The new hymn tune is "Gloucester Crescent" ... and its text is??
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Here is my newly composed hymn tune GLOUCESTER CRESCENT (10 10. 10 10. D), both score and a simulation enclosed. It was composed with a particular text in mind. If you cannot guess the text and its author, don't worry - before long the setting will appear (replete with descant and some other modifications that make it suitable as an anthem or processional). If you wish to hazard a guess, by all means do.

    Even more to your and my liking would be for someone to provide (ie. author) a new text for the tune.

    Happy Autumn of 2017 to all of you. I hope to hear your comments on the tune, guesses as to the text it was written for, and any contributed new texts.

    Edit: For some reason the MP3 simulation will not upload (it's only 4019 KB in size). So here is a Dropbox link for Gloucester Crescent that contains both the PDF and the MP3 files.
    Giffen-Gloucester_Crescent.pdf
    76K
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn CharlesW
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    Lovely tune, Chuck.
    I'll have to do some searching for your imagined text.
    There are no 4x10D texts in the 1940 - maybe in the English.

    I do, though, rather like 'Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem rise!' (no. 389 in the 1940) - though it would take two stanzas to get through your rather 'Anglican processional' sort of tune.

    I'll be back.

    Hmm. I've found several really good fits in The English Hymnal - but I haven't a clue what text you have in mind.

    Oh! Whence the name of your tune? It's really grand!
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    The author of the text I've had in mind lived for some time in Gloucester Crescent, whence the choice of tune name (and a hint to the author's identity).

  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    I'm at a loss.
    Looking up Gloucester Crescent-Camden on the internet I see quite a list of famous-semi famous people who lived there, including a singer named Gary Lightbody. (Now 'Lightbody' - there's a likely name for a tune!) But nary a hint of hymnody or its authors.

    Perhaps one of our English members can nail this?
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,396
    Jessie Willdy's Swift flashing onward with the restless tide to H. L. Gilmour's tune PRETORIA. (Gilmour was the person from New Jersey.)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    I like both of the texts 'Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem rise!' and 'Swift flashing onward with the restless tide' quite a bit (the latter text is new to me). The text I've had in mind is much more recent and has not appeared in any hymnal, although it has been published as an anthem (styled as a hymn) by at least one other composer.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,396
    Ok, so you mean Gloucester Crescent, as in London, right? And would that be Gustav Holst?
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Yes, Gloucester Crescent is near Camden Town, in London. Alas, it's not Holst who, as far as I know, never penned any poem/text for a hymn (nor composed a setting of the as yet unnamed text).


  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,396
    Something by Ursula Vaughan Williams?
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Something by Ursula Vaughan Williams?
    Bingo!
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,396
    A Hymn for Saint Cecilia

    Herbert Howells, David Reznick, and perhaps others along with Charles H. Giffen, have set this fine text:

    Sing for the morning’s joy, Cecilia, sing,
    in words of youth and phrases of the spring;
    walk the bright colonnades by fountains’ spray
    and sing as sunlight fills the waking day.
    Till angels, voyaging in upper air,
    pause on a wing, and gather the clear sound
    into celestial joy, wound and unwound,
    a silver chain or golden as your hair.

    Sing for your loves of heaven and of earth,
    in words of music, and each word a truth,
    marriage of heart and longings that aspire,
    a bond of roses and a ring of fire.
    Your summertime grows short and fades away,
    terror must gather to a martyr’s death;
    but never tremble, the last indrawn breath
    remembers music as an echo may.

    Through the cold aftermath of centuries
    Cecilia’s music dances in the skies;
    lend us a fragment of the immortal air
    where with your choiring angels we may share
    a word to light us through time-fettered night,
    water of life, a rose of paradise;
    so from the earth another song shall rise
    to meet your own in heaven's long delight.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • KyleM18
    Posts: 150
    Too bad there's no ritual for dedication/institution of the choirs. I could see that being a perfect way to start the choral season, and not have to wait for St. Cecilia's Feast. (On second thought, isn't there something for RSCM awards, or is that just improvised?)
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Here is the straightforward score with the text added to GLOUCESTER CRESCENT for "Sing for the morning's joy, Cecilia, sing" (a.k.a. "A Hymn for Saint Cecilia").

    I should mention that this score is the most "melismatic" of a few versions of the tune as I have conceived it. Some of these other versions will appear in a through composed setting before too awfully long.

    In the meantime, enjoy this and feel free to use it for your St. Cecilia services/celebrations/concerts.

    Giffen-Sing_for_the_mornings_joy.pdf
    85K
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