CWB II gives three settings of the Pentecost Sequence. They all use Peter Scagnelli’s translation of Veni Sancte Spiritus a C13 sequence attributed to Stephen Langdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or possibly Pope Innocent III.
378a/b is chant mode 1 arranged by Geoffrey Cox and goes into the Gospel Acclamation. 380 is essentially the same tune made metrical by Adriaan Engels. The text is here along with a vocal + guitar version of Engels’s arrangement.
I’ll leave those chant based ones alone because BIAB IS LOUSY AT CHANT.
379 is the setting by Samuel Webbe. Only verses 1,3,5,7 and 9 from the text noted above are used in CWB II.
This has a different but PD translation by Edward Caswell and the music is the same arrangement as CWB II..
nice BIAB IS LOUSY AT CHANT.
One suggestion I’d make to enable the congregation to easily sing the sequence is to sing it to the tune “HYMN TO JOY” which practically everyone would know. To fit the meter, you simply add “Come, Thou (or O) Holy Spirit, Come” at the fourth and eighth phrases. This is used in Owen Alstott’s OCP adaptation, but there’s no need to download, as both the contemporary Peter Scagnelli translation and the Caswall version in our missal will work with the standard arrangement of HYMN TO JOY. To show what I’m trying to say, this is the first verse:
Holy Spirit, Lord of light,
from the clear celestial height
thy pure beaming radiance give.
Come, thou Holy Spirit, come!
Come, thou Father of the poor,
come with treasures which endure;
come, thou light of all that live!
Come, thou Holy Spirit, come!
Note that because the meter of HYMN TO JOY is 87.87.87.87, you need to slur the last two notes of every odd phrase to make it 77.77.77.77. This is much easier to do than I’m making it sound!
Thanks Chris W.
I’m sure we have done the Alstott text to HYMN TO JOY, but I love your practical suggestion to use a text familiar to the parish to a tune that everyone knows. Major participation points for a sequence used only once a year.
cheers
Geoff