Same - Cincinnati, OH

REX by William Henry Grattan Flood

Down under.

ST GEORGE'S WINDSOR (US/MA), though in the wake of Thanksgiving Day, that tune is more remembered for "Come, Ye Thankful People Come".

Hugh

That is a *brilliant* suggestion for a tune! While I loves me "See Amid The Winter's Snow", I suspect it's fairly rare as a congregational hymn in Catholic churches in the USA (there's just too many more popular traditional Christmas hymns to compete with for programming), so it would be a *great* way to get a congregation familiar with an unfamiliar tune....

kevinf, are you sure about that tune being named RIGBY? It's not listed on hymnary.org. There are three tunes named RUGBY, but none have a 7777(D) meter.

Thanks, incardination. Yes, it's C.W. Rigby's KING DIVINE.

HUMILITY strikes me as a more contemplative tune that blossoms/unfolds, and while HRKD at first blush might seem only to be an emphatic praise hymn text from the get-go that seems destined for a marching tune, its fuller stanzas betray greater complexity that might benefit from a more contemplative tune. YMMV.

And I love My Country 'Tis of Thee to MOSCOW - not that I will ever hear it other than myself singing it. It reveals other dimensions of the text. And I adore DANBY for any suitable text. (Having had to sing FESTIVAL CANTICLE from the pews this past Sunday, I can say that I am no fan of tunes that endear themselves to organists but are more like vocalises for pew singers. Thisss iz thuh fee-ye-ye-YEAST ov-ICK-ter-ee!)

I do have a more squares-and-contra-dancing approach to matching texts and tunes, and see it less as wedded pairs than a larger suitable company of agreeable possibilities that reveal different aspects of the personalities of the texts and tunes.

Humility and 'See Amid the Winter's Snow' -
What God hath joined together let not man put asunder!
_______________________________________________________________

'See Amid...' was traditionally sung at the Christ Mass at St Ambrose, Houston. throughout the late sixties when I was organist there. I introduced a lot of English hymnody and choral literature there at that time, having been sought out because i was Anglican and would know what to do with English liturgy. I've not encountered 'See Amid..' at any other church since then. It is a wonderful carol and deserves to be more widely known in the US.
(Hmmm - maybe I'll mention it to our choirmaster at Walsingham!)

I agree with the sentiments expressed above re. not allowing "Humility" to flirt with other texts - I think that's what I meant by "cet. par." But from behind the proverbial veil of ignorance, I'd join "Humility" with HRKD in a heartbeat.

I agree with MJO: "See Amid" is a great Christmas hymn and yet almost totally unknown - I tear up every time I read the words, and "Humility" is such a brilliant tune for it. This is definitely sung by the angels in heaven. I've been annoying people at work and in the car recently by singing it over and over. RIP Fr Caswall & Goss.

I had a King's College vinyl recording years ago that I played so much it ended up terribly scratchy. That effect only added to its poignancy! I think it was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPgo-UfyJgc

BTW, time to open another thread perhaps, unless it's been done already: what other Advent/Christmas hymns/carols evoke tears for you, and at what point? Another one for me is "O Babe Divine" (Rolle(?)/Pettman) - I, a toffy director, invariably choke up at the words "When I fly north, south, east or west"! Have no idea what the factors are, but I'm not denying. As for "Come Thou Redeemer", I'm a write-off from the outset.

My apologies...i was working without my hymnal in front of me. The tune is BY Rigby as everyone has noted. And its tune name has been duly noted.

I think the tune is not very common in the US but it is really wonderful.

Thanks, Hugh, for that link.
I will enjoy it many times over.
I think that I had the same record.
I donated all my LPs to the Fondren Library at Rice U many years ago.
Some, I wish that I had kept.

Hugh brings up a great point - some hymn texts have more than one good tune associated with them.

Case in point, from the polar opposite end of the liturgical calendar: "All Glory Laud and Honor". I grew up with ST THEODULPH and still prefer it that way. But leafing through the English section of the St. Gregory Hymnal (a rare occurrence, as I tend to dislike Montani's tendency to reassign tunes to texts arbitrarily) I must admit that I fell in love with his setting of it to the tune by Michael Haydn.

Or, on the other hand - some good hymn tunes have more than one text!

e.g. AURELIA. "The Church's One Foundation" is passable, but always read like a laundry list to me. However, applying the tune to Caswall's "O Jesus Christ, Remember", I think, brings out the spirit of a plaintive, yet hopeful, cry to the Almighty.

Interesting thread.
O Jesus Christ remember and Aurelia always go together here. I find it a very emotional setting.
There is also a very prayerful setting of Caswall's 'O Godhead hid' by Sir Richard Terry, which always takes me back to Benediction in a darkened, incense-filled convent chapel when I was at school, with Sr Angela cranking out the harmonium. Is this the tune used in the US for this hymn?
Also, 'Lord of life, earth, sky and sea,' IS indeed the original penultimate line for Hail Redeemer, but I suppose that doesn't mean it can't be changed. The hymn originally had lots of verses, presumably for use as a processional. Perhaps some of the ones sung in the US are from the original but are not used here, where we seem to stick to the same four verses.
And finally, there is another tune occasionally used for See amid (a very popular carol here) but it's a jaunty French noel, so not as fitting as Humility.

Christmas Morn.
We sang it at primary school. The nuns said that 'Humility' was the Protestant tune; I suppose it is the Anglican one, but we'll be singing it at Midnight Mass at the cathedral.

MJO, it's a "cradle Catholic" thing. You'll never understand.

Cooties is the technical term for the attitude.

Here in Singapore, we use Hail Redeemer sung to DIVINE MYSTERIES, or #307 in the New English Hymnal. It is adapted, of course, to fit the text, with the first note split into a (double?)-dotted crotchet and a semiquaver.

Sorry, just catching up with this.
Now that the hordes of Christmas/New Year visitors have gone back south of the border I'll search this hymn out.

That version is a very weird arrangement of Sir Richard's SATB hymn! I'll send a scanned version from the hymnbook.