Worship IV: A New Easter Hymn – Text for Discussion
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    The Worship IV hymnal contains thirty-four hymns (nos. 495-528) in its “Easter” section. Earlier today Fr. Jim Chepponis, at the discussion Worship IV: What POSITIVE text changes have your found?, stated:

    Some new additions to Worship IV in the Easter section that I find particularly welcome are: If Christ Had Not Been Raised from Death (#497); Day of Delight (#499); Earth, Earth, Awake! (#504); Christ Has Risen (#505); This Is a Day of New Beginnings (#508); Rise to Sing! The Light Is Breaking (#517)


    In actuality there are even more new additions than that. Sister Delores Dufner’s “Day of Delight” is one of fifteen hymns in the Easter section of Worship IV which were not in Worship III. Nine Easter hymns in Worship III were not carried over into Worship IV: Donald Fishel’s Alleluia No. 1 (441); David Hurd’s Morning of Splendor (446); Peter Scagnelli’s Daylight Fades (448); the Taizé community’s Maranatha! Alleluia! (454); the Lundeen tr. of Exsultet iam angelica, Rejoice, Angelic Choirs (455); the alternate tune (SONNE DER GERECHTIGKEIT) version of At the Lamb’s High Feast (460 ) [only the version with SALZBURG is in W4]; the version of C. Wesley’s Christ the Lord Is Risen Today with the tune GWALCHMAI (462) [only the version with LLANFAIR is in W4]; Thomas Kelly’s The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns (464); the Berthier/Taizé community’s Christus Resurrexit (465). So that results in a net gain of 6 Easter hymns.

    “Day of Delight” joyfully expresses the Easter mystery of new life born from suffering and death. It celebrates Christian believers’ participation in the victory of Christ’s resurrection. Sister Delores has provided a listing of the Biblical sources which inspired her hymn: Psalm 30; Isaiah 25:6-10; Ezekiel 47:1-12; Malachi 3:20; John 4:7-15; 12:24; 19:34; Ephesians 5:25-27; Colossians 1:27; Revelation 22:1-17

    The tune for which this text was written, IN DIR IST FREUDE, is a favorite of organists. Previously it has been included in only one GIA hymnal, Worship II, paired with the Lindemann/Winkworth text “In Thee Is Gladness.” Sr. Delores’ text does not have the internal rhymes of the Winkworth translation.

    Day of Delight

    (Ref.) Day of delight and beauty unbounded,
    Tell the news, the gospel spread!
    Day of all wonder, day of all splendor,
    Praise Christ risen from the dead!

    1. Sing of the sun, from darkness appearing;
    sing of the seed, from barren earth greening;
    sing of creation, alleluia!
    Sing of the stream, from Jesus’ side flowing;
    sing of the saints, in water made holy;
    sing of salvation, alleluia! (R)

    2. Sing now of mourning turned into dancing;
    sing now the myst’ry, hope of our glory;
    sing with thanksgiving, alleluia!
    Sing now of fasting turned into feasting;
    sing the Lord’s favor lasting forever;
    sing, all things living, alleluia! (R)

    Text: Delores Dufner, OSB, b. 1939, © 2011, GIA Publications, Inc.
    All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of GIA Publications.
    Tune: IN DIR IST FREUDE, 10 10 9 D with refrain (10 7 10 7; Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, c. 1554-1609


  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    That is very repetitive.
    Also, it has the same words over and over.

    And it's repetitive.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    It doesn't say anything new, does it?

    Verse 1
    Lines 1-3, Now the Green Blade Rises
    Lines 4-6, At the Lamb's High Feast

    Verse 2
    I like the way fasting is echoed in the next line: favor lasting. Otherwise it seems written just so we have a verse 2.

    Refrain
    The only rhyme is forced, needing a non-characteristic English word order (inversion) to sort of jerryrig it in there.

    I kind of wish you wouldn't keep posting silly ones, like fish in a barrel. It's sort of painful to do this in public.



  • Fr. Jim Chepponis
    Posts: 220
    The repetition makes the verses a kind of litany.

    I think it would be interesting to have the verses sung in the following manner:
    Female cantor or S/A: Sing of the sun, from darkness appearing;
    Male cantor or T/B: sing of the seed, from barren earth greening;
    Both cantors or SATB: sing of creation, alleluia!

    This pattern (or an adaptation of it) could be repeated for each section of three phrases on the verses.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    So you want the PIPS to FCAP by listening?
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Fr. Jim Chepponis
    Posts: 220
    So you want the PIPS to FCAP by listening?
    Why not?! But I envision the PIPS would sing the refrain on this piece.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    Fr. Chepponis,

    I do that sort of arrangement with Mary the Dawn. But that is a genius text. This is not.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    I kind of wish you wouldn't keep posting silly ones

    Well, Kathy, that's the problem. I think it's not in the least bit silly.

    And I don't think the "sing's" come across as boring repetition either.

    And my parish in Lubbock, TX, sang "In Thee Is Gladness" (from Worship II) a couple of times each Easter season until I finally tired of the forced perfect rhymes. (And I think Catherine Winkworth is the person responsible for giving every "Glory and Praise" musician the wonderful and memorable rhyme of "glory" and "story.")
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    I think it's not in the least bit silly.

    And I don't think the "sing's" come across as boring repetition either.

    Yes. This is the problem that this entire series of threads has been about.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    So you want the PIPS to FCAP by listening?

    Why not?!

    Exactly.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I'm astounded and pleased to hear that Fr. Krisman's church sings "In dir ist Freude"! Wonderful!
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    I'm astounded and pleased to hear that Fr. Krisman's church sings "In dir ist Freude"! Wonderful!

    Sang, Gavin, sang - until they traded in the Worship II hymnals for Worship III hymnals, the latter of which they used for 26 years until they replaced them with Worship IV hymnals.

    Sorry, but I did not check with the music director there at the now-cathedral in Lubbock to find out whether they used "Day of Delight" during the just-concluded Easter season.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,933
    I still have some Worship II hymnals - fine hymnal. But only the choir sings from it now, and the books are getting a bit worn.
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    I think it's a okay text. Let's see, what do I like about it?

    1. I like the litanic quality imparted by the repetition. Limiting it to two verses was wise; any more would push it too far. A little bit of sing-songiness is fine, too, in expressing the overflowing paschal joy of Easter. Not everything has to sound like Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. I had to look up IN DIR IST FREUDE, but it seems like a great pairing for this text, and for Easter in general.

    2. I like that the first verse tells the story of creation and salvation history in miniature: the sun (cosmic creation), the seed (Christ made man), water flowing from Jesus' side (the Passion), and baptism and the saints (the life of the Church).

    3. I like the implied connection between the water that flowed from Jesus' side and the "water made holy" of our baptism.

    What don't I like?

    1. I'm kind of tired of songs about singing. It amazes you, once you start to look, just how many songs there are about singing (and songwriting), how many plays about playwriting, how many musicals about putting on a musical, etc.

    2. Here we have three more cases of the throat-clearing, meter-filling "now."

    3. I would have reversed "sing with thanksgiving" and "sing, all things living." "Thanksgiving" seems like a concept that more naturally follows "the Lord's favor lasting forever.

    4. Now that I think of it, "sing, all things living" isn't really a good fit for this hymn. It belongs in the kind of hymn that talks about animals, plants, mountains, and all creation praising the Lord. This isn't that kind of hymn: this hymn is very specifically about human salvation history. "All things living" takes a very different thematic tack, and perhaps for that reason seems especially hung out to dry when it stands as the last line of the hymn.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    2. Here we have three more cases of the throat-clearing, meter-filling "now."

    I'm glad to see Mark noting this problem, which is a pandemic these days.
    Thanked by 2MarkThompson canadash
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    which is a pandemic these days. now

    fixed
    Thanked by 3MarkThompson Kathy Heath
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    1. I'm kind of tired of songs about singing. It amazes you, once you start to look, just how many songs there are about singing (and songwriting), how many plays about playwriting, how many musicals about putting on a musical, etc.


    Absolutely! I agree with that 100%

    It's good to make forum posts like this: isn't this the sort of thoughtful detailed consideration that can shed light on a question? Yes: let's take inspiration from all the good posts on the forum, and carry the task onward with our own written contributions. (Oh, dear, this is turning into a post about posting.) -- But, seriously, Mark has mentioned a point that I've noticed too: the self-referential phenomenon of songs about singing.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    While Kathy and Mark are both correct that "now" (and "here" as well) are often throw-away monosyllables in hymn texts, filling out the meter, marking time, if you will, the "now's" in Sr. Delores' second verse serve to propel the verse along. The joyful tune serves to get us all in the mood to celebrate the many wonders of God's creation and redemption.

    Both creation and redemption are part of salvation history. And, yes, all creation, not just human beings, are redeemed in Christ, so I think it's quite OK for the text to say that all things living join in praising God.

    Sr. Delores' text wants to celebrate the totality of creation and redemption, as we attempt to celebrate all of it at the Easter vigil. This is the ultimate "catalog aria." There is just so much that invites our attention: we are like kids in a well stocked candy shop. The text points us here, then there, now over to that aspect. Take this in, now consider this. It's all so wonderful.

    That's what I experience with this text. It's a paeon of praise for God's love in creating and redeeming us. I want to scream for joy.
  • MHIMHI
    Posts: 324
    .
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    Intransitively. I know it sounds like could have been a neologism, but here is the OED:
    Green v1. intr. To become green, as growing herbage; occas. to appear or look green; to become covered with verdure, to be ‘clothed’ with green. (Also with over.)

    References go back to the year 1000.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    I'm finding more and more that what people consider improper or bad grammar (and often assigned to "these days" when things are so much "worse") is actually perfectly acceptable grammar that has gone out of fashion with the educated.

    For example, I just learned that "ain't" (originally spelled an't, but pronounced the same) as once perfectly acceptable for "am not," as in "I ain't going to using words like ain't in any of my hymns." (Perhaps its extension to second and third person was the impetus for its decline.)

    Anywho....
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 890
    What about all the hymns about dancing? There are quite a few. Or does that need it's own post? Shall we dance?
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 890
    Stay tuned...ain't got time for that now...
  • MHIMHI
    Posts: 324
    .
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