Tag: Septuagesima to Lent

060.HowBlessedFromTheBondsOfSin

Please turn to number 60 and join with the clarinets in “How Blessed From the Bonds of Sin”.

Number: 60
First Line: How Blessed From the Bonds of Sin
Name: RELEASE.
Meter: C.M.D.
Tempo: Broadly
Music: Danish Melody
Text: Karl Johann Phillipp Spitta, 1801-59
Tr. Jane Borthwick, 1813-97

Another “folky” hymn, the last in the section of hymns for “Septuagesima to Lent”.

I had to look up “Septuagesima”, as I don’t remember it being covered in Lutheran Confirmation classes.

Septuagesima (in full, Septuagesima Sunday) is the name for the ninth Sunday before Easter, the third before Ash Wednesday. The term is sometimes applied also to the period commonly called Shrovetide (the Pre-Lenten Season) that begins on this day and ends on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, when Lent begins.

The other two Sundays in this period of the liturgical year are called Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, the latter sometimes also called Shrove Sunday. The earliest date on which Septuagesima Sunday can occur is January 18 (Easter falling on March 22 in a non-leap year) and the latest is February 22 (Easter falling on April 25 in a leap year).

Old dogs, learning new tricks.

Clarinet Arrangement:060-howblessedfromthebondsofsin

All clarinets, this time. Doubled each part, twice through. Audacity “Medium Room” Reverb Effect applied.

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal

059.HarkTheVoiceOfJesusCrying

Please turn to number 59 and join with the Saxophones in, “Hark! The Voice of Jesus Crying”.

Number: 59
First Line: Hark! The Voice of Jesus Crying
Name: JESU.
Meter: 8 7, 8 7. D.
Tempo: In moderate time
Music: Gustaf Düben, 1671-1730
Text: Daniel March, 1816-1909

You would think, from the first line that Jesus would be sad about something, but actually it is more of a shout or call.

Hark! The voice of Jesus Crying,
‘Who will go to work today?
Fields and harvests waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?’
Loud and long the Master calleth,
Rich reward he offers free;
Who will answer gladly saying,
‘Here am I; send me, send me?’

If you cannot speak like angels,
If you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say he died for all.
If you cannot rouse the wicked
With the judgement’s dread alarms,
You can lead the little children
To the Savior’s waiting arms.

Let non hear you idly saying,
‘There is nothing I can do,’
While the souls of men are dying,
And the Master calls for you:
Take the task he gives you gladly,
Let his work your pleasure be;
Answer quickly when he calleth,
‘Here am I; send me, send me.’

Kind of a weird, inspirational, aspirational, aphorism of a hymn.

Anyway, for some reason, I felt like this tune was more of a “Saxophone” kind of tune, than a clarinet kind of tune. Something about the harmonies.

Sax arrangement: 059-harkthevoiceofjesuscrying

Doubled each part, two times through. Audacity “Medium Room” Reverb Effect.

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal

058.AlleluiaSongOfSweetness

Please turn to number 58 and join with the clarinets in, “Alleluia, Song of Sweetness”.

Number: 58
First Line: Alleluia, Song of Sweetness
Name: TANTUM ERGO (DULCE CARMEN).
Meter: 8 7, 8 7, 8 7.
Tempo: With dignity
Music: Essay on the Church Plain Chant, 1782
Text: Medeival Latin Hymn
Tr. John Mason Neale, 1818-66 a.

This hymn is a bit of a puzzle.

The first component is the name, “TANTUM ERGO”. Tantum Ergo is usually hymn based on a super old text attributed to St. Tomas Aquinas. But the text of this hymn, doesn’t match that hymn.

The second part of the name, “DULCE CARMEN” is a tune attributed to someone named Michael Haydn from a book called, “‘Essay on the Church Plain Chant,” 1782; Melody from Samuel Webbe’s Motetts or Antiphons, 1792’. OK, that makes sense, and the tune of Haydn’s Dulce Carmen does match this Hymn.

FYI: Michael Haydn was an Austrian composer who lived from 14 September 1737 – 10 August 1806. He was the younger brother of the much more famous Joseph Haydn.

The text of the hymn, though, is a bit more confusing. There is an Anglican Hymn called “Alleluia, Song of Sweetness”, but the words don’t match this hymn. However, there is another hymn called “Alleluia, Song of Gladness” whose text DOES (mostly, other than the Sweetness/Gladness swap) match this hymn and which is often set to Michael Haydn’s DULCE CARMEN.

Alleluia, dulce carmen. [Week before Septuagesima.] The earliest form in which this hymn is found is in three manuscripts of the 11th century in the British Museum. From a Durham manuscript of the 11th century, it was published in the Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church (Surtees Society), 1851, p. 55. The text is in Daniel, i. No. 263, and with further readings in iv. p. 152; and in the Hymnarium Sarisuriense, 1851, p. 59. [Rev. W. A. Shoults, B.D.]

Translations in common use:—
3. Alleluia! song of sweetness. Voice of joy, eternal lay. By J. M. Neale. It appeared in the first edition Mediaeval Hymns, 1851, p. 130, in 4 stanzas of 6 lines, and was “corrected for the Hymnal Noted.” Mediaeval Hymns, 2nd ed. p. 184), where it was given in its new form, in 1852, No. 46, and again in the 2nd ed. of the Mediaeval Hymns, 1863. This translation equals in popularity that of Chandler, but it is more frequently and extensively altered. Without noticing minor instances, we find the following: “Alleluia, song of sweetness,Voice of joy that cannot die” in Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1861 and 1875, and many others. “Hallelujah! song of gladness, Voice of joy that cannot die” in Thring’s Collection, 1882, &c. Of these altered forms of Neale’s text, that of Hymns Ancient & Modern, is most frequently adopted.

Whew! All that work for a not very complicated hymn.

Clarinet Arrangement: 058-alleluiasongofsweetness

The usual doubling of each part. Twice through. Audacity “Medium Room” Reverb Effect.

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal