John Goss (Day Three)

English composer and church musician John Goss was born today in 1800, in Hampshire.  His father was an organist and John would have a long career in the same profession.  As a child, he went to live with an uncle in London who was "an alto singer of distinction" and he became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, where he sang under John Stafford Smith (best known as the composer of The Anacreontic Song, the tune of which would later cross the ocean to be matched with The Star Spangled Banner).  After his voice changed, he began to study composition with Thomas Attwood, organist at St. Paul's Cathedral. He also sang tenor briefly with the opera chorus at Covent Garden.

His first organist position began in 1821 at the Stockwell Chapel. In December 1824 he was appointed to be the first organist at St. Luke's in Chelsea after winning a competition.  While there he published Parochial Psalmody (1826), a four-volume collection of tunes for the psalm paraphrases and hymns used in most Anglican churches of the day.

His mentor Thomas Attwood died in 1838, and Goss became organist at St. Paul's, where he would stay until retiring in 1872.  He also had a long tenure (47 years) as Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music.  In 1841 he published Chants Ancient and Modern, which contained 257 chant settings for the Psalms (and makes you wonder if the title inspired the committee which brought out a certain hymnal in the next decade).  He collaborated with James Turle, organist at Westminster Abbey, on the three-volume Cathedral Services Ancient and Modern (1846), and was the musical editor for the Church Psalter and Hymn Book (1856). All of these books were influential in the development of church music in England in the middle of the nineteeth century.

Goss's own compositions were primarily for the church, encompassing chants, anthems, services, and, of course, hymn tunes. In 1856 he was appointed composer at the Chapel Royal where his musical career had started. He was knighted in 1872 following his composition of a Te Deum and the anthem The Lord is my strength for the occasion of a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul's for the restored health of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).

As we are in the middle of another Twelve Days of Christmas here, we have today a tune usually credited to Goss and a text by William Walsham How (which strays a bit beyond Christmas, admittedly). ARTHUR'S SEAT by Goss seems to have first appeared in the American collection Hymns and Songs of Praise for Public Worship (1874). The musical editors of this book were John Knowles Paine and Uzziah C. Burnap, and in a later hymnal, the tune is credited to Goss and to Burnap as arranger. Where this melody appears in the works of Goss has not yet been identified, though the tune appears in many hymnals, up to the present, with Goss listed as composer.

Behold a little child, laid in a manger bed;
The wintry blasts blow wild around his infant head;
But who is this so lowly laid?
’Tis Christ by whom the worlds were made.

Alas! in what poor state the Child of God is seen;
Why did our God so great choose out a home so mean?
That we may learn from pride to flee,
And follow Christ's humility.

Where Joseph plies his trade, there Jesus labors, too;
The hands that all things made an earthly craft pursue,
That weary souls in him may rest,
And faithful toil through Christ be blessed.

Christ, once thyself a boy, our lifelong guard and guide;
Be thou its light and joy, and still with us abide,
That thy dear love, so great and free,
May draw us evermore to thee.

William Walsham How, 1872; alt.
Tune: ARTHUR'S SEAT (6.6.8.6.8.10.)
John Goss, 19th cent;
arr. Uzziah C. Burnap, 1874

Arthur's Seat is actually a mountain in Edinburgh, but no one knows why this tune was named for it.

John Goss died on May 10, 1880 and was buried at St. Paul's. Most of his compositions, like those of his Victorian contemporaries, have not survived well, except for a few anthems, chants, and hymn tunes.  He is described in the (Episcopal) Hymnal 1940 Companion as "no exceptional genius, but a sincere and skillful craftsman, writing solidly and well for the voice." Trevor Beeson's book In Tuneful Accord (2008), a study of Anglican church musicians and composers, admits that "It is possible, however, that some good parish church choirs view his work more favourably."




Eight Years Ago: John Goss


(Also) Eight Years Ago: Saint John the Evangelist

Seven Years Ago: Saint John the Evangelist

(Also) Seven Years Ago: Shepherds rejoice! life up your eyes

Four Years Ago: Saint John the Evangelist (and a tune by Goss)

One Year Ago: Above all the roar of the cities

(Also) One Year Ago: Saint John the Evangelist

Edward J. Hopkins

Composer Edward John Hopkins, born today in 1818, is known for his long tenure (fifty-five years!) as organist and music director at the Temple Church in London.   His first organist position was at a church in Surrey, in 1834, and after a few other posts he came to the Temple Church in 1843.

He described the choir he found there on arrival: 

When I first went (to the Temple) there were only two ladies and two gentlemen in the choir, and they used to sing in the organ gallery. The curtain would be drawn aside for a few minutes, the singers would sing, and everyone would turn west to look at them; then the curtain was banged to with a rattle of brass rings. What queer ideas they had of music and organists in those days.

As it happened, others at the church were also interested in improving the choir, though it would be another year before Hopkins was given control over the choir and the music.  Before long, the Temple Church and its choir of boys and men was known as a model for other churches in the choral services which were becoming popular in the Church of England. In 1869 Hopkins even published The Temple Church Choral Service Book, which remained in print for many years.

Few of Hopkins's hymn tunes are familiar today, but this one seems usable to me.  The text is a partial paraphrase of Psalm 77, one of the appointed psalms for today in the Revised Common Lectionary.

Thy deeds, O God, will I relate
And on thy wonders meditate;
Thy way, O God, is just and right,
None other is like thee in might.

Among the nations thou hast shown
Thy wondrous power and made it known;
Thou art the God that mightily
Redeemed and set thy people free.

At sight of thee the waters fled,
The quaking clouds their torrents shed,
The lightnings flashed, the thunder pealed,
The trembling earth its fear revealed.

Thy way, O God, was in the sea,
But, though thy paths mysterious be,
Thy people thou didst safely keep
As shepherds lead their wan'dring sheep.

The Psalter, 1912; alt.
Tune: SHROPSHIRE (L.M.)
Edward J. Hopkins, 1844

Now, Hopkins and his choir would have been more likely to sing Psalm 77 to Anglican chant, perhaps to one of the several chants also written by Hopkins (one of which you can see and listen to here).

On Sunday, May 8, 1898, Hopkins marked his final service at the Temple Church.  All of the music sung by the choir that day was composed by him.  Nearly three years later he died, only two weeks after the death of Queen Victoria.

Five Years Ago:  Edward J. Hopkins

Three Years Ago: Edward J. Hopkins

Sir Frederick A. Gore Ouseley

His full title was actually The Reverend Canon Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, Bart., and his birthday is today (born in 1825).  As I've written before, he was a musically precocious child who composed an opera at age eight.  Even earlier, at age five he reportedly observed that "Papa blows his nose in G!".

In spite of this early ability in music, he did not initially pursue formal training in composition.  Following his college education he was ordained in the Church of England in 1849 and only after that did he study for a Doctor of Music degree at Oxford, graduating in 1854.  Probably due to his first calling to the priesthood, his music was limited to sacred themes: anthems, two oratorios, service music and Anglican chants, and, of course, hymn tunes.  In his day, hymn tunes arranged from secular melodies were much more popular than they are today, and he wrote of them with disapproval:

"How can they result in aught but the disgust and discouragement of all musical churchmen, the misleading of the unlearned, the abasement of sacred song, the falsification of public taste, and (last, but not least) the dishonour of our God and his worship?"

Today's tune by Ouseley is perhaps in a style that is not always popular today (some musicians really dislike so-called "waltz tunes" but that can have more to do with how you play them than any deficiency in the tune itself).

There’s not a tint that paints the rose,
Or decks the lily fair,
Or streaks the humblest flow'r that blows,
But God has placed it there.

There’s not of grass a single blade,
Or leaf of loveliest green,
Where heav’nly skill is not displayed,
And heav’nly wisdom seen.

There’s not a star whose twinkling light
Shines on the distant earth
And cheers the silent gloom of night,
But God has giv'n it birth.

There’s not a place on earth’s vast round
In ocean deep, or air,
Where skill and wisdom are not found,
For God is everywhere.

Around, beneath, below, above,
As far as space extends,
Is God, the source of boundless love,
Whose pow'r with mercy blends.

James Cowden Wallace, 1825; alt.
Tune: CONTEMPLATION (C.M.)
Frederick A. Gore Ouseley, 19th cent.

I have used a few other tunes by Ouseley (click on his name in the tags below), but he is not well-loved by modern hymnal editors.  A new feature at Hymnary.org charts the prevalence of hymnal appearances for authors and composers, and you can see his decline (but, to be fair, most of his contemporaries chart similarly).

His more lasting legacy has been in the area of Anglican cathedral music standards.  Ouseley single-handedly founded a choir school , the College of St. Michael and All Angels in 1856 in Tenbury.  He intended for the school to set high standards and to serve as an example for others, and the effort was highly regarded over the next century.  When the school was finally forced to close in 1985 for financial reasons, the assets from the sale of the property were preserved as the Ouseley Trust, which still awards grants each year to support church music programs in England, Wales, and Ireland.



Four Years Ago: Joseph Barnby

Three Years Ago: Frederick A. Gore Ouseley

Two Years Ago: Joseph Barnby

Another Birthday Today: Katharine Lee Bates

Edward J. Hopkins

Composer and organist Edward J. Hopkins (1819 - 1901) was born in London on this day. At age eight he became a chorister at the Chapel Royal, where the boys received a solid overall musical education as well as instruction in singing (several composers already mentioned here began as choristers there). By the time he was fourteen he was playing the organ for services at Westminster Abbey, supervised by James Turle, the Abbey's organist and music director, who gave Hopkins a strong recommendation two years later when he gained his first organist position at Mitcham Church in Surrey.

After a few similar positions, in 1843 he came to the Temple Church in London, where his official title was Organist to the Honorable Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple. He was to remain there for fifty-five years until his retirement (he had stopped playing solo organ recitals two years earlier, on his seventy-eighth birthday). The Temple Church was known during his time for its excellent music, including the choir's singing of the psalms to Anglican chant, which the Guardian newspaper recommended to any listener, who would "hear every word distinctly pronounced, every sentence clearly and reverently enunciated," with no "slovenly hurrying or clipping of words, but all as it should be."

In 1867 Hopkins published his first hymnbook, the Temple Choral Service-Book (still in print), which contained several of his hymn tunes and arrangements as well as service music and chants. An extensive and favorable review appeared in The Church Chronicle, which concluded, with typical British understatement, "we cordially commend it to our readers' notice." Hopkins went on to serve as editor for three more major collections, The Free Church Hymn Book for the Church of Scotland, Church Praise (1882) for the Presbyterian Church of England, and the Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church of Canada.

The Cyber Hymnal link above only allows you to hear a handful of his tunes. At Hymnary.org they list many more (though some of those are probably the same tune under a different name). Closer to his own time, his tunes were described as "melodious in a most winsome way" and "worth a place in any hymnal." We have already heard three of his tunes here: ELLERS, the most familiar and long-lived, as well as CULFORD and NUKAPU. This tune, ST. HUGH, first appeared in R.R. Chope's Congregational Tune-Book (1862 ed.) where it was matched with the text There is a fountain filled with blood, but I think it suits this text by Frederick L. Hosmer as well.

One thought I have, my ample creed,
So deep it is and broad,
And equal to my every need -—
It is the thought of God.

Each morn unfolds some fresh surprise,
I feast at life’s full board;
And rising in my inner skies
Shines forth the thought of God.

I ask not far before to see,
But take in trust my road;
Life, death, and immortality
Are in my thought of God.

To this their secret strength they owed
The martyr’s path who trod;
The fountains of their patience flowed
From out their thought of God.

Be still the light upon my way,
My pilgrim staff and rod,
My rest by night, my strength by day
O blessèd thought of God.

Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1880
Tune: ST. HUGH (C.M.)
Edward J. Hopkins, 1862

There was apparently a posthumous collection of the hymn tunes of Hopkins, which I did not know two years ago when writing about him, but the reference does not mention how many tunes were included. Some continued to be used in hymnals well into the twentieth century, particularly ELLERS, and those hymnals which still include Anglican chant may have one or more by him.

As I always have to note for all these Victorian composers, Hopkins' popularity has faded over time. There is no Wikipedia entry for him, nor has anyone added his hymn tunes or anthems to the Choral Public Domain Library, unlike the music of many of his contemporaries. However, his tune OUNDLE, arranged from a melody of Orlando Gibbons, appears in the newish Harvard Univerity Hymn Book (2007), possibly more than an century after its last appearance anywhere. And just a week and a half ago, the choir of All Saints Episcopal Church in Mobile, AL sang his anthem How like a gentle Spirit (I have to note that a congregation that still sings six hymns during the summer is commendable, though I suspect they have air conditioning). So, you never know what might happen. His music is still out there, perhaps somewhat buried, waiting for someone to take an interest and dust it off.


Two Years Ago: Edward J. Hopkins

The Feast of the Visitation

Today marks the commemoration of the Visitation, the story told in Luke 1:39-56 of Mary's visit to Elizabeth that ends with the famous song we know as the Magnificat.

The Magnificat has been sung throughout history, though mostly in basic prose translations. It is a part of the Matins liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Vespers (sometimes called Evening Prayer or Evensong) in the Western Church. Hundreds of musical settings (if not more) have been composed, a fraction of which you can see at the ChoralWiki, and it has also been sung to simpler Anglican chant.

Most modern commentary on the Magnificat emphasizes the revolutionary theme of the text, how God will turn things upside down, raising up the fallen and casting down the oppressive powers of the world. This has inspired contemporary hymnwriters such as Timothy Dudley-Smith, in his hymn Tell out, my soul, which appears in many newer hymnals, and Miriam Therese Winter, in My soul gives glory to my God.

The earliest metrical version which was sung as a hymn may be this one from the Scottish Psalter of 1650 (slightly adapted).

My soul and spirit, filled with joy,
My God and Savior praise,
Whose goodness did from poor estate
This humble servant raise.

Me blessed of God, the God of might,
All ages shall proclaim;
From age to age God's mercy lasts,
And holy is God's name.

A pow'rful arm th'Almighty showed;
The proud God's looks abased;
God cast the mighty to the ground,
The meek to honor raised.

The hungry with good things were filled,
the rich with hunger pined;
God sent to blessed Israel help,
And mercy called to mind.

Which to our forebears' ancient race
God's promise did ensure,
To Abraham and Sarah's line,
Forever to endure.

Scottish Psalter, 1650; alt.
Tune: MAGNIFY (C.M.)
Calvin W. Laufer, 20th cent.

This tune by Calvin Laufer (with a rather appropriate name) was not actually written for this text, but for one he wrote, O magnify the Lord with me.

Two Years Ago: The Feast of the Visitation

George Job Elvey

Composer and organist George Job Elvey was born today in 1816. He was a boy chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, going on to study at the Royal College of Music. At seventeen he took his first post as an organist, serving at a few parishes until 1835, when he was appointed to serve at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, where he remained for nearly fifty years as organist and choirmaster. Several other future organists and composers were his students at St. George's, including C.H.H. Parry.

As organist at St. George's he also held the official post of Organist to the Queen. In this capacity he came into contact with various members of the British royal family, even teaching composition to the Queen's consort, Prince Albert (who later wrote a few hymn tunes himself). Many of Elvey's sacred choral works were composed for royal occasions such as weddings or funerals, and he was knighted in 1871 following his Festival March for the wedding of Princess Louise. (As a letter-writer to the Musical Times noted some years later, his knighthood came at the age of fifty-five, coincidentally LV in Roman numerals)

He was a great admirer of Handel, even naming his youngest son (born after he was sixty) George Frederick Handel Elvey. His choirs often sang Handel's anthems and choruses, and he also conducted the oratorios at large festivals, his last being a performance of Messiah less than a year before his death in 1893.

Elvey's own works included nearly fifty anthems, two oratorios, numerous settings of service music and Anglican chant, and, of course, several hymn tunes. His oratorio Mount Carmel was followed very soon after by Mendelssohn's Elijah, dealing largely with the same Biblical story. Elvey acknowledged the superiority of the latter, and Mount Carmel was never published, though portions of it continued to be performed at St. George's and elsewhere. His other oratorio, The Resurrection and Ascension, was more popular in its day, though unknown in our time.

Elvey is remembered today primarily for some of his chant settings and two very popular hymn tunes which we have already seen: DIADEMATA (here and here) and ST. GEORGE'S WINDSOR. This tune also remains in a few hymnals, though far fewer than the other two.

Strong Son of God, Immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Christ, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850
Tune: ST. CRISPIN (L.M.)
George J. Elvey, 1863

Elvey wrote this tune for Charlotte Elliot's Just as I am, without one plea which we saw last week, in A Selection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes (1863) which was compiled by one of his former students, E.H. Thorne. It was sung at Elvey's funeral following his death on December 9, 1893.

Elvey's fourth wife, Mary, (he outlived the other three) wrote a memoir, Life and Reminiscences of George J. Elvey (1894). It's a little confusing because she referred to all the other wives (and herself) simply as "Mrs. Elvey," so you read more than once about Mrs. Elvey's death(s). Also, for some reason, she did not include his hymn tunes in the listing of his compositions, so it's hard to tell just how many there are, though I have definitely found more than are listed at the Cyber Hymnal site. Perhaps this excerpt from a letter he wrote, reproduced from the memoir, gives a little sense of Elvey's personality.

I have been asked to arrange my anthem "Praise the Lord" for instruments, for a choir festival at Brecon, and among the list of instruments I am to write for is the euphonium. I have not the least idea what sort of instrument it is, but it is, I believe, used in military bands. What I want to know is, whether it plays tenor or bass parts, and also, whether I must write for it in the proper key, or whether transposition is necessary, and, if so, what key I ought to put the instrument in? I do not intend to transpose the whole of my anthem for the convenience of Mr Euphonium; so, if he cannot play like a good Christian in D, I shall dispense with his services.

One Year Ago: George Matheson

Another Birthday Today: Emma Ashford

The Feast of All Saints

This year All Saints' Day falls on a Sunday, meaning that it may be celebrated in more churches than usual (though many places simply observe it on the Sunday nearest November 1). This hymn will undoubtedly be sung by many congregations around the world today, probably as the opening hymn of the service. My own choir will sing this in the “long procession,” the figure-eight path around the sanctuary reserved for special occasions, so it's good this hymn is a long one. In An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (2002), editor J.R. Watson says: The hymn's length is there for a purpose; it allows the mind to dwell on the arduous struggle and its final end in glory.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in their loneliness, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The host of glory passes on its way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
They sing to Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

William Walsham How, 1864; alt.
Tune: SINE NOMINE (10.10.10.4.4.)
Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

This hymn by William Walsham How first appeared in an 1864 collection called Hymns for Saints' Days, and Other Hymns by a Layman (the layman was Horatio Bolton Nelson, not How, who was then a priest and later a bishop in the Church of England). There are three additional stanzas (originally the third, fourth, and fifth) which are not often printed in modern hymnals.

For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Though this hymn is generally linked with All Saints' Day it has also been sung on individual saints' days. In some early printings of the hymn, instructions indicated that one of these three stanzas could be sung depending on the status (Apostle, Evangelist, Martyr) of the saint being commemorated.

How's text first appeared with music in the Sarum Hymnal (1868), where, as I've mentioned before, it was matched to a tune by Joseph Barnby, also called SARUM, which survived well into the twentieth century. Church Hymns (1874), interestingly, sets it to an Anglican chant tune. Charles Villiers Stanford wrote the tune ENGELBERG for this text in the 1904 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which might have caught on, but two years later, Ralph Vaughan Williams's tune SINE NOMINE appeared in his English Hymnal. SINE NOMINE (literally, “without a name”) is thought to suggest the thousands of saints whose names are unknown to us.

SINE NOMINE did not catch on immediately, but by the mid-twentieth century it had generally come to be considered the standard tune for this hymn. Hymns Ancient and Modern resisted the trend, perhaps seeing The English Hymnal as their primary competitor, and matched For all the saints with four different tunes in their 1950 edition (including ENGELBERG and SARUM) but not with SINE NOMINE! However, by 1983, when their New Standard edition was published they finally conceded and used the Vaughan Williams tune, with no alternate suggestions.


One Year Ago: The Feast of All Saints

Sir Frederick A. Gore Ouseley

Composer Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley (August 12, 1825 - April 6, 1889) was born in London, the son of a baronet. His interest in music began at an early age; he reportedly wrote an opera, L'isola disabitata (The Uninhabited Island) at the age of eight. He attended university at Christ Church, Oxford, eventually receiving a doctorate in music. He was ordained in the Church of England, and later served parishes while also gaining the position of professor of music at Oxford, and succeeding to his father's title.

When the choir of men and boys was disbanded at St. Barnabas Church, where he had briefly served as curate, he brought the boys together again and established a choir school at his own expense, where they received a general education as well as a musical one. He then built the church of St. Michael and All Angels in Tenbury on his own property, and joined the school (which he now named St. Michael's College) to that parish. Composer John Stainer, Ouseley's most renowned student, was the college organist for a few years. Ouseley established an extensive one-of-a-kind musical library there; the collection was transferred to the Bodleian Library at Oxford following the school's closing in 1985.

Ouseley became a prolific church composer, producing eleven morning and evening services, more than seventy anthems (O Saviour of the world being perhaps the longest-lived), numerous Anglican chants, and two oratorios; Hagar (1873) and The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp (1854). Naturally, he also composed several hymn tunes as well. His books on harmony, counterpoint, and musical form remained in print for many years.

Like most of his contemporaries, his music is not sung much in modern times; though several pieces are scattered across many CD collections of English church music I don't know of any discs devoted solely to him. This tune probably hasn't appeared in many hymnals in the last hundred years, though it is in the Standard Edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern (1916) which is still in print.

Spirit of mercy, truth and love,
O shed your influence from above,
And still from age to age convey
The wonders of this sacred day.

In every clime, by every tongue,
Be God’s amazing glory sung;
Let all the listening earth be taught
The wonders by our Savior wrought.

Unfailing Comfort, heavenly Guide,
Still o’er your holy church preside;
May humankind your blessings prove,
Spirit of mercy, truth and love.

London Foundling Hospital Collection, 1774
Tune: SHARON (L.M.)
Frederick A. Gore Ouseley, 1875

This hymn text by an unknown author is often sung to the somewhat dreary tune MELCOMBE, by Samuel Webbe, but I think SHARON is an improvement.

A biography of Ouseley was published in 1896 which contained a fairly extensive bibliography of his published musical works, but it was admitted that since he often composed pieces at the request of various publications and gave them away in manuscript, no complete listing was possible.

One Year Ago: Sir Joseph Barnby

Maundy Thursday

'Tis midnight, and on Olive's brow
The star is dimmed that lately shone;
'Tis midnight, in the garden now,
The suffering Savior prays alone.

'Tis midnight, and from all removed,
The Savior wrestles lone with fears;
E'en that disciple Jesus loved
Heeds not the savior's grief and tears.

'Tis midnight, and for others' guilt
The dear Redeemer weeps for love;
Yet all that have in anguish knelt
Are not forsaken by our God.

'Tis midnight, and from heav'nly plains
Is borne the song that angels know;
Unheard by mortals are the strains
That sweetly soothe the Savior's woe.

William B. Tappan, 1822; alt.
Tune: OLIVE'S BROW (L.M.)
William B. Bradbury, 1853

I miss this hymn very much but the Episcopalians don't use it. Though it's a thoroughly American hymn, both text and tune, I do wonder whether Bradbury wrote the tune with Anglican chant in mind. Each line has repeated notes at the beginning (slight variation on the fourth), then three moving chords at the end. Not quite chant set to meter, but suggestive perhaps?

Thanks to the William Bs (Tappan and Bradbury) for a memorable hymn.

Weather Report

Our church choir is singing Evensong at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City this Sunday evening at 6:00 pm. Big place. Not so big that it might have its own weather system to be reported, but if it did, it might sound something like this:

Weather Report ala Cathedral

In a similar vein, if you should have some need to learn about the Traffic Code in England, this might be a good way to do so.

Some background here.

Yes, I know these have probably been all over the internets by now, but they are new to me.