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Views from the Choir Loft

New Harmonies! • “To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King”

Jeff Ostrowski · May 19, 2020

EADERS WHO KNOW the Sherlock Holmes mysteries (by Arthur Conan Doyle) will remember the famous quote: “It is said that the barrister who crams up a case with such care that he can examine an expert witness upon the Monday has forgotten all his forced knowledge before the Saturday.” When I had the honor of serving on the committee which produced the Brébeuf hymnal, I learned tons of information about hymns which I’m already forgetting! But one thing I will never forget: SATB hymn harmonizations must be singable. For each hymn, we would compare various harmonizations, and I was astounded at how sloppy some of the editors were…especially vis-à-vis bass and alto lines.

This harmonization is fresh and marvelous—yet eminently singable:


Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #759.

HE TUNE is called “ICH GLAUB AN GOTT,” and was printed in the Mainz Gesangbuch of 1870. I don’t have a copy of the Mainz Gesangbuch. 1 What is the original harmonization for this tune? It’s a mystery—and there may not have been an “original” harmonization, because Dr. Horst Buchholz told me most German organists harmonize at sight. (In other words, they improvise each harmonization.) Even in 2020, it’s quite difficult to obtain a “standard” German hymn book with harmonies. The words to the hymn were written by Monsignor Martin Hellriegel (1891-1981), and the refrain is based upon “Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat.” You can download an organ accompaniment for Christus Vincit composed by Dr. Eugene LaPierre (Dean of Music at the University of Montreal), the man who encouraged Roger Wagner to complete his doctorate “in absentia.” On Palm Sunday, our congregation sings the refrain while they are processing.

You can also download a “Christus Vincit” organ accompaniment composed by Father Aloysius Knauff. Very little is known about Father Knauff, who published the Christ the King Hymnal for Congregational Singing while serving as a priest in Saskatchewan (Canada). The book has a 1954 IMPRIMATUR, and we scanned the entire hymnal and posted it along with tons of other books used as reference materials for the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal. That 1954 book does not contain “To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King,” which is odd considering the name of the hymnal, and how it’s almost exclusively German hymns translated into English.



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   If anyone has a scanned copy of the Mainz Gesangbuch (1890), please email it to me. Nobody seems to know what the original melody for “Ich Glaub An Gott” looked like…

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Hymn for Christ the King, Jean de Brebeuf Hymnal Last Updated: November 1, 2021

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    Tempo?? • 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘎𝘰𝘥, 𝘞𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘺 𝘕𝘢𝘮𝘦
    Once, after Mass, my pastor said he really loved the hymn we did. I said: “Father, that's Holy God, We Praise Thy Name—you never heard it before?” He replied: “But the way you did it was terrific. For once, it didn't sound like a funeral dirge!” Last Sunday, our volunteer choir sang that hymn. I think the tempo was just about right … but what do you think?
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Don’t You Agree About These?
    If you want to make Jeff Ostrowski really happy, send him an email with effusive praise about the individual voice recordings for hymn #296. [Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass] They came out dazzlingly sensational, don't you agree?
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Choral Vowels? Yes? No?
    Here's a live recording of one of the choral “warm-up” exercises my choir enjoys. It was taken during our rehearsal on 27 January 2023. It’s good to make sure each chord is perfectly in tune and balanced before moving to the next one. That only happens when each singer has the correct vowel. If you like, you can freely download that vocal exercise.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

In the ’60s, I thought this emphasis on congregational singing was to encourage good Catholic hymns like “Immaculate Mary” and so forth … but after the Council, they threw them out, too!

— ‘Fr. Valentine Young, OFM (2007)’

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