Tag: Lutheran

Please turn your hymnals to number 147 (Second Tune) and join the clarinets in, “O Wondrous Type, O Vision Fair”.

Number: 147 (Second Tune)
First Line: O Wondrous Type, O Vision Fair
Name: CAMERONIAN MIDNIGHT HYMN.
Meter: L.M.
Tempo: In moderate time
Music: Scottish Hymn Melody
Text: Latin Hymn, XV cent.
Tr. John Mason Neale, 1818-66 a.

Clarinet Arrangement: 147b-OWondrousTypeOVisionFair

“Cameronian Midnight Hymn” is probably the best name for a hymn ever.

However, “Carmeronians” were another cult, like the Hauges.

From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Definition of Cameronian
One that holds the ecclesiastical and political doctrines of Richard Cameron and his followers who refused to recognize any civil government that did not explicitly admit that it derived its power from Jesus Christ, who were called Scottish Covenanters after 1680, and who later formed the Reformed Presbytery that in time became the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Which, I guess, IS interesting, since the 45th President of the United States self-identifies himself as, “Presbyterian”.

Anyway, it is a pleasant, and somewhat Martial hymn, whose folk roots are quite apparent.

Please turn your hymnals to number 147 (First Tune) and join with the clarinets in, “O Wondrous Type, O Vision Fair”.

Number: 147 (First Tune)
First Line: O Wondrous Type, O Vision Fair
Name: CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM.
Meter: Irregular
Tempo: Unison
Music: Mode IV
Arr. by Ernest White
Text: Latin Hymn, XV cent.
Tr. John Mason Neale, 1818-66 a.

Boy, I’m starting to get psyched! I’m almost done with the Church Year. Only two more songs to go after this one!

I started this project in March of 2016, (with “Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding“,) nominally with the goal of getting through the songs of the Church Year. It did take a bit more than a year, but what can you do. But, boy, my clarinet playing and recording has come a long way in that year.

It has been a super helpful exercise.

After finishing with the Church Year, I’ll probably take a break from hymns. Maybe try a bit more arranging. So expect fewer updates, as that will be more work.

This is a pretty typical Edmund White take on a Latin chant. In a lot of ways, these hymns are the most challenging in the book. The parts are far less symmetrical than most modern hymns.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Please turn your hymnals to number 146 (Second Tune) and join the clarinets in, “In Heaven Above”.

Number: 146 (Second Tune)
First Line: In Heaven Above
Name: HAUGE.
Meter: 8 6, 8 6, 8 8 6.
Tempo: With movement
Music: Norwegian Folk Melody
Text: Laurentius Laurentii Laurinus, 1573-1655
Revised Johan Åström, 1767-1844
Tr. William Maccall, 1812-88

Clarinet Arrangement: 146b-InHeavenAbove

This is actually a pretty fun arrangement with counter movement in both the bass and tenor parts.

I don’t know that it is a particularly well known hymn melody, it is only used for this hymn that I can tell, and I can only find the information from the hymnal about it, that it is a, “Norwegian Folk Melody”. Not knowing enough about Norwegian Folk Melodies, I can’t tell you more than that.

Without more information, I am going to guess that this song might be named after Hans Nielsen Hauge, based on the following:

Because Hauge’s preaching coincided with the years during which many Norwegians were migrating to America, the Haugeaninfluence on Lutheranism in America has been considerable.^[20] The Lutheran Church in America had a Hauge Synod, Eielsen Synod and Lutheran Free Church all indicative of that influence.^[21][22][23] Hauge is remembered on the liturgical calendar of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on March 29 as one of the Renewers of the Church.^[24]

From wikipedia:

Hans Nielsen Hauge (3 April 1771 – 29 March 1824) was a 19th-century Norwegian Lutheran lay minister, spiritual leader and author. He led a noted Pietism revival known as the Haugean movement. Hauge is also considered to have been influential in the early industrialization of Norway.^[2] [3]

He had a poor and otherwise ordinary youth until 5 April 1796, when he received his “spiritual baptism” in a field near his farm. Within two months, he had founded a revival movement in his own community, written a book, and decided to take his mission on the road. He wrote a series of books in his lifetime. In a total of 18 years, he published 33 books. Estimates are that 100,000 Norwegians read one or more of them, at a time when the population was 900,000 more-or-less literate individuals.^[4]

In the next several years, Hauge traveled – mostly by foot – throughout most of Norway, from Tromsø in the north to Norway in the south. He held countless revival meetings, often after church services. In addition to his religious work, he offered practical advice, encouraging such things as settlements in Northern Norway. He and his followers were persecuted, though their teachings were in keeping with Lutheran doctrine. He began preaching about “the living faith” in Norway and Denmark after a mystical experience that he believed called him to share the assurance of salvation with others. At the time, itinerant preaching and religious gatherings held without the supervision of a pastor were illegal, and Hauge was arrested several times.

Hauge faced great personal suffering and state persecution. He was imprisoned no less than 14 times between 1794 and 1811, accused of witchcraft and adultery, and of violating the Conventicle act of 1741^[6] (at the time, Norwegians did not have the right of religious assembly without a Church of Norway minister present). His time in prison broke his health and led to his premature death. Upon his release from prison in 1811, he took up work as a farmer and industrialist at Bakkehaugen near Christiania (now Oslo).^[7][8]

In 1815, he married Andrea Andersdatter, who later died in childbirth that same year. In 1817, he married Ingeborg Marie Olsdatter (1791-1872) and bought the Bredtvet farm (now the site of Bredtvet Church in Oslo) where he died. Three of his four children died in infancy. His surviving son, Andreas Hauge, became a priest in the Church of Norway and Member of the Norwegian Parliament.^[9]

Moreover, the name Hauge seemed familiar to me, as in “Hauge Church”, from when I was growing up in Wisconsin.

Hauge Log Church

Notes: Also known as Hauge Lutheran Old Church. Before 1850 the pioneers of Perry Township had no way of liturgical worship..  In 1850 the congregation relied on circuit preachers.  On March 28, 1851, the first formal Norwegian worship was held.  The congregation decided to build a 20’ x 20’ building.  The building was comprised of logs and constructed in 1852.
During its early years dissension grew among the members over the form their worship should take.  Those who were interested in change to a less formalized service before they left Norway and were followers of the Haugean Movement  and those who wanted the formal “high-church” style of the state church of Norway.  At a meeting held in November of 1854, the faction loyal to the State Church of Norway voted to form its own congregation. The settlers who chose to remain with the 1852 congregation affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and later became known as the Hauge Congregation.  In 1927 the original 1852 church building was restored.  The church is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Please turn to number 146 (First Tune) and join with the clarinets in, “In Heaven Above”.

Number: 146 (First Tune)
First Line: In Heaven Above
Name: LAURINUS.
Meter: 8 6, 8 6, 8 8 6.
Tempo: Majestically
Music: Swedish Koralbok, 1697
Text: Laurentius Laurentii Laurinus, 1573-1655
Revised Johan Astrom, 1767-1844
Tr. William Maccall, 1812-88

Clarinet Arrangement: 146a-InHeavenAbove

I thought, for sure, with a name like “Laurentius laurentii Laurinus” there would be something about this guy. But this is it. He was a Swedish Rector, Dean, and poet.

In any case, it is a nice hymn!

Short Name: Laurentius Laurentii Laurinus
Full Name: Laurinus, Laurentius Laurentii, 1573-1655
Birth Year: 1573
Death Year: 1655
Laurinus became a principal in Söderköping, Sweden, in 1603, and in 1609, a rector in Haradshammar in Linköping diocese, Östergötland, later a dean. But he was known as a poet in the Swedish, German and Latin languages.

Please turn your hymnals to number 144 (Second Tune) and join with the clarinets in, “For All the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest”.

Number: 144 (Second Tune)
First Line: For All The Saints Who From Their Labors Rest
Name: PRO OMNIBUS SANCTIS (SARUM).
Meter: 10 10 10, 4.
Tempo: Broadly, with spirit
Music: Joseph Barnby, 1838-86
Text: William Walsham How, 1823-97

Clarinet Arrangement: 144b-ForAllTheSaintsWhoFromTheirLaborsRest

This is another rather harmonically modern hymn arrangement. Very close, almost dissonant harmonies, with an unusually lingering resolution.

Considering it’s composer seems to have been rather fond of Wagner, I guess this isn’t a surprise.

Short Name: Joseph Barnby
Full Name: Barnby, Joseph, 1838-1896
Birth Year: 1838
Death Year: 1896
Barnby was a composer, conductor and (like his father Thomas Barnby) an organist. He entered the choir of York Minster at age seven, and was an organist and choirmaster at twelve. In 1854 he went to London and entered the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied under Cipriani Potter and Charles Lucas. In 1856, he competed for the first Mendelssohn Scholarship. When the examinations were over, of the nineteen applicants, he was tied for first place with Arthur Sullivan. After a second test, Sullivan won.

Barnby was organist at Mitcham, St. Michael’s, Queenhithe, and St. James’ the Less, Westminster, before he was appointed to St. Andrew’s, Wells Street, where he remained from 1863 to 1871, establishing the musical reputation of the services. From 1871 to 1886 he was organist of St. Anne’s, Soho, where he instituted the annual performances of Bach’s Passion Music according to St. John, with orchestral accompaniment. In 1867, Messrs. Novello, to whom he had been musical adviser since 1861, established Barnby’s Choir, which gave oratorio concerts from 1869 to 1872, when it was amalgamated with the choir formed and conducted by M. Gounod at the Royal Albert Hall, under the title of the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society (now the Royal Choral Society). The same publishing firm also gave daily concerts in the Albert Hall, 1874-75, which Barnby orchestrated.

Barnby conducted the St. Matthew Passion in Westminster Abbey in 1871. He was appointed precentor of Eton in 1875, a post he kept until 1892, when he succeeded Thomas Weist-Hill as principal of the Guildhall School of Music.

In 1878, Barnby married Edith Mary Silverthorne. Also that year, he helped found the London Musical Society, becoming its first director and conductor. Under his baton, the Society produced Dvorak’s Stabat Mater for the first time in England.

In 1884, Barnby conducted the first performance in England of Wagner’s Parsifal as a concert in the Albert Hall. From 1886-8 he conducted rehearsals and concerts of the Royal Academy of Music, of which he was a fellow.

Barnby was knighted in 1892, and in the same year conducted the Cardiff Festival. He conducted the festival again in 1895.

Barnby’s compositions include an oratorio (Rebekah, 1870), a psalm (The Lord Is King, Leeds Festival, 1893), an enormous number of services and anthems, part songs and vocal solo, trios, etc. He also wrote a series of Eton Songs, 246 hymn tunes (published in one volume in 1897), and edited five hymnals, the most important of which was The Hymnary (1872).

Please turn your hymnals to number 143 and join with the clarinets in, “Hark! The Sound of Holy Voices”.

Number: 143
First Line: Hark! The Sound of Holy Voices
Name: DEERHURST.
Meter: 8 7, 8 7. D.
Tempo: In moderate time
Music: James Langran, 1835-1909
Text: Christopher Wordsworth, 1807-85 a.

Clarinet Arrangement: 143-HarkTheSoundOfHolyVoices

The harmony on the third stanza of this one is so close for a hymn, I had to go back and double check my work several times. But, yes, that is the way it is written in the hymnal. Don’t know what to tell you. I guess James Langran was a little odd for his time. Either that or it’s typos.

James Langran
Born: November 10, 1835, St. Pancras, London, England.
Died: June 8, 1909, Tottenham, London, England.

A pupil of John Calkin, Langran was tutored as organist at St. James’s Church, Edmonton (London). He then served as organist at St. Michael’s, Wood Green (June 1856); Holy Trinity, Tottenham (1859); Parish Church, All Hallows, Tottenham (1870); and St. Paul’s, Tottenham (1870-1909). He was also Instructor to the Training College for Schoolmistresses, Tottenham, from its foundation around 1880, and received a Bachelor of Music degree from Oxford in 1884.

Please turn your hymnals to number 142 and join with the clarinets in, “In His Temple Now Behold Him”.

Number: 142
First Line: In His Temple Now Behold Him
Name: MANNHEIM.
Meter: 8 7, 8 7, 8 7.
Tempo: In stately rhythm
Music: Friedrich Filitz, 1804-76
Text: Henry James Pye, 1825-1903

Clarinet Arrangement: 142-InHisTempleNowBeholdHim

This hymn is in celebration of something called, “The Presentation”. From the lyrics, perhaps we can gain a clue.

In his temple now behold him,
See the log expected Lord;
Ancient prophets had foretold him,
God has now fulfilled his word.
Now to praise him, his redeemed
Shall break forth with one accord.

In the arms of her who bore him,
Virgin pure, behold him lie,
While his aged saints adore him,
Ere in perfect faith they die.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Lo, the incarnate God Most High!

Jesus, by thy Presentation,
Thou who dids’t for us endure,
Make us see thy great salvation,
Seal us with thy promise sure;
And present us, in thy glory,
To thy Father, cleansed and pure. Amen.

Hm, a little creepy, and not entirely clear.

Off to google, then.

The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is an early episode in the life of Jesus that is celebrated by the Church on the holiday of Candlemas. It is described in the Gospel of Luke of the New Testament in the Christian Bible.^[1] Within the account, “Luke’s narration of the Presentation in the Temple combines the purification rite with the Jewish ceremony of the redemption of the firstborn (Luke 2:23-24).”^[2]

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the presentation of Jesus at the temple is celebrated as is one of the twelve Great Feasts, and is sometimes called Hypapante (Ὑπαπαντή, lit., “Meeting” in Greek). In Western Christianity, the traditional name for the day is Candlemas, which is also known as the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, and the Meeting of the Lord. In some liturgical churches, Vespers (or Compline) on the Feast of the Presentation marks the end of the Epiphany season. In the Church of England, the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is a Principal Feast celebrated either on 2 February or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. In the Catholic Church, the Presentation is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.

In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran Church, the episode was also reflected in the once-prevalent custom of churching new mothers forty days after the birth of a child.

I guess this is more of a “Minor Festival” sort of hymn.

Please turn your hymnals to number 141 and join with the clarinets in, “For All the Saints”.

Number: 141
First Line: For All the Saints
Name: ST. MICHAEL (OLD 134th).
Meter: S.M.
Tempo: With dignity
Music: Genevan Psalter
Text: Richard Mant, 1776-1848

Clarinet Arrangement: 141-ForAllTheSaints

Having finished the hymns for “Trinity Sunday”, we are off to a sort of odds and ends section of the Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal called, “Saints’ Days and Minor Festivals”.

Along with the tune for “Old 100th”, the tune for “Old 134th” is also attributed to French composer Louis Bourgeois.

Loys “Louis” Bourgeois (French: [buʁʒwa]; c. 1510 – 1559) was a French composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. He is most famous as one of the main compilers of Calvinisthymn tunes in the middle of the 16th century. One of the most famous melodies in all of Christendom, the Protestantdoxology known as the Old 100th, is commonly attributed to him.

Louis Bourgeois is the one most responsible for the tunes in the Genevan Psalter, the source for the hymns of both the Reformed Church in England and the Pilgrims in America. In the original versions by Bourgeois, the music is monophonic, in accordance with the dictates of John Calvin, who disapproved not only of counterpoint but of any multiple parts; Bourgeois though did also provide four-part harmonizations, but they were reserved for singing and playing at home. Many of the four-part settings are syllabic and chordal, a style which has survived in many Protestant church services to the present day.

Of the tunes in the Genevan Psalter, some are reminiscent of secular chansons, others are directly borrowed from the Strasbourg Psalter; The remainder were composed by successively Guillaume Franc, Louis Bourgeois and Pierre Davantès. By far the most famous of Bourgeois’ compositions is the tune known as the Old 100th.

This one definitely seems like a “Saints” sort of hymn.

Like Old 100th, this tune is pretty great and lends itself to rhythmic and harmonic re-interpretation. I’d dedicate this version below to one of my “Saints”, Saint Sonny Rollins, for his tune, “St Thomas”.