Its well known among the choir that there are certain hymns in our hymnal that will make me tear up. Some of them even give me a hard time about it (cough - Ed Carlson - cough). Were going to be singing one of those hymns during the 10:00 service this Sunday. Hymn 469, Theres a Wideness in Gods Mercy, is set to the tune St. Helena, written in 1978 by Calvin Hampton. I grew up with the hymn tune Beecher for this text. Its in our hymnal as well, found as hymn 470. It has the advantage of familiarity, but in my opinion it doesnt begin to express the meaning of the words as well as St. Helena does. (And no, youre not required to agree with me.) St. Helena has a beautiful flowing, comforting quality that makes phrases such as There is no place where earths sorrows are more felt than up in heaven; there is no place where earths failings have such kindly judgment given... and For the love of God is broader than the measure of the mind; and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind... sound real and true. Theres a gentleness to the melody that is missing from the older tune that deeply touches me. As a singer, my goal is always to do whatever I can as a musician so that the music expresses the text. When a melody begins by being so expressive of the text by itself, it makes that job a whole lot easier. All you have to do is sing it. I found some lovely information about both Calvin Hampton and Frederick Faber, who wrote the poem from which the text is taken. Here are some links if youd like to read about them. episcopalcafe/thesoul/music/ (This blog post has some thoughts on stanzas of the poem that are not included in the hymn.) dioceseny.org/pages/466-calvin-hampton-a-musican-without-borders https://stmarysphoenixmusic.wordpress/tag/george-calvin-hampton/ epiphanyseattle.org/music-notes-for-sunday-october-13-2013/
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 22:39:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015