Music for All Saints' Day

One of the lovely things about All Saints' Day is that its imagery and music are so deeply familiar; it's a little like Christmas, in that as the feast approaches you already know what you're going to encounter, and can look forward to it.  But unlike Christmas, with its never-ending wealth of poetry and hymns, All Saints' Day has a fairly small range of material - almost all of it wonderful, but all very familiar.  And so this introduction is by way of apology (but not really) for posting such famous hymns today; they're just so good, and I like them so much that I could sing them every day without getting tired.  And we only get to sing them in one season of the year, so I have to make the most of it!

And thus:



Who are these like stars appearing,
These, before God’s throne who stand?
Each a golden crown is wearing;
Who are all this glorious band?
Alleluia! Hark, they sing,
Praising loud their heavenly King.

Who are these of dazzling brightness,
These in God’s own truth arrayed,
Clad in robes of purest whiteness,
Robes whose lustre ne’er shall fade,
Ne’er be touched by time’s rude hand?
Whence come all this glorious band?

These are they who have contended
For their Saviour’s honour long,
Wrestling on till life was ended,
Following not the sinful throng;
These who well the fight sustained,
Triumph through the Lamb have gained.

These are they whose hearts were riven,
Sore with woe and anguish tried,
Who in prayer full oft have striven
With the God they glorified;
Now, their painful conflict o’er,
God has bid them weep no more.

These, like priests, have watched and waited,
Offering up to Christ their will;
Soul and body consecrated,
Day and night to serve Him still:
Now in God’s most holy place
Blest they stand before His face.


This is Frances Cox's translation of a German hymn, 'Wer sind die vor Gott­es Throne'; if this is indeed the German text, her version is quite a free one. Frances Cox was born in 1812 and lived all her life in Oxford; I just had some fun looking up her different addresses in the city, and found that she lived at one point in a house which is now part of St Hilda's College, and at another time in the Iffley Road; in 1861 she was living here, and is mentioned in that link as one of the 'three spinster daughters' of George Valentine Cox.  Surely Frances deserves to be named, for this hymn if nothing else...

And then there's this:





Give us the wings of faith to rise
within the veil, and see
the saints above, how great their joys,
how bright their glories be.

We asked them whence their victory came:
they, with one united breath,
ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,
their triumph to his death.

They marked the footsteps that he trod,
his zeal inspired their breast;
and, following their incarnate God,
they reached the promised rest.


This is Ernest Bullock's setting of words by Isaac Watts.  When sung as a hymn, I usually hear 'Give us the wings of faith to rise' to the beautiful tune 'Song 67'.  Bullock's version omits verses 2 and 5:

Once they were mourning here below,
and wet their couch with tears:
they wrestled hard, as we do now,
with sins, and doubts, and fears.

Our glorious Leader claims our praise
for his own pattern given;
while the long cloud of witnesses
show the same path to heaven.


It's a shame to lose verse 2; that idea is an important component of All Saints' Day, or at least it is to me, though I may be wrong in this.  I heard a sermon on Sunday which talked about how saints are too perfect for us to identify with - I've heard lots of sermons about that, and I always find it odd.  Maybe the medieval saints I love the most are unusual, but I've never thought them too perfect for me to identify with - from St Anselm playfully remembering his youthful arrogance to St Guthlac quaking with fear at the thought of his death, from the little vanities of St Edith and St Etheldreda to the many flaws of poor Edward the Confessor, I find their struggles deeply comforting.  These are people we remember, who strove and wrestled and wept through their lives, but survived it all somehow, and lived to be great and holy.

In which spirit, here's Vaughan Williams...



These words are taken from Ecclesiasticus 44:

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us;
Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power;
Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge;
Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing;
All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times.
And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth evermore.


And RVW brings us to:



I'm sure you know the words, but nonetheless:


1. For all the saints, who from their labours rest,
Who thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

2. Thou wast their rock, their fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

3. 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!

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

5. 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!

6. The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors cometh rest;
Sweet is the calm of Paradise the blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

7. But lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of Glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

11. From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!


The words are by William Walsham How, a Wadham man, who also wrote the slightly sentimental but nonetheless lovely 'Summer suns are glowing'.  I have a soft spot for singing 'For all the saints' to Stanford's Engelberg, which you don't hear so often because the Vaughan Williams version is so dearly loved; but I do like Stanford's 'Alleluias'.

Two hymns for Michaelmas

Michaelmas is one of my favourite days in the church's year, almost entirely because of the season in which it falls: it's an autumn feast, the last glow of fiery summer, and the golden leaves of angels' wings (as in this window at Winchester Cathedral, above) seem to flutter in harmony with the unleaving of the trees.  I couldn't resist posting today two of my absolute favourite hymns, which both speak of angels and angel-song.  Neither mentions St Michael directly but both do something almost better: they begin with the angels' singing and work downwards through creation to our singing, and then upwards again to God.  Both acknowledge how weak human praise can be; one asks for the angels to assist us in our singing, and then takes delight in the contribution that a heart properly 'tuned' can make to the general song; the other takes comfort in the idea that human endeavours of music and art come from God and return to him, pleasing to him because he made them for that purpose.  My favourite kind of hymn is 'hymns about hymns' - songs about singing, carols about the joy of carolling, such as these two Victorian examples, or this medieval one.  For me, this kind of hymn adds immeasurably to the experience of worship, and allows us to participate in such a gloriously joyful picture of heaven; sometimes I think such hymn-singing is the only experience on earth that's anything like heaven at all.

These two hymns share that feature, but they also have something else in common which makes them especially dear to me - their creators (in one case of the tune, in the other of the words) belonged to my Oxford college, and so we sing them very often in our chapel.  As Edmund says in Mansfield Park, "I have not yet left Oxford long enough to forget what chapel prayers are" - and what the singing of these two hymns in that chapel is!  I could find no recording on youtube sung quite so lustily or with so much love, but I enjoyed myself looking; there are many versions of both, and having just listened to about twenty of each, I could still listen to twenty more. But here's one:




Ye holy angels bright,
Who wait at God's right hand,
Or through the realms of light
Fly at your Lord's command,
Assist our song,
For else the theme
Too high doth seem
For mortal tongue.

Ye blessed souls at rest,
Who ran this earthly race
And now, from sin released,
Behold the Saviour's face,
His praises sound,
As in his sight
With sweet delight
Ye do abound.

Ye saints, who toil below,
Adore your heavenly King,
And onward as ye go
Some joyful anthem sing;
Take what he gives
And praise him still,
Through good or ill,
Who ever lives.

My soul, bear thou thy part,
Triumph in God above:
And with a well-tuned heart
Sing thou the songs of love!
Let all thy days
Till life shall end,
Whate'er he send,
Be filled with praise.

'Ye holy angels bright' is an adaptation by J. H. Gurney of a text written in 1681 by Richard Baxter, and the tune is by John Darwall.  I always think this hymn has something of George Herbert about it, especially that last verse - 'a well-tuned heart' is Herbert through and through.  Isn't it just the most wonderful phrase?

The second hymn is 'Angel-voices ever singing', by Francis Pott, with a tune by Edwin George Monk.  This is the choir of Norwich Cathedral, singing a very precise but not very hearty version; I chose this one because you can clearly hear the irresistable harmony lines, but it is a little lacking in body. You should hear the way the students in chapel roar out "Yea, we can!"...



Angel-voices ever singing
Round thy throne of light,
Angel-harps, for ever ringing,
Rest not day or night;
Thousands only live to bless thee,
And confess thee
Lord of might.

Thou who art beyond the farthest
Mortal eye can scan,
Can it be that thou regardest
Songs of sinful man?
Can we know that thou art near us
And wilt hear us?
Yea, we can.

Yea, we know that thou rejoicest
O'er each work of thine;
Thou didst ears and hands and voices
For thy praise design;
Craftsman's art and music's measure
For thy pleasure
All combine.

In thy house, great God, we offer
Of thine own to thee;
And for thine acceptance proffer,
All unworthily,
Hearts and minds and hands and voices,
In our choicest
Psalmody.

Honor, glory, might and merit,
Thine shall ever be,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Blessed Trinity!
Of the best that thou hast given
Earth and heaven
Render thee.


The rhymes in these verses - especially between 'rejoicest' and 'voices' and then between 'voices' and 'choicest' - are just about my favourite thing in hymnody (or psalmody, perhaps I should say.  Are there any other hymns which contain the word 'psalmody'?!).


I found this on youtube while I was searching for the hymns: if you have a spare five minutes, travel back to 1974 with John Betjeman and a village choir in Norfolk rehearsing 'Ye holy angels bright' (skip to 1:35):



It might as well be a different universe!  And only twelve years before I was born.  What on earth happened to this world?

A Colourful Canterbury Tomb

I was reading about Canterbury this evening, as happens fairly often, and it encouraged me to post this little collection of pictures of a particularly interesting tomb in the cathedral. It's the resting-place of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1414 to his death in 1443, and founder of All Souls College, Oxford.


The tomb is in a prominent position on one side of the choir, and the most famous thing about it is that it's a cadaver tomb; in other words, on the top you have an effigy of the archbishop, gloriously vested:


But beneath!:


The tomb was built nearly twenty years before Chichele's death, so he certainly had a long time to contemplate his own mortality. It features a rather ugly mourning figure, kneeling at the foot of the effigy:


And by the head, a rather prettier angel:


The structure which surrounds the tomb is decorated with a series of brightly-coloured figures. The restoration of the tomb is, I believe, kept up by All Souls College (or at least it used to be); if it still is, they must expend a good deal on paint!  These figures were installed in 1897-9 under the direction of C. E. Kempe, and they have a kind of late-Victorian storybook medievalism about them which is very charming, but very period.  The figures originally in their place were apparently destroyed by Puritan reformers - several other tombs at Canterbury have statues with their heads hacked off (here's one example from another archbishop's tomb).  I've posted pictures of one or two of these figures before, because they include depictions of some of the people I write about often. So, for instance, St Augustine of Canterbury:


St Anselm and his most famous work:


St Alphege, with the stones of his martyrdom:


And St Dunstan, who, rather wonderfully, is carrying a miniature version of an actual manuscript illustrated by Dunstan (the so-called 'Glastonbury classbook'):


Close-up:


For comparison:

The monk kneeling beside Christ is probably a self-portrait of Dunstan; the text beside the monk says Dunstanum memet clemens rogo, Christe, tuere / Tenarias me non sinas sorbsisse procellas ["I ask, merciful Christ, that you protect me, Dunstan; do not permit the Taenarian storms to swallow me"].

These four saints are easy enough to recognise, but I have more trouble with the other figures around the tomb. This is Archbishop Chichele himself, holding the frontage of All Souls College (aka 'the view from the window of my college library'):


We also have some recognisable Biblical figures; here a depiction of the 'bosom of Abraham':


In medieval art the man in Abraham's lap represents the souls of those who died before the coming of Christ. This kind of image always makes me think of the passage in Piers Plowman where the dreamer runs into Abraham (as you do), and sees patriarchs and prophets playing in his lap:

And thanne mette I with a man, a myd-Lenten Sonday,
As hoor as an hawethorn, and Abraham he highte.
I frayned hym first fram whennes he come,
And of whennes he were, and whider that he thoughte...
I hadde wonder of hise wordes, and of hise wide clothes;
For in his bosom he bar a thyng, and that he blissed evere.
And I loked in his lappe: a lazar lay therinne
Amonges patriarkes and prophetes pleyinge togideres.
"What awaitestow?' quod he, "and what woldestow have?'
"I wolde wite," quod I tho, "what is in youre lappe."
"Lo!" quod he - and leet me se. "Lord, mercy!" I seide.
"This is a present of muche pris; what prynce shal it have?'
"It is a precious present," quod he, "ac the pouke it hath attached,
And me therwith," quod that wye, "may no wed us quyte,
Ne no buyrn be oure borgh, ne brynge us fram his daunger;
Out of the poukes pondfold no maynprise may us fecch
Til he come that I carpe of: Crist is his name
That shal delivere us som day out of the develes power,
And bettre wed for us wage than we ben alle worthi -
That is, lif for lif - or ligge thus evere
Lollynge in my lappe, til swich a lord us fecche."

[And then I met with a man, on mid-Lent Sunday, who was as hoary as a hawthorn-tree; his name was Abraham. I asked him first from whence he had come, and where he was from, and where he was meaning to go... [Abraham says he is in search of Christ, tells some of his own story, and explains the doctrine of the Trinity]. I wondered at his words, and at his voluminous clothes - for close to his bosom he carried something which he kept blessing. And I looked within his cloak: a leper lay there, among patriarchs and prophets playing together. "What are you waiting for?" he asked, "and what is it you want?" I said, "I want to know what's in your cloak." "Look," he said, and let me see. "Lord, mercy!" I said. "That's a precious gift; what prince is it intended for?" "It is a precious gift," he said, "but the devil has seized it - and me, as well - and no ransom may redeem us, nor can anyone pay our bail or free us from his power; no payment of surety can take us out of the devil's prison, until the one comes whom I speak of: Christ is his name, the one who shall deliver us, some day, out of the devil's power, and pay a better price for us than we are all together worth - that is, life for life. Else we would lie thus for ever, lolling in my lap, until such a lord saved us.]

The leper in his lap is Lazarus, of the parable, who was carried up to heaven (as the ballad has it) 'to sit upon an angel's knee'...

Also easily identifiable:


(The cobweb adds character).

But then things get more uncertain. We have more archbishops and a few kings, among whom I would expect to find - but cannot certainly identify - people such as Lanfranc, Thomas Becket and Edmund Rich, and Kings Henry IV, V or VI, the monarchs through whose reigns Chicele lived. I hope not knowing whose these people represent doesn't impair your ability to enjoy the colour and expression of the figures:







Guesses at their identity would be welcome...

Psalm Translations: I dwell laid up in Safety's nest

This is a translation of Psalm 4, one of the verse translations of the psalms done by Sir Philip Sidney and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke. I posted their translation of Psalm 27 a little while ago, and you can read more of them here.

They have some odd stylistic features - notice for instance how much repetition there is here, so that we get all the following twice within single lines: hear me, God, men, lies/lie, your selves, sacrifice, just, peace/peaceful, it is thou... The effect is a tiny bit convoluted, in that nice sixteenth-century way, but I like the last verse very much.


1. Hear me, O, hear me when I call,
O God, God of my equity!
Thou setd'st me free when I was thrall,
Have mercy therefore still on me,
And hearken how I pray to Thee.

2. O men, whose fathers were but men,
Till when will ye My honour high
Stain with your blasphemies; till when
Such pleasure take in vanity,
And only hunt where lies do lie?

3. Yet know this too that God did take,
When He chose me, a godly one;
Such one, I say, that when I make
My crying plaints to Him alone,
He will give good ear to my moan.

4. O, tremble then with awful will,
Sin from all rule in you depose,
Talk with your heart and yet be still;
And when your chamber you do close
Your selves, yet to your selves disclose.

5. The sacrifices sacrify
Of just desires, on justice stayed;
Trust in the Lord that cannot lie.
Indeed full many folk have said,
From whence shall come to us such aid?

6. But, Lord, lift thou upon our sight
The shining clearness of Thy face,
Where I have found more heart's delight
Than they whose store in harvest space
Of grain and wine fills storing-place.

7. So I in peace and peaceful bliss
Will lay me down and take my rest;
For it is Thou, Lord, Thou it is,
By power of whose own only breast
I dwell, laid up in Safety's nest.




This is one of the psalms appointed for Compline, and therefore most familiar to me in this form, more understated but even more beautiful:

1. Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness :
thou hast set me at liberty when I was in trouble;
have mercy upon me, and hearken unto my prayer.

2. O ye sons of men, how long will ye blaspheme mine honour :
and have such pleasure in vanity, and seek after leasing?

3. Know this also, that the Lord hath chosen to himself the man that is godly :
when I call upon the Lord, he will hear me.

4. Stand in awe, and sin not :
commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, and be still.

5. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness :
and put your trust in the Lord.

6. There be many that say :
Who will shew us any good?

7. Lord, lift thou up :
the light of thy countenance upon us.

8. Thou hast put gladness in my heart :
since the time that their corn, and wine, and oil increased.

9. I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest :
for it is thou, Lord, only, that makest me dwell in safety.

Redressing the Balance: Rochester

After seeing the BBC's new adaptation of 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' (which I loved), I got to thinking about Rochester, the town on which the novel's 'Cloisterham' is based (Cloisterham, indeed! Dickens, you weren't even trying with that name). It's an utterly delightful town with a superb cathedral - among Kent churches, Canterbury gets all the love around here, but Rochester is also very ancient and very interesting.

The cathedral is the second oldest in England, founded just seven years after Canterbury (in 604) by Justus, a member of St Augustine's mission. This means that most of its 'oldest' records are just pipped to the post by the senior cathedral. For instance, the school which was founded at the same time as the cathedral, for the education of boys to the clerical state, still exists and is an incredible 1400 years old. So it's the second oldest school in the country - after Canterbury, of course.

However, Rochester can claim to be the source of the only surviving copy (though a very late one) of the laws of King Ethelbert of Kent, which is the oldest law-code of any kind in any Germanic language. This means that the Rochester volume preserves a copy of the oldest known written text in the English language.

And here's Ethelbert

The later medieval history of Rochester is not quite as distinguished; William of Malmesbury visited it c.1125, as part of his information-gathering tour in the composition of his great history of the English bishops, and apologised for giving only a bare list of the names of the bishops of Rochester, because “very few, in fact hardly any, of the deeds of the bishops of the town I have come across seem to me worth recording". Ouch.

This judgement was, however, a bit unfair not only on Paulinus, leading figure in the conversion of Northumbria, but also on Gundulf, the first noteworthy Norman bishop of Rochester, who was a great church-builder and is responsible for much of the cathedral as it now stands (and also for the White Tower, the oldest part of the Tower of London). This is he:


Later bishops of note included Walter de Merton, founder of Merton College, Oxford (but we'll forgive him).


The bishop to Merton's left is St John Fisher, martyr and last Catholic Bishop of Rochester.

The cathedral has some lovely medieval things, like this thirteenth-century wall painting of the wheel of fortune:


A surprising number of people arrive at this blog looking for pictures of a medieval wheel of fortune, and get this rather boring manuscript illustration; the Rochester one is much more dynamic, so maybe some of those hits can be redirected here instead. The wall-painting is so well-preserved because it was hidden behind a pulpit until 1840. Thank goodness for benign neglect!

The nave, which is Norman, is particularly fine.


(How did I become the kind of person who says things like "the nave, which is Norman, is particularly fine"? Absurd).


But there are many fine things here:

This figure represents 'Ecclesia', the Church, and is part of this door, which dates from 1343:

According to the cathedral website (do take the panoramic tour there - it's excellent), this was once the monks' entrance to their dormitory, and now leads to the cathedral library. I wonder what you have to do to get a job there...

The crypt, the oldest part of the building:

The very first English-born Christian bishop is buried here, Ithamar.

I can't leave the subject of Rochester without linking to the utterly bizarre story of St William of Perth; but as I hope this post has shown, Rochester has some excellent claims to interest besides murdered Scottish pilgrims. And Charles Dickens. And surprisingly sympathetic murderous opium-eating choirmasters.



Update: more on Rochester here.

But the veil withdrawn

This Advent hymn is not one of the most popular, but I like it; the last verse is absolutely perfect. Its author, Joseph Anstice, was a talented classical scholar, who took a double first at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1831, and was appointed Professor of Classical Literature at King's College, London, at the age of 22 (ouch; those were the days to be an academic!). He won the Newdigate Prize while he was at Oxford, for a poem on Richard the Lionheart, and wrote a number of well-regarded essays on classical subjects; but his career was cut short by ill-health, and he died in 1836, at just 27 years old.

A collection of his hymns was published posthumously (and some of them can be read here), though 'When came in flesh' is the only one that is sung today. It's usually sung to the tune 'Walsall', a dramatic, stately kind of thing attributed to Henry Purcell - beautiful in its way, but to my ears a little out of keeping with these words, which deliberately draw careful distinctions between the extremes of noise and quiet, meekness and power, awe and love.


1. When came in flesh the incarnate Word,
The heedless world slept on,
And only simple shepherds heard
That God had sent his Son.

2. When comes the Saviour at the last,
From east to west shall shine
The awful pomp, and earth aghast
Shall tremble at the sign.

3. Then shall the pure of heart be blest;
As mild he comes to them,
As when upon the virgin's breast
He lay at Bethlehem.

4. As mild to meek-eyed love and faith,
Only more strong to save;
Strengthened by having bowed to death,
By having burst the grave.

5. Lord, who could dare see thee descend
In state, unless he knew
Thou art the sorrowing sinner's friend,
The gracious and the true?

6. Dwell in our hearts, O Saviour blest;
So shall thine advent's dawn
'Twixt us and thee, our bosom-guest,
Be but the veil withdrawn.

Pictures of Canterbury Cathedral

Because I was thinking about Canterbury, here are some more-or-less randomly-chosen pictures of my favourite cathedral.

This is its most famous part, the site of Thomas Becket's shrine. This was the destination of many thousands of medieval travellers, including but not limited to Chaucer's pilgrims, St Eysteinn, and an Icelander named Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson who presented the tusk of a narwahl at Thomas' shrine to thank the saint for a good catch. (Part of me really hopes they still have a narwahl tusk in a cupboard somewhere at Canterbury). The shrine was, of course, destroyed at the Reformation, so the site is marked by the candle in the bottom-left corner.



From the nave...


Windows...

The ceiling of the nave.

Sunlight on some saints.

Medieval glass.

Reflections of medieval glass.

For the Oxford theme of this blog - here's the founder of All Souls College, Archbishop Henry Chicele, holding the (very recognisable!) frontage of his college. It's from his gorgeously-coloured tomb:

More medieval glass:

Medieval wall-painting, traces thereof:


This is from St Anselm's Chapel, looking into the body of the cathedral:

Some archangels:

And to the outside - this is the ruins of the medieval abbey of Christ Church, where the monks lived who served the cathedral. Thanks, Henry VIII!


Cloisters:



And to finish here's, well, the photographer herself, in St Anselm's chapel:


For more, see Canterbury by Candlelight and The Stained Glass of Canterbury.