Music for the Feast of the Holy Cross

Vexilla regis – Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

 

 view video here: https://youtu.be/vVpF6qpw3CE

 

The hymn Vexilla Regis prodeunt (The Royal Banner forward goes) is ascribed to Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) and is considered one of the greatest hymns of our liturgy. Fortunatus was commissioned to write this hymn for the arrival of a large relic of the true cross at a church near Poitiers, France. Since then, this hymn has been sung at Vespers from Passion Sunday to Holy Thursday, and on Holy Cross Day. Anton Bruckner’s setting of this hymn, presented here, was the last motet he wrote; in his words, “I composed it out of a pure impulse of the heart.” The piece alternates between the old Phyrgian mode and Bruckner’s characteristic chromatic shifts and startling modulations. The austere ending is well-suited as a musical depiction of the Passion.

 

Vexilla regis prodeunt
Fulget crucis mysterium
Quo carne carnis conditor
Suspensus est patibulo.

O crux ave spes unica
Hoc passionis tempore
Auge piis justitiam
Reisque dona veniam.

Te summa Deus Trinitas
Collaudet omnis spiritus
Quos per crucis mysterium
Salvas rege per saecula. Amen.

The Royal Banner forward goes,
The mystic Cross refulgent glows:
Where He, in Flesh, flesh who made,
Upon the Tree of pain is laid.

O Cross! all hail! sole hope, abide
With us now in this Passion-tide:
New grace in pious hearts implant,
And pardon to the guilty grant!

Thee, mighty Trinity! One God!
Let every living creature laud;
Whom by the Cross Thou dost deliver,
O guide and govern now and ever! Amen.

 

The royal banners forward go – Text: Venantius Fortunatus (530-609), tr. John Mason Neale (1818-1866); Music: Percy Carter Buck (1871-1947).

 

view video here: https://youtu.be/q8P649PiWkI

 

More than anyone else, John Mason Neale made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian and Syrian hymns. A priest, scholar and hymnwriter who was very much affected by the Oxford Movement, Neale has left us a rich legacy, particularly of Latin hymns. A search of the indices of either of our hymn books provides ample evidence of this.

 

The unison tune GONFALON ROYAL was composed for this hymn by Percy Buck for the boys at Harrow School, where unison singing was the rule; it first appeared in Fourteen Hymn Tunes 1913. Buck was for many years the director of music at Harrow, and professor of music at the University of London. ‘Gonfalon’ is an old Norman-English word meaning ‘banner.’

 

The royal banners forward go,

the cross shines forth in mystic glow,

where he in flesh, our flesh who made,

our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

Where deep for us the spear was dyed,

life’s torrent rushing from his side,

to wash us in that precious flood,

where mingled water flowed, and blood.

Fulfilled is all that David told

in true prophetic song of old,

the universal Lord is he,

who reigns and triumphs from the tree.

O tree of beauty, tree of light,

O tree with royal purple dight,

elect on whose triumphal breast

those holy limbs should find their rest!

On whose dear arms, so widely flung,

the weight of this world’s ransom hung,

the price of humankind to pay

and spoil the spoiler of his prey.

O cross, our one reliance, hail!

So may thy power with us prevail

to give new virtue to the saint,

and pardon to the penitent.

To thee, eternal Three in One,

let homage meet by all be done:

whom by thy cross thou dost restore,

preserve and govern evermore. Amen.

 

Lift high the cross – arr. Paul Manz (1919-2009)

 

view video here: https://youtu.be/Ug-56sLxy8w

 

The hymn Lift high the cross (Common Praise 602) has its origin in verses written by George William Kitchin, Dean of Winchester and then of Durham. These verses were subsequently revised by Michael Robert Newbolt for Hymns Ancient & Modern and by Shirley Erena Murray, a New Zealand hymn writer whose version appears in our blue hymn book.

 

The tune CRUCIFER was composed for these words by Sydney Hugo Nicholson when they first appeared in Hymns Ancient & Modern. Not only is it his most successful tune: it has become so thoroughly wedded to Lift high the cross that no one would think of proposing a competitor. The tune is presented here in an arrangement by Paul Manz, for many years the beloved Cantor (organist and choirmaster) at Mt Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Although the notes in this recording don’t state it explicitly, it’s quite likely that Dr Manz himself is playing on this recording; the organ has the distinctive sound of the Schlicker instrument he had installed at Mt Olive Church.

 

Gerald Harder

 

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Music for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Teach me, O Lord – William Byrd (c. 1540-1623)

 

view the video here:https://youtu.be/3dyMy94wpqE

 

William Byrd’s setting of Psalm 119:33-38 was likely written for the choir of Lincoln Cathedral during his tenure there. Its presence in his second collection of Preces & Psalms suggests that it was not designed as an anthem, but as a truly liturgical piece, a festal Psalm to be sung after the Preces. The piece might almost have been written to exemplify the Royal Injunction, during a particularly turbulent period in English history, that required “a modest distinct song, so used in all parts of the common prayers in the church, that the same may be as plainly understood, as if it were read without singing.” The “verse anthem”, in which the music alternates between sections for a solo voice or voices (called the “verse”) and the full choir grew out of this particular Reformation impulse, and this piece by Byrd is a fine example of this form.

 

Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes :
and I shall keep it unto the end.
Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law :
yea, I shall keep it with my whole heart.
Make me to go in the path of thy commandements :
for therein is my desire.
Incline my heart unto thy testimonies :
and not to covetousness.
O turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity :
and quicken me in thy ways.
O stablish thy word in thy servant :
that I may fear thee.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Sun, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, and is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

 

Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round – Text: John White Chadwick (1840-1904); Music: Orlando Gibbons (1538-1625)

 

view the video here: https://youtu.be/Ka8baGQh-24

 

This hymn was written by John Chadwick for the graduating class at Harvard Divinity School in 1864. It followed by a few weeks the desperate battle that brought the American Civil War to its close. At such a time, when hate and resentment were still smouldering, these lines of peace and good will were mightily significant. The theme is summed up in one word – unity – which finds resonance with today’s Gospel from Matthew 18. Although this rendition omits verse 2, I have included it in the text below, as it speaks most poignantly of our unity as sisters and brothers in Christ.

SONG 1 was composed by Orlando Gibbons for George Wither’s collection Hymnes and Songs of the Church1623. In his day, Gibbons was the finest composer and organist in England, and this is recognized as one of the finest melodies he ever wrote. This hymn is found in Common Praise at number 497; in the New English Hymnal at 355.

 

Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round
of circling planets singing on their way;
guide of the nations from the night profound
into the glory of the perfect day;
rule in our hearts, that we may ever be
guided and strengthened and upheld by thee.

We are of thee, the children of thy love,
companions of thy well-belovèd Son;
descend, O Holy Spirit, like a dove,
into our hearts, that we may be as one:
as one with thee, to whom we ever tend;
as one with him, our Brother and our Friend.

We would be one in hatred of all wrong,
one in our love of all things sweet and fair,
one with the joy that breaketh into song,
one with the grief that trembles into prayer,
one in the power that makes thy children free
to follow truth, and thus to follow thee.

O clothe us with thy heavenly armour, Lord,
thy trusty shield, thy sword of love divine;
our inspiration be thy constant word;
we ask no victories that are not thine:
give or withhold, let pain or pleasure be;
enough to know that we are serving thee.

 

Fancy for six viols – Orlando Gibbons (1538-1625)

 

view the video here: https://youtu.be/8Ue-9-By-6Q

 

In addition to being perhaps the finest English composer and organist of his generation, Orlando Gibbons was one of the most complete musicians of the Elizabethan era. He made talented contributions to every genre of vocal and instrumental music. In the domain of the fantasia for viols, he wrote for numerous combinations of between two and six instruments and elaborated endlessly inventive formal structures, replete with evidence of Italian influence. In this recording made at the Église de Centeilles in Mervois, France, the group L’Achéron play on viols based on early seventeenth-century English models.

 

Gerald Harder

 

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