Sing We of the Blessed Mother
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Just found this version of ABBOT's LEIGH in my English Hymnal and thought it was worthy of mention for the month of May.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtnEv8F6dN4

    Text under the YouTube video here.

    P.S. Artful descant to this in the Oxford Book of Descants.
    Thanked by 2barreltone Ben_Whitworth
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    The text, by George B. Timms (1910-1997), is very fine indeed. It's especially appropriate as a Marian hymn in the Easter season (stanza 3).

    I prefer the tune ALLE TAGE SING UND SAGE, usually associated with the earlier text, "Daily, Daily, SIng to Mary." ABBOT'S LEIGH, with its two beats on syllables beginning every three out of four measures, slightly overemphasizes three prepositions which fall on the downbeat ("of" in stanza 2, and "from" and "of" in stanza 3).

    The text is still under copyright: 1975, Oxford University Press
    Thanked by 1Ben_Whitworth
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Fantastic text.
  • Caleferink
    Posts: 434
    Excellent hymn. I, too, prefer it set to ALLE TAGE SING UND SAGE (aka OMNI DIE DIC MARIAE). Solid for Easter, perhaps even better for Assumption.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Here, I can say it: I find ABBOT'S LEIGH a ponderous tune. And that's being charitable. But know organists tend to love it. I much prefer a different tune for singing hymns in that meter.
  • Randolph Nichols
    Posts: 398
    Liam,

    Though perhaps the only organist in America to think so, I feel the same way about ENGELBERG.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Randolph

    I am not a fan of ENGELBERG either, but it's less intolerable (to me) than ABBOT'S LEIGH. There's an unfortunate number of tunes from the first half of the 20th century that Try Too Hard: Sturdy Food With No Added Sugars, to do penance for the Saccharine Sins of tunes of others.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Isn't it amazing how musical tastes can differ. ABBOT's LEIGH just makes my heart go pitter-pat.

    I think it's glorious and majestic and a delightful change from the standard Marian hymns for the month of May that are dripping with syrup and covered with white and blue icing like a horrible grocery store bakery cake.

    This tune, on the other hand, is like one of those delectable cakes from Whole Foods that are actually somewhat good for you: with real butter and eggs, vanilla and organic flour and not made of 2 pounds of sugar and a can of Crisco. LOL.
    Thanked by 1bonniebede
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Julie,

    There are a few spots in the recording when your typed words don't match what is being sung.

    Yes, I agree that it's a wonderful text, and I'm fond of Abbot's Leigh.

    What descant?


    Cheers,

    Chris
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    I like ABBOT'S LEIGH too. But not every text in a certain meter pairs well with every tune in that meter. "Lord, You Give the Great Commission" has customarily been paired with ABBOT'S LEIGH. I don't find the tune "ponderous," as does Liam, but by the fifth stanza of "Lord, You Give..." my voice can't take it any more. At that point I'd like the organist to transpose the tune - DOWN!

    Some good pairings of ABBOT'S LEIGH in Worship 4: no. 733 Church of God, Elect and Glorious (4 stanzas); no. 788 Come and See the Many Wonders (3 stanzas); and no. 835 God Is Here! As We His People (4 stanzas).
    Thanked by 2kevinf JulieColl
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Hi Chris,

    We're learning the descant in the Oxford Book of Descants in C major by Anthony Baldwin. The text was under the video on YouTube, but since it's under copyright which I didn't realize, I've taken it down, but you can see it here.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    "by the fifth stanza of "Lord, You Give..." my voice can't take it any more."

    I think of that tune as a studied warm-up exercise, but less lovely than many of those. Fortunately, it's typically programmed as a recessional hymn, so I don't need the warm-up, and I can just leave...
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    That's so funny, Liam! You'd leave in disgust with a sigh of resignation, and I'd be totally enraptured. Lucky you to go to a church that regularly programs great hymns like that! I've only ever heard Abbot's Leigh on my King's College CD, going at full blast as I drive down the Southern State. : )
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    I wouldn't leave in disgust (that's reserved for, say, "Anthem"). I would leave disappointed at the wasted opportunity.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    BTW, Liam, thanks for your suggestion of Jesus Lives! Thy Terrors Now. My children's schola has learned it, and they love it.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Surely the trouble with Lord, You Give... is not only the tune but the pondorous preachiness of the text.

    It's one of those fake prayers that we've so recently emerged from, with the end of Old ICEL. Ostensibly addressed to the Lord, its message is for the people who sing it, carrying the weight of the world on its own shoulders.

    "give us all new fervor, draw us/ closer in community..." "May your care and mercy lead us/ to a just society;"

    Blech, blech, blech. Pure deism. "God, you are remote. Let us write a memo to you."
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    Kathy, your criticism of “Lord, You Give the Great Commission” is disappointing. It has all the markings of a primer in hymn text criticism made simple:

    1. When there is a scriptural reference in the text, call it “preachy.”

    2. When the text contains an expression of prayer, such as beseeching God to “help us,” give us,” lead us,” “empower us,” impugn the sincerity of the hymn writer and call the prayer “fake.”

    3. When God is named, unless as “Father,” “Son” or “Holy Spirit,” call it “deism.”

    4. When elements of the text don’t fit the three previous points, don’t mention them.

    5. Quote the text sparingly or not at all; generalizations are sufficient.

    6. Never supply readers with the text in question, or even a website such as http://www.hymnary.org/text/lord_you_give_the_great_commission where it may be found, lest they check it out for themselves.

    7. Strengthen the critique with things the hymn writer did not write.

    8. Never comment on how a text coherently develops from stanza to stanza, lest anyone be tempted to notice how such coherence is lacking in other hymn texts.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Actually I was being long-winded.

    It's a boring crypto-Pelagian text that has no real aspirations to lyricism or theology.

    That will hopefully be enough criticism, for the future.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    That's more like it!

    I amend the primer:

    9. When all else fails, allege heresy.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    A lot of texts deserve the full treatment.

    A lot don't, but I've kindly given it anyway.

    Since this text is nothing but CPE course notes set to music, as anyone can see, who really cares?
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    For what it's worth, there are good ideas in the text. On the other hand, ending the refrain with the word "ministry" has effects that put me off.

    First of all, I don't think it's euphonious to end on that stressed vowel (IPA: [i]). Whether the word is "Thee" or "be", "ministry" or "eternity", I'm not a fan of it. Ending a line with it occasionally is no big deal, but every verse? It's too much.

    Then about the content: ending on "ministry" draws attention to the church, and more particularly to her ministers and her members. It puts the attention on man, present-day living man, instead of on God or on the Church's destiny; and that is a strange way to end every verse of a hymn.

    Each verse starts with some biblical idea, and then pivots to reach a word that rhymes, more or less, with "ministry". In the first verse, it's "integrity", then the rest have "community", "liberty", "society", and "eternity". These Latinate terms seem abstract and jarring after the plainer, often Scriptural, language which precedes them.

    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • fcbfcb
    Posts: 338
    Abbot's Leigh is up there with Crucifer on my list of hymn tunes that are not awful, but are also not really worth the effort that they take to sing. I find them both exhausting.
    Thanked by 2JulieColl Ben
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Lord, you warn with words unholy
    lest our worship be in vain;
    make each heart all humble, lowly,
    like the one toward which we strain,
    unafraid to stumble onward,
    called to pray for sanctity:
    With the Spirit's gifts empow'r us
    to exclude all heresy.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen JulieColl Ben
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    ABBOT'S LEIGH- yes, it's a vocalize, but a great one!
    ENGLEBERG- argghhh.
    But the Rotten Tomato (Taw-mah-taw) goes to:
    EBENEZAR
    Thanked by 1chonak
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    Okay melofluent I will bite.
    What is your 13 4 9 4 tune for your rhyme?
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    FCB, I agree that ABBOT's LEIGH is a workout, esp. when you're trying to play the organ and sing the alto part at the same time, and are squinting desperately at the tiny print on the third and fourth verse (since your reading light is barely sufficient for the job.) : )

    That being said, the harmonization is lovely, I think. Very, very fun alto line.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    What is your 13 4 9 4 tune for your rhyme?

    eft, not my circus, not my clowns. Good try tho'.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Bored with this Pelagian vision,
    Can’t wait for this song to end.
    Rather face the Inquisition
    Than to sing, smile, and pretend.
    Soon, however, they’re ordaining
    Priests for all eternity.
    So for now we'll keep refraining
    from denouncing heresy.
    Thanked by 1Ben
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Since the Church's "Reformation"
    No such thing as heresy.
    No denouncing: education
    Solves all issues you might see.
    Only evils still existing:
    All male servers, and such, you see.
    Moving forth, beyond just Jesus,
    moving on, to Vat'can Three.
    Thanked by 3Adam Wood Ben Kathy
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Thanks for playing our home game!
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood Ben
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Lord You Give the Great Commission is not a good text.

    Lord, you give the great commission:
    "Heal the sick and preach the Word."


    That is most emphatically NOT the Great Commission, which is (from Matthew)

    And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”


    The next line about "Lest the church neglect its mission," makes me think --- "apparently, we're not even clear what that mission is.

    Rhyming "integrity" with "ministry" is just... well, it's silly.
    I think there's a general principle about the number fo syllables involved in end-line rhymes. The more, the funnier. That the author then has to find more rhymes because of the refrain (community, liberty, society, eternity) just makes it funnier as it goes on.

    ...AAAAAAAND I can't keep going. Kathy is right. This text doesn't deserve a full write up. It's too boring. I was going to go stanza by stanza, but I just can't handle it.

    I will say that I think the "just society" thing is ridiculous, unless its talking about the eschaton, but I'm pretty sure (from the context) that it's just talking about economic policy.

    Its a bad text, set to a (de gustibus and all that) super boring tune. The sentiments are liberal progressive mainline protestantism, and other texts present those same sentiments better (frankly, I'd rather Sing into being a New Church where All are welcome).

    Thanked by 2Ben Kathy
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    Thanks, Adam. There’s substance to your critique, even though I think you’ve misread or read things into Rowthorn’s hymn text in a number of your comments.

    The mission that the Risen Christ gives to his Church in every age is quite clear. It is not limited to Mt 28:19-20. When the Church speaks and acts, Christ is speaking and acting. When it makes new disciples, Christ is making those new disciples and calling them to do everything that he charged his first disciples to do in his name.

    The “great commission” is not only in stanza 1 of Rowthorn’s text; it’s in all five. Saint Paul may say that the mission of the Church is to preach Christ crucified. But that preaching is done through the ministry of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments.

    And everything the Church speaks and does in Christ’s name – its mission - is done in his presence and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose grace empowers the Church. There is not even a hint of Massilianism, as Kathy changes, much less Pelagianism in Rowthorn’s text.

    Jeffery Rowthorn doesn’t need me to be his text’s defender. The fact that just about every hymnal (Catholic and non-Catholic), beginning with The Hymnal 1982 (except for hymnals that avoid contemporary texts and/or those under copyright), has included it is defense enough, IMHO.

    Regarding the issue of the rhyme of “ministry” with “integrity, community, liberty, society, eternity,” there are many trochaic tetrameter hymn texts which drop the last syllable of even numbered lines so that those lines end with a stressed syllable to give a masculine rhyme (8787 metered texts). Most often those syllables will be monosyllables, or the final word will be an iamb. But words with the unstressed “-ty” or “-ly” also can work fine with the right tune (as ABBOT’S LEIGH is.) But I will cede your point: perhaps Rowthorn has overdone it with five stanzas doing the same thing.

    Dr. Michael Hawn, from the Perkins School at SMU, has a fine commentary on the text at: http://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-hymns-stanzas-recite-the-great-commission
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    I'm not sure I understand.

    Isn't Dr. Hawn's endorsement of a text pretty much a guarantee of the text's liberal progressive mainline Protestant sensibilities?
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,191
    Are you saying guilt by association Kathy?
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    No. Guilt by appreciation.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Hawn's commentary alluded to the origin of ABBOT'S LEIGH as a wartime replacement for AUSTRIA, which was unpopular at the time for some reason.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    One of the things I'm so happy about regarding the new Missal translation is the way that in the collects, it's much clearer that the gifts of God have an ongoing and intimate presence. This effect is in part accomplished by one of the more controversial aspects of the translation, which involves keeping the collects unified, as one sentence with subordinate clauses.

    Although this kind of construction sounds more natural in Latin (or German, or Greek) than in English, it makes so much theological sense that I don't think there is a good substitute.

    Take yesterday's OF collect for example:

    Almighty ever-living God,
    constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us,
    that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism
    may, under your protective care, bear much fruit
    and come to the joys of eternal life.

    Linguistically, granted, that's a bit awkward in English. It's like those Russian dolls that have a doll within a doll within a doll. But that is how grace is. It is a dynamic interplay with a divine initiative. In the collect, we ask both for that initiative and for its ongoing effects. It gets complicated.

    What it isn't, and what LYGTGC is, is a two-step process. The hymn asks for gifts to accomplish tasks. That's not bad, exactly--but it is not what God does, in a Catholic conception. We commune with Christ constantly. The Spirit breathes life into us. It's an ongoing, dynamic, and above all intimate relationship.
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