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Hark, What A Sound
Dec. 2nd, 2012 03:19 pmHark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing,
Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air!
Is it the thunder of the Lord’s appearing?
Is it the music of His people’s prayer?
( Surely He cometh )
Now, here's a wonderful Advent hymn, one that I've only become familiar with over the past few years. This has all the longing, the expectancy, the trust and the waiting of Advent. It tingles with excitement. This one is not about watching but listening - listening for sounds beyond the mortal spectrum, the sounds that you can't hear with your ears but that make the air thrum.
I have to say, though, it's the last verse that gets me. 'Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and through sinning'. It's been a bit of a rough year, and, standing here at the beginning of a new one, it's good for me to look back and look for God in the sorrow and the sinning. And forward: 'he shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed'.
This is adapted from a long poem called "St Paul" (here is the whole thing) - Frederic W. H. Myers, the poet, was one of the founders of the Society For Psychical Research. Richard Runciman Terry, the composer of the tune, was the first Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral.
The tune is fantastic. This is Highwood, a wonderful sweeping melody, soaring upwards, and then falling back to earth with a sigh - that repeated D at the end of the verse, never quite reaching the tonic. Not yet. And the rest in the alto at the beginning of the third line, introducing an all too human note of hesitancy, uncertainty. Surely he cometh. Surely he cometh? It is perfectly imperfect - so very human.
Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air!
Is it the thunder of the Lord’s appearing?
Is it the music of His people’s prayer?
( Surely He cometh )Now, here's a wonderful Advent hymn, one that I've only become familiar with over the past few years. This has all the longing, the expectancy, the trust and the waiting of Advent. It tingles with excitement. This one is not about watching but listening - listening for sounds beyond the mortal spectrum, the sounds that you can't hear with your ears but that make the air thrum.
I have to say, though, it's the last verse that gets me. 'Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and through sinning'. It's been a bit of a rough year, and, standing here at the beginning of a new one, it's good for me to look back and look for God in the sorrow and the sinning. And forward: 'he shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed'.
This is adapted from a long poem called "St Paul" (here is the whole thing) - Frederic W. H. Myers, the poet, was one of the founders of the Society For Psychical Research. Richard Runciman Terry, the composer of the tune, was the first Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral.
The tune is fantastic. This is Highwood, a wonderful sweeping melody, soaring upwards, and then falling back to earth with a sigh - that repeated D at the end of the verse, never quite reaching the tonic. Not yet. And the rest in the alto at the beginning of the third line, introducing an all too human note of hesitancy, uncertainty. Surely he cometh. Surely he cometh? It is perfectly imperfect - so very human.
