Church Music

John de Luca has provided his arrangement of the plainsong version of this C7 Latin Advent hymn in the New Living Parish Hymn Book.

I made a backing but don’t blame him:

The Latin text:

Creator alme siderum,
aeterna lux credentium
Jesu Redemptor omnium,
intende votis supplicum.

Qui daemonis ne fraudibus
periret orbit, impetu
amoris actus, languidi
mundi medela factus es.

Commune qui mundi nefas
ut expiares; ad crucem
e Virginis sacrario
intacta prodis victima.

Cujus potestas gloriae,
nomenque cum primum sonat
et coelites et inferi
tremente curvantur genu.

Te deprecamur ultimae
magnum diei Judicem,
armis supemae gratia;
defende nos ab hostibus.

Virtus, honor, laus, gloria
Deo Patri cum Filio,
sancto simul Paraclito,
in saeculorum saecula.

His English text – loosely based on James Mason Neale’s translation but with much “alt” going on:

Creator of the stars of night
Your people’s everlasting light,
Jesus, Redeemer, save us all
And hear your servants when they call.

Now grieving that the ancient curse
Should doom to death a universe,
You heal all those who need your grace,
And come to save our fallen race.

You came when old world drew t’wards night,
Appearing not in princely might;
But, born of Mary mother mild,
Became the victim undefiled.

At your great name, majestic now,
All knees must bend, all hearts must bow;
And things in heav’n and earth adore,
And own you King for evermore.

Great judge of all in that last day,
Be present then with us we pray;
Your scattered people, Lord, unite,
In vict’ry over Satan’s might..

To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Praise, honor, might, and glory be
from age to age eternally.

O covered this in the new (!) music for 2020 at OCP.

This is John Mason Neale’s translation of a C8 text by St John Damascene based on Exodus 15. The tune is GAUDEAMUS PARITER, also known here as AVE VIRGO VIRGINIUM, a C16 tune by Jan Roh. It is rather grand, but “unmoistened foot” is a hilarious turn of phrase.

The lyrics below vary from some other versions I’ve seen. Most archaisms are intact but “hath” hath become “has”. I tarted up the organ backing:

1 Come, ye faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness;
God has brought his Israel
Into joy from sadness;
Loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s sons and daughters;
Led them with unmoistened foot
Through the Red Sea waters.

2 ‘Tis the Spring of souls today;
Christ has burst his prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death
As a sun hath risen;
All the winter of our sins,
Long and dark, is flying
From his light, to whom we give
laud and praise undying.

3 This the best of seasons, bright
With the day of splendor,
With the royal feast of feasts,
Comes its joy to render;
Comes to glad Jerusalem,
Who with true affection
Welcomes in unwearied strains
Jesus’ resurrection.

4 Neither might the gates of death,
Nor the tomb’s dark portal,
Nor the watchers, nor the seal
Hold thee as a mortal;
But today amidst the twelve
Thou didst stand, bestowing
That true peace, which evermore
Passeth human knowing.

5 “Alleluia!” now we cry
To our King immortal,
Who, triumphant, burst the bars
Of the tomb’s dark portal;
“Alleluia!” with the Son,
God the Father praising;
“Alleluia!” yet again
To the Spirit raising.

You know you wanted it in ukelele tab:

This isn’t in the New Living Parish Hymn Book, but Gio mentioned it in a comment and I thought I should follow up on it.

This hymn by Jeanette Palmiter is from the 1800s and fades out of hymnals by the 1930s. There are several versions and settings but I used one I found at Hymnary with three verses.

It’s not as bad a song as I feared and I made a backing:

1 O God, my heart doth long for Thee,
Let me die, let me die;
Now set my soul at liberty,
Let me die, let me die;
To all the trifling things of earth,
They’re now to me of little worth,
My Saviour calls, I must go forth,
Let me die, let me die.

2 The slaying power in me display,
Let me die, let me die;
I must be dead from day to day,
Let me die, let me die;
Unto the world and its applause,
To all the customs, fashions, laws,
Of those who hate the humbling cross,
Let me die, let me die.

3 My friends may say, “I’ll ruined be,”
Let me die, let me die;
But all I leave and follow Thee,
Let me die, let me die;
Their arguments will never weigh,
Nor stand the trying judgment day,
Help me to cast them all away,
Let me die, let me die.

Hymntime has six verses if you need that many!

I have covered this Eucharistic hymn already with a modernised text as provided in CWB II. To make those changes rhyme, quite a lot of other changes needed to made and there are other alternative lines in CWB II that vary a lot from this version.

The New Living Parish Hymnal has the more archiac words and John de Luca’s arrangement of MISNEACH.

It was in Percy Jones’s Pius X hymnal as well:

Let’s see what changed:

His arrangement didn’t help me much as I think this backing is worse than my last effort:

1. “Come to me, all ye who labour, come, and I will give you rest”:

Such, dear Lord, thine invitation to each soul to be your guest;

and we answer with deep longing, while our sinfulness we see,

Jesus, Lord, I am not worthy, yet in mercy come to me.

2. Here, upon this altar lowly is the food you make your home,

While we hail thee Lord and Master, reigning from thy heavenly throne;

Life without thee would be lonely, so our hearts still cry to thee:

Jesus, Lord, I am not worthy, yet in mercy come to me.

3. All is joy when thou art near us; earth can never bliss impart

Like the peace and heavenly sweetness of thy visit to each heart;

All unfelt are grief and sorrow, as with trust we cry to thee,

“Jesus, Lord, I am not worthy, yet in mercy come to me.”

I am enjoying doing the hymns from the New Living Parish Hymn Book. I’m finding hymns that are new to me, arrangements by John de Luca that improve on the original versions and it also gives me a chance to do better with organ backings on songs that I have looked at before.

This is in CWB II as “Come, O Long Expected Jesus”, but the archaic text is what Charles Wesley wrote, so that’s fair enough. It is set to STUTTGART, probably written by, and certainly collected by, Christian F. Witt.

I’ve found numerous extra verses but these are the four in this hymnal.

A renovated backing using BIAB organ:

1 Come, thou long expected Jesus,
Born to set thy people free,
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.

2 Israel’s strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth thou art;
Dear Desire of ev’ry nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

3 Born thy people to deliver,
Born a child, and yet a King,
Born to reign in us for ever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

4 By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By thine all-sufficient merit
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

This is a different setting (HYFRYDOL) but it is rather nice:

For the thrill seekers amongst us, the New Living Parish Hymn Book included Benjamin Britten’s arrangement of this cheery number. Does this really get played at funerals? It would need a very high level of expertise to pull it off.

The German text is here translated by Peter Pears and the original tune, KOMM, SUSSER TOD, was by Johann Sebastian Bach. Britten’s arrangement is in Five Spiritual Songs, which still can be purchased at Faber Music. I found another arrangement here.

I figured out some chords and made a backing, but Britten and Bach by BIAB is very concerning:

1 Come, soothing death, come sweet repose!

Come, bear my soul to heaven,

From mortal weariness shriven.

Ah come, I wait for thee,

Come to deliver me,

Ah, let my eyelids close,

Come, sweet repose.

2 Come, soothing death, come sweet repose!

Saviour, I long to see thee

And with the Angels greet thee.

Now fades the day’s pale light;

World, take my last “good night”.

My weary eyelids close,

Come, sweet repose.

It sounds even more melancholic in German:

This is a different arrangement in English:

Sad cellos:

Incredibly slow organ:

The Eastman Wind Ensemble:

There are many arrangements and translations to pick from.

As conducted by Eric Whitacre, so you know what to expect:

On the subject of Whitacre:

I would be as likely to use “Come, Soothing Death” in a liturgy as play Whitacre’s “When David Heard”. However, if your choir can manage this level of choral despair go for it.

I covered this McAuley/Connolly Advent classic from its appearance in CWB II, but their work is always worth promoting. Note McAuley’s straight forward concise text.

The sheet music is available at Willow.

I’m leaning rather heavily on Chris’s LiturgyShare site for many of these songs as he is great on traditional hymnody and has very helpful simple recordings for learning songs. I also think his plain style of singing matches McAuley’s text rather well and he is better to learn from than a lot of more performative vocalists.

I did a string version last time, so I switched to BIAB organ for this backing.

Antiphon

Come O Jesus, Come O Lord
Fulfiller of the Father’s word.

1 When Adam fell God gave His word
He would not leave man in defeat,
And far ahead He then prepared
The day when heav’n and earth should meet.

Antiphon

2 Christ came to keep His Father’s word,
He raised man up from dark defeat;
Through Christ the Father has prepared
A day when all shall be complete.

Antiphon

3 In Advent we commemorate
That first great coming of the Lord
And, looking forward, celebrate
The day when all shall be restored.

Antiphon

This is also based on Veni Creator Spiritus but with far different lyrics, though still for Pentecost. It is here set to TALLIS’ ORDINAL. Godsongs has some background.

It is in CWB II so I blogged it there. The backing is new with different organ sounds.

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator, come
From thy bright heav’nly throne,
Come, take possession of our souls,
And make them all thy own.

Thou who art called the Paraclete,
Best gift of God above,
The living spring, the living fire,
Sweet unction and true love.

Thou who art sevenfold in thy grace,
Finger of God’s right hand;
His promise, teaching little ones
To speak and understand.

O guide our minds with thy blessed light,
With love our hearts inflame;
And with thy strength, which ne’er decays,
Confirm our mortal frame.

Far from us drive our deadly foe;
True peace unto us bring;
And through all perils lead us safe
Beneath thy sacred wing.

Through thee may we the Father know,
Through thee th’ eternal Son,
And thee the Spirit of them both,
Thrice blessed Three in One.

All glory to the Father be,
With his coequal Son:
The same to thee, great Paraclete,
While endless ages run.

More chant…

This is Veni Creator Spiritus, a C9 Latin Pentecost hymn translated by Edward Caswell. John de Luca gave his arrangement of the plainsong chant for the New Living Parish Hymnal. I got the chords from LiturgyShare, where there are lots of settings of this text with their sheet music.

This backing isn’t as awful as BIAB chant usually is, but it still isn’t great. The text here is that found in this hymnal and has been adapted.

1 Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
and in our hearts take up thy rest;
come with thy grace and heav’nly aid
to fill the hearts which thou hast made.

2 O Comforter, to thee we cry,
thou heavenly gift of God most high,
thou font of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.

3 To every sense thy light impart,
and shed thy love in ev’ry heart.
To our weak flesh thy strength supply:
unfailing courage from on high.

4 O grant that we through thee may come
to know the Father and the Son,
and hold with firm, unchanging faith,
that thou art Spirit of them both.

5 Now let us praise Father and Son
and Holy Spirit, with them One;
and may the Son on us bestow
the gifts that from the Spirit flow.

The Latin is easier to chant:

This is a Pentecost hymn, that I covered many years ago from its appearance in As One Voice.

The text is six hundred years or so old, by Bianco da Siena (NB Wikipedia’s incorrect date of death) and translated by Richard Littledale (death date correct this time) in the 1800s.

The setting is DOWN AMPNEY by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

I tried to make a better backing than last time:

The text has variants: these are the words in this hymnal:

1 Come down, O Love divine,
Seek thou this soul of mine,
And visit it with thine own ardour glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
Within my heart appear,
And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

2 O let it freely burn,
Till earthly passions turn
To dust and ashes, in its heat consuming;
And let thy glorious light
Shine ever on my sight,
And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

3 Let holy charity
Mine outward vesture be,
And lowliness become mine inner clothing:
True lowliness of heart,
Which takes the humbler part
And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.

4 And so the yearning strong,
With which the soul will long,
Shall far outpass the power of human telling;
For none can guess its grace,
Till he become the place
Wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.

This hymnal has the tune in the key of C rather than the usual key of D − Thanks be to God.