117b-Come, Holy Ghost

Please turn your hymnals to number 117 (Second Tune) and join the clarinets in, “Come, Holy Ghost”.

Number: 117 (Second Tune)
First Line: Come, Holy Ghost
Name: THANKSGIVING.
Tempo: Slowly
Music: John Bacchus Dykes, 1823-76
Text: Based on Veni, Creator Spiritus
Tr. John Cosin, 1594-1672

Clarinet Arrangement: 117b-ComeHolyGhost

At age 12, Dykes be­came as­sist­ant or­gan­ist at St. John’s Church in Hull, where his grand­fa­ther was vicar. He stu­died at Wake­field and St. Cath­er­ine’s Hall in Cam­bridge, where he was a Dikes Scholar, Pre­si­dent of the Cam­bridge Uni­vers­i­ty Mu­sic­al So­ci­e­ty, and earned a BA in Clas­sics. In 1848, he be­came cur­ate at Malton, York­shire. For a short time, he was canon of Dur­ham Ca­thed­ral, then pre­cent­or (1849-1862). In 1862 he be­came Vi­car of St. Os­wald’s, Dur­ham (he named a son John St. Os­wald Dykes, and one of his tunes St. Oswald).

Dykes pub­lished ser­mons and ar­ti­cles on re­li­gion, but is best known for com­pos­ing over 300 hymn tunes. In his mu­sic, as in his ec­cles­i­as­tic­al work, he was less dog­ma­tic than ma­ny of his con­temp­o­rar­ies about the the­o­log­ic­al con­tro­ver­sies of the day—he oft­en ful­filled re­quests for tunes for non-Anglican hymns. In ad­di­tion to his gift for writ­ing mu­sic, he played the or­gan, pi­ano, vi­o­lin, and horn.

As written, this hymn has 4 sharps, which means, when transposed for b flat clarinet, that it ends up with 6 sharps. Ouch. Remembering that “E Sharp” is “F” and “A Sharp” is “B Flat”, taxes my feeble brain, but I tried my best to perform this piece accurately. Other than the mental games required for that, it is not that challenging a hymn, and mercifully short.