I'd love to see any additional editions of the piece, with or without. The 1/8th notes are almost always sung but I've NOT seen them in print in other than my edition which was made partially off a rendition I heard online years ago.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4L7cTmcIRVEd0MzQk4yMkJsRmc/view?usp=sharing

I was "forced" to make a simple edition some years ago. No 1/8th notes.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4L7cTmcIRVET3hwUDlPZEtkOWc/view?usp=sharing


R

It goes back a long enough way, most of the life of the hymn in English (which life started in 1858 in Dublin).

Example from 1871: https://hymnary.org/hymn/CYHB1871/page/134

I have never heard these quavers, nor a repeat, in the UK either, and the tune is quite familiar. Liam's example was published in New York.

I learned to sing this hymn using the St. Basil Hymnal, Revised edition 1918. Personally I like the eighth notes in the refrain as opposed to say the Gather hymnal #615, where they removed them. There's no reason to remove them after all any good choir or intelligent congregation ought to be able to sing them. I also like the harmony from St. Basil's hymnal. We recently switched to the Ignatius Pew Missal which happily they added the eighth notes back in, although I don't care much for the harmony they use.

Whereas, for many American Catholics, not hearing them would make them feel not "at home", as it were. The Episcopalian hymnals of either generation were crafted with American Episcopalians, not American Catholics, in mind....

I play them. My congregation learned this hymn from an older hymnal years before I arrived. They do what they have always done, so I have thrown in the towel and play it the way they sing it.

They are strange indeed, but seem to be ubiquitous in the Catholic world.

Yup. Once a day keeps the British away!!

Seriously---here in the Upper Midwest Germanic/Pole area, the eighth-note are in. And it's about MM138, please!

I try only to program this for benediction and not for mass, for the reason of dealing with soloists on the eighth notes. I tend to take a "quod scripsit, scripsit" approach with this hymn, as well as with other music my group performs. (Granted I don't know how much longer that group will keep afloat but that's another story.) A choir needs to pay attention to the little things, not just add them in because of a "little t tradition" ("But that's how we've ALLLLLWAYS done it!!!") Being able to read and follow music is a much more essential skill than recitation of bad habits they've picked up over the years - although I am the last person to diss rote memorization done properly.

We don't, but every other church I've been to seems to use them

One other thing, some time after composing my hymn tune RASMUS (originally for the text "Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured") and, after checking its metre (78.78.77) against other texts several years ago, I discovered that its metre is the same as that of "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" ... and so here is that text, set to RASMUS. Enjoy!

"quod scripsit, scripsit"

I find that an questionable approach for congregational singing. If the PIPs own something well, organ and choir ought to follow them in the regard.

Having recently seen the original On Eagles Wings hymn text and music, I propose that CHGifffen consider writing a tune for it as well.

Coming from a Protestant background, the repeat and eighths were new to me, but I love them. “Local usage” has always been part of Catholic tradition, and you really can’t suppress it.

In my diocese, all parishes learned a common mass setting when the new Missal translation came out. However, lots of DMs changed something about it that they didn’t like and taught it to their congregations wrong! So every parish has their own variant version of the same mass setting!

I was looking through several of my old Catholic Hymnals and found this arrangement of Holy God, We Praise Thy Name from the Sodalist's Hymnal 4th Edition 1887. It's a different melody then we are used to w/ 6 verses. If you're squeamish about eight notes you better not look!

1. Charles H. Giffen: I have already used several of your hymn descants and other music. On Rasmus and Webbe, both of which I would like to use as anthems with my choir in fall, I am trying to find a way to avoid the A's in descants. I know they are being lazy, but only one of my sopranos will make a true effort at singing an A. Would you suggest alternate notes or lowering the harmonization by a whole step?
2. I was a Southern Baptist until the age of sixteen and remember "Holy God, we praise Thy Name" being sung. Another text which was also frequently used was "Sun of my soul." Both were paired with variants of Hursley. I like the texts. I dislike Hursley -- not strongly, just enough to seldom use it.
3. When playing "Sun of my soul" to Grosser Gott as in The Hymnal 1982, I play it at an extremely fast tempo. After reading this thread, might use it this Sunday, July 14, 2019.

Well, look, here's a whole Chant Cafe entry on this very topic. A Catholic flourish indeed!


http://www.chantcafe.com/2013/09/a-catholic-flourish/

#cesarfranck ... Here is my setting of "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" with an alternate descant that avoids any high A. It is also possible to use the Alto part, transposed up an octave, as an acceptable descant.

Note, however, since wading into this, I've been revising and will shortly post this hymn set to a triple meter version of RASMUS, which I think is much better.

I'm curious about this one. Most websites seems to say it was written by the Australian Catholic Richard Connolly - but he was a composer, and I suspect he simply wrote a new tune for it.

CHE simply says it's anonymous.

Does anyone have a better source?

CHE may be referring to a different hymn of the same title. Both music and text of Richard Connolly's hymn are his own. It, and the bulk of his work, is included in most Catholic hymnals in Australia.

If it helps to differentiate the two hymns, the second line of Connolly's is "throned amid the hosts of light".

Our pew hymnals do not include the 8th notes, but we have St. Michael hymnals in the choir loft which do. Our priests usually sing the 8th notes with great enthusiasm, confusing some of the PIP. Our choir sings at other parishes 3-5 times a year and I created an arrangement of "Holy God" for one of those trips last year which we subsequently also sang for the Baccalaureate Mass-- with eighth notes, but with the repeat only on the final verse.

I came across another version of Holy God in the Catholic Hymnal by Rev. Alfred Young. The Imprimatur was given in 1884 but the hymnal was published by The Catholic Book Exchange in 1909. This version contains an "Amen", 7 verses and mostly all half-notes. The meter is marked 78s 77. I plugged the notes into my Musescore and its nice to listen to.