I can skip over Dan Schutte’s “Glory in the Cross” having blogged it already and turn to Bob Hurd’s “O Sacred Head”. The tune is his but the first two verses are adapted from Bernard of Clairvaux with Bob Hurd providing the last two verses. I like the text of the third and fourth verses but I don’t think he has quite managed to match the archaic tone of the older text. You can listen to the song here.
It is lovely song for Holy Week. You can read Ken Canedo’s appreciation of the song here.
The text is at spiritandsong where you can purchase the sheet music for download.
I’ve kept my backing pretty stark:
This is a lovely slow unaccompanied version by a parish choir: