From: Richard Thomas
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 11:58 PM
Subject: Music for the Service of Sunday, September 14, 2014
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 11:58 PM
Subject: Music for the Service of Sunday, September 14, 2014
The opening hymn is Hymn No. 470, “O Day of Radiant Gladness” that was authored by Christopher Wordsworth (stanzas 1 and 2, 1862), Charles F. Price (stanza 3, 1980), and an anonymous author (stanza 4, 1982).
The tune is the same tune we sang on July 20 and on August 31, 2014, ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVÖGELEIN when we sang Rusty Edwards’s hymn, “We All Are One in Mission.” The tune dates from the 17th century, and was harmonized by George Ratcliffe Woodward in 1904.
This German folk tune is often used with the hymns “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” and “O Day of Rest and Gladness.”
Here is the link I gave earlier with it being sung in German accompanied by a guitar:
Or you can listen to the tune being played on an organ here:
http://youtu.be/KRIyOYJU6UI “O Day of Radiant Gladness,” played by Samuel Cherubin
Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885)
Christopher Wordsworth was the nephew of the poet William Wordsworth. (William Wordworth wrote “Daffodils,” which begins “I wandered lonely as a cloud --- that floats on high o’er vales and hills, . . .”)
He was born at Lambeth and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge. He published a book of hymns, The Holy Year, which included poems not only for every season of the church year but also for every part of every season, following the Book of Common Prayer. He became the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln in 1870. According to the Dictionary of Hymnology (John Julian, 1907), “He was particularly anxious to avoid obscurity, and thus many of his hymns are simple . . . . But this extreme simplicity was always intentional . . .”
His hymns include “O Lord of Heaven, and Earth, and Sea,” “Alleluia, Alleluia, Hearts and Voices Heavenward Raise,” and “See the Conqueror Mounts in Triumph.”
In most hymnals, the word used is not “radiant” but “rest,” and the hymn is then titled “O Day of Rest and Gladness.” I found an 1865 copy of The Holy Year on Google Books:
In the book (above) in which the words were originally published, the word is “rest” not “radiant,” so that must be the correct wording. I don’t know who changed it. Maybe they changed it because, other than sleeping late, no one rests on the Sabbath anymore.
We also don’t get to sing Wordsworth’s stanzas 3 through 6.
The author of the third stanza is instead Charles P. Price (b. Pittsburgh, 1920, d. 1999). He served on the Committee on Texts for the Episcopal Hymnal of 1982, so, after the second stanza, Wordsworth’s original stanzas have been dropped and Rev. Price’s verse substituted instead. Serving on a denomination’s hymnal committee seems to be a very effective way of getting one’s own poetry published as the text to a hymn, as I’ve noted for two other authors of hymns we’ve sung.
Charles Price attended Harvard, the Virginia Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He served as Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University (1963-1972). In 1972, he gave up that job and returned to teaching at Virginia Theological Seminary where he had previously taught from 1956-1963. There he was Professor of Systematic Theology until 1989.
Charles P. Price (1920-1999)
The second hymn is Hymn No. 347, “Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive” by Rosamond E. Herklots.
Rosamond Herlots was British and was born in North India. She graduated from Leeds University, and worked as secretary to a neurologist then in the offices of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in London.
The tune is DETROIT is attributed to “Bradshaw.” It appears in sacred harp hymnals, the Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony, 1820, and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (Baptist Harmony), 1854.
You can hear the sacred harp tune DETROIT sung here (mechanically):
http://www.sacredharpbremen.org/lieder/026-bis-099/039t-detroit DETROIT, click on the play icon for Vierstimmig.
[Sacred harp singing (an American invention) has become quite popular in Ireland, England, Germany, and other northern European countries, and even attracts people in their 20s and 30s. (The “sacred harp” is the unaccompanied human voice.) That’s why you can find all the sacred harp tunes at this site in Bremen, Germany.]
You can hear some humans singing DETROIT here:
http://youtu.be/etmWYmh5Plk DETROIT, sung by Tim Eriksen and friends in Jaroslaw, a town in south-eastern Poland with about 40,167 inhabitants.
It will be easier to recognize the hymn played tomorrow if you instead listen to:
http://youtu.be/NRTLG7jPszA “Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive,” sung and played by Koine, with whistling, drums, piano, and guitars
or, perhaps better, to the wonderful voice of Martha Basset, here:
http://youtu.be/FhEyMYPp79s?t=6s “Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive,” sung by Martha Basset (but with some very odd accompaniment)
The closing hymn is Hymn No. 358, Fred Kaan’s “Help Us Accept Each Other.” We sang this as the second hymn on July 20, 2014. We also sang it on More Light Sunday (June 1, 2014).
The words are most frequently sung to the tune ACCEPTANCE by John Ness Beck, but that isn’t the tune used in the Presbyterian Hymnal.
To hear the tune used in our hymnal, BARONITA, click here:
http://www.hymnary.org/media/fetch/150517 “Help Us to Accept Each Other”
The tune is by Doreen Potter and is also used for the hymn, “For All the Faithful Women.”
I told you all about Doreen Potter in my e-mail of 07/19/2014, so I won’t repeat it, but here’s her picture to jog your memory:
Doreen Potter (1925-1980)
Instrumental Music
Prelude: “Glorificamus” by John Redford. You can hear a segment here:
http://www.muziekweb.nl/Link/CLX0656 “Glorificamus” by John Redford (1471-1547, on organ by Okke Dijkhuizen (Click the “play” icon for track 1.)
It sounds very different when played by Bernard Winsemius on an organ---which wants tuning:
http://www.muziekweb.nl/Link/CLX3372 “Glorificamus” by John Redford played by Bernard Winsemius (Click on “play” for track 6.)
We heard this prelude at the service of May 4, 2014.
John Redford was the organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral and choirmaster there from 1531 until his death.
He wrote an odd poem about the hard life of the choir boys during this period in England and the beatings they endured (on their “lytle butokes”), which you can read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Redford “The Chorister’s Lament” by John Redford
I wonder if the lashes actually improved their singing. I suppose it might have been an encouragement for memorization of the words. Sandy may want to test it out with our choir.
Moving from the Renaissance back to the Medieval period, the offertory is “Composition on a Plainsong” by John Dunstable. The following information (and much more) can be found in his Wikipedia entry:
Dunstable was born about 1390 and died on Christmas Eve day, 1453.
Dunstable is believed to have probably been born in - - - - Dunstable!
No one knows when he was born, but as some of his music which has survived was written sometime between 1410 and 1420, the guess is around 1390.
He served John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, the fourth son of King Henry IV (and, of course, a brother of Henry V).
After serving the Duke of Bedford, he served Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fifth son of Henry IV.
John Dunstable, in addition to being a composer, was an astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician.
http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/13301 “Composition on a Plainsong” by John Dunstable
The postlude is also by John Dunstable, “Agincourt Song.”
http://youtu.be/QU7kGaDLW9U The Agincourt Song, sung by the Cornell Glee Club
http://youtu.be/KMzTC23NN08 The Agincourt Song, brass band, Monumental Brass (This arrangement has a long introduction, but they finally get to the tune.)
http://youtu.be/fLqQG7v4ujA “The Agincourt Song” played by Luca Massaglia on organ
Richard
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