It's the same as "The Water is Wide," isn't it?

Long Meter: O WALY WALY.

I don't know of any four part settings, though you might check settings of "The Water is Wide."

Here is four-part setting, dedicated to Kathy, Doug and all metrical hymn lovers to distribute far and wide!

see and hear the score

Thanks, Rob. If you ever record it, please send me a copy so I can post it on my music website.

1. Gorgeous, gorgeous arrangement. It includes a lot of the subtleties of sound that usually get left out, when people arrange this ballad, but which are expressed as all sorts of ornament when it was sung by people back in the day. It's also got gravitas on the last phrase, whereas a lot of people sort of float away into pretty pretty land, where it's not particularly good for a hymn to go.

2. I've said this before; but technically, the standard "Waly Waly" hymn tune is much more like the usual Anglicised or Americanized versions that get called "The Water Is Wide". There's a lot less meandering, but most of all, there's not the very distinctive phrase that ends "Waly Waly" versions. By which I mean two equally long notes and one almost as long, in the last phrase, like so: "....FOL LOW AFte-er me." (Sorta like a hammer of sadness and disaster hitting you.) It's very effective, when you sing "Waly Waly" with the speeding and slowing and gracenotes kind of ornamentations. You do what you like the rest of the time and it all sounds very pretty, but at the end of every verse you always have to come back to WHAM WHAM WHAMmity wham.

I can understand why people don't want this for their pretty pretty hymn tunes. However, I imagine that it's the cautionary undertones that make Waly Waly/Water Is Wide a good setting for "Take Up Your Cross". So if you were singing something cautionary about oncoming death, foolish virgins who don't go to the oil store, or the likelihood of the proud man getting to heaven, it would work well. You could probably also do some prolife hymn lyrics to this music, or something asking for prayers for the souls in purgatory while pointing out that they'll pray for you back. Lots of that sort of thing would work out nicely.

3. "Wally Wally" ... Heh! What a fortuitous typo!

It's Wally Wally on his bike
And Wally Wally up a tree
And Wally Wally wi' the Beav,
Whose life is fu' o' mystery.

No italics would be great- size is fine the way it is.

What time is your service? We might be singing it at the same moment!

Our service is also at 10, but we're using it for a recessional- so you'll beat us for the Premiere by 15-30 minutes.

Thanks!

Charles

Thank you. I would truly love to hear your choir.