• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

  • About
  • Symposium
  • Hymnal
  • Jogues Missal
  • Site Map
  • Donate
Views from the Choir Loft

“Do You Know This Hymn Composer?” • Orlando Gibbons (d. 1623)

Jeff Ostrowski · July 9, 2022

ODAY WE RELEASE “installment 2” in the new series called How Has Nobody Done This Before? This series features hundreds of rehearsal videos—for each individual singer’s voice part—of the world’s greatest hymns. The entire project can be accessed completely free of charge at this website (scroll towards the middle section). It’s so useful to be able to send your choir members to a website containing individual voice parts, while knowing the hymn texts (lyrics) and the hymn notes (harmonies) have not been tampered with.

Glenn Gould’s Favorite: Today we feature Glenn Gould’s favorite composer: ORLANDO GIBBONS. Let’s start with Brébeuf #715, which is a Roman Catholic text (Adesto Pater Domine) translated into English by a Catholic poet named Alan Gordon McDougall (whose work Father Adrian Fortescue admired):

M Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #715.

Common Tunes: What makes the Brébeuf hymnal so powerful is its use of “common tunes.” That means you can teach your choir #715 (above) and they already know a bunch more hymns. For example, they already know this hymn to Saint Joseph, whose text was written by an FSSP priest:

M Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #790.

…and they’ll automatically know this hymn for Lent:

M Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #240.

…and here’s another Lenten hymn they will know automatically:

M Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #220.

HE new publication by Sophia Institute Press (Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal) is quite different than other Catholic hymnals currently available. Unlike other “Catholic” hymnals, it refused to mimic or “build upon” Protestant models. The hymnal is Catholic to its core. To find something similar, you’d have to go back seventy years to the New Westminster Hymnal, which was (generally speaking) the work of Monsignor Ronald Knox and Dom Gregory Murray.

Here are some examples demonstrating how this melody by Orlando Gibbons was adopted by serious Catholic hymnals, even though Gibbons was not a Catholic:

*  PDF Download • “How It Used To Look”
—Notice how the editors chose a hymn to the Holy Ghost, just like the Brébeuf hymnal.

*  PDF Download • “New Saint Basil Hymnal”
—Notice how the editors chose a hymn to the Holy Ghost, just like the Brébeuf hymnal.

*  PDF Download • Theodore Marier
—Dr. Marier used this Gibbons tune at least three times in his hymnal.

*  PDF Download • “New Westminster Hymnal”
—Dom Gregory Murray and Msgr. Ronald Knox were its main creators.

*  PDF Download • “The Catholic Hymn Book”
—Produced by the London Oratory circa 1998.

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

Filed Under: Articles, Featured Tagged With: Adesto Pater Domine, Angel's Song by Orlando Gibbons, Gibbons Song 34, How Has Nobody Done This, Orlando Gibbons Last Updated: July 18, 2022

Subscribe to the CCW Mailing List

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).

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

For the Upcoming Choir Season!

Last week, I posted an SATB choral setting of the SANCTUS in a ‘contemporary’ style. You might want to consider this piece for two reasons: (1) It’s extremely brief; (2) Free rehearsal videos are available for each individual part. The piece is by Father Lhoumeau.

—Jeff Ostrowski
PDF Download • “Sunday Vespers” (22 pages)

When an organist accompanies Vespers, there is no time to think. It’s one thing after another: Bam – Bam – Bam. And that’s what makes Vespers difficult to accompany; there’s hardly even time to check the key signature for each piece! Therefore, although it’s far from perfect, I’m releasing this 22-page booklet:

PDF Download • SUNDAY VESPERS ACCOMPANIMENT

As time goes on, I will explain why I believe this booklet is important, my hopes for it, and why I selected the official edition, directly from the Vesperale Romanum. In spite of its imperfections, creating this (draft) booklet required much more effort than I had anticipated.

—Jeff Ostrowski
11 July 2022 • FEEDBACK

Someone who heard the CCW plainsong recordings with NOH accompaniment says: “For years I have travelled the continents and crossed the oceans of Gregorian chant in search of a composition and interpretation as sublime as this. The text and the melody are interwoven in a game of mirrors with the interpreters, the singer and the instrumentalist, so as to confer delicacy on the jubilation. The organ is soft, humble. This is what we hear from the singer. These artists have come together to produce beauty. In 1903, Pope Pius X, by motu proprio, restored Gregorian chant in the Latin Church. In his words: Sacred music must possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, and notably the sanctity and delicacy of form, whence another characteristic spontaneously results, universality. I stress: the holiness and delicacy of forms result in universality, time and place. That is to say, sometimes the beauty of human hands gently caresses the face of the Eternal.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Gerard Manley Hopkins once argued that most people drank more liquids than they really needed and bet that he could go without drinking for a week. He persisted until his tongue was black and he collapsed at drill.”

— A biography of Fr. Gerard M. Hopkins (d. 1889)

Recent Posts

  • 5 Ways to Make Your Music Program More Marian
  • “Could Women Sing At Mass Before Vatican II?”
  • “The Memory Will Stay With Me Forever.” —Helen Tsang, who flew 7,797 miles
  • PDF Download • “Salve Regina” (32 Versions)
  • For the Upcoming Choir Season!

Copyright © 2022 Corpus Christi Watershed · Gabriel Lalemant on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.