Tag: Easter

Please turn to number 94 (First Tune) and join with the clarinets on “That Easter Day”.

Number: 94 (First Tune)
First Line: That Easter Day
Name: PUER NOBILIS.
Meter: L.M.
Tempo: In unison. Brightly
Music: Plainsong Melody
Adapted by Michael Praetorius, 1571-1621
Harm. by George R. Woodward, 1848-1939
Text: Latin hymn, IV or V cent.
Tr. John Mason Neale, 1818-66 a.

Clarinet Arrangement: 094a-ThatEasterDay

I found this hymn to be very pleasant and powerful to play.

The tune for this one is very old:

PUER NOBIS is a melody from a fifteenth-century manuscript from Trier. However, the tune probably dates from an earlier time and may even have folk roots. PUER NOBIS was altered in Spangenberg’s Christliches GesangbUchlein (1568), in Petri’s famous Piae Cantiones (1582), and again in Praetorius’s (PHH 351) Musae Sioniae (Part VI, 1609), which is the basis for the triple-meter version used in the 1987 Psalter Hymnal. Another form of the tune in duple meter is usually called PUER NOBIS NASCITUR. The tune name is taken from the incipit of the original Latin Christmas text, which was translated into German by the mid-sixteenth century as “Uns ist geborn ein Kindelein,” and later in English as “Unto Us a Boy Is Born.” The harmonization is from the 1902 edition of George R. Woodward’s (PHH 403) Cowley Carol Book.
–Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988

But the harmonies are relatively modern:

George Ratcliffe Woodward (27 December 1848 – 3 March 1934) was an English Anglican priest who wrote mostly religious verse, both original and translated from ancient authors. The best-known of these were written to fit traditional melodies, mainly of the Renaissance. He sometimes harmonised these melodies himself, but usually left this to his frequent collaborator, composer Charles Wood.

Please turn to number 91 and join with the clarinets in “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”.

Number: 91
First Line: Christ the Lord is Risen Today
Name: ST. GEORGE’S, WINDSOR.
Meter: 7 7, 7 7. D.
Tempo: With spirit
Music: George Joe Elvey, 1816-93
Text: Charles Wesley, 1707-88

Clarinet Arrangement: 091-ChristTheLordIsRisenToday

I had a hard time with the “hymnprovisation” section on this one. It’s a pretty long hymn, as they go, and it took me a while to find an entry. Eventually, I settled on using a piece of the rhythm as a way to tie it together.

Another Easter hymn, no “Alleluias” this time.

As a hymn-writer Charles Wesley was unique. He is said to have written no less than 6500 hymns, and though, of course, in so vast a number some are of unequal merit, it is perfectly marvellous how many there are which rise to the highest degree of excellence. His feelings on every occasion of importance, whether private or public, found their best expression in a hymn. His own conversion, his own marriage, the earthquake panic, the rumours of an invasion from France, the defeat of Prince Charles Edward at Culloden, the Gordon riots, every Festival of the Christian Church, every doctrine of the Christian Faith, striking scenes in Scripture history, striking scenes which came within his own view, the deaths of friends as they passed away, one by one, before him, all furnished occasions for the exercise of his divine gift. Nor must we forget his hymns for little children, a branch of sacred poetry in which the mantle of Dr. Watts seems to have fallen upon him. It would be simply impossible within our space to enumerate even those of the hymns which have become really classical. The saying that a really good hymn is as rare an appearance as that of a comet is falsified by the work of Charles Wesley; for hymns, which are really good in every respect, flowed from his pen in quick succession, and death alone stopped the course of the perennial stream.

Please turn to number 90 and join with the clarinets in “The Strife is O’er”.

Number: 90
First Line: The Strife is O’er
Name: VICTORY.
Meter: 8 8 8. With Alleluias.
Tempo: Broadly, with dignity
Music: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrini, 1525-94
Adapted by William Henry Monk, 1823-89
Alleluias by William Henry Monk, 1823-89
Text: Latin, XVII cent.
Tr. Francis Pott, 1832-1909

Clarinet Arrangement: 090-TheStrifeIsOer

Wow, William Henry Monk gets a special credit just for his “Alleluias” on this tune!

We’ve finished up with the delightfully minor hymns of Good Friday and are now moving on to Easter. Alleluias will abound.

Palestrina, on the other hand, was a very important composer of the Italian Renaissance.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525 – February 1594)^[1] was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition.^[2] He had a lasting influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony.^[2]

One of the hallmarks of Palestrina’s music is that dissonances are typically relegated to the “weak” beats in a measure.^[9] This produced a smoother and more consonant type of polyphony which is now considered to be definitive of late Renaissance music, given Palestrina’s position as Europe’s leading composer (along with Orlande de Lassus) in the wake of Josquin des Prez (d. 1521). The “Palestrina style” now serves as a basis for college Renaissance counterpoint classes, thanks in large part to the efforts of the 18th-century composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux, who, in a book called Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus, 1725), set about codifying Palestrina’s techniques as a pedagogical tool for students of composition. Fux applied the term “species counterpoint“, which entails a series of steps whereby students work out progressively more elaborate combinations of voices while adhering to certain strict rules. Fux did make a number of stylistic errors, however, which have been corrected by later authors (notably Knud Jeppesen and Morris). Palestrina’s own music contains ample instances in which his rules have been followed to the letter, as well as many where they are freely broken.

According to Fux, Palestrina had established and followed these basic guidelines:

• The flow of music is dynamic, not rigid or static.
• Melody should contain few leaps between notes. (Jeppesen: “The line is the starting point of Palestrina’s style.”)^[9]
• If a leap occurs, it must be small and immediately countered by stepwise motion in the opposite direction.
• Dissonances are to be confined to passing notes and weak beats. If one falls on a strong beat, it is to be immediately resolved.