I have somehow never come across this joyous Marty Haugen Christmas song from back in 1983, but it did appear in Australia’s Catholic Worship Book in 1985.
It’s still available at GIA with arrangements for brass quintet and 2 octave handbells, so knock yourself out. Looking at the performance notes in the preview there, it is suggested that organ, piano or guitar will also work.
The text is at Cantus Mundi. The plethora of You Tube clips suggest it is beloved of American Lutherans.
You can hear the handbells and brass in his original. There is also the slightly weird choral sound that always seems odd to my ears on his recordings. It almost sounds like prehistoric AI.
Some lovely Lutheran handbells and a technically less good choir that sounds more human.
Organ blasting…
This is glorious with strings etc:
Organ plus soloist:
Piano, guitar, vocal:
Jazz organ:
Backing with tuned percussion:
The Allen digital computer organ and assembly…
This song is always titled “Awake! Awake, and Greet the New Morn” with the hymn tune “REJOICE, REJOICE” in GIA’s hymnals, but apparently “Rejoice, Rejoice!” is the official name as that’s how it’s titled on the octavo cover and the album track. The 1985 Australian CWB may have been the first hymnal it ever appeared in, so they naturally titled it the name the composer gave it. The first hymnal Hymnary have it listed in is GIA’s Worship 3rd edition from 1986. Maybe since Worship is a more traditional hymnal, they used the first line as the title (as is generally done for traditional hymns) and kept it that way in every subsequent hymnal.
Ryan
I thought that perhaps Lutherans are allowed to rejoice but us Catholics needs to wake up, but they are sometimes singing “Awake” as well.
Cheers and thanks for your listings of music for mass. Through sheer perseverance we have created a useful resource.
Geoff
Geoff