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Wednesday 10 September 2008

Hymny chants, or chanty hymns from the Hymnal 1940.....

We were having electrical work done today, and Himself and I felt as if he had entered the 18th c. of the novel he was reading, between candles to see our way in the bathroom, and, for the love of pete, actually WRITING instead of word-processing, and reading instead of watching TV.
Apropos of which, both the reading and TV, he has taken to calling me "Abigail," (and sort of apropos of which, isn't Laura Linney a fine, fine actress, and isn't Stephen Dillane something beyond? one of the greatest screen actors I've ever seen, on a par with Maria Falconetti, Morgan Freeman, Spencer Tracy, and Myrna Loy, such a rock solid center of truthiness, and such an economy of expression.... but I digress)
He tends to succumb utterly to enthusiasms in great but short bursts, and Adams has set him to reading Irving Stone, and inveigling like a child after a pony for NetFlix, (can we have it? please, please, can we, huh?) without even knowing yet if he actually can get the Adams Chronicles through them...
And I do the same thing, wax enthusiastic, I mean.
A current fancy of mine is pairing two little known hymns by the same composer to create a faux anthem for choir, using the less singable as an instrumental interlude to verses of the others, and engineering some sort of coda.
There were two Jeremiah Clarke (or putative JC, I guess, everytime I say something is by Clarke or Purcell I end up being corrected that "current scholarship" thinks it's by...) hymntunes in the GREATEST ENGLISH LANGUAGE CHRISTIAN HYMNAL EVER, (or GELCHE, that is, the 1940 Episcopal,) BISHOPTHORPE and BROMLEY, which I had a mind to use thusly.
I need some more all-purpose postludes, and I want to expend neither cash, [I want to put in new orders to CanticaNova, Demco Library Supplies, and St Jame Press,] nor rehearsal time, [my current mood being that I am not going to knock myself out beyond the call of duty, with extra off-the-clock efforts,] that might better be spent on genuinely liturgical music, nor my capital of the choir's good will, [which cajoling some of them into Latin draws on,] nor high notes, [which a lot of their old favorites tax and which remind me, but alas, not all of them, of their age.]
And our current choral rep has a slight dearth of jubilant, short, loud, fast, major key numbers -- for if ALL church music should be jubilant, short, loud, fast, and in a major key, and we know that it should, how much more so postlude?
I mean, you can only alternate "Let Your Light" and Tollite Hostias from the Saint-Saens Christmas Oratorio so many weeks in a row before people become bored....
But the computer being out of commission for setting "O Trinity," and the 1940 Episcopal to hand, I thought of making a list of chant, chant hymns, and chant-ish hymns to be found therein.
Obviously PICARDY, VICTORY, LASST UNS ENFREKANTSPELLIT, (which, I guess in light of the war, was given a very un-German name,) MAINZ, GEVAERT, AD PERRENNIS, etc., and I would say virtually anything with the name Gibbons or Tallis or Bourgeois or Kruger or Praetorius on it is going to be a chant "compatible" hymn, as is most anything from Piae Cantiones (though those carols may get a bit rowdy....)
But herewith, the actual chant (much of it Sarum,) from that great, great hymnal, ENGLISH (for those of you facing resistance to that popish lingo....)
I know there was someone besides myself looking for this kind of stuff ... I've always intended to make my own "indices" for some of the better hymnals. You see, the trouble with a volume that is so rich with hymnic gems is that one is always coming across something, piquant or great, that is just perfect for some other occasion, some other reading, some other text or tune.... and me being me, I might jot it down or stab a bookmark in place, but how is that going to remind me when the time is right?
Anyway, a small beginning, not occasion- or scripture- or topic-driven, but classified by style.

Adoro Te #204 #223
Aeterne Christi Munera #132
Bone Pastor #194
Christe Redemptor #485
Christe Sanctorum #123 # 157
Conditor Alme #6
Cura Dei #248 (actually a modern composition, but I feel sure it is based on a chant)
Dies est Laetitiae #29 (okay, more of a medieval carol, but I didn't know it before and I didn't want to lose track of it)
Dies Irae #468
Diva Servattrix #167 (also not quite a chant...)
Divinum Mysterium #20
Ecce Jam Noctis #71
The Golden Sequence (Veni Sancte...) #109
Iste Confessor #228
Jam Lucis #164
Jam Lucis Orto Sidera #159
Jesu Dulcis Memoria #56 (not the tune you know, and metric but chant-derived, French medieval, I believe, although not so identified in the 1940)
Lauda Sion #183
Martyr Dei #209
Nocte Surgentes #157
Nunc Sancte #160
O Fillii #99
O Lux Beata Trinitas #171
Pange Lingua #199, #200
Splendor Paternae #158
Stabat Mater #76 (not the one you know)
Tantum Ergo #200
Te Lucis #164
Urbs Beata #383
Veni Creator #108 #217
Veni Emmanuel #2
Vexilla Regis #63
Vicitmae Paschali #97
Verbum Supernum #8

There.
Several dozen Englished, modernly notated, accompanied chant hymns. (I figure by posting it, I'll be able to find it without excavating my desk, or the pile of papers and books beside my bed, the stack on the couch, the heaps on the table in the choir loft, or the... you get the picture.)
The language, notation and organ part should answer the usual objection from the usual suspects.
I'm afraid I can't do anything about the fact that they're not all exactly jubilant, short, loud, fast, and in a major key. Sorry.
But ya can't have everything... and if ya did, where could ya put it?

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