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.

St. Patrick’s doctrine of the Trinity

Today is both the second day of Lent and the (lesser) feast of the great 5th century Irish missionary St. Patrick. For Americans making some effort at lenten discipline, it fortunately falls on a Sunday.

It is not a red-letter saint’s day in the American prayer book, and in fact is not even mentioned in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer at all. However, Eucharistic readings were later provided in the 1963 Lesser Feasts & Fasts, as well as (for the 1979 prayer book) the 1980 Lesser Feasts & Fasts.

Of these, there are only two overlaps. One is the collect

O ALMIGHTY God, who in thy providence didst choose thy servant Patrick to be an apostle to the people of Ireland, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of thee: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through the merits of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen. 

The collect is not mentioned in the Daily Office of CommonPrayer.org, but (as with other lesser feasts) is included in the daily worship of AnglicanHours.

The other is the Epistle, 1 Thessalonians 2:2-12, which includes this relevant except from St. Paul’s letter to Thessalonica:

But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.”

St. Patrick’s Breastplate

For Anglicans, the mandatory hymn is “I bind unto myself today” (St. Patrick’s breastplate), adapted by Ralph Vaughan Williams for The English Hymnal in 1906. The hymn has three main features

• The lyric is a catechetical text that teaches the doctrine of the Trinity and is attributed to Patrick, translated by Cecil Frances Alexander. The hymn is thus normally recommended for Trinity Sunday (and of course St. Patrick’s feast day).
• For the hymnal, Vaughan Williams combined two Irish folk tunes — St. Patrick arranged by C.V. Stanford, and Deirdre, which he arranged for the hymnal. The second tune adds a complexity and difficulty for newcomers.
• It is a long hymn: nine verses in the 1906 original, but “only” seven verses as introduced to America in Hymnal 1940.

In my interviews on church music practice last fall, it was a (slightly) controversial hymn: everyone loved the doctrine and the memories it evokes. However, the parishioners were split: most loved the complete hymn, but a minority complained that it was too long. (IIRC only one music director regularly abridged the hymn).

The hymn as printed in Hymnal 1940 and Hymnal 1982 has verses 1-5 (with verse 1 shorter) in unison to St. Patrick, verse 6 (in four parts) to Deirdre, and verse 7 in St. Patrick. Hymnary.org has page scans of many of the printed versions, including 

• Hymnal 1940 #268 and Hymnal 1982 #370: of the 7 verses, verses 3-5 are optional
• Glory to God (the 2006 Presbyterian hymnal): with guitar chords
• Evangelical Lutheran Worship (the 2006 ELCA hymnal): drops verses 3, 5
• Lutheran Service Book (the 2006 LCMS hymnal): drops verses 3-4, adds its own new verse after verse 5, drops verse 6 (with the separate tune) and then ends with verse 7

Not included in the page scans are two others that (like the LSB) use a single tune:

• Worship II (a popular unofficial Catholic hymnal from 1975): verses 1,2,4,5,7 (with one tune)
• New English Hymnal (1986) #159: verses 1-5 and 7. It includes the comment that “Hymn 278 may be inserted after verse 5 if desired"; while 278 has the words of Verse 6, it’s to Gartan, another Irish tune arranged by Stanford

Thus, this day, it will be American Protestants who carry on Vaughan Williams’ original vision and testimony to the patron saint of Ireland.

Favorite recording of the all-time favorite All Saints hymn

Of course, it wouldn’t be All Saints’ Day without Ralph Vaughan Williams' greatest hit, “For All the Saints.”

Unlike my daughter, my work schedule did not allow me to attend services and hear this hymn live this week. So on the way to work I decided to look for what recordings I had on my laptop among the 426 hymns.

I found four distinct performances. All were from English choirs using (as far as I could tell) boys for the trebles. Here the the performances, ordered from most basic to most ornate:

1. Worcester Cathedral Choir, from the “Vaughan Williams: Hymns and Choral Music” (3 verses, 2:12). Other than only three verses, a model of what I would want a small church choir or medium-sized congregation to do
2. Trinity College Choir, Cambridge, from “A Vaughan Williams Hymnal” (8 verses, 5:32) has several variations, including men only and an a capella verse. This is the straight-up version that I would hold as the aspirational goal for all but the most experienced church choir.
3. Wells Cathedral Choir, from “Christ Triumphant: The English Hymn 1” (6 verses, 4:23) is similar, but a more pronounced retard at the end.
4. Wells Cathedral Choir, from “Favourite Hymns from Wells Cathedral” (6 verses, 5:03) is all out, with trumpet flourishes before the beginning, between the 5th and 6th verses, and with trumpets and organ blasting over the choir in the final verse.

The first three have an almost identical tempo of 0:40 per verse, while the last one is noticeably slower (10% by my copy of iTunes).

Overall, I think I like #2 the best, in between #1 and #3. While #4 would probably be the one I’d prefer to experience live in a cathedral — or perhaps blaring on my high-end stereo in the music room — it’s just not the same with headphones on my laptop or iPod, and the drama actually gets a little tedious after a while.

Update: If you listen closely to these English choirs, you’ll notice a difference from The English Hymnal (#641) original and American practice. The choirs match this text in verse 1 of TEH:

For all the Saints who from their labours rest,
Who thee by faith before the world the confest,
Thy name, O Jesu, be forever blest,
Allieluya, Alleiluya!

So while there are obvious spelling differences, when listening it is noticeable that the English sing “O Jesu” rather than the “O Jesus” used with this text and RVW’s Sine Nomine in Hymnal 1940 (#126.1) or Hymnal 1982 (#287).

It turns out Hymnal 1916 was first American hymnal to use “O Jesus,” but still used the older 1868 tune (Sarum) which was retained in H40 (#126.2). When I went back to Hymnal 1892, not surprisingly it has Sarum — it couldn’t know about the tune that Vaughan Williams composed in 1906 for TEH — but it used the British “Jesu” (while keeping the other American spellings).

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.

For All the Saints

As a child, my second favorite floating church holiday (after Christmas) was All Saints’ Day. Today, I might put Ash Wednesday ahead of that, but not Epiphany. Good Friday and Ascension, alas, aren’t much of day for hymn singing.

Hymnal 1940 had such wonderful hymns for the occasion that the Sunday closest to Nov. 1 was definitely the high point of low season. But when we were church shopping decades later, there was one particular hymn from our childhood that my wife would ask me to check to see if it was being sung — to determine which parish we would attend for the Sunday closest to Nov. 1. This is the same hymn that Dr. Ian Bradley introduces calls “a magnificent processional song of triumph rejoicing in the communion of saints” in his 2006 Book of Hymns.

That hymn is “For all the saints,” #126 (1st tune) in Hymnal 1940. H40 offers eight of the 11 verses of William W. How’s 19th century text. These are the same eight verses found in in The English Hymnal, which offers three different tunes: Sine Nomine, Sarum, and Luccombe. On this side of the pond, the PECUSA Hymnal 1916 only had the second tune (H16 #295), but the editors of Hymnal 1940 decided to carry both Sine Nomine and Sarum.

Like most Anglican households, the only tune we sing for these words is Sine Nomine written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906 for TEH in his role as TEH music editor. Indeed, this is the only tune that was carried forward to New English Hymnal (#197) and Hymnal 1982 (#287).

I’ve previously called this Ralph Vaughan Williams’ greatest hit (at least for church music), and justifiable so. Searching my bookcase, the eight verses and RVW tune are also found in three LCMS hymnals, The Lutheran Hymnal (#463) Lutheran Worship (#191) and Lutheran Service Book (#677). The same words and tune are also in The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990, H #526) and even the 1975 Baptist Hymnal (#144).

But when TEH came out in 1906 the tune was new so the hymnal helpfully explains: “Suitable or use in procession.” Alas, processionals seem to have fallen out of favor, or RVW would be known to many Anglicans as the author of two great church marching tunes — the other being that Easter/Ascension/Pentecost favorite, Salve Festa Dies.

Bradley helpfully notes how How’s words were originally sung to another tune (called For All the Saints) written for it in 1869 by Joseph Barnby. This is apparently the same tune called Sarum in the 1906, 1916 and 1940 hymnals. Bradley concludes that the RVH tune “is now almost universally used.”

In the original version, the TEH music editor arranged the eight verses into 3 unison, 3 harmony and then 2 unison. H40, H82, LW and NEH, are faithful to this arrangement, while the LSB would certainly allow it but is typeset in a way that does not make the unison verses obvious.

Correction, Oct. 30: As it likes to do, Hymnal 1982 drops the accompanying parts from the pew edition (presumably to sell the accompaniment edition, available for 4x as much.) However, the vocal parts are available for verses 5 and 6, as in the other editions. (Thanks to Raving Revisionist” for pointing out my error in the original version of this posting.)

The editors of H82 also resisted the temptation to bowdlerize the lyrics. Even if H82 is not my favorite hymnal, the missing accompaniment is my only complaint for the RVW classic.

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.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Easter contribution

For decades, Easter for me has been associated with one particularly majestic tune by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). Of course, I’m talking about Salve Festa Dies. Or as (every Holy Week) my wife asks about our plans for Easter services: “Will they be playing ‘Hail thee, festival day’?”

The title of the Vaughan Williams tune comes from the first phrase of the Latin poem by Saint Venantius Honorius Fortunatus (ca. 530-600). Four centuries later, part of the poem had been adapted as a liturgical hymn with a refrain and 13 verses that begin:

R. Salve, festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,
Qua Deus infernum vicit et astra tenet.
1. Ecce, renascentis testatur gratia mundi
Omnia cum Domino dona redisse suo.
2. Namque triumphanti post tristia tartara Christo
Undique fronde nemus, gramina flore favent.
3. Legibus inferni oppressis super astra meantem
Laudant rite Deum lux, polus, arva, fretum.
4. Qui crucifixus erat, Deus, ecce, per omnia regnat,
Dantque creatori cuncta creata precem.
5. Nobilitatis anni, mensum decus, arma dierum,
Horarum splendor, scripula puncta fovent.
6. Christe, salus rerum, bone conditor atque redemptor,
Unica progenies ex deitate patris, …

When I was a choirboy, I didn’t know who Vaughan Williams was, other than I saw his name as the composer of various hymns in my hymnal. A quick survey of the 1940 Hymnal shows his name listed next to 16 hymns — nine as the arranger or harmonizer, and seven as the composer. Three of those seven are Salve Festa Dies, one each for Easter, Ascension and Whitsunday. These three survive into the 1982 Hymnal (although Whitsunday is now “Pentecost”), as do 3/4 of the other RVW hymns.

I also didn’t know that RVW spent two years of his life, 1904-1906, editing the most durable and influential English-language hymnal of the 20th century. The English Hymnal of 1906 remained the Church of England hymnal for 80 years, until it was replaced by The New English Hymnal. In his preface, Vaughan Williams emphasized the diversity of musical sources for The English Hymnal, including “Tunes by 19th and 20th century composers.” Among the latter category were his own compositions, including Salve Festa Dies, composed in 1906. Interestingly, the 1906 hymnal lists 11 verses, versus nine in the 1940 (US) Hymnal, and six in the 1986 NEH. Some claim it is hard to sing due to the translation of the Latin couplets or perhaps the three different meter and melodies; whatever the reason, it seems that much more satisfying to sing once mastered.

Salve Festa Dies didn’t make it into the American New Hymnal of 1916, but instead makes its first appearance on this side of the pond in the 1940 Hymnal. The latter also includes six traditional English melodies arranged by RVW for the EH from the hundreds he compiled during the period 1903-1915.

Father Kelley of St. Mary of the Angels points out there is a significant error in the 1940 Hymnal. The phrase “Qui crucifixus erat, Deus, ecce, per omnia regnat” is rendered in the 1940 (and 1982) Hymnal as “He who was nailed to the cross is Lord and the ruler of all men.” I don’t have the 1906 EH (or 1931 Songs of Praise) at hand, but even I know that “Deus” is translated ”God” and not “Lord.”

When a few years ago I considered starting a (Anglican) sacred music Internet radio station, I accumulated a Godly collection of choral CDs, including two of Vaughan Williams music. My clear favorite was “A Vaughan Williams Hymnal,” where the Trinity College choir sings all the stirring hymns, including Salve Festa Dies. However, I only recognized two hymns from the Winchester Cathedral CD, “Vaughan Williams: Hymns and Choral Music,” which (without checking the actual composition dates) sounds like it’s mostly his mid-20th century music.

Both CD compilations know a hit when they hear one: both have the most famous (and I daresay most popular) Vaughan Williams hymn, Sine Nomine, also introduced with the 1906 hymnal.