I will be yours and you will be mine.

5 Carry me, Lord, I’m limp and weary.

O carry me, Lord, your arms are strong.

Wherever you take me, O Shepherd of Israel;

I will be yours and you will be mine.

© 1986 Spectrum Publications

Listen to the good Father to see how it’s done.

Just for fun, here are the other two songs:

OK, this is the last of the songs Praise to God sourced from All Together Again, for which I am grateful, needing a break from mostly American folk mass era songs for a while. They do, however, remind me of the wonderful and ever growing resource we are given with the Godsongs website.

This one, however, is traditional C18 English, adapted from Phillip Hayes’s hymn. It is for any circumstance where lament is the only appropriate response.

In the extremely unlikely event you are playing this from the PTG hymn book, there is an error – the first “Zi-” is a G# not a G.

I made a backing, but everyone knows this one.

The text though is up for grabs. Godsongs has these:

By the waters, the waters of Babylon,
We sat down and wept, and wept, for thee Zion.
We remember, we remember, we remember, thee Zion.

On the willows, the willows of Babylon,
We hung up our harps our harps, for thee Zion.
How can we sing, how can we sing, how can we sing of Zion,

There our captors, our captors from Babylon,
Tried to make us sing, and sing, of thee Zion.
We could not sing, we could not sing, we could not sing of Zion.

PTG has two verses by the editor, Nicolas Falzun.

By the waters, the waters of Babylon,
We sat down and wept, and wept, for thee Zion.
We remember, we remember, we remember, thee Zion.

On the poplars, the poplars we hung our harps,
They asked us to sing, to sing, of thee Zion.
How could we sing, how could we sing, while we’re in captivity.

Let our voices, our voices, sing praise to thee,
May we not forget thee, forget thee, our greatest joy!
We remember, we remember, we remember, thee Zion.

The first verse is all that is needed, preferably as a round.

This anonymous song is also sung as “can I tell you how I feel” and is often performed as a round.

To quote Mary, at Godsongs:

This simple hymn is a statement of faith in, or love for, Jesus.

The author and composer are unknown: some people say that it was popular in the “Jesus movement” in the 1960s / 70s, but no published versions have been found (presumably because it is so simple, they weren’t needed).

She’s probably right, but the Dominican Fathers thought it was worth publishing and copyrighted their arrangement. Since they got it from All Together Again, they must have thought it worth publishing too, I suppose. No matter – there is sheet music at Godsongs if you need it.

PTG has a second and third verse, although most versions I have heard have just the one. I like the second verse – Emmaus in two lines.

1 Jesus, Jesus, let me tell you what I know.

You have given us your Spirit: we love you so.

2 Jesus, Jesus, took the bread and blessed and broke it,

Then our eyes and hearts were opened: “It was the Lord”.

3 Jesus, Jesus, it is written he would suffer,

On the third day he would rise; this we have seen.

Alternative lyrics:

Jesus, Jesus, can I tell You how I feel?
You have given me Your riches, I love You so.