Church Music

This is another recent text used on an older tune. Sr Miriam Therese Winter wrote the words and the tune is by Frederick C. Maker. It is supposed to sound like the sample at AOV.

You can read a bio of Sr Winter here.

My backing went a little strange, but should be fine for learning, if nothing else.

1 We praise You, God of all the earth,

and all Your ways we bless.

In You all love begins and ends.

Your universal love transcends our own dividedness.

2 We call to You with words we clothe

in cultures of our own.

You rise above all cultic claims

to answer to our many names, a God as yet unknown.

3 O Wisdom, wait within us, wake

our weary hearts to praise.

Empowering the powerless

and strengthening with gentleness, ’til all embrace Your ways.

4 Our many paths all lead to You

in ev’ry time and place.

Our hearts rejoice in serving You,

make all we are and all we do a channel of your grace.

5 We turn to You, O Sacred Source

of hope and harmony.

Our work on earth will not be done,

’til human hearts all beat as one in global unity.

© Medical Mission Sisters 1991.

Frenzy Cool must have a big event coming up, because she’s looking for another backing, this time for this old chestnut. It was a hit for Red Foley in 1950 and was recorded several more times in America. Frenzy Cool recommended the Aiza Seguerra version. This version is from 1950 and sounds like it.

With no music to go on, I fed the tune into Band in a Box, which found the chords easily enough and the melody was guessed, so it might be approximate. This follows the Seguerra arrangement exactly.

Our Lady of Fatima, we come on bended knee

To beg your intercession, for peace and unity.

Dear Mary, won’t you show us, the right and shining way?

We pledge you love and offer you a rosary each day.

We promised at Fatima each time that you appeared

To help us if we pray to you to banish war and fear.

Dear Lady on first Saturdays, we ask your guiding hand

For peace and guidance here on earth and protection for our land.

(key change)

Our Lady of Fatima, we come on bended knee

To beg your intercession, for peace and unity.

Dear Mary, won’t you show us, the right and shining way?

We pledge you love and offer you a rosary each day.

We pledge you love and offer you a rosary each day.

UPDATE

Mary at Godsongs has posted a link to the sheet music.

This is another newish text, this time by Shirley Erena Murray, to an old tune by David Gregof Corner (seventeenth century). A sample can be heard at AOV.

At Hope publications they have four settings, including this one, of this text. You can hear a slow organ version here.

1 Loving Spirit, loving Spirit,

you have chosen me to be–

you have drawn me to your wonder,

you have set your sign on me.

2 Like a mother, you enfold me,

hold my life within your own,

feed me with your very body,

form me of your flesh and bone.

3 Like a father, you protect me,

teach me the discerning eye,

hoist me up upon your shoulder,

let me see the world from high.

4 Friend and lover, in your closeness

I am known and held and blessed;

in your promise is my comfort,

in your presence I may rest.

5 Loving Spirit, loving Spirit,

you have chosen me to be–

you have drawn me to your wonder,

you have set your sign on me.

© Hope Publishing Company & The Hymn Society

More traditional hymnody, this time a seventeenth century text by Joachim Neander, translated about two hundred years later by Catherine Winkworth, to an old German tune. You will realise you know this one when you hear the sample at AOV.

This song has lots of variations and extra verses on the net – I have stuck with the three verses in AOV.

This is a real pipe organ playing the tune and here is a glorious choir.

This is a more contemporary arrangement and this is an even more contemporary version.

My backing is  more fake organ.

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation;
O my soul, praise him, for he is your health and salvation.
Come all who hear: now to his altar draw near,
Joining in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, who shall prosper our work and defend us;
Surely His goodness and mercy shall daily attend us.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
Who with his love will befriend us.

Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in us adore him!
All that has life and breath come now with praises before him!
Let the “Amen” sound from His people again,
Now as we worship before him.

A text by J.M.C. Crum to the tune Noel Nouvelet, that is very northern hemisphere in its Easter imagery. I’m sure it is better known as “Now the Green Blade Rises.” Remind yourself of the tune with the excerpt at AOV.

There are several versions on YouTube including this one. This version in Swedish is outstanding.

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
love lives again, that with the dead has been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
thinking that never he would wake again,
laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
he that for three days in the grave had lain,
quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving in pain,
thy touch can call us back to life again,
fields of hearts that dead and bare have been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

© Oxford UP 1928.

A recent text by Brian Wren (1981) set to a familiar old tune by John Darwell from the 1700s, as you can tell from the sample at AOV. It is a setting of Ps 140.

Listen to it played on church bells here. (He’s cheating! – he is playing it in C)

My backing is more fake church organ.

1 Let all creation dance
in energies sublime,
as order turns with chance,
unfolding space and time,
for nature’s art
in glory grows,
and newly shows
God’s mind and heart.

2 God’s breath each force unfurls,

igniting from a spark

expanding starry swirls,

with whirlpools dense and dark.

Though moon and sun

seem mindless things,

each orbit sings:

“Your will be done.”

3 Our own amazing earth,
with sunlight, cloud and storms
and life’s abundant growth
in lovely shapes and forms,
is made for praise,
a fragile whole,
and from its soul
heaven’s music plays.

4 Lift heart and soul and voice:
in Christ all praises meet
and nature shall rejoice
as all is made complete.
In hope be strong.
all life befriend
and kindly tend
creation’s song.

© Hope Publishing Company, 1983

This is a request from Frenzy Cool in the Phillipines. It isn’t one we’ve ever used – we use the Bernadette Farrell tune instead.  It is by Cyprian Consiglio who appears very prolific.

I’ve worked this out from the sample pages at OCP, so if you are going to use this song, go there and buy the music. You can hear a short sample here.

Refrain

Unless a grain of wheat shall fall onto the ground and die

It shall remain a single grain and never bear new life;

But if it dies it will yield a great harvest.

Verse 1

When every haughty head bends low,

The salt will flavour the earth,

The yeast will raise the dough,

And death will yield new birth.

Refrain

Verse 2

And when the pains of life persist,

We know the healing art,

For love cannot resist

A broken, humbled heart.

Refrain

Verse 3

So may we never dare to boast

Except in death like this;

And may we desire the most

To live a life like his.

Refrain

© Cyprian Consiglio 1996, 2007.

My wife, who is a cradle catholic, knows all these old songs. Attributed to Ignaz Franz, translated by Clarence Walworth and a couple of hundred years old it comes from an old Viennese songbook. An excerpt at AOV plays it fairly straight.

There are more verses and variations on the web, these are the lyrics according to AOV.

The are many versions on the net and this is one of them.

My backing is all fake organ.

1.	Holy God, we praise thy name; 
	Lord of all, we bow before thee; 
	all on earth thy scepter claim; 
	all in heav'n above adore thee.  
	Infinite thy vast domain; 
	everlasting is thy reign.

2.	Hark the loud celestial hymn 
	angel choirs above are raising; 
	cherubim and seraphim, 
	in unceasing chorus praising, 
	fill the heavens with sweet accord:  
	Holy, holy, holy Lord!

3.	Holy Father, Holy Son, 
	Holy Spirit: three we name thee, 
	while in essence only One; 
	undivided God we claim thee, 
	and adoring bend the knee 
	while we own the mystery.

Words: Henry Francis Lyle

Music: William Henry Monk

Extra points for singing it without bursting into tears.

The excerpt at AOV is lovely. YouTube is full of versions: here, here, here, etc.

There are more verses, but I’ve stuck with the five in AOV.

We are in a run of traditional, or traditional style hymns, which means BIAB will struggle. Here I have attempted a brass band.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

This song is nearly ninety years old and is our priest’s favourite song.  It is by Thomas O. Chisholm and William M. Runyan and when sung well by an enthusiastic assembly is something special – or to put it another way, I’m learning to like it.

The snippet on AOV is too MOR for me. This version is very laid back, but this one goes all out. This choir slows things down and lays on the harmonies.

My backing goes a bit country.

Verse 1

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with thee;
thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
as thou hast been thou forever will be.
Refrain:

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided;
great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Verse 2

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Refrain

Verse 3

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Refrain

© Hope Publishing Company 1923