1970s RC tat at ours today
apart from Many are the lightbeams, which sets 3rd century words by St Cyprian to a lovely Swedish folk melody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5V_ZNvnPpA
Offerings at St Pete's this morning (sadly we weren't marking Candlemas). As we had the Organist Who Doesn't Practice™ today, some of the tunes were, shall we say, a bit approximate ...
Father, Lord of all creation - Abbot's Leigh Firmly I believe and truly - Love Divine Immortal, invisible - St Denio Come down, O Love divine - Down Ampney The God of Abraham praise - Leoni
Light of the world Woodlands
Christ is the world’s light - Christe sanctorum
Longing for light - Christ be our light
Lord, the light of your love is shining -Shine Jesus shine
Nunc Dimittis- Hylton Stewart
Communion Motet: The True and Living Bread- David Blackwell
The NT lesson was “re-told” as if by Anna, by Janet, who is a retired drama teacher aged 80 though you would not know it. She did it excellently.
Being a fifth Sunday this was a group service held in the smallest of our five churches, which normally only uses BCP. Quite well attended today, though nobody under 55.
The vicar and two or three others clapped at the usual moment during Shine Jesus shine. The organist has, in choir practice, threatened to walk out if anyone clapped, but he didn’t. Not everyone likes to clap. I don’t. I can’t co-ordinate! Maybe the gentleman upthread can’t or won’t.
Our Place did celebrate Candlemas, and warbled the following:
We hail thy presence glorious
Something from a sheet (possibly the Gloria - I wasn't there, so I'm guessing!) God is love, his the care
Little Jesus, sweetly sleep
Virgin-born, we bow before thee
Something from a sheet (for the candlelit Procession - I couldn't quite catch the words, but the tune was that of a well-known Walsingham ditty...).
Quite a goodly number in church - we seem to have acquired a few new young families lately, together with a group of students from the Indian sub-continent. All the new arrivals live either in the parish, or close enough to spit over the boundary into it.
No Faithful vigil ended, but I expect Father is keeping that for the evening Mass on Thursday, the actual *proper* day.
All-age service, starting with the Candlemas story and moving on to two further visits by Jesus to the Temple.
“How pleased and blest was I” (Ascalon)
“I will enter his gates with thanksgiving”.
“We love the place, O God” (Quam Dilecta).
“Mary and Joseph came to the temple” (Bunessan).
“Come and go with me to my Father's house”.
“Jesus Christ is waiting” (Noel Nouvelet).
“God is in his temple” (Groningen).
I didn't actually use the word "Candlemas" in the service, though some folk worked it out.
I nearly chose "Faithful vigil ended" and the metrical psalm "How lovely is thy dwelling place" which I love; in the end though I chose hymn no 4 (by the Methodist writer Andrew Pratt) and we read Psalm 84 (most of it!) responsively.
Mention upthread of a harmonium reminds me of the rare occasions I had to play one for a service.
Pedalling like mad to get any sound out of it was such hard work! I will admit to choosing short hymns on purpose. How the indomitable regular organist managed into her 90s I will never know.
I’ve often thought that second hand harmoniums should be marketed as musical exercise bikes.
The organist whom Mrs BA replaced at our country church pedalled the harmonium until she became ill a couple of months prior to her 93rd birthday, passing away a week later. Her daughter occasionally plays, but her husband is dragooned into hand-pumping. Mrs BA plays the Yamaha Electone which is the main instrument now.
Pedalling like mad to get any sound out of it was such hard work! I will admit to choosing short hymns on purpose. How the indomitable regular organist managed into her 90s I will never know.
I suspect that she used playing the organ as a form of exercise to keep her going!
I very occasionally pumped when David was "organ grabbing" (as they call it) in rural churches in East Anglia, but I'm not exactly the fittest piglet on the planet, so I couldn't sustain it for long. How anyone could do it for a whole service is quite beyond me!
We were Candlemassing today (I know - I thought it was last week too):
Songs of thankfulness and praise - St. Edmund Father, hear the prayer we offer - Sussex For the healing of the nations - Alleluia Dulce Carmen Love divine, all loves excelling - Love Divine* Teach me, my God and King - Sandys
* Is Outrage! Should have been Hyfrydol - or at least Blaenwern!
Our early (9 o'clock) service usually has just three hymns, but on the first Sunday of the month it is retitled "Hymns of Praise" with five offerings. Today's were:
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty / NICAEA
Amazing Grace / NEW BRITAIN
I Will Sing the Wondrous Story / WONDROUS STORY
How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds / ST PETER
To God be the Glory / TO GOD BE THE GLORY
The light of Christ
Blest are you who made the universe - Haugen
I have loved you with a perfect love - Joncas. This is totally delicious.
Christ be our Light - Farrell. Ms Farrell recently had a very serious operation to remove a brain tumour. Prayers requested by her family.
“Blessed Jesus, at Your Word”/LIEBSTER JESU
“As Pants the Deer for Living Streams” (Ps 42 & 43)/SEACHRIST
“How Long, O Lord” (Ps 13)/HOW LONG, O LORD
“O God in Whom All Life Begins”/NOEL
We also had a “homegrown” hymn, written by a member of the congregation and sung to BUNESSAN.
“Thanks to God whose word was spoken” - Regent Square.
“A new commandment”.
“Ancient words” (first time, and well worth singing).
“Lord, thy word abideth” - Ravenshaw.
“Father of all, whose laws have stood” - St Catherine,
“Freedom and life are ours” - From Strength to Strength.
We had:
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (MOREDUN)
Lord you sometimes speak in wonders (STUTTGART)
We sing a love (WOODLANDS, and I must remember to encode a new video where the words on the screen and what is sung actually match)
Come and find the quiet centre
Glorious thing of thee are spoken (GERMAN, GERMAN OVERALLS)
GERMAN OVERALLS ????? I think I can see where that's coming from but it sounds weird!
Clearly the German overalls come from Austria....
With splashes of paint on them...
(F & S it is indeed - part of his introduction to the Patriotic Song for England, recorded at the Broadway concert of 1967. On the same occasion, Flanders reminded his audience that, if it hadn't been for the English, they'd all be Spanish...)
Breathe on me, breath of God - Carlisle Holy Spirit, come confirm us Laus Deo Lettuce Let us with a gladsome mind - Monkland O breath of life, come sweeping through us - St. Clement My gracious Lord, I own thy right - Warrington
We had the Organist Who Doesn't Practise™ again today; the postlude was To a wild rose, which he did appear to have practised; but sadly it was at the expense of at least one of the hymns, which was a very hit-and-miss affair.
Today's dire selection.....
A new commandment
Take our bread
This is my Body
Sing it in the valleys.
The "highlight" this morning was when the kiddies came back from Childrens Liturgy (ie colouring in and making up anodyne prayers "Dear Jesus make me kind" appears every week) for their show and tell, was fisty cuffs between two of the little boys which the deacon who was wrangling the microphone handled with great sang froid. Extra excitement was provided by their very close proximity to a lighted candle.
Numbers are rising (149 today) including a number of families. That is excellent, but there are noisy babies and one family seems to have a couple of boys with quite severe ADHD. So it is all a bit of a contrast to low-key Covid services.
We brought up our granddaughter who has ADHD and the church were absolutely brilliant in their acceptance of her. People who can't tolerate noisy children at the family 10.45 service go to the more formal 9 o'clock service.
We brought up our granddaughter who has ADHD and the church were absolutely brilliant in their acceptance of her. People who can't tolerate noisy children at the family 10.45 service go to the more formal 9 o'clock service.
“Stand up, and bless the Lord” - Old 134th (St Michael).
“We are here to praise you” (Kendrick).
“Put peace into each others’ hands” - St Columba.
“Blest are the pure in heart” - Ravenshaw.
“Spirit of God within me” - Wolvercote, couldn't get hold of the (admittedly obscure) Deben.
“Fill now my life, O Lord my God” - Richmond.
“God Is Here!”/ABBOT’S LEIGH Gloria (Taizé, J. Berthier)
“Like the Murmer of the Dove’s Song”/BRIDEGROOM
“We Are One in the Spirit” (“They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love”)
“God of Grace and God of Glory”/CWM RHONDDA
I'm afraid *We are one in the Spirit*, however worthy the words, always seems to me to have one of the most awful tunes going...
YMMV, of course, and it may well be that Your Place ups the tempo a bit...
Yes, it needs a fairly brisk tempo, with the downbeat being the only stressed beat of the measure. And it doesn’t work on organ, in my experience. We had it with piano and guitar yesterday.
Ah - we've had it at Our Place on organ only, when it sounded totally funereal...piano and guitar would be much better.
The former Vicar of our Next Door Place might have used it at her church - she played flute, and her husband played guitar at various services - so I guess that combination would sound good, too.
We used to have it at school assemblies. It really needs to skip along (to get it over and done with as quickly as possible)
It’s one of those hymns that I like (occasionally, not on a regular basis) despite its shortcomings. I’m sure that has to do with my having been a youth in the 70s, so it can take me back a bit.
We used to have it at school assemblies. It really needs to skip along (to get it over and done with as quickly as possible)
It’s one of those hymns that I like (occasionally, not on a regular basis) despite its shortcomings. I’m sure that has to do with my having been a youth in the 70s, so it can take me back a bit.
It certainly reminds me of the sort of thing we had in our Church Youth Group in the 60s/70s - Youth Praise, anyone?
I remember Psalm Praise, too, and the exuberant Michael Baughen leaping off the floor as we sang Jubilate, everybody at All Souls, Langham Place, at the launch of that book!
A few of the songs from the Youth Praise and Psalm Praise books have become classics, as is the way of these things. Some stand the test of time, and some don't - how many of the 8000+ hymns and songs written by Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) are still sung today? I can think of maybe three or four...though I expect there are more surviving in use on the other side of The Pond!
Oo, yes - we still have a music copy in the bottom drawer of our spare room!
I told an inadvertent lie. On checking, what we actually have is a music copy of Mission Praise.
Does that have the weird harmonisation of Crimond in it? I went to a wedding a few years ago where that was sung to really off-putting harmonies. When I asked the organist about it he said he just played what was in the book. Memory tells me it was Mission praise.
Tomorrows choices
Make me a channel of your peace
A new commandment
The Servant King
Turning the world upside down. (I will have to scrub my hands with bleach after playing that.)
God of grace and God of glory - Alleluia Dulce Carmen* Bright the vision that delighted - Laus Deo We hail thy glorious presence - Offertorium Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee Ellers ** Light's abode, celestial Salem - Regent Square
* the Wrong Tune imho - should have been Rhuddlan
* * Also the Wrong Tune imho - should have been Adore Te Devote
At least we had the Organist Who Knows What He's Doing today, so we could actually tell what the tunes were meant to be ...
Comments
apart from Many are the lightbeams, which sets 3rd century words by St Cyprian to a lovely Swedish folk melody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5V_ZNvnPpA
I'd not be surprised if many people agreed with you.
Father, Lord of all creation - Abbot's Leigh
Firmly I believe and truly - Love Divine
Immortal, invisible - St Denio
Come down, O Love divine - Down Ampney
The God of Abraham praise - Leoni
( All-age service with HC)
Light of the world Woodlands
Christ is the world’s light - Christe sanctorum
Longing for light - Christ be our light
Lord, the light of your love is shining -Shine Jesus shine
Nunc Dimittis- Hylton Stewart
Communion Motet: The True and Living Bread- David Blackwell
The NT lesson was “re-told” as if by Anna, by Janet, who is a retired drama teacher aged 80 though you would not know it. She did it excellently.
Being a fifth Sunday this was a group service held in the smallest of our five churches, which normally only uses BCP. Quite well attended today, though nobody under 55.
The vicar and two or three others clapped at the usual moment during Shine Jesus shine. The organist has, in choir practice, threatened to walk out if anyone clapped, but he didn’t. Not everyone likes to clap. I don’t. I can’t co-ordinate! Maybe the gentleman upthread can’t or won’t.
We hail thy presence glorious
Something from a sheet (possibly the Gloria - I wasn't there, so I'm guessing!)
God is love, his the care
Little Jesus, sweetly sleep
Virgin-born, we bow before thee
Something from a sheet (for the candlelit Procession - I couldn't quite catch the words, but the tune was that of a well-known Walsingham ditty...).
Quite a goodly number in church - we seem to have acquired a few new young families lately, together with a group of students from the Indian sub-continent. All the new arrivals live either in the parish, or close enough to spit over the boundary into it.
No Faithful vigil ended, but I expect Father is keeping that for the evening Mass on Thursday, the actual *proper* day.
All hail the power of Jesus' name
How lovely is thy dwelling place
Just as I am
I have a dream
Count your many blessings
“How pleased and blest was I” (Ascalon)
“I will enter his gates with thanksgiving”.
“We love the place, O God” (Quam Dilecta).
“Mary and Joseph came to the temple” (Bunessan).
“Come and go with me to my Father's house”.
“Jesus Christ is waiting” (Noel Nouvelet).
“God is in his temple” (Groningen).
Nice selection of hymns, too, with your 1, 4, and 7 all new to me (I know the tune Bunessan, of course).
I nearly chose "Faithful vigil ended" and the metrical psalm "How lovely is thy dwelling place" which I love; in the end though I chose hymn no 4 (by the Methodist writer Andrew Pratt) and we read Psalm 84 (most of it!) responsively.
Pedalling like mad to get any sound out of it was such hard work! I will admit to choosing short hymns on purpose. How the indomitable regular organist managed into her 90s I will never know.
I’ve often thought that second hand harmoniums should be marketed as musical exercise bikes.
I once (1969) went to Evensong in a rural Norfolk church where the organ was still hand-pumped.
There was a foot pedalled harmonium in a rural baptist church here at least until 2000
I suspect that she used playing the organ as a form of exercise to keep her going!
We were Candlemassing today (I know - I thought it was last week too):
Songs of thankfulness and praise - St. Edmund
Father, hear the prayer we offer - Sussex
For the healing of the nations - Alleluia Dulce Carmen
Love divine, all loves excelling - Love Divine*
Teach me, my God and King - Sandys
* Is Outrage! Should have been Hyfrydol - or at least Blaenwern!
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty / NICAEA
Amazing Grace / NEW BRITAIN
I Will Sing the Wondrous Story / WONDROUS STORY
How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds / ST PETER
To God be the Glory / TO GOD BE THE GLORY
Blest are you who made the universe - Haugen
I have loved you with a perfect love - Joncas. This is totally delicious.
Christ be our Light - Farrell. Ms Farrell recently had a very serious operation to remove a brain tumour. Prayers requested by her family.
“Blessed Jesus, at Your Word”/LIEBSTER JESU
“As Pants the Deer for Living Streams” (Ps 42 & 43)/SEACHRIST
“How Long, O Lord” (Ps 13)/HOW LONG, O LORD
“O God in Whom All Life Begins”/NOEL
We also had a “homegrown” hymn, written by a member of the congregation and sung to BUNESSAN.
“A new commandment”.
“Ancient words” (first time, and well worth singing).
“Lord, thy word abideth” - Ravenshaw.
“Father of all, whose laws have stood” - St Catherine,
“Freedom and life are ours” - From Strength to Strength.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (MOREDUN)
Lord you sometimes speak in wonders (STUTTGART)
We sing a love (WOODLANDS, and I must remember to encode a new video where the words on the screen and what is sung actually match)
Come and find the quiet centre
Glorious thing of thee are spoken (GERMAN, GERMAN OVERALLS)
GERMAN OVERALLS ????? I think I can see where that's coming from but it sounds weird!
Flanders and Swann, I believe.
As for the video it's less sophistication than a lack of musicians.
Clearly the German overalls come from Austria....
With splashes of paint on them...
(F & S it is indeed - part of his introduction to the Patriotic Song for England, recorded at the Broadway concert of 1967. On the same occasion, Flanders reminded his audience that, if it hadn't been for the English, they'd all be Spanish...)
(Apologies for prolonging a tangent...)
Breathe on me, breath of God - Carlisle
Holy Spirit, come confirm us Laus Deo
Lettuce Let us with a gladsome mind - Monkland
O breath of life, come sweeping through us - St. Clement
My gracious Lord, I own thy right - Warrington
We had the Organist Who Doesn't Practise™ again today; the postlude was To a wild rose, which he did appear to have practised; but sadly it was at the expense of at least one of the hymns, which was a very hit-and-miss affair.
A new commandment
Take our bread
This is my Body
Sing it in the valleys.
The "highlight" this morning was when the kiddies came back from Childrens Liturgy (ie colouring in and making up anodyne prayers "Dear Jesus make me kind" appears every week) for their show and tell, was fisty cuffs between two of the little boys which the deacon who was wrangling the microphone handled with great sang froid. Extra excitement was provided by their very close proximity to a lighted candle.
Numbers are rising (149 today) including a number of families. That is excellent, but there are noisy babies and one family seems to have a couple of boys with quite severe ADHD. So it is all a bit of a contrast to low-key Covid services.
Same happens here.
“We are here to praise you” (Kendrick).
“Put peace into each others’ hands” - St Columba.
“Blest are the pure in heart” - Ravenshaw.
“Spirit of God within me” - Wolvercote, couldn't get hold of the (admittedly obscure) Deben.
“Fill now my life, O Lord my God” - Richmond.
“God Is Here!”/ABBOT’S LEIGH
Gloria (Taizé, J. Berthier)
“Like the Murmer of the Dove’s Song”/BRIDEGROOM
“We Are One in the Spirit” (“They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love”)
“God of Grace and God of Glory”/CWM RHONDDA
YMMV, of course, and it may well be that Your Place ups the tempo a bit...
The former Vicar of our Next Door Place might have used it at her church - she played flute, and her husband played guitar at various services - so I guess that combination would sound good, too.
It’s one of those hymns that I like (occasionally, not on a regular basis) despite its shortcomings. I’m sure that has to do with my having been a youth in the 70s, so it can take me back a bit.
It certainly reminds me of the sort of thing we had in our Church Youth Group in the 60s/70s - Youth Praise, anyone?
A few of the songs from the Youth Praise and Psalm Praise books have become classics, as is the way of these things. Some stand the test of time, and some don't - how many of the 8000+ hymns and songs written by Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) are still sung today? I can think of maybe three or four...though I expect there are more surviving in use on the other side of The Pond!
I told an inadvertent lie. On checking, what we actually have is a music copy of Mission Praise.
Does that have the weird harmonisation of Crimond in it? I went to a wedding a few years ago where that was sung to really off-putting harmonies. When I asked the organist about it he said he just played what was in the book. Memory tells me it was Mission praise.
I haven’t heard this since the 1970s, but to me it works best a capella, in the style of ‘We Will Rock You’. Now there’s a suggestion…
Make me a channel of your peace
A new commandment
The Servant King
Turning the world upside down. (I will have to scrub my hands with bleach after playing that.)
God of grace and God of glory - Alleluia Dulce Carmen*
Bright the vision that delighted - Laus Deo
We hail thy glorious presence - Offertorium
Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee Ellers **
Light's abode, celestial Salem - Regent Square
* the Wrong Tune imho - should have been Rhuddlan
* * Also the Wrong Tune imho - should have been Adore Te Devote
At least we had the Organist Who Knows What He's Doing today, so we could actually tell what the tunes were meant to be ...
I Cannot Tell / LONDONDERRY AIR
Will You Come and Follow Me (The Summons)* / KELVINGROVE
Take My Life and Let It Be / HENDON
* Not very often that we get a John Bell hymn at our place
When I survey the wondrous cross
Holy Overshadowing
Holy, Holy, Holy this version
The London Derriere is a bit of a stretch for an early service.