Muhly HYMNS FOR PRIVATE USE

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Muhly, Nico Hymns for Private Use

Score for sale (North America): https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=14043503 Score for sale (UK, Europe and other territories): http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/01096081/details.html?kbid=1296 Information about the work and materials for hire: http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/47778

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Hymns for Private Use is a sequence of five songs with texts drawn from early English sources from the 12th to 18th centuries.

The first song, Virga Rosa Virginum, is a macaronic text (having verses in both English and Latin) focusing on the Virgin Mary and her son; as with many pre-modern texts, Christmas is marked with a vision of the cross. The English text is presented narratively while the Latin text is floating, quiet, and ecstatic.

The second text, The Holy Spirit, is by the Hymnodist Anne Steele (1717–1778), and the soprano asks jagged questions over the wind quintet’s simple chords.

Sleep, a 17th century translation of St. Ambrose’s 4th century original, is a wonderful piece of word painting. The soprano sings a simple, slow melody while the winds busily twitch; the process is essentially the reverse of the second movement.

The final two songs are hymns meant for use in schoolrooms in colonial America, and as such, are simple texts in rhyming couplets. For An Autumnal Song, I have the soprano singing an invented hymn-tune while a trio of oboe, clarinet, and saxophone plaintively outlines falling figures. The bass clarinet and the bassoon aggressively intervene.

The final movement comes after the wordless vocalise that finishes part four, and is a setting of a simple hymn about the closing of the day. As with the fourth section, I imagined an 18th century hymn tune, and vandalized it slightly with motor-music, loose melodic figures, and anxious rhythmic interjections from the bassoon and bass clarinet.

Texts

from Gabriel the messenger

1. Virga Rosa Virginum

2. The Holy Spirit

Nowell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, Mary was greeted by Gabriel

Dear Lord! and shall thy Spirit rest In such a wretched heart as mine?

Unworthy dwelling! Glorious Guest!

Favour astonishing, divine!

Mary mother, meek and mild, Fro shame and sin that ye us shield, For great on ground ye go with child, Gabriele nuncio.

with the lily of chastity

Mary mother, be not adread, Jesu is in your body bred, And of your breast He will be fed, Cum pudoris lilio.

the resurrection shines

Mary mother, the fruit of thee For us was nailëd on a tree, In heaven is now His majesty, Fulget Resurreccio.

borne by his own motion

ascend; dwell

in the palace of heaven

Mary mother, the thirdë day Up He rose, as I you say, To hell He took the rightë way, Motu fertur proprio.

Mary mother, after thy Son, Up thou styest* with him to wone;* The angels were glad when thou wert come, In celi palacio.

15th Cent., “Nowell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, ell, Mary was greeted by Gabriel” from Ancient English Christmas Carols 1400–1700, ed. Edith Rickert (New York: Duffield, 1910).

When sin prevails, and gloomy fear, And hope almost expires in night, Lord, can thy Spirit then be here— Great spring of comfort, life, and light?

Sure the blest Comforter is nigh; ’Tis he sustains my fainting heart; Else would my hopes for ever die, And ev’ry cheering ray depart.

When some kind promise glads my soul, Do I not find his healing voice, The tempest of my fears control, And bid my drooping pow’rs rejoice!

What less than thy Almighty Word, Can raise my heart from earth and dust, And bid me cleave to thee, my Lord, My life, my treasure, and my trust!

And, when my rising soul can say, “I love my God, and taste his grace,” Lord, is it not thy blissful ray Which brings this dawn of sacred peace?

Theodosia [Anne Steele], “The Influences of the Spirit of God in the Heart,” from Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional by Theodosia. (London, 1760).

3. Sleep

4. An Autumnal Song

5. Hark, the Vesper Hymn is Stealing

Thou stoopest once to suffer here, and risest o’er the starry sphere; Hell’s gates at Thy descent were riven, thy ascent is to highest Heaven.

See the leaves around us falling, Dry and withered to the ground; Thus to thoughtless mortals calling, In a sad and solemn sound:

One with the Father! Prince of might!

O’er Nature’s realm assert Thy right.

Our sickly bodies pine to know Thy heavenly strength, Thy living glow.

“Youth, on length of days presuming, Who the path of pleasure tread, View us, late in beauty blooming, Numbered now among the dead.

Hark, the vesper hymn is stealing O’er the waters, soft and clear — Nearer yet, and nearer pealing, Now it bursts upon the ear.

Jubilate, Jubilate — Amen.

Farther now, now farther stealing, Soft it fades upon the ear.

Farther now, now farther stealing, Soft it fades upon the ear.

How bright Thy lowly manger beams!

Down earth’s dark vale its glory streams, The splendour of Thy natal night Shines through all Time in deathless light.

“What though yet no losses grieve you — Gay with health and many a grace; Let not cloudless skies deceive you, Summer gives to Autumn place.”

St. Ambrose (4th Cent.), “Sleep,” from Lyra Sacra: Hymns Ancient and Modern, ed. Bourchier Wrey Savile (London, 1861).

On the tree of life eternal Let our highest hopes be stayed.

This alone, forever vernal, Bears a leaf that shall not fade.

Now, like moonlight waves retreating To the shore, it dies along; Now like angry surges meeting, Breaks the mingled tide of song.

Jubilate, Jubilate — Amen.

Hark again, like waves retreating, To the shore it dies along.

Hark again, like waves retreating, To the shore it dies along.

Bishop Horne, “An Autumnal Song,” from Songs for the School Room, ed. Elias Nason (Newburyport: J.G. Tilton, 1855).

T. Moore, “Hark, the Vesper Hymn is Stealing,” from Songs for the School Room, ed. Elias Nason (Newburyport: J.G. Tilton, 1855).

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