Church Music

I covered this from its appearance in CWB I, only last year but it also turned up here in the New Living Parish Hymn Book.

It’s a French hymn with a text by Didier Rimbaud SJ and was translated by Ronald Johnson and Brian Wren. the tune is DIEU, NOUS AVONS VU TA GLOIRE by Jean Langlais.

Repeating it here lets me do a backing on BIAB organ, but the tune is fiddly and goes too high for an assembly to manage even in the refrain. It is a choir piece.

Refrain:
God, your glory we have seen in your Son,
full of truth, full of heavenly grace;
in Christ make us live, his love shine on our face,
and the nations shall see in us the triumph you have won.

1 In the fields of this world his good news he has sown,
and send us out to reap till the harvest is done.

2 In his love like a fire that consumes he passed by,
the flame has touched our lips: let us shout, ‘Here am I!’

3 He was broken for us, God-forsaken his cry,
and still the bread he breaks: to ourselves we must die.

4 He has trampled the grapes of new life on his cross;
now drink the cup and live: he has filled it for us.

5 He has founded a kingdom that none shall destroy;
the corner-stone is laid: go to work, build with joy!

It appears that this Christmas Carol is one I have never covered.

The text and music are noted to be of traditional English origin.

The text below has some emendations as found in this hymnal.

This is a fine tune and text and I suspect it may be avoided in church because of a lost comma and changes in the meanings of English words over centuries. The gentleman aren’t “merry”, nor are they so “merry” they need to rest. They are to be full of the joy of Christmas and stay strong (ie rest merry), because of the birth of the Saviour.

I suspect the idea of merry gentlemen may be why it so often sung in a secular setting. Then again it is in an awful lot of hymnals, so someone is singing it in church.

1 God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this day,
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray:

Refrain:
O tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.

2 In Bethlehem, in Jewry
This blessed babe was born,
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn:
Which poverty his mother Mary
Did not shun nor scorn: [Refrain]

3 From God our heavenly Father
A blessed angel came,
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same,
How that in Bethlehem was born
the Son of God by name: [Refrain]

4 The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding,
In tempest, storm, and wind,
And went to Bethlehem straightway,
This blessed Babe to find: [Refrain]

5 But when to Bethlehem they came,
Wherein this infant lay,
They found him in a manger
Where oxen feed on hay;
His mother Mary kneeling
Unto the Lord did pray: [Refrain]

6 Now to the Lord sing praises
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All evil should displace. [Refrain]

This is a C17 text by Thomas Ken set to TALLIS’ CANNON by Thomas Tallis (C16).

It is a sung night prayer that finishes with the Doxology. There are minor variations in the text and I have listed that found in this hymnal. Commentary is available here. Sheet music for accompaniment in various forms is provided at LiturgyShare.

Tallis is beyond my BIAB attempts but nonetheless a backing was made:

I tried a different organ sound too:

1 Glory to thee, my God, this night
For all the blessings of the light;
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,
beneath thine own almighty wings.

2 Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done,
That with the world, myself, and thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.

3 Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed;
Teach me to die, that so I may
Rise glorious at the final day.

4 O may my soul on thee repose,
And with sweet sleep mine eyelids close,
Sleep that may me more vigorous make
To serve my God when I awake.

5 When in the night I sleepless lie,
My soul with heavenly thoughts supply;
Let no ill dreams disturb my rest,
No powers of darkness me molest.

6 Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise him, all creatures here below,
Praise him above, angelic host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Getting back to the New Living Parish Hymn Book, I find a song I haven’t looked at before, “Glory Be to Jesus” a hymn for Holy Week or Body and Blood of Christ. It’s the sort of traditional Catholic hymn that I doubtless would know if I were a cradle Catholic, but I haven’t heard in the Catholic churches I’ve been to in the last thirty years and certainly wasn’t on high rotation in the Presbyterian church I grew up in.

This is a C18 Italian hymn, “Viva! Viva! Gesù! Che per mio bene” attributed to S. Alfonso and translated by Edward Caswall and set to CASWELL (aka WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN) by Friedrich Filitz, as arranged by Anthony Gregory Murray.

Hymnal.net has basic sheet music and slightly different lyrics. LiturgyShare also has the sheet music and his lyrics match these ones.

BIAB supplied the fake organ for a backing:

1 Glory be to Jesus,
Who in bitter pains
Poured for me the life-blood
From His sacred veins.

2 Grace and life eternal
In that blood I find:
Blest be his compassion,
Infinitely kind.

3 Blest through endless ages
Be the precious stream,
Which from endless torment
Does the world redeem.

4 Abel’s blood for vengeance
Pleaded to the skies;
But the blood of Jesus
For our pardon cried.

5 Oft as it is sprinkled
On our guilty hearts,
Satan in confusion
Terror-struck departs.

6 Oft as we exult it,
Lifting praises high,
Powers of evil tremble;
Victory fills the sky.

7 Lift ye then your voices;
Swell the mighty flood;
Louder still and louder,
Praise the precious blood.

I will close out my latest look at Paul Taylor’s Mass with his Agnes Dei.

It is an outlier being in 2/4 time and in Bb (or Dm). I have trouble bringing this in so I just strum the opening chord a few times and launch. There is a lot going on here, so I simplify it a lot playing it on guitar. It is a gentle appropriate litany for this part of the mass.

The sheet music is at Willow.

So this mass was one of the six recommended settings by the Australian Bishops and was one of the more practical selections for suburban parishes without Cathedral resources. It found wide acceptance across Australia and is one that visitors to your parish have a good chance of knowing already. It was the mass my current parish chose years before I arrived and was certainly used at parishes I played at in Queensland. It doesn’t need my recommendation but it has that for sure.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world:
Grant us peace.

I am having a further look at Paul Taylor’s Mass of St Francis, which is the only mass my current parish knows and is very popular all around Australia.

You can buy his mass at Willow.

We are up to the the Great Amen.

There is a descant for the last Amen if you can sing high enough.

I didn’t put it my backings.

Amen x3

These all take a similar form, which makes switching between them to mark different seasons pretty seemless.

I don’t know that these sort of acclamations give composers a lot of kudos, but Taylor’s are perfectly functional and appropriate.

The sheet music is available in the collection at Willow.

Memorial Acclamation 1

We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection

Until you come again.

Memorial Acclamation 2

When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup,

We proclaim your Death, O Lord, until you come again.

Memorial Acclamation 3

Save us, Saviour of the world,

For by your Cross and Resurrection, you have set us free.

Acclamation 1

Acclamation 2

Acclamation 3

I noticed while looking into these matters the Google AI was scraping my own website – appalling.

After the Gloria, the high point of a mass setting is often the Sanctus and it is definitely so in this mass.

Here Taylor starts with more than a nod to NICAEA and it’s “Holy, Holy, Holy”, to establish a traditional base, before veering a little more nimbly through his very singable setting with more triplet action and a sustained chord before the resolution. The last line sounds very Christmassy.

He moves from the key of D in the Gloria to F for this and the Memorial Acclamations.

You can buy the mass at Willow in many forms.

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

This is NICAEA – BTW you can actually sing the Sanctus to this tune:

TAs discussed yesterday, the published sheet music for Paul Taylor’s “Mass of St Francis” didn’t have a Gospel Acclamation and unsurprisingly didn’t have a Lenten one either.

My last parish used this mass and also Paul Mason’s, “Mass of Glory and Praise”, so I just subbed in Mason’s Lenten Gospel Acclamation instead and have continued to do so at my current parish.

Taylor has now published a Lenten Gospel Acclamation available at Willow.

It isn’t an easy assignment this, as it has to be memorable, considering it is only done a few weeks a year, and it has to be acclamatory yet with Lenten reserve.

He ticks the boxes here:

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ,

King of endless glory.

Nonetheless, I suspect we will stick with what we have been using for now.

When Paul Taylor published his “Mass of St Francis” in 2010, there was no Gospel Acclamation included and when you buy the collection at Willow, there still isn’t one.

So we used the Celtic Alleluia for many years and all was well.

You can now buy separately Paul Taylor’s official Gospel Acclamation published in 2024 for this mass. I bought the keyboard version and had to work out my own chords.

The intention is for the Cantor to sing six alleluias, the assembly replies with six more and after the verse there are six more for good measure with the high harmony line if the cantor is up for it. It is a welcome addition to Taylor’s mass and is certainly singable. It is in D and so I suppose follows on from the Gloria in the same key, although it really hasn’t much of a similarity to any other part of the mass. I do wonder why a cantor is needed for this Alleluia. Being done weekly it would quickly become familar enough to do once before and after the verse and belong to the assembly.

I made two backings of the alleluias through twice to get the idea. There was no tempo recommendation so I just found a comfortable speed.

However…

I blogged a different acclamation that was, I gather, an earlier attempt, in which he used the feel of the Memorial Acclamations for the Alleluia. It could be argued that this version is not joyous enough, but it fits the rest of the mass rather better, and having started to use it this year, we intend to continue with the unofficial one for now.