Has anyone put the Crux Fidelis translation from the Anglican Use Gradual in modern notation? I am trying to put together a card with these verses in alternatim with the refrain to the tune of Picardy.
Willian's musical estate was legally entrusted to the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in Chicago, Illinois. Father Scott Haynes might be able to help you concerning unpublished material. More info here: http://www.canons-regular.org/go/healeywillansociety/
I tried a few years ago, but they hadn't gotten to this yet.
I assume (and hope) that you want the mode I tune associated with Crux fidelis.
In the event that this isn't essential to you, you may find 'Sing, my tongue...' with Crux fidelis as the fourth stanza in round note heads to the familiar mode III Sarum Pange lingua melody at no. 166 of The Hymnal 1982. The translation is the same as in The Anglican UseGradual.
This is neither a complaint nor adverse criticism - just curiosity:
In addition to discrepancies throughout your version of the plainchant melody from any I have encountered, the third line in particular is significantly different. What is your source for it? Where did you find it?
Nice work in fitting the English to the two tunes!
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By the way - For any who may have failed to put two and two together, 'Let All Mortal Flesh' can be sung beautifully to this mode i melody associated with Crux fidelis. Try it with your choirs. It would make a very nice offertory or communion 'anthem'. It might even work with a talented congregation! (I discovered this in Sir Sydney H. Nicholson's A PlainchantHymnbook, published under the aegis of Hymns A & M back in the thirties. If you can find one snatch it up. It's full of good stuff, but is scarce as hen's teeth.)
To go off at a tangent: there is a rather fine hymn-meditation by Kevin Nichols on 'Crux fidelis'. Mgr Nichols (d.2006) lived in retirement at our church and published several poems and hymns there. Feel free to use it.
1. Faithful Cross, sustain your burden, Do not splinter, do not crack. Though the load of all our sorrows Hangs a dead weight on your back; Upright on a hill of sadness In the gale of evil’s power. Hold him strongly, hold him gently At his covenanted hour.
2. Nameless in the forest mounting, Shoot and sapling, branch and tree, Felled, dismembered, planed and jointed For this day’s dark mystery. Gibbet, infamous, ennobled By this death and by this birth, Hold your cross-grained branches open, Harbour for a shipwrecked earth.
3. When, the noontide darkness ending, He whom you have borne is dead, In his mother’s arms laid gently, You are left untenanted: Sharp against the soul’s horizon Still uphold us, shining tree, Emblem of the Saviour’s passion, Standard of his victory.
—words: ‘Crux Fidelis’ by Kevin Nichols (1929–2006), priest-poet of St Mary’s Cathedral, Newcastle upon Tyne, from Decryptions published at the Cathedral in 2006; music: traditional French melody, adapted by Giovanni Pergolesi (1710–1836)
In the UK Picardy is the usual tune for 'Let all mortal flesh'. What other ones are in use? Are they recommended? I suspect the Pergolesi tune mentioned above may be the one we use for 'God of mercy and compassion'; if so, it is a lovely Lenten-type tune.
I used the melody found in the AUG, arranged by C. David Burt, copyright 2004. Lines 3 and 5 presented an interesting conundrum: the relentlessly trochaic meter of this translation seemed to me finicky when applied to the standard melody--more so in line 3. For this reason I fudged the beat pattern in line 3, though I remain unconvinced that this was the best solution, as I think Mr. Osborn rightly discerns.
In general I tried to point the rest of the melody faithfully to the chant, though in a way which was standard across all 10 verses, in an effort to increase the accessibility of the melody for my choir.
Ahhh so! So it's right under my nose in the AUG. I had never looked at it there. I do wonder what Burt's source for it was. Perhaps it is a Sarum variant???
Are there more than one version of the AUG? The online one seems to have a couple textual variants from your score. Just curious. Beautiful, by the way! Thank you, it saves me a lot of work.
Kyle, and Any Others - Yes, there are some textual variants between the AUG and P-B, and the official Ordinariate texts of the propers. Why this is I don't know, except that we need to check to see that our texts match the Ordinareate's approved ones. Another specific instance of which I have experience is the propers for Assumption.
Most of the time one is safe. But not always.
Of course, if one is using AUG and P-B for propers in the strict Roman rite, one needn't be bound by the Ordinariates approved texts, since there are at any rate no approved ones for the Roman rite. (Which, insofar as that leaves us free to sing a variety of musical settings, may be a boon.)
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