My absolute favorite tune is an obscure tune known as CROOKED BOWTIE.

I was trying to avoid the obvious answers. That is everyone's favorite tune, obviously. ..

"I like everything Christopher Idle ever wrote"

What about Eric Idle?

Well, I guess I shoulda checked to make sure I copied t'whole sentence... I think I may need to up my morning caffeine intake.

Why, young Ben?

I don't even know where to start. I probably have 100 hymns I consider essential, and another 50 or so I'd be sad about not being in a hymnal.

Here's a few I DID NOT EVER hear growing up, and only discovered once I worked for Episcopalians, but which I now consider absolutely essentially...

Humbly I adore Thee
Take Up Thy Cross
Come Risen Lord and Deign to be our Guest
Come Down O Love Divine
To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King
O Bless the Lord, My Soul

I only mention those in particular because I didn't grow up with them, and now I can't imagine why or how that was allowed to happen. I mean really, did I really NEED "Gift of Finest Wheat" every other Sunday for years?

Why, young Ben?

The tune is so majestic and regal, and the text is such a beautiful. Some hymns run the risk of sounding trite, both in melody and text. This hymn is neither, with a dignified text and tune.

THAXTED is over-used, especially by trad Catholics. And I don't think it holds up well to over-use.

Gavin:

...a certain branch of trads.

Both THAXTED and LAUDATE DOMINUM immediately establish a sense of scope by their use of a vast region of the scale. Somehow this imaginatively translates into a sense of the grandeur of God and of His sovereignty.

Why does EVERY new Catholic text have to be set to this tune?

Aw, c'mon. Sometimes they use NETTLETON.

As long as I'm offering up adaptations of symphonic music, specifically tone poems, I'll add FINLANDIA (Sibelius) with the specific text of "Be still, my soul." Outside of any movement from the REQUIEM this hymn is my best choice for use at funerals or other memorials.

*Simply and overall, the melodic phrase perfectly is wed to the text as if intended that way. (We know that Jean Sibelius was somewhat a morose personality already.) Just take the first phrase: the intake breath of the rest on beat one, "Be still"/descending half step....my soul/ascending to the fifth...."the Lord is on thy side"/where the return to the third scale degree by way of a slur up from 2, just marvelous and reflective of comfort.
*The power of the three repeated, emphasized 5 in third phrase that also culminates in slurred cadence, driving home the imperative "LEAVE.TO.THY. GOD to order and pro-VIDE.
*The deceptive cadence end of fourth phrase just sets "remain" outside of expectation of normalcy.
*The final phrase ends with the understated tone of "hope" for a joyful end without fanfare.

Well, Kathy, I'm trying to play your ballgame by your rules, which I think were splendidly conceived and expressed. Don't understand why our colleagues overstate the obvious biases, and choose not to offer up what you asked for.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

melo

I hate to be opinionated... (actually, I like my opinions...), but Finlandia is worse than Thaxted. In fact, all of Sibelius' music is a few notches below Mozart. Preeeeeeeeeeeedictable and gushy.

Conjecture: It's hymns like this that brought in the sappy crap like OEW and the like.

Charles C, if our colleagues are like me, they are trying to think of the reasons why they think FINLANDIA is a terrible hymn tune. No offense.

The thing I like best is the way it starts, mi-re, on the upbeat, as you mention.

The line endings of the odd lines--your "slurred cadence"--that is my most obvious distaste. One use of that figure might be ok in a stanza, but three? It becomes trite very quickly indeed to my ear.

It also has an underlying marching beat that I find hard to reconcile with the sweeter elements of the tune. In any case, after long acquaintance, I have never succeeded in liking it.

Take up thy cross, the Savior said,
if thou wouldst my disciple be;
deny thyself, the world forsake,
and humbly follow after me.

Take up thy cross, let not its weight
fill thy weak spirit with alarm;
his strength shall bear thy spirit up,
and brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.

Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame,
nor let thy foolish pride rebel;
thy Lord for thee the cross endured,
to save thy soul from death and hell.

Take up thy cross then in his strength,
and calmly sin's wild deluge brave,
'twill guide thee to a better home,
it points to glory o'er the grave.

Take up thy cross and follow Christ,
nor think til death to lay it down;
for only those who bear the cross
may hope to wear the glorious crown.

To thee, great Lord, the One in Three,
all praise forevermore ascend:
O grant us in our home to see
the heavenly life that knows no end.
-------------------------------------

This is one of my favorite texts, and I prefer this original to the one I first learned in the 1982 (the version there is not BAD, it just isn't as good).

The beauty of its poetry is amazing to me, both in its directness and in its conviction:
-let not its weight fill thy weak spirit with alarm
-sins's wild deluge
-nor think til death to lay it down

Another thing I really love about it...

There is a theory of personality classification known as "Theological Worlds."

This is not as weird as it sounds - it basically explains that different people view theology/religion/faith using one of a handful of primary metaphors. This is NOT an interpretation of theology, this is an interpretation of the different ways people think. (It's a ministry tool, not a theological tool.)

The five "worlds" are:
1. Separation and Reunion
We are exiles, and Christ brings us home.

2. Conflict and Vindication
We are at war, and Christ is our victorious champion.

3. Emptiness and Fulfilment
We are broken, and Christ makes us whole.

4. Condemnation and Forgiveness
We are damned, and Christ redeems us.

5. Suffering and Endurance
We are in tribulation, and Christ is our strength.

While all 5 are TRUE and essentially are describing the same thing, different people more closely identify with one or another primary understanding of salvation and the life of a Christian. (I'm a WORLD ONE guy, by the way; with some world two leanings.)

Most hymns, prayers, sermons, etc focus on one or another of these understandings (the one held by the author), and it is rare to find all 5 expressed in a single text or work of art, especially something as short as a hymn.

This text weaves all of them together to give a picture of the life of a disciple that is both compelling and complete, without feeling like it's jumping around to "cover all the bases."

The following are some examples, though really I mean the text AS A WHOLE

1. Separation and Reunion
-'twill guide thee to a better home,
-O grant us in our home to see

2. Conflict and Vindication
-and calmly sin's wild deluge brave,
-it points to glory o'er the grave.
-may hope to wear the glorious crown.

3. Emptiness and Fulfilment
-Take up thy cross and follow Christ,
-nor heed the shame, / nor let thy foolish pride rebel;

4. Condemnation and Forgiveness
-to save thy soul from death and hell
-the heavenly life that knows no end.


5. Suffering and Endurance
-his strength shall bear thy spirit up,/ and brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.
-thy Lord for thee the cross endured, /to save thy soul from death and hell.
-in his strength


I have a hard time singing this text without getting choked up and overcome- both in joy at the grace I have been given through Christ, and at the thought of my own weakness in the face of the difficulty inherent to the life of one who has taken up the Cross. How often have I thought to lay it down? How often have I heeded the shame or been filled with alarm?

Conjecture: It's hymns like this that brought in the sappy crap like OEW and the like.

That's okay, francis, we all have opinions. But your conjecture is just that. FINLANDIA is art music at its inception level. If you want to know where "sappy crap" in RCC music came from, look no further than Nicolai Montani and his St. Gregory Hymnal pieces composed or arranged by him. That and the plethora of Victorian era monastic hymnals (Mount St. Mary's for eg.)

SLANE
LAUDA ANIMA
HYFERDOL

As I write this, my 5 year old is very pleasantly singing "the rattlin' bog", and I am also reviewing Requiem chants in my head for an upcoming mass, so it's terribly difficult for me to come up with any more.

Gavin has the power

Like Julie, Adam, and presumably others, it is nearly impossible to come up with a pared down list of just a few hymns (tunes &/or texts) that I can single out as the best. That said, I find the following 10 notable right now, although (except for a few that will never change for me) that list might well look different tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year.

DOWN AMPNEY - Come Down, O Love Divne
SALZBURG - At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing
WIE SCHÖN LEUCHTET - How brightly beams the morning star
RENDEZ A DIEU - Father, we thank thee who hast planted
WACHET AUF RUFT UNS DIE STIMME - Wake, awake! the voice is calling
DEUS TUORUM MILITUM (a.k.a. GRENOBLE) - O Love, how deep (and other texts)
DIVINUM MYSTERIUM - Of the Father's love begotten
CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM - Creator of the stars of night
EISENACH - (several texts)
WINCHESTER NEW - On Jordan's bank (and other texts)

*******

This is probably the wrong place to bring this up, but will you all please pray for my wife Patricia and her doctors? Patty has a renal cell carcinoma and so is having either part of or all of her right kidney removed one week from today (the day following our 10th anniversary) at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. We've been dealing with this situation for several weeks now, and she still has yet to have a procedure performed (probably ablation) for an adrenal adenoma that was also discovered. Patty has appreciated that I (re)composed my "O taste and see"/"Gustate et videte" in her honor for Mother's Day, although it has taken some time to prepare and post the new scores (I just posted the "Gustate" revision last night).

*******

Adam. Thank you for writing about "Take up thy cross" ... that is a text which is dear to me, too, although it rarely seems to be sung of late. It is especially meaningful at this time.

Chuck

Dearest Chuck,

I'm so sorry to hear of this. You and Patricia are in my thoughts and prayers and included in my Divine Mercy chaplet right now. Our Lady of Czestochowa and St. Anthony, pray for us. (They have pulled us out of more scrapes than I can count.)

PICARDY

So odd for people to put the tune name first, and the text second....

Charles, God be with you. I say a decade of Aves fir Patty.

Fr. K -

I am mostly in agreement with your list.

Particularly, I'll mention that I'll also find SHANTI to be an excellent tune (since that will probably garner the most snickers from the crowd here), and I greatly prefer it to ST. BOTOLPH for "We Walk By Faith"
(Caveat: I have bad taste.)

I also personally just really like SURSUM CORDA.

Do you actually like CHRISTIAN LOVE? I find it terribly boring. Anyone else feel that way, or is just me?

Also, since we're talking about tunes -
as an addendum to my above post about "Take Up Your Cross"
(and I've said this before on this forum)
While I am not in favor of the textual changes made by the 1982 to that hymn, I think the editors' choice of the Early American tune BOURBON is absolutely inspired. In most other hymnals it has been set to BRESLAU (a fine tune which I associate with Advent because of the 1906), and a few contemporary GIA hymnals set it to WALY WALY (which I like [i have bad taste] but its a little too relaxed for that text).