Difficult Pentecost-al hymnody

Among the canon of Pentecost, many invite the Holy Ghost to come like “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire” and “Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove.” Of these my favorite is “Come down, O love divine,” to the Vaughan Williams tune Down Ampney.

We did the latter today for communion and the singing was strong. However, there were also two other hymns from Hymnal 1940 that were much harder.

Hail Thee, Festival Day

Regular readers know this (H40: #107) is my favorite Whitsunday hymn, and not just because it’s my wife’s favorite hymn for the Easter, Ascension and Pentecost season or because it’s Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 2nd greatest hit.

However, consistent with my recent music studies, today I tried to pay attention to how others were reacting to it. A few thoughts:

• Consistent with the rest of the day — and previous visits here and elsewhere — the women were stronger than the men; more of them sang, and they sang more loudly. I’m guessing that among those under 50, more women had formal music training.
• The men were essentially the choir and one former choir member (me) until the clergy and acolytes processed in the building.
• The men’s part is (as always) objectively harder than the women’s part with the triplet rhythm.
• Across the three verses, each verse was stronger than the previous one.

The difficulty people were having was surprising, because a) there were more than 100 people in the building; b) they have been singing this hymn once or twice a year for more than a decade.

From my research at six Episcopal/Anglican parishes in Texas, according to music directors and congregation members, this is one of the hardest hymns in the canon. (St. Patrick’s Breastplate being the other, because it is very long).

Objectively, it is a difficult hymn for any small or medium sized parish to sing without choir support.

Come, thou Holy Spirit, come!

I don’t recall singing this hymn (H40: #109.1; H82: #226) before: It is a 12th century Latin text (translated by Caswall) set to an 11th century plainsong melody:

Come, Thou Holy Spirit, come!
And from Thy celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Thou Father of the poor!
Come, Thou Source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine!

Thou, of comforters the best;
Thou, the soul's most welcome Guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.

O most blessèd Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of Thine,
And our inmost being fill!
Where thou art not, man hath naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour Thy dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.

On the faithful, who adore
And confess Thee, evermore
In Thy sevenfold gifts descend;
Give them virtue's sure reward;
Give them Thy salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion says the original text was first printed in 1200, but likely written in the late 12th century and “has always been associated with Whitsuntide.” It reports that the translation is that of Hymns Ancient & Modern, based on Caswall’s 1849 translation, and that its first use by ECUSA was in Hymnal 1892.

It says the tune Golden Sequence “is the traditional melody associated with the Latin text, although probably somewhat older than the text.” According to Hymnary.org, while the text is found in 55 hymnals, the tune is found in only 11 hymnals, including Hymnal 1916, 1940 and 1982 of ECUSA, the 1986 New English Hymnal, and the 3rd and 4th edition of the Worship Roman Catholic hymnal published by GIA.

Our choir sang it antiphonally by half verse, as marked; the Amen is marked “Full choir,” implying that it’s expected to sung only by the choir. I have visited a few congregations that might be able to sing this, but clearly not without some practice. There’s a YouTube video of the piano part, but the other videos (including one commercial recording) seem to be of the other tune, Veni Sancte Spiirtus by Samuel Webbe, a conventional 18th century tune that (to my ears) sounds almost Victorian.

Pentecost-al hymnody

After Sunday's service, I wanted to blog about Pentecost hymnody and then realized I wrote a detailed discussion three years ago. So instead, I tried to make a list of important Pentecost (née Whitsunday) hymns.

I looked through three hymnals - The English Hymnal (1906), Hymnal 1940, and Hymnal 1982. Below is the list of all hymns where the text (if even not the tune) is found in at least two of the three hymnals. (In some cases, TEH used different tune names for the same tune so I compared the actual tune music to make sure).

Only three hymns made all three lists: “Come down, O Love divine,” “Glorious things of thee are spoken,” and of course our household favorite, “Hail Thee Festival Day.”

While I have my personal favorites for hymns, clearly these three stand out for their endorsement by three hymnal committees 75 years apart.

Title	Tune	Hymns
Breathe on me, Breath of God	Swabia	H40: 375.1
Breathe on me, Breath of God	Nova Vita	H40: 375.2, H82: 508
Come down, O Love divine	Down Ampney	TEH: 152, H40: 376, H82: 516
Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove	Good Shepherd, Rosemont	H40: 378.1
Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove	Mendon	H40: 378.2, H82: 512
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire	Veni Creator	TEH: 153
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire	Veni Creator	H40: 217.1, H82: 504
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire	Come Holy Ghost	H40: 217.2, H82: 503
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove	St. Agnes	H40: 369, H82: 510
Come, thou Holy Spirit, come	The Golden Sequence	H40: 109.1
Come, thou Holy Spirit, come	Veni Sancte Spiritus	H40: 109.2, H82: 226
Creator Spirit, by whose aid	Atwood	TEH: 156, H40: 371
Creator Spirit, by whose aid	Surrey	H82: 500
Glorious things of thee are spoken	Austria	TEH: 393, H40: 385, H82: 522
Glorious things of thee are spoken	Abbot's Leigh	H82: 523
Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost	Capetown	TEH: 396, H40: 379
Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost	Troen	H82: 612
Hail thee, festival day	Salve Festa Dies	TEH: 630, H40: 107, H82: 225
O blest Redeemer, ere he breathed	St. Cuthbert	TEH: 157, H40: 368
O come, Creator Spirit, come	Veni Creator	TEH: 154.1, H40: 108.1
O come, Creator Spirit, come	Grace Church	H40: 108.2
O King enhroned on high	Temple	TEH: 454, H40: 374
O Spirit of the living God	Melcombe	H40: 256, H82: 531
Spirit divine, attend our prayers	Graefenberg	H40: 370, H82: 509
Spirit of mercy, truth and love	Melcombe	TEH: 631, H40: 111
Spirit of mercy, truth and love	Cornish	H82: 229

Dial H for Pentecost

Today we celebrated Pentecost at a Hymnal 1982 ACNA parish. This prompted me to contrast Hymnal 1982 and Hymnal 1940 in how they handle Pentecost.

The most obvious difference is that in 1940, the feast was called Whitsunday. As the 1912 New Catholic Encyclopedia writes:

Pentecost (Whitsunday)

A feast of the universal Church which commemorates the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ, on the ancient Jewish festival called the "feast of weeks" or Pentecost (Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10). Whitsunday is so called from the white garments which were worn by those who were baptised during the vigil; Pentecost ("Pfingsten" in German), is the Greek for "the fiftieth" (day after Easter).

Whitsunday, as a Christian feast, dates back to the first century, although there is no evidence that it was observed, as there is in the case of Easter; …

That Whitsunday belongs to the Apostolic times is stated in the seventh of the (interpolated) fragments attributed to St. Irenæus. In Tertullian (On Baptism 19) the festival appears as already well established. The Gallic pilgrim gives a detailed account of the solemn manner in which it was observed at Jerusalem ("Peregrin. Silviæ", ed. Geyer, iv). The Apostolic Constitutions (Book V, Part 20) say that Pentecost lasts one week, but in the West it was not kept with an octave until at quite a late date. It appears from Berno of Reichenau (d. 1048) that it was a debatable point in his time whether Whitsunday ought to have an octave. At present it is of equal rank with Easter Sunday.

The two have a surprisingly similar approach. Hymnal 1940 lists 5 Whitsunday hymns (#107-111) and Hymnal 1982 lists 8 Pentecost hymns (#223-230). This morning, we opened with the most memorable hymn on either list: Salve Festa Dies (H40: #107, H82: #225), i.e. the Pentecost variant of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ second greatest hit (after his Nov. 1 classic).

What’s interesting in both hymnals is that the real hymnody comes from the list of hymns about the Holy Spirit (née Holy Ghost). For H40, it’s under “also the following” (13 hymns total) while H82 it’s under a section formally titled “Holy Spirit” (#500-516). Many of the great hymns fall under this category, include “Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove” (H40: #369; H82: #510) that we sang today.

One we didn’t sing was “Come down, O Love divine” (H40: #376, H82: #516), but with the 15th century lyric and the wonderful Vaughan Williams tune Down Ampney, we really should have. (After I wrote this posting, I noticed that bjs of Chantblog posted today a tribute to this, “the best hymn ever written.” High praise indeed.)

The other hymn I wish we had sung (perhaps at communion) is “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire” (H40: #217, H82: #504) to Veni Creator. However, I understand the decision not to use it, because this Sarum (i.e. medieval Salisbury) chant requires either a good quality choir or an moderately large and experience congregation. I love plainsong but have come to recognize through my wanderings among the Anglican diaspora is that the average parish can’t handle plainsong without considerable practice.

Neither hymnal considers “Take my life, and let it be” (H40: #408; H82: #707) to be a hymn about Pentecost or the Holy Ghost. I disagree, but maybe that’s just how a particular Pentecost sermon struck me two years ago.

Overall, I think that H82 made a good choice to group some (even if not all) of the Holy Ghost hymns into one place — making it easier to find a good Pentecost hymn under “H” if not under “P”.

Anglo-Lutheran worship

For the first time since they processed away from their building, today I attended Holy Trinity (ACNA) in San Diego, which now worships at the LCMS parish next door to their longtime sanctuary.

As it happens, it was also the observance of feast of Pentecost, so I was able to witness their high feast worship style. It was nothing but “bells and smells” (as my choir buddies used to call it) with full incense at the most Anglo-Catholic of the Schism II parishes in San Diego. I estimate about 75 people were in the sanctuary for the 8 a.m. service.

The choice of the opening and closing hymns were about as Anglican as you can get — both with Vaughan Williams tunes from The English Hymnal: “Hail thee festival day!” (Pentecost edition) and “Come down, O love divine.”

However, the “Hail thee” was rendered in an unusual format by the Lutheran hymnals that Holy Trinity is using while temporarily meeting at Bethany Lutheran in OB. One unusual quirk is that the Lutherans decided that RVW only gets one hymn for three feast days — Easter, Ascension and Pentecost — with 3 variants specified for the chorus, verse 1 and verse 2. Without having the hymnal in front of me, it was impossible to say what damage this did to the CoE conception of the hymn.

The other change was more obvious. Instead of the PECUSA (1940, 1982):

Hail thee, festival day! blest day that are hallowed for ever;
Day whereon God from heav’n shone in† the world with his grace.

the Lutheran Book of Worship (and also the other Bethany parish hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book) render the refrain as

Hail thee, festival day! blest day to be hallowed forever;
Day when the Holy Ghost shone in the world with his grace.

(† The English Hymnal (#630) says “shown on the world” but the refrain is otherwise the same.)

The translation of the Fortunatus was attributed to the LBW, a ELCA hymnal that was rejected by the LCMS due to doctrinal errors. But the LSB translation is no better.

As far as I could tell, the other RVW hymn was divine (with words similar to those of H40 #376).

In the middle, Holy Trinity sang as its second communion hymn “O Lord, we praise you” which was unfamiliar to these Anglican ears but with a pedigree about as Lutheran as they get: verse 1 from 15th century Germany, verses 2-3 from 16th century Martin Luther hymself, and a 1524 tune from a German hymnbook.

So in the end, this was an English-American-Lutheran blended worship service — a bit unfamiliar but better than a rock band playing 19th century hymns.

Dear Holy Ghost: Take My Life

For Pentecost Sunday, this morning’s Epistle featured the obligatory passage from Acts about the first Pentecost and the birth day of the church. The lectionary selected Old Testament and Gospel readings that foreshadow Penetecost, including that portion of Acts that cites Joel 2:28-31.

But what to sing on Whitsunday? There’s always Salve Festa Dies, but if not that, then Oremus has a list of Pentecost hymns (even if the hotlinks are broken.) What about the old-fashioned way of finding hymns? There are a number of hymns that make explicit reference to the Holy Ghost (or the Holy Spirit as our “contemporary” church refers to him). Some of these are overtly trinitarian in their outlook, so I’ll defer those to another Sunday.

As with other central themes of the Christian faith, for the Holy Ghost there are ancient (or at least medieval) texts that provide continuity across the millenia. One example is “Come Holy Ghost, Creator blest” (Hymnal 1940: 218). Taken from a 9th? 10th? century text, it was translated in the mid-19th century by Edward Caswall, an Anglo-Catholic CoE clergyman who followed John Newman to the Roman church.

Another, more personal favorite is “Come, Holy Ghost, with God the Son.” (H40: 160), with the original Latin attributed to St. Ambrose and as translated by J.M. Neale. Hymnal 1982 (#20) sets it to Wareham and a harmonization from Hymns Ancient & Modern, but (alas) bowdlerizes the words to become "Now Holy Spirit, ever one."

However, today’s sermon focused less on the historical truth of the Eleven in the upper room, nor on the glossolaly that mistakenly brought us Pentacostalism. Instead, the priest emphasized the importance of letting the Holy Ghost do its work in our daily lives, or — in the contemporary jargon — “being open to the power of the Spirit.”

This core message — surrending one’s will to that of God, working through the power of the Holy Spirit — reminded me of a hymn. I couldn't remember the song title during the service, but looked it up on the Internet when I got home:

Take my life, and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee;
take my moments and my days,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
…

Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
take my heart, it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne.

The hymn (H40: #408; H82: #707) was written by Frances Havergal (1836-1879), youngest daughter of an Anglican cleric and composer. Quoting from her autobiography, the Hymnal 1940 Companion recounts how the couplets came to Havergal in December 1973 in response to prayer.

The CyberHymnal lists eight different melodies. H40/H82 use Hollingside (by John Dykes) but The English Hymnal (#582) has Ives while Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition (#257) has Benevento. Oremus also lists 12 couplets -- which The CyberHymnal groups into three verses. Americans only get 8/12 (2/3) of these, but the Brits get all 12.

As devotionals go, this one is both easy to sing and powerful in its message. If I were the music director — and our rector had his act together enough to plan his sermon theme a week ahead — I would have scheduled this as the offertory hymn, right after the sermon. It also seems like it would be effective for children’s ministry.

Favorite Whitsunday hymn

Today is Pentecost, née Whitsunday, a once major feast that has fallen into some neglect. Over on GetReligion, Lutheran Mollie Hemingway (one of the would-be saviors of Issues Etc.) had a very good article on the limited coverage of Pentecost, the birth of the church. At church today, we celebrated the occasion with birthday cake, although without the rector’s admonishment (as at our previous church) to wear the liturgical red that evokes the tongues of fire of the first Pentecost.

Today was the first time this year my wife and I got a chance to sing Vaughan Williams’ Salve Festa Dies. It is one of five Whitsunday hymns (plus two alternate tunes) in my favorite hymnal. (It is also one of eight Pentecost hymns — including alternate tunes — in the current PECUSA hymnal, although 33% of the verses have been lobotomized).

The music director at our current church refuses to schedule “Hail Thee Festival Day” at Easter, holding off to the last possible usage. My wife and I grew up singing it at all three major feasts — Easter, Ascension, and Whitsunday — so much that the feasts seem empty without it.

In his wonderful hymn companion, Ian Bradley notes that the Whitsunday version “is the most widely used nowadays, appearing in the hymnbooks of a number of different denominations and not just, as it once did, in those of a High Anglican persuasion.”

Dr. Bradley notes that the Fortunatus poem (reprinted in a 13th century Sarum missal) was the Easter version (the one that comes to mind when I hear the tune), translated for the 1906 COE hymnal by George Gabriel Scott Gillett. He concludes

All the Festival Day hymns owe much of their modern popularity to the vigorous unison tune Salve festa dies which Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) composed for their appearance in the English Hymnal in 1906.