"Lord, you give the great commission" to Hyfrydol?
  • Nisi
    Posts: 152
    Does anyone know where I might find "Lord, you give the great commission" to Hyfrydol? I understand that this material is under copyright. Thanks!
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,473
    Lord You Give the Great Commission is copyright Hope Publishing Company.

    The rights are administered by both OneLicense.net and LicensingOnline.org (probably others as well).

    If you have a subscription to either one of those reprint-rights aggregators, you already have permission to reprint the text in worship aides for your community.

    If not, you can pay a small fee to either one for permission to do so. You could also contact Hope directly and ask.


    HYFRYDOL is public-domain, so you don't need any special permission to print it.
    --- Begin guess, which I admit could be wrong---
    But you WOULD need special permission to print LYGTGC with it.
    --- End guess ---

    (If my guess is correct...) Given how well-known and easy-to-sing HYFRYDOL is, I wouldn't take the trouble to seek this permission, but would simply print the words (with proper permission) in your program.
  • Nisi
    Posts: 152
    Thanks Adam - I was just looking for an already-typeset edition. We already have an annual OneLicense subscription. Does anyone know if this text and tune are set somewhere?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Worship III, I think?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,473
    http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/l/l520.html

    Oremus seems to think this has been done already, but provides no mention of where or by whom.
    Thanked by 1Nisi
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Sorry, Worship III is Abbott's Leigh, I think. But try googling and I think you'll find it.
    Thanked by 1Nisi
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,410
    This is sort of like wearing the same dress or the same tie that someone else is wearing, or wearing the same dress or tie to not just two social events but three or four. 'Hyfrydol' by now 'belongs' to two texts. Yes: belongs to them and none others. Using it for others is cheap, unimaginative, and demeaning to 'Hyfrydol'. 'Abbot's Leigh', likewise, seems to belong well to two or three texts, and fast becomes a ruined old hat if shot-gun wedded to too many texts. I suppose these people THINK that they are really clever by singing the great commisssion to 'Hyfrydol'... they aren't - they have decided on behalf of the people that 'Abbot's Leigh' is over the people's heads, so they will never get a chance to learn it... only to experience a fine tune like 'Hyfrydol' becoming so commonplace and old hat that one would no longer enjoy singing it. Ummm... does anyone have any ideas for an alternate text (maybe for Good Friday, or a chic social justice theme) for 'Adeste fideles'?
    Thanked by 2Gavin cesarfranck
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Jackson, ordinarily I agree with you but this is simply not true. Tunes are rarely wedded to texts. Even more so when considering the British common pairings of tune and text, often completely different from those in the US.

    There are a few tunes (Adeste Fideles) that seem "married" to a particular text. But I suggest that these are few indeed. Certainly one can't cast aspersions on the motivations of someone choosing a given pairing.
    Thanked by 4M. Jackson Osborn R J Stove E_A_Fulhorst ServiamScores
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,473
    'Hyfrydol' by now 'belongs' to two texts. Yes: belongs to them and none others.


    Come Thou Long Expected Jesus and I Will Sing the Wondrous Story, right?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,473
    Another option- NETTLETON.
    Because there are totally not enough texts that have been set to NETTLETON.
    Thanked by 1Nisi
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    The people will sing anything set to NETTLETON.

    My apartment in the city
    Is incredibally clean
    And the market is so pretty
    And the forest glen is green.
    Won't you come down for the weekend?
    Won't you visit me and stay?
    Come and visit, don't be meek, friend,
    In the city by the bay.

    Thanked by 7CHGiffen Adam Wood Richard Mix marajoy Nisi E_A_Fulhorst cesarfranck
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 903
    I don't know Kathy, I think your text works better with ABBOT'S LEIGH, I mean HYFRYDOL, I mean STUTTGART--except then you'd have to sing it through twice. :)

    I think we all get used to what is familiar, which is why one text may seem "natural" to different tunes to different people. Certainly some texts and tunes belong together like WACHET AUF, but isn't it true that most hymn texts and tunes were created interdependently of each other? And while I'm not a historian, hasn't it always been common practice to pair a new or unfamiliar next to a familiar tune for the sake of congregational singing? While Ritual Song may take this practice to the extreme with NETTLETON and BEACH SPRING (also a nice pairing for My apartment in the city!) it can be used judiciously to help the congregation. I suppose I would prefer a hymnal that at least offers more tunes for the sake of variety and then the director can decide if it is necessary to substitute a more familiar hymn tune when needed.

    As for the original question, I've never seen that pairing in print, but I have seen it set to HYMN TO JOY.
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    This is a "just sayin'" post (I am just as enamoured of that expression as the one to soon follow!)
    There are two sides to the equation of this discussion. To quote Kathy on the first, "The people will sing...." ; the other-to what tune will they sing? Which is of greater value and import assuming the text worthiness is not a concern? Obviously the former is almost a paramount concern.
    I truly sympathize with Jackson's sentiments, especially with the association of this text and ABBOT'S LEIGH. But it remains only a sentiment and not arguable to any definite end that is objectively true. We can have consensus, but not be correct.
    It strikes me that discretion in choosing the melodic vehicle for worship texts must be a two way street. Criticizing HYFRYDOL, NETTLETON, ODE TO JOY et al as ignoble for certain texts and less worthy than the associated tune can be viewed as aesthetic idolotry at worst, snobbery at best.
    OTOH, I think most of "us" here would blanch if we were coerced to sing a Marian text to NEW BRITAIN or a religious allusion to SKYE BOAT SONG. But we also have to acknowledge that many congregation's vocal cords will ne'er acclude at all should we choose EBENEZER or ENGELBERG. When we insist upon forcing such, we have, arggh, borderline "performatism" I fear.
    And then, there's the curious case of what do with JERSUSALEM in the USA....except at Walsingham....;-)

    BTW, Kathy, when are you moving back to San Francisco?
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    You'll know me by the flowers in my hair...
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,189
    Try singing "Jesus shall reign" to "Hernando's Hideaway" — for a twist.
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 903
    I still like Amazing Grace to the tune of Gilligan's Island :)
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    Or "Ghost Riders in the Sky."
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Almost all of Emily Dickinson can be sung to The Yellow Rose of Texas.

    Here is an interesting scholarly discussion of text and tune pairings http://books.google.it/books?id=Z7xLXX9uyLEC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=lutheran+chorale+long+meter&source=bl&ots=LgnewzczZ0&sig=2S1SNG5pM7bfylQkQ0MNRiiG2iQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qez7UI_oNIak4gTRq4HABg&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=lutheran chorale long meter&f=false
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • RPBurke
    Posts: 25
    When Ives wrote his prelude on Adeste Fideles, he knew the hymn as a tune for the text "How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord."
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,507
    Speaking of HYFRYDOL, can anyone provide me with 100% assurance that this harmonization is in the public domain please?
    Let-the-Earth-Acclaim-HYFRYDOL.pdf
    37K
  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 165
    Can't say for sure... BUT it's not Winfred Douglas from Hymnal 1940 (was never copyrighted), nor is it David Evans in the 1927 Church Hymnary, nor is it R. Vaughan Williams in English Hymnal 1906.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 986
    That is the harmony used in the Ignatius Pew Missal. I see no copyright attributions on it and they tend to use public domain whenever possible.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,184
    Nor is it Prichard’s original, which was for three vocal parts with the melody in the tenor, like all the hymns in Cyfaill i’r Cantorion (1844).
  • davido
    Posts: 940
    That’s an amalgamation of several harmonizations. Anyone who would try to take copyright credit for that would be a fraud.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores Joseph Michael
  • cesarfranck
    Posts: 161
    I agree with Mr Osborn. Hyfrdol has been paired too generously with various tunes. We use it with "Alleluia! Sing to Jesud" and "Love divine" very frequently in services and for funerals. There are other tunes that should be user with "Lord, you give." Abbot's Leigh I'd a wonderful tune but even in every large churches with large professional choirs, I have never heard it such with any ease or grandeur. That being stated, Hyfrydol is much over used.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    Organists love ABBOT'S LEIGH, but for many Catholic congregations it's a labored vocalise at best. I'd recommend AUSTRIA, which lapsed into under-use for decades for obvious unfortunate associations but after 80 years those associations are fading from living memory, and the tune has an unimpeachable origin in a very Catholic context and merits rescuing from its involuntary yoking to impeachable associations.
    Thanked by 1trentonjconn
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,282
    I mean that's ridiculous, and it never disappeared as a tune for the Tantum ergo, even after Austria changed its anthem, which Germany didn't even do.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    FWIW, I am not quite sure what you meant is ridiculous, but the fact of the diminished use was most definitely a longtime thing in practice (and sad). That said, I've neither heard nor seen Tantum Ergo set to AUSTRIA; if it's not the chant, when paired with a metrical hymn tune it's invariably ST THOMAS.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,282
    AUSTRIA is the norm in the Germanophone world.

    The whole thing is ridiculous — and you should just say that “the Nazis used it”. There’s no reason to beat around the bush here, but people who are offended that the tune was used for the German anthem during the Nazi period are ignorant and, yes, ridiculous, in insisting on avoiding the tune for hymns, because it’s still the German national anthem (and all that’s changed is what verses are sung), and German-speaking Catholics still use it for Benediction. I’ve even heard of it being used by the SSPX in France.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    The Nazis pilfered it from the German Empire that pilfered it from the Austro-Hungarian Empire that inherited it from the Holy Roman Empire.

    And, yes, I agree that avoidance was ridiculous, and I am trying to euthanize it by encouraging other musicians to be aware and align on that point! It's a glorious tune. (As for ODE TO JOY, it's not worth bothering with unless and until Beethoven's original rhythm is used - the single alteration to the original turns a thing of genius into something more pedestrian. Theodore Marier (1) used AUSTRIA in his hymnals, and (2) used Beethoven's original rhythm for ODE TO JOY, and congregations never had a problem singing it that way! (Perhaps less surprising when one realizes his Catholic music sensibilities had much more of a Continental (as opposed to English) foundation than was typical for other peers of his time.)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • davido
    Posts: 940
    In no way was it ridiculous to not use AUSTRIA. My grandfather used to say that Adolf Hitler stole three years of his life (18-21). He came back with health problems from standing in a foxhole full of water for three days in the Battle of the Bulge along with Lord know what psychological trauma, and had a brother who died in the service. The Nazis stole the youth and innocence of a whole generation of young Americans as well as laying waste to most of Europe.
    Only within the last few decades has the State of Israel admitted the performance of music by Richard Wagner.
    There are lots of hymn tunes, pick something else.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,460
    My mother recalled me as a two year old, sitting in an air raid shelter listening to the bombs which destroyed the house next door, and that of my mothers parents two streets away, turning to my father and saying "Naughty mans, daddy, naughty mans". It took me thirty years to overcome my aversion to the tune AUSTRIA. By which time the generation after the war was rising against all their parents were found to have done, and consequently destroying what remained of European civilization.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,282
    The problem is that the Nazis didn't write the anthem or tune, there's nothing inherently Nazi about it, and people kept using it — just because Germans and Austrians had severe blind spots about some things doesn't mean that we should be harsher than them in all cases.

    I don't care what Israel does, especially because they don't respect the liberty of the church — beyond that, I'm just going to say that people should add extra money to the collection for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land this year if your church participates on Good Friday.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    The origins of the hymn music were arguably in Catholic opposition to secular totalitarianism of its time, so its pilfering by later secular totalitarians should never be sufficient cause for its permanent "cancellation".
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,460
    As to origins, I know not, but when the text was "Unser gutte Kaiser Franz ..." I would have had no problems, and my wartime problem, which was purely emotional, has worn off.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    1797, as Napoleon was leading France's Army of Italy into the Italian peninsula against Austrian and other forces:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_erhalte_Franz_den_Kaiser
  • trentonjconn
    Posts: 620
    https://youtu.be/PXzvMF7Dx6g?si=w2Mjz9OOjBHjVy7X

    One of my favorite clips. Quite stirring, and utterly lacking in any connection to the Third Reich. It's a great tune, and it should undoubtedly see more use.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,086
    Mine too. Here's a corrected hyperlink:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXzvMF7Dx6g

    And for his mother, the late Empress-Queen Zita, 35 years ago this coming Monday:

    https://youtu.be/eBu2rx4kM7w?feature=shared&t=10
    Thanked by 1trentonjconn
Add a Comment