Anglican – Underhill Lounge

127 – Come, Gracious Spirit

Please turn your hymnals to number 127 and join with the saxophones on, “Come, Gracious Spirit”.

Number: 127
First Line: Come, Gracious Spirit
Name: WAREHAM.
Meter: In moderate time
Music: William Knapp, 1698-1768
Text: Simon Browne, 1680-1732

127-ComeGraciousSpirit

Bass clarinet is in the shop for some work, so for a week, or so, it’s going to be Saxophone Hymns! Some arranging and recording challenges, as they are louder and don’t quite have the same range as clarinets, but it will be a good chance to practice more Sax.

The one-hit wonder of ‘Wareham’ – William Knapp

Dorset has its own ‘Shrubsolian composer’ – what the pop music world would call a ‘one-hit wonder’. His name is William Knapp, and his ‘one tune’ is arguably even more memorable than ‘Miles Lane’: it has to this day the reputation of being one of the easiest and most comfortable tunes for a congregation to sing. A remarkable feature of the tune is that, except in one place, it proceeds ‘by step’ (that is, one note up or down), and it is this that makes it so singable. The eminent theologian Dr James Moffatt described it as ‘one of the best congregational tunes ever written’. Knapp called it ‘Wareham’ after the town where he was born. Thanks to him, the town’s name has been perpetuated in hymn-books all over the world for nearly three hundred years.

124b – Creator Spirit

Please turn your hymnals to number 124 (Second Tune) and join with the clarinets in “Creator Spirit”.

Number: 124 (Second Tune)
First Line: Creator Spirit
Name: MELITA.
Meter: 8 8, 8 8, 8 8.
Tempo: With dignity
Music: John Bacchus Dykes, 1823-76
Text: John Dryden, 1631-1700
Based on Veni, Creator Spiritus

Clarinet Arrangement: 124b-CreatorSpirit

I’m not a huge fan of Dykes’ tunes, but MELITA is pretty good, at least in a triumphant, Anglican, kind of way.

The setting here is by John B. Dykes (PHH 147), originally composed as a setting for William Whiting’s “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) with that text, MELITA is often referred to as the “navy hymn.” The tune is named after the island of Malta where Paul was shipwrecked.

A fine tune, MELITA is marked by good use of melodic sequences and a harmony that features several dominant sevenths (both are Dykes’s trademarks). Sing in harmony; because the lines flow into each other in almost breathless fashion, use a stately tempo.

Some more details regarding Bacchus Dykes from wikipedia:

Dykes’s defeat [He was of the “Anglo-Catholic-Ritualist” persuasion and at the time Protestantism and “Anti-Papism” was on the rise in the UK. ed.] was followed by a gradual deterioration in his physical and mental health, necessitating absence (which was to prove permanent) from St. Oswald’s from March 1875. Rest and the bracing Swiss air proving unavailing, Dykes eventually went to recover on the south coast of England where, on 22 January 1876, he died aged 52.^[20] However, Fowler’s assertion ^[21] that he died at St. Leonard’s on Sea is false: he died in the asylum at Ticehurst, some 18 miles distant.^[22] More significantly, his assertion that Dykes’s ill-health was a consequence of overwork, exacerbated by his clash with Bishop Baring, has recently been questioned; one scholar suggests that the medical evidence points to his having succumbed to tertiary syphilis, and speculates that Dykes may have contracted the disease during his undergraduate years.^[23] He is buried in the ‘overflow’ churchyard of St. Oswald’s, a piece of land for whose acquisition and consecration he had been responsible a few years earlier.^[24] Touchingly, he shares a grave with his youngest daughter, Mabel, who died, aged 10, of scarlet fever in 1870. Dykes’s grave is now the only marked grave in what, in recent years, has been transformed into a children’s playground.

108-HeartsToHeavenAndVoicesRaise

Please turn to number 108 and join with the clarinets in “Hearts to Heaven, and Voices Raise”.

Number: 108
First Line: Hearts to Heaven and Voices Raise
Name: LUX EOI.
Meter: 8 7, 8 7. D.
Tempo: Brightly
Music: Arthur S. Sullivan, 1842-1900
Text: Christopher Wordsworth, 1807-85

Clarinet Arrangement: 108-HeartsToHeavenAndVoicesRaise

We’ve already covered the Arthur S. Sullivan, amazingly, was the Sullivan of “Gilbert & Sullivan”. So, facile melodies and bright harmonies are to be expected here.

Regarding Christopher Wordsworth:

As a scholar he is best known for his edition of the Greek New Testament (1856–1860), and the Old Testament (1864–1870), with commentaries; but his writings were many in number, and included a volume of devotional verse, The Holy Year (1862), Church History up to A.D. 451 (1881–1883), and Memoirs of his uncle, William Wordsworth (1851), to whom he was literary executor. His Inscriptiones Pompeianae (1837) was an important contribution to epigraphy. He also wrote several hymns (Hymns Ancient and Modern New Standard contains seven) of which perhaps the best known is the Easter hymn ‘Alleluia, Alleluia, hearts to heaven and voices raise’.

With William Cooke, a Canon of Chester, Wordsworth edited for the Henry Bradshaw Society the early 15th century Ordinale Sarum of Clement Maydeston, but the work did not appear in print until 1901, several years after the death of both editors.^[4]

And, as indicated, he was the nephew, and literary executor, of William Wordworth, a quote from whom I recently ran across, regarding his time at Trinity College.

And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.

044.LongAgoAndFarAway

Please turn to number 44 and join with the clarinets in “Long Ago and Far Away”.

First Line: Long Ago and Far Away
Name: RESONET IN LAUDIBUS.
Meter: Irregular. With Refrain.
Tempo: Brightly in unison
Music: German Carol Melody, 14th Century
Harm. by R. Vaughn Williams, 1872-1958
Text: Edward Traill Horn, III, 1909-
Written for this Book
Refrain XV cent., German, Tr. Oxford Book of Carols

Another well known composer providing Harmonization to this hymn. From the Wikipedia:

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM (ⁱ/ˈreɪf ˌvɔːn ˈwɪljəmz/^{[n 1]} 12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over nearly fifty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

I wasn’t sure about this hymn when I first listened to the sounds from the arranging software, or, indeed the first couple times I played through. The harmonies are kind of delicate and it is quite a bit more complicated than the usual hymns. Almost a small choral piece, more than a hymn.

Clarinet Arrangement: 044-longagoandfaraway

But eventually, when I got the phrasing worked out, I really liked it. Another hymn I don’t remember hearing as a child.

The usual, at this point, method. Doubled all parts, applied Audacity “Large Room” Reverb Effect.