I have been working a bit on music of late, which is maybe putting it a bit too ambitiously given that I am not very musically educated and don’t even read the notes on the staves fluently, but I just felt like a play, and some extemporaneous music came out, which I expect to record when I can play it more faultlessly.
I wanted to basically fit the words to Glory be to Jesus which has the tune shown nicely here:
which I hasten to add is not mine as you may be able to tell when they skip one of my favorite hymn verses of all time.
What is sung there is called the tune Casnell by William Henry Monk (known for having composed the best-known tunes for “Abide with me”, “All things bright and beautiful” and many others). Whoever wrote that book they are playing from I know not, but as far as I can tell the correct name of that tune isn’t Casnell, at all, as I can’t find any other mentions of such a name. The correct information is that a German Lutheran composer called Friedrich Filitz composed it in 1847 for the tune “Wem in Leidenstagen”, which I cannot find any performances of. It is sometimes called Caswall in English, but still attributed to Filitz.
Edward Caswall in turn was the person who made the English words of Glory be to Jesus having translated it from Italian.
Here are the Italian words:
Viva! Viva! Gesù! che per mio bene
Tutto il sangue verso dalle sue vene.
Il sangue di Gesù fu la mia vita;
Benedetta la Sua bontà infinita.
Questo sangue in eterno sia lodato,
Che dall’ inferno il mondo ha riscattato.
Questo Sangue si fe’ nostra bevanda
E delle anime nostre la lavanda.
Il Sangue di Gesù placa lo sdegno
Del Genitore e ci conduce al Regno.
D’Abele il sangue gridava venedetta.
Quel di Gesù per noi perdono aspetta.
Se di tal Sangue è asperso il nostro cuore,
Fugge il Ministro del divin furore.
Se di Gesù si esalta il divin sangue,
Tripudia il ciel, trema l’abisso e langue.
Diciamo dunque insiem con energia
Al sangue di Gesù gloria si dia. Amen
Ascr. St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787).
I will be adding more to this later on to show the chorus I have added, both tune and words, but the refrain (i am planning for the refrain to develop over the course of the hymn but the culminating refrain, so to speak, will be:
Maker and Redeemer
Bathe us in Thy Blood!
Bring us home to Glory
Thou our Lord and God!
Watch this space for the whole thing and hopefully God willing a musical arrangement also.