Of the Father's Love Begotten

Gaudium

Does anyone have a favorite setting of this, other than just the beautiful plainchant? Chant into some SATB harmony? Thank you!

Liam

The arrangement (under the title Of The Father's Heart Begotten) by David Willcocks is deservedly popular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt75zI4kz6g

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/of-the-fathers-heart-begotten-9780193510852?cc=us&lang=en&;

PhilipPowell

Cool and easy setting by Paul Wohlgemuth:

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

https://www.pearlk12.com/cms/lib/MS01810570/Centricity/Domain/510/Of the Fathers Love Begotten.pdf

32ContraBombarde

I rather like the Wohlgemuth, which respects and highlights the plainchant while expanding gradually into a beautiful, rich arrangement.

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

Edit - ha, I see I was a minute beyond @PhilipPowell on this one!

AnimaVocis

Here is a really nice setting by Stephan Casurella!

https://www.sjmp.com/catalog/music/fathers-love-begotten-1

ServiamScores

Bombarde16: thank you for this link. I'd never stumbled across this arrangement, in spite of being an SJMP subscriber. It's positively lovely and perfectly approachable.

Diapason84

I like the metrical arrangement in the Hymnal 1982, though the organ accompaniment isn’t a favorite. If memory serves, the hymnal editors dropped the plainchant version from the book, which had been there in the 1940 edition (with a fine accompaniment by the great Fr. Winfred Douglas).

Marc Cerisier

I love the Wohlgemuth setting for sure—sang it every year in college for our "lessons and carols" type service.

Not too long back, I found a simple 2-part setting I wrote many years ago for my treble choir that I had completely forgotten about. Free to use for anyone who might find it useful.

https://repertoire.crccm.org/display?id=6177421d5fe6a036852d73b3

francis

Love The 1940
I use it all The time

Dixit_Dominus_44

We learned this setting before Covid & were able to sing it with great success a few years later, after Covid restrictions were lifted in our diocese.

M. Jackson Osborn

The one by David Willcocks, of only very moderate difficulty, has no peer. It can be found on p. 236 in Oxford's 100 Carols for Choirs.

Liam

IMO it's one of Willcock's best from a corpus of many wonderful works. Even the inimitable Richard Marlow of Trinity College Cambridge, inventor of supernal double descants, seemed (at least from his discography) to treat the Willcocks as something not to be improved upon.

ServiamScores

The one pity of the Willcocks is that it uses the metered setting. I vastly prefer plainchant / free meter settings myself. The lilting constant long-short rhythm makes it feel rather stodgy when it otherwise mightn't have.

Liam

The metered works magnificently as a measured processional in a way the free meter does not quite. I adore both.

M. Jackson Osborn

Tempo is everything when it comes to the metered version (which may or may not have been heard of in mediaeval times!). It must be sung to a very moderate tempo. Too fast and it looses its gravitas. When sung with care it makes the perfect offertory anthem.

OrganistRob320

If you have the men for it: Edwin Childs arrangement

This works nicely and keeps the plainchant rhythm for the most part throughout with subtle yet apt variations John Carter arrangement

This works though I only did it once: Chenoweth arrangment

There is this: Motyka arrangment

The Bairstow setting is a workhorse of a piece for choir and organ if you need that big anthem

There are many more settings on sheetmusicplus and jwpepper that exist.

francis

a very beautiful arr. of said piece... excellent modal writing... however, the melody goes a bit askew towards the end...

also posting the 1940 here... exceptional and preferable for the English variation. (of course, for the chant cadence purists, avoid the V-I, and make it a IV-I)

I think this is in the NOH.. will have to check and be back...

ServiamScores

I do have a question for you all: do you consider this hymn to be an Advent hymn, or a Christmas hymn? I hear it during Advent, but it seems to be more of a Christmas hymn properly speaking. I’d be curious to hear what you all think in this regard.

Liam

It can work well for both; omitting the specific Nativity stanza (there are actually a variety of stanzas that can be used; be sure to look under Of The Father's Heart Begotten as well - see illustrated below) when sung in Advent (or reserving it for Late Advent and Christmastide) is something I've experienced being practiced, but the rest of it works without it.

1 Of the Father's heart begotten
ere the world from chaos rose,
he is Alpha: from that Fountain,
all that is and hath been flows;
he is Omega, of all things
yet to come the mystic Close,
evermore and evermore.

2 By his word was all created;
he commanded and 'twas done;
earth and sky and boundless ocean,
universe of three in one,
all that sees the moon's soft radiance,
all that breathes beneath the sun,
evermore and evermore.

3 He assumed this mortal body,
frail and feeble, doomed to die,
that the race from dust created
might not perish utterly,
which the dreadful Law had sentenced
in the depths of hell to lie,
evermore and evermore.

[v 4 omitted]

5 This is he, whom seer and sybil
sang in ages long gone by;
this is he of old revealèd
in the page of prophecy;
lo! he comes, the promised Savior;
let the world his praises cry!
evermore and evermore.

6 Sing, ye heights of heaven, his praises;
angels and archangels, sing!
wheresoe'er ye be, ye faithful,
let your joyous anthems ring,
every tongue his Name confessing,
countless voices answering,
evermore and evermore.

trentonjconn

I've always regarded it as a Christmas hymn and have only ever programmed it for Christmastide.

GerardH

I used it this year on the Transfiguration. I've also used it for Candlemas. It is such a great Christological text, I can't get enough of it

Liam

It would also work for Annunciation.

davido

Christmas hymn. In the NO breviary it is proper to Vespers of Jan 1.

GerardH

The original hymn from which Corde natus ex parentis is excerpted has 38 verses. Prudentius composed it as a Hymn for All Hours. Corde natus is just the handful of verses most relevant to Christmas.
I'm not sure what use a 38-verse hymn is to anyone; there couldn't be many occasions to call for it - pilgrimages perhaps?

Joseph Michael

I highly recommend "Of the Father's Love Begotten" by Thomas Gieschen. (Concordia) Each verse has a different treatment: the original plainchant; the plainchant in SATB with the melody passing between different voices; in canon; a verse with a descant.

CGM

Many, many moons ago I sang in a chamber choir directed by Bruce Smedley, a fine conductor and composer, who wrote a wonderful setting of this carol (entitled Of the Father's Heart Begotten). Decades later I was fortunate enough to conduct a large choir in a couple performances of it (take a listen here). The arrangement begins with a simple choral setting, followed by a chant verse; another somewhat more complex choral setting, followed by another chanted verse; and then a final climactic, glorious choral verse, closing with a beautifully understated "amen, alleluia."

If anyone would like a copy of the score, PM me and I'll shoot one over forthwith with the composer's blessing.

Adam Wood

I've recorded two piano-vocal arrangements of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb3CXEtra2w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FoaAF3-z2k

ServiamScores

CGM—that is exceptionally lovely.

Kevin Anthony

I am going to add my SAB arrangement of the hymn. I originally wrote it for myself and two of my sisters to sing, and then my parish choir has sung it quite frequently over the last several years. We have sung it during our Advent Lessons and Carols, as I find it works well after the Gospel reading from John 1, as well as for Christmas Midnight Mass.

https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/arrangeme/034/kevin-frecker/?q=of+the+father's+love+begotten&cgid=3017034

Patricia Cecilia

I grew up with the 1940 harmonization and the Chenoweth anthem version, of which I am very fond. In the Chenoweth, the fauxbourdon verse and the lilting soprano descant are especially lovely, and the crescendo of Amens quite glorious. Years ago I took the 1940 harmonization and the Chenoweth fauxbourdon and set the Rite I (aka 1928 BCP) Gloria to them to use with the Willan Missa Brevis in E major (on Corde natus), then later set the MR3 Gloria to it as well. Both times the congregation sang it very well.

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