I’ve reached communion songs in Spirit & Song Vol 1 and I’m hoping that there are gems to be discovered in the songs that weren’t selected in the As One Voice Collections.
“As One Unknown” is an excellent hymn but the version here needs some explaining.
The text of the verses is by Timothy Dudley-Smith a retired Anglican bishop set to the tune “Repton” by C. Hubert H. Parry, who was so famous he is buried in St Paul’s, London. I love the poetry of the text which you can find here.
This is a stirring brass band version which is slightly different to the tune in Spirit & Song (the note for “heard” goes down to an A rather than up to an F#) and has a tag on the end which repeats the last phrase to get you back to the verses. The music for that version is here.
So far so good. Cyprian Consiglio has stripped the tag, added 2 lines, repeated one of them and called it the refrain and written some music for it.
The lines are:
As they knew you in the breaking of the bread,
May we know you in the breaking of the bread,
May we know you in the breaking of the bread.
© Cyprian Consiglio OSB 1995.
I’m not at all sure it needs the chorus, but I suppose that’s what makes it for Eucharist.