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

Whose Glories Now We Sing

OK, here we go -- the previously unrevealed Number Seven on the top ten list I submitted to the survey at Semicolon. Numbers 82 - 100 have been counted down thus far, and I feel fairly certain that this one will yet make the list. It's also on the list submitted by Leland (he ranked it at Number Six), so at least two of us voted for it. However, like many other hymns presented here, it won't be quite the way you remember it.

Crown thee with many crowns,
The Lamb upon the throne;
Hark how the heav'nly anthem drowns
All music but its own;
Our souls awake to sing
Sweet praises unto thee,
To hail thee, voices echoing
Through all eternity.

Crown thee the Child of God
Before the worlds began,
Who know'st the paths that we have trod,
According to God's plan;
Who ev'ry grief hath known
That wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for thine own
That all in thee may rest.

Crown thee the God of life
Who triumphed o'er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those thou cam'st to save;
Whose glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

Crown thee the God of years,
The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime;
Glass'd in a sea of light,
Whose everlasting waves
Reflect thy throne -- the Infinite!
Who lives and loves and saves,.

Crown thee the God of peace,
Whose pow'r a sceptre sways
From pole to pole that wars may cease,
Absorbed in prayer and praise;
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For thou dost live in me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail
Throughout eternity.

Crown thee the God of heav'n,
Enthroned in worlds above;
Crown thee the One to whom is giv'n
The wondrous name of Love;
Crown thee with many crowns
As thrones before thee fall;
We crown thee, Christ, with many crowns,
Who rulest over all.

Matthew Bridges, 1851 and Godfrey Thring, 1874; alt.
Tune: DIADEMATA (S.M.D.)
George Job Elvey, 1868

This is a composite version of this hymn that merges verses by two different writers. The original version in six verses was by Matthew Bridges, published in the second edition of his collection Hymns for the Heart (1851). Bridges was originally an Anglican, but converted to Roman Catholicism as a young man. It may be for that reason that Godfrey Thring was asked some years later to revise the hymn. He wrote a number of other verses, which first appeared in Church Hymns (1874) and Thring's own Church of England Hymnbook (1882). Since that time many different hymnals have used verses from both versions, always beginning with Bridges' first verse (Thring's opening verse began Crown him with crowns of gold), though there are still hymnals which use only Bridges' verses. Most modern hymnals (nearly all of which still include this hymn, as you'd probably guess) use only four or five verses, but we wanted at least six.

George Elvey composed DIADEMATA, certainly one reason for the continued popularity of this hymn, for the Bridges text in the 1868 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Paul Gerhardt

Paul Gerhardt (March 12, 1607 - June 7, 1676) was the first significant Lutheran hymnwriter after Martin Luther. Born in Germany near Wittenburg, he studied theology at the university there for several years during the Thirty Years War.

He began writing verse a few years after leaving his studies. His first eight hymns were published by Johann Cruger in his hymnal Praxis Pietatis Melica (1647). In 1651 Gerhardt was ordained in the Lutheran church and served several congregations. In Berlin, religious tensions were so high that pastors were forbidden by law to refer to doctrinal differences in their sermons. Gerhardt refused to comply and was dismissed from his job there.

In succeeding editions of Cruger's hymnal, more and more of Gerhardt's hymns were published. His hymns were known for their personal testimony and connection to Lutheran theology, as opposed to Luther's more doctrinal texts. Eventually he wrote more than 130 and many of them are still known today (not only in Lutheran churches). He also translated Latin hymns into German, the most well known being O sacred head, sore wounded.

Give to the winds your fears,
Hope and be undismayed.
God hears your sighs and counts your tears,
God shall lift up your head.
Through waves and clouds and storms,
God gently clears the way;
Wait for God's time; at last shall come
The perfect, promised day.

Still heavy is your heart?
Still sinks your spirit down?
Cast off the weight, let fear depart
And every care begone.
God everywhere has sway
And all things serve the right;
God's every act pure blessing is,
God's path life-giving light.

Far, far above all thought,
God's counsel shall appear,
When fully God the work has wrought,
That caused your needless fear.
Leave to God's sovereign will
To choose and to command;
With wonder filled, you then shall own
How wise, how strong God's hand.

Paul Gerhardt, 1656;
tr. John Wesley, 1737; alt.
Tune: DIADEMATA (S.M.D.)
George J. Elvey, 1868

P.S. For more on John Wesley (and his brother Charles), go back to March 3 for a "new" entry that I started on that day but didn't finish due to illness. Spent a few days in bed last week with bronchitis but I did want to get back to the Wesleys again at some point. (and there's a very important hymn!)

One Year Ago: Gregory the Great