Personent Hodie! Sing Gaudete!
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 685
    Text by Harry Hagan, OSB

    We did this piece for our Gaudete Sunday entrance hymn with tambourines no less. But we also did it as part of our adoration and benediction service after communion. Once a month we have adoration immediately following communion. Is this an appropriate piece to do for adoration? I can think of so many other good Catholic adoration hymns. I'm just curious as to what you think.

  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    I think that you are correct, there is much more appropriate music that should be sung and I would even choose silence over it.

    Possibly it was so successful for the entrance, they decided to do it again.

    Reminds me of a folk group in Berlin, Germany that played Leaving on a Jet Plane as the final hymn after Mass when the chaplain in the late 60's was leaving for the Us the next day for a new assignment. It went very well.

    It was the offertory the next week.
    Thanked by 2GregoryWeber Don9of11
  • GregoryWeber
    Posts: 39
    This piece?

    The poetry is rather ....

    The tune (1582) is good, and with the original Latin text or a decent translation, I think it might be a good song for adoration during Christmas season. But it depends very much on how it is arranged and sung. It needs some solemnity for adoration.
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 685
    spottedmetal, yeah that's the one. Piano, unison with tambourines in the refrain.

    noel jones, we also did the O Saultaris, Personent Hodie, Divine Praises, silence, Tantum ergo and finally Creator of the Stars of Night, but not the chant like I know from Pius X hymnal, some modernized version with something like a refrain as the last verse at the very end.

    The Personent hodie at adoration just didn't do it for me. I would have preferred Veni Jesu or Soul of My Saviour as alternatives.
    Thanked by 1noel jones, aago
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Don9of11,

    Can you define "we", who did this piece? Were you responsible for planning it, executing it, both or neither?

    I rarely find myself in complete agreement with Noel Jones, but when he says
    I think that you are correct, there is much more appropriate music that should be sung and I would even choose silence over it.


    he has hit the nail so squarely on the head that were I to disagree with him I would need to be in a state of catatonia or drunken-ness.
    Thanked by 3tomjaw Don9of11 noel jones, aago
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 685
    Chris Garton-Zavesky

    "We" would be the choir I sing with. No, I did not plan it, as a choir member I had a hand in executing it though, well from my point of view anyway. I have no objection to this piece as a whole. The choir sang this as an entrance hymn which I am fine with as good a choice as any for Gaudete Sunday. I would not have used it for adoration and I was simply interested in the forum members opinion. After all, I'm old school tenor who is still adjusting to new church music.

  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    I don't dislike Personet Hodie per se, and I used to sing it with much gusto and a strong Organ/Brass accompaniment when I sang in that choir, many moons ago. I can't square Tambourines and Guitars with Personet Hodie, and I can't square this text with anything sacred, so I stand by my original opinion: Noel is a font of wisdom (on this, if not on everything.)
    Thanked by 1Don9of11
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    I am extremely fond of Personent hodie, especially Gustav Holst's very easy arrangement found in 'Carols for Choirs'.
    However, It's use as an adoration piece would be nothing short of irreverent, if not obscene.
    I can't imagine that it would even occur to anyone.
    The text which you reference, by Harry Hagan, is rubish and has no relation to the Latin.
    Using tambourines is absolutely pagan.
    Thanked by 5tomjaw Don9of11 GregoryWeber Viola CCooze
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,372
    Musical exuberance in worship is enjoined by Psalm 150, including timbrel/tambourine. But there is a time and a place, and adoration is not that place.
    Thanked by 3Don9of11 GregoryWeber Viola
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    I am extremely fond of Personent hodie, especially Gustav Holst's very easy arrangement found in 'Carols for Choirs'.


    We will be singing this sometime over Christmas... It is one of the few secular? pieces I programme at the TLM.

    Next year St. Nicholas falls on the II Sunday of Advent, so we will sing the original words to the Holst arrangement as the recessional. We sing Polyphonic Propers that day, so there is no place to sing it during the Mass.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Regarding that Psalm CL -
    Ha! Respectfully, I begrudgingly grant you your point, Mr Hawkins. I would suggest, though, that the 'musical exuberance' of 'timbrels and dances' (as well, perhaps, as 'well-tuned cymbals' and 'loud cymbals') belongs at some celebration in the parish hall or the picnic grounds - not at Christian ritual observances.
    Thanked by 2Don9of11 CCooze
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