Actually I don't know it ... that change of time signature in the middle is tricky, as are some of the intervals. It's by Johann Cruger, apparently. Reminds me a bit of "All My Heart This Night Rejoices".
If you mean the tune Ebeling, yes, indeed - very similar, and mid-17thC again!
In my experience German congregations seem to have little difficulty with those irregular rhythms in 17thC hymns. Maybe they are a better fit with the language.
In my experience German congregations seem to have little difficulty with those irregular rhythms in 17thC hymns. Maybe they are a better fit with the language.
They may also simply be more familiar with these hymns, having had them as part of their religious life and culture for a long time.
But how fast should they be sung? I understand that, over the years, they got slower and slower - yet I've also heard it on good authority, that in Luther's day, they were jaunty dance-like tunes and went at a rhythmic lick. Certainly I could imagine BF's tune being sung at twice the speed (or more!)
I suppose they should be sung at a speed with which the singers feel comfortable, if there is no other *instruction*. I agree that the example I gave could indeed be happily sung at a quicker pace, especially given the upbeat tenor of the text!
FWIW, I was surprised, on first attending a Lutheran church in London, at how much faster (than in the C of E) one or two otherwise familiar hymns were sung.
Yes, and in one of these threads about songs reference was made to the Genevan tune which @Nick Tamen said his tribe sings to “Comfort, comfort now my people”. We sing it also, you will find it under Advent in CH4 and Mr Cats always makes a point of playing it at dance pace. It’s a really good tune at that speed, and I always imagine John Calvin and John Knox, in caps and gowns, beards jutting, dancing something lively but stately with each other before the congregation!
. . . and I always imagine John Calvin and John Knox, in caps and gowns, beards jutting, dancing something lively but stately with each other before the congregation!
I love that image!
And yes, most if not all of these tunes under discussion work better and are easier to sing if they go at a decent clip.
I can't recall on which thread it's been mentioned recently, but any organist (or clergyperson) objecting to the speed of Lefebure-Wely's famous Sortie in E flat needs to recall that it was intended to get the congregation moving out of the church quickly after High Mass, in order to make way for the incoming congregation of the next service...
I've heard that tune described as a waltz in 4/4 time, rather than 3/4 time, and on one occasion when it was the postlude after the Cathedral Eucharist, the altar party and the Archdeacon did indeed dance down the aisle on their way out...
Yes, and in one of these threads about songs reference was made to the Genevan tune which @Nick Tamen said his tribe sings to “Comfort, comfort now my people”. We sing it also, you will find it under Advent in CH4 and Mr Cats always makes a point of playing it at dance pace. !
. . . and I always imagine John Calvin and John Knox, in caps and gowns, beards jutting, dancing something lively but stately with each other before the congregation!
For the delight and edification of all, here is a superb rendition of the Sortie in E flat, played by the young Dutch maestro Gert van Hoef on his home organ (in the attic):
Yes, and in one of these threads about songs reference was made to the Genevan tune which @Nick Tamen said his tribe sings to “Comfort, comfort now my people”. We sing it also, you will find it under Advent in CH4 and Mr Cats always makes a point of playing it at dance pace. !
Yes, we seem to have parallel conversations going on in different threads. I posted to that same video in the conversation about the tune (Genevan 42) in the “Modern worship songs are good” thread, which is what @Cathscats was referring to.
Yes, and in one of these threads about songs reference was made to the Genevan tune which @Nick Tamen said his tribe sings to “Comfort, comfort now my people”. We sing it also, you will find it under Advent in CH4 and Mr Cats always makes a point of playing it at dance pace. !
Yes, we seem to have parallel conversations going on in different threads. I posted to that same video in the conversation about the tune (Genevan 42) in the “Modern worship songs are good” thread, which is what @Cathscats was referring to.
Indeed - just right IMHO. We're having this one on Sunday (in English!), so I hope the organist goes at this speed. I like the guitar arrangement, too!
I liked the arrangement of Genevan 42 too. It respects the tradition yet also riffs with it in a way that feels authentic for that particular congregation.
Yes, and in one of these threads about songs reference was made to the Genevan tune which @Nick Tamen said his tribe sings to “Comfort, comfort now my people”. We sing it also, you will find it under Advent in CH4 and Mr Cats always makes a point of playing it at dance pace. It’s a really good tune at that speed, and I always imagine John Calvin and John Knox, in caps and gowns, beards jutting, dancing something lively but stately with each other before the congregation!
For reasons best known to itself the Church of Scotland has always named its hymn books “Hymnary”. There was the original Hymnary and then Church Hymnary 2, 3 and at the turn of the century 4. Everyone has their favourite edition, though few speak up for CH3…..
Very true. I forgot about it in this context. It is very useful.
And no, it’s not of Scottish origin; it started in North America. It’s based at Calvin College—a Michigan college of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the larger and historically more conservative of the two main North American descendants of the Dutch Reformed Church (the other being the Reformed Church in America). Hymnary.org works with the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada.
FWIW, my dictionary tells me that the first recorded use of “hymnary” is from 1888, ten years before the publication of the Kirk’s first Church Hymnary. The first recorded use of “hymnal” is from the 15th C, and “hymnbook” dates back to the 12th C or earlier.
(Talking of the Hymnary website, it turns out that the audio files on there were prepared by a retired Baptist minister in Australia called Clyde McClennan, and can all be found, searched and played on his website here. It's an amazing resource, and it must have taken him months and months. I like the organ arrangements best - the piano ones and the band (!!) are perhaps not as useful. One or two oldies are surprisingly copyright-restricted, but in the main I reckon nearly everything we sing is on there).
No singing for us today (still), though we got to listen to our excellent organist (God preserve her) play through the tunes. It wasn't the same, as I can't remember what they were. But - I did find an acoustic guitar left out for the bin men while walking home, and it's a good one. So, musically speaking, not a dead loss this morning - perhaps next week I'll find a set of strings
Alas, the singing at Our Place today was (I am told) dire.
The baker's dozen in church managed Glorious things of thee are spoken and God is walking his porpoise out, albeit with difficulty, but Deck thyself my soul with gladness was a complete flop, as no-one seemed to know it...
The Graham Kendrick ditty was sung by the organist and her husband, as they were the only ones who knew it...
We had We plough the fields (to indicate God's provision even though it wasn't Harvest), Praise and thanksgiving (to "Bunessan"), Break thou the Bread of Life, Jesus the Lord said, 'I am the Bread' and The Lord's my Shepherd (Townend).
Talking of hymns to sing when it isn't harvest - I was thinking about 'Come ye thankful people, come' and trying to work out where it sits in terms of premillenial dispensational tribulational eschatological and other -al things which this Methodist doesn't think about very often. Its end-timey-ness is something which has not always struck me as forcefully as it does now.
We had We plough the fields (to indicate God's provision even though it wasn't Harvest), Praise and thanksgiving (to "Bunessan"), Break thou the Bread of Life, Jesus the Lord said, 'I am the Bread' and The Lord's my Shepherd (Townend).
What a lovely singable choice, though I don't know Jesus the Lord said I am the Bread.
I last sang the Townend version of Psalm 23 some years ago, at the funeral of my cousin Sam (aged 19), so I couldn't sing it now without choking up...
Talking of hymns to sing when it isn't harvest - I was thinking about 'Come ye thankful people, come' and trying to work out where it sits in terms of premillenial dispensational tribulational eschatological and other -al things which this Methodist doesn't think about very often. Its end-timey-ness is something which has not always struck me as forcefully as it does now.
Interesting. Yes, I see what you mean, and no, its end-timey-ness hadn't struck me before, either.
Given a recent report in a certain newspaper that predictions made back in 1972 about the collapse of society occurring in around 20 years' time (2040-ish) are turning out to be fairly accurate (witness climate change etc.), maybe we should all be thinking more about The End Times.
The hymn we had at Our Place today (which I jestingly refer to as God is walking his porpoise out) expresses what seems to me an unwarranted optimism, but YMMV.
We sang
Lord Jesus Christ ( Living Lord)
I am the bread of life. The organist didn’t know it, but he coped well with fitting the words in.
Father Lord of all creation.
Motet during Communion was Author of Life Divine by Celia McDowall
What a lovely singable choice, though I don't know Jesus the Lord said I am the Bread.
/quote] Here it is (a bit clunky perhaps): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-I-OV28_Fs
We sang
Lord Jesus Christ ( Living Lord)
I am the bread of life. The organist didn’t know it, but he coped well with fitting the words in.
Father Lord of all creation.
Motet during Communion was Author of Life Divine by Celia McDowall
Another fine selection!
I am the bread of life (if you mean the song by Susanne Toolan - dating from 1966!) is another one which is not all that easy to sing, but it's a favourite at Our Place (I was a bit surprised that it wasn't on today's list, but one can't have everything).
Historically English congregations would have celebrated today as Lammas tide, marking the start of the wheat harvest, so We plough the fields isn't that unwarranted.
Our selection today: Praise my soul, the king of heaven Guide me o thou great redeemer Alleluia, sing to Jesus Bread of heaven, on thee we feed
Junior Church had the Taize chant "Jesus Christ, bread of life".
The latter was written by Josiah Conder, and one of his descendants, William Conder, was a member of my last church. There are late Conders buried in the churchyard. It's the large vault in the far right distance by the boundary, behind the tree. https://tinyurl.com/ssfm5vvr
When Morning Gilds the Skies/LAUDES DOMINI
Search Me, O God/KÀM-CHHAT (Taiwanese)
God of the Fertile Fields/ITALIAN HYMN
Christ Be Beside Me/BUNESSAN
As for “Come Ye Thankful People, Come,” it’s a meditation on the parable of the wheat and the tares/weeds. I suspect it doesn’t really fall anywhere on the premillenial dispensational tribulational eschatological spectrum; I doubt that those things were on the mind of Henry Alford, an Anglican priest, when he wrote it. If anything, I’d guess an amillennial understanding lies behind it, but is also probably irrelevant to it.
In its original version, with the couplet " giving angels charge at last/in the fire the tares to cast" it is in fact quite a sombre hymn! I suspect that many people sing it without giving thought to what it's saying - and some hymnbooks, disagreeing with its eschatology, have re-written it quite substantially!
Comments
If you mean the tune Ebeling, yes, indeed - very similar, and mid-17thC again!
By the way, I do like German chorales to be sung with a bit (actually, quite a lot) more "wellie" than those choristers on your recording!
They may also simply be more familiar with these hymns, having had them as part of their religious life and culture for a long time.
FWIW, I was surprised, on first attending a Lutheran church in London, at how much faster (than in the C of E) one or two otherwise familiar hymns were sung.
And yes, most if not all of these tunes under discussion work better and are easier to sing if they go at a decent clip.
I've heard that tune described as a waltz in 4/4 time, rather than 3/4 time, and on one occasion when it was the postlude after the Cathedral Eucharist, the altar party and the Archdeacon did indeed dance down the aisle on their way out...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pu7CalxGAIU&t=4252s
It's part of a recent livestreamed concert - scroll to 1.06.38 (or just before, if you want Gert's introduction in English).
I posted to that same video in the conversation about the tune (Genevan 42) in the “Modern worship songs are good” thread, which is what @Cathscats was referring to.
I thought that clip seemed familiar...
Demonstrated nicely here.
Indeed - just right IMHO. We're having this one on Sunday (in English!), so I hope the organist goes at this speed. I like the guitar arrangement, too!
I liked the arrangement of Genevan 42 too. It respects the tradition yet also riffs with it in a way that feels authentic for that particular congregation.
Thanks for sharing these videos.
CH4? When I search that, it shows up Methane.
https://hymnary.org/
I wonder if it is of Scottish origin?
And no, it’s not of Scottish origin; it started in North America. It’s based at Calvin College—a Michigan college of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the larger and historically more conservative of the two main North American descendants of the Dutch Reformed Church (the other being the Reformed Church in America). Hymnary.org works with the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada.
FWIW, my dictionary tells me that the first recorded use of “hymnary” is from 1888, ten years before the publication of the Kirk’s first Church Hymnary. The first recorded use of “hymnal” is from the 15th C, and “hymnbook” dates back to the 12th C or earlier.
More about Jesus would I know (haven’t sang that for about 30 years and Mr Cats has never heard it, I think of it as a Baptist special)
In Christ alone (there is a word I change in there as I am singing,you probably can guess which one.)
Just as I am.
The baker's dozen in church managed Glorious things of thee are spoken and God is walking his porpoise out, albeit with difficulty, but Deck thyself my soul with gladness was a complete flop, as no-one seemed to know it...
The Graham Kendrick ditty was sung by the organist and her husband, as they were the only ones who knew it...
What a lovely singable choice, though I don't know Jesus the Lord said I am the Bread.
I last sang the Townend version of Psalm 23 some years ago, at the funeral of my cousin Sam (aged 19), so I couldn't sing it now without choking up...
Interesting. Yes, I see what you mean, and no, its end-timey-ness hadn't struck me before, either.
Given a recent report in a certain newspaper that predictions made back in 1972 about the collapse of society occurring in around 20 years' time (2040-ish) are turning out to be fairly accurate (witness climate change etc.), maybe we should all be thinking more about The End Times.
The hymn we had at Our Place today (which I jestingly refer to as God is walking his porpoise out) expresses what seems to me an unwarranted optimism, but YMMV.
Lord Jesus Christ ( Living Lord)
I am the bread of life. The organist didn’t know it, but he coped well with fitting the words in.
Father Lord of all creation.
Motet during Communion was Author of Life Divine by Celia McDowall
Another fine selection!
I am the bread of life (if you mean the song by Susanne Toolan - dating from 1966!) is another one which is not all that easy to sing, but it's a favourite at Our Place (I was a bit surprised that it wasn't on today's list, but one can't have everything).
Our selection today:
Praise my soul, the king of heaven
Guide me o thou great redeemer
Alleluia, sing to Jesus
Bread of heaven, on thee we feed
Junior Church had the Taize chant "Jesus Christ, bread of life".
When Morning Gilds the Skies/LAUDES DOMINI
Search Me, O God/KÀM-CHHAT (Taiwanese)
God of the Fertile Fields/ITALIAN HYMN
Christ Be Beside Me/BUNESSAN
As for “Come Ye Thankful People, Come,” it’s a meditation on the parable of the wheat and the tares/weeds. I suspect it doesn’t really fall anywhere on the premillenial dispensational tribulational eschatological spectrum; I doubt that those things were on the mind of Henry Alford, an Anglican priest, when he wrote it. If anything, I’d guess an amillennial understanding lies behind it, but is also probably irrelevant to it.
Given the sort of liturgical circles I often move in the question would be "which century?"