Church Music

I looked at this less than a year ago in Catholic Worship Book I, and I thought I might find a retention of archiac language here, and yes, John de Luca has kept the older wording.

I did refresh my backing of the old German tune LASST UNS ERFREUEN a little. The text is a C11 Latin Easter Sunday sequence translated by K.W. Blount (died 1717) and subsequently and variously brought up to date.

LiturgyShare has the all you need to know about this hymn.

1. Bring, all ye dear-bought nations,
   Bring your richest praises to your King,
   Alleluia, Alleluia,
   That spotless Lamb, who more than due,
   Paid for his sheep, and those sheep you,
   Alleluia x5.
2. The guiltless Son, who bought your peace,
   and made his Father’s anger cease,
   Alleluia, Alleluia,
   Then, Life and death together fought,
   each to a strange extreme was brought.
   Alleluia x5.
3. Life died, but soon revived again,
   And even death by it was slain.
   Alleluia, Alleluia,
   Say, happy Magdalen, oh say
   What did you see there by the way,
   Alleluia x5.
4. “I saw the tomb of my dear Lord,
   I saw himself and him adored;
   Alleluia, Alleluia,
   I saw the napkin and the sheet,
   That bound his head and wrapped his feet”.
   Alleluia x5.
5. “I heard the angels witness bear,
   ‘Jesus is ris’n; he is not here:
   Alleluia, Alleluia,
   Go, tell his followers they shall see,
   Thine and their hope in Galilee’ “.
   Alleluia x5.
6. We, Lord, with faithful hearts and voice
   On this your rising day rejoice;
   Alleluia, Alleluia,
   O thou, whose power o’ercame the grave,
   By grace and love, us sinners save,
   Alleluia x5.

I’ve got nothing…

This is a chant setting of the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79) arranged by John de Luca.

I hope it is useful.

This is “The Beatitudes” by Peter Kearney, which I looked at years ago and is very well known and much loved in Australia. It is his paraphrase of Matt 5:3-11.

The text is here, but I note he now prefers “pure in heart” to “clean of heart”.

This is another example of John de Luca arranging a folk style song with much more interesting chords.

I got the original chords from Gather Australia and compared them with the chords in this hymnal. It is also in Catholic Worship Book II 456, but don’t expect them to provide chords.

I made a new backing with these chords:

This is Edward Caswall’s C19 translation of the ancient Latin text, ~C4, by Aurelius Prudentius. It is set to a C16 tune STUTTGART by Christian F. Witt.

CWB II has a variant of this one called, “Earth Has Many a Noble City” to the same tune.

The editor here conceded his text is “alt” and I’m not sure of its provenance, but there is so much difference between versions of this text at some point it becomes someone else’s translation. I’m concernd about the incarnate bear as well.

1 Bethlehem, of noblest cities
None can once with thee compare;
Thou alone the Lord of heaven
Didst for us incarnate bear.

2 Fairer than the sun at morning
Was the star that told his birth;
To the lands their God announcing,
seen in human form on earth.

3 By its wondrous beauty guided,
See, the eastern kings appear;
See them bend, their gifts to offer,
Gifts of incence, gold and myrrh.

4 Solemn things of mystic meaning!
Incense doth the God disclose;
Gold a royal Child proclaimeth;
Myrrh a future tomb foreshows.

5 Holy Jesus, in your brightness,
To the gentle world display’d,
With the Father and the Spirit.
Endless praise to thee be paid.

For comarison puprposes, here is the text at Hymnary:

1 Earth has many a noble city;
Bethl’hem, thou dost all excel:
out of thee the Lord from heaven
came to rule his Israel.

2 Fairer than the sun at morning
was the star that told his birth,
to the world its God announcing
seen in fleshly form on earth.

3 Eastern sages at his cradle
make oblations rich and rare;
see them give in deep devotion,
gold and frankincense and myrrh.

4 Sacred gifts of mystic meaning:
incense doth their God disclose,
gold the King of kings proclaimeth,
myrrh his sepulcher foreshows.

5 Jesu, whom the Gentiles worshipped
at thy glad Epiphany,
unto thee with God the Father
and the Spirit glory be.

I have blogged this before in a couple of forms: AOV and CWB I.

The tune is traditional Irish “, SLANE, and the text is an “ancient Irish hymn” as translated by Mary Elizabeth Byrne and adapted by Eleanor Henrietta Hull… and everyone else.

John de Luca gives us six verses and the words below are as in his hymnal, where he has left the archaisms and not watered down the battles and the swords. My wind up BIAB organ is based on his arrangement but is all my own fault.

1. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
   Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;
   Thou my best thought by day and by night
   Waking or sleeping thy presence my light.
2. Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word,
   I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
   Thou art my great Father, and I thy true Son;
   Thou in me dwelling, I with thee one.
3. Be thou my shield and my sword for the fight;
   Be thou my armour, and be thou my might:
   Thou art my soul’s shelter, and thou my high tower:
   Raise thou me heav’nward, O Power of my power.
4. Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
   Thou mine inheritance through all my days,
   For thou, and thou only, the first in my heart,
   High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.
5. King of high heaven, keep thou ever whole
   Thy love in my heart, thy light in my soul;
   O light of my soul, from me never part,
   King of high heaven, O love of my heart.
6. High King of Heaven, when battle is done
   Grant heaven’s joy to me, bright heaven’s Sun;
   O Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
   Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

I have done this one before, but never with a straight organ backing so I though I have another go at FINLANDIA.

Whether BIAB should be doing Sibelius at all is another question, but it is a glorious and moving funeral tune and a lovely text even in translation: done by Jane Borthwick from Katharina von Schegel’s original. The text varies – this is the one in the New Living Parish Hymn Book.

1. Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: your best, your heavenly friend
Through thorny ways leads to a rightful end.

2. Be still, my soul: your God does undertake
To guide the future as he has the past,
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake,
All now mysterious shall be clear at last.
Be still, my soul: the tempests still obey
His voice, who ruled them once on Galilee.

3. Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shall you better know his love, his heart,
Who comes to soothe your sorrow calm your fears.
Be still, my soul: for Jesus can repay
From his own fullness all he takes away.

4. Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgotten, love’s pure joy restored.
Be still my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

This isn’t exactly the same as the arrangement in the NLPHB.

This Easter hymn is a bit much I think, I can’t imagine it being sung these days due to the militaristic overtones – let me know if you still use it.

The text is a C17 Latin hymn with a translation by Ronald Knox, but I can only imagine that with all the internal rhymes he employed it would have to be a somewhat loose approximation. My favourite is rhyming “never-tiring” with “choiring”. There is a slightly less alarming version called “The Strife is O’er the Battle Done”, which I blogged to a different setting here.

Here, though, it is set to SURREXIT by Anthony Gregory Murray, mainly known for having three of the original Wiggles in his name.

More organ BIAB – it appears I had to make up the chords:

Knox’s text is:

1 Battle is o’ver, hell’s armies flee;
Raise we the cry of victory
With abounding joy resounding,
Alleluia, alleluia.

2 Christ who endured the shameful tree,
O’er death triumphant welcome we,
Our adoring praise outpouring,
Alleluia, alleluia.

3 On the third morn from death rose he,
Clothed with what light in heaven shall be,
Our unswerving faith deserving,
Alleluia, alleluia.

4 Hell’s gloomy gates yield up their key,
Paradise door thrown wide we see;
Never-tiring be our choiring,
Alleluia, alleluia.

5 Lord, by the stripes they laid on thee,
Grant us to live from death set free,
This our greeting still repeating,
Alleluia, alleluia.

For comparison purposes, yet another translation, with the same setting this time translated by John Mason Neale, with five different internal rhymes, which makes me suspect the Latin original must have had internal rhymes that somehow had to be in the translation:

1 Finished is the battle now,
Gloriously crowned the victor’s brow!
Hence with sadness, sing with gladness:
Alleluya, alleluya!

2 After the death that him befell,
Jesus Christ has harrowed hell!
Songs of praising we are raising:
Alleluya, alleluya!

3 On the third morning he arose,
Shining with victory o’er his foes;
Earth is singing, heaven is ringing:
Alleluya, alleluya!

4 Jesus has closed hell’s brazen door,
Heaven is open evermore!
Our adoring praise outpouring:
Alleluya, alleluya!

5 Lord, by thy wounds we call on thee
So from ill death to set us free,
That our living be thanksgiving:
Alleluya, alleluya!

I can’t find the sheet music anywhere, so here it is:

Speaking of militaristic overtones, how about this dreadful ditty I sang as a child at Sunday school in the 1960s:

Those following along will have noticed I’ve been at this hymnal for about a month and I’m still in the “A”s.

I didn’t blog this Christmas song until it came up in the OCP’s Guitar Accompaniment Book, where it was given very simple chords. There are more adventurous arrangements of the CRADLE SONG out there, including this one by John de Luca where he found more interesting chords.

This hymnal is one of those that say the text is by Anon and further that it is of American origin, rather than attributing some of the text to Martin Luther. The tune is C19 by William James Kirkpatrick.

I made a new backing, avoiding the organ this time:

This very old morning hymn is very new to me, but a metrical hymn makes like easy for me after a few chants.

The text is C17 by Thomas Ken and it is here set to MELCOMBE (C18, Samuel Webbe).

Wikipedia has fourteen verses, but here five is enough and it finishes with the doxology, which I used to sing every week in my Presbyterian church set to the OLD 100th.

1 Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy dai­ly stage of du­ty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joy­ful rise,
To pay thy morn­ing sac­ri­fice.

2 Glory to thee, who safe has kept
And has re­freshed me while I slept;
Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake
I may of end­less light par­take.

3 Lord, I my vows to thee re­new;
Disperse my sins as morn­ing dew;
Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with thy­self my spir­it fill.

4 Direct, con­trol, sug­gest, this day
All I de­sign, or do, or say;
That all my pow­ers, with all their might,
In thy sole glo­ry may unite.

5 Praise God, from whom all bless­ings flow,
Praise him, all crea­tures here be­low,
Praise him above, ye heaven­ly host;
Praise Fa­ther, Son, and Ho­ly Ghost.

More chant.

Ave Verum Corpus is a C13 song for Eucharist and Benediction and is attributed to Pope Innocent VI (or V or IV or III).

It has umpteen settings and I have done Mozart’s here, but this is plainsong chant. Both this English translation and this arrangement are by the editor of the New Living Parish Hymn Book, John de Luca.

I had a crack at a backing, which may be less worse than usual for BIAB chant.

Still best to listen to real chant: