The Story of the Hymns and Tunes Part 69

--of Watts'--

He dies, the Friend of sinners dies;

--of John Wesley's--

Our Lord has gone up on high;

--of C.F. Gellert's--

Christ is risen! Christ is risen!

He hath burst His bonds in twain;

--omitting hundreds which have been helpful in psalmody, and are, perhaps, still in choir or congregational use.

"CHRIST THE LORD IS RISEN TODAY"

Begins a hymn of Charles Wesley's and is also the first line of a hymn prepared for Sunday-school use by Mrs. Storrs, wife of the late Dr.

Richard Salter Storrs of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Wesley's hymn is sung--with or without the hallelujah interludes--to "Telemann's Chant," (Zeuner), to an air of Mendelssohn, and to John Stainer's "Paschale Gaudium." Like the old New England "Easter Anthem"

it appears to have been suggested by an anonymous translation of some more ancient (Latin) antiphony.

Jesus Christ is risen to day, Hallelujah!

Our triumphant holy day, Hallelujah!

Who endured the cross and grave.

Hallelujah!

Sinners to redeem and save, Hallelujah!

AN ANTHEM FOR EASTER.

This work of an amateur genius, with its rustic harmonies, suited the taste of colonial times, and no doubt the devout church-goers of that day found sincere wors.h.i.+p and thanksgiving in its flamboyant music. "An Anthem for Easter," in A major by William Billings (1785) occupied several pages in the early collections of psalmody and "the sounding joy" was in it. Organs were scarce, but beyond the viols of the village choirs it needed no instrumental accessories. The language is borrowed from the New Testament and _Young's Night Thoughts_.

The Lord is risen indeed!

Hallelujah!

The Lord is risen indeed!

Hallelujah!

Following this triumphant overture, a recitative ba.s.s solo repeats I Cor. 15:20, and the chorus takes it up with crowning hallelujahs.

Different parts, _per fugam_, inquire from clef to clef--

And did He rise?

And did He rise?-- Hear [the answer], O ye nations!

Hear it, O ye dead!

Then duet, trio and chorus sing it, successively--

He rose! He rose! He rose!

He burst the bars of death, And triumphed o'er the grave!

The succeeding thirty-four bars--duet and chorus--take home the sacred gladness to the heart of humanity--

Then, then _I_ rose,

And seized eternal youth, Man all immortal, hail!

Heaven's all the glory, man's the boundless bliss.

"YES, THE REDEEMER ROSE."

In the six-eight syllable verse once known as "hallelujah metre"--written by Dr. Doddridge to be sung after a sermon on the text in 1st Corinthians noted in the above anthem--

Yes, the Redeemer rose, The Saviour left the dead, And o'er our h.e.l.lish foes High raised His conquering head.

In wild dismay the guards around Fall to the ground and sink away.

Lewis Edson's "Lenox" (1782) is an old favorite among its musical interpreters.

"O SHORT WAS HIS SLUMBER."

This hymn for the song-service of the Ruggles St. Church, Boston, was written by Rev. Theron Brown.

O short was His slumber; He woke from the dust; The Saviour death's chain could not hold; And short, since He rose, is the sleep of the just; They shall wake, and His glory behold.

Dear grave in the garden; hope smiled at its door Where love's brightest triumph was told; Christ lives! and His life will His people restore!

They shall wake, and His glory behold.

The music is Bliss' tune to Spafford's "When Peace Like a River."

Another by the same writer, sung by the same church chorus, is--

He rose! O morn of wonder!

They saw His light go down Whose hate had crushed Him under, A King without a crown.

No plume, no garland wore He, Despised death's Victor lay, And wrapped in night His glory, That claimed a grander day.

He rose! He burst immortal From death's dark realm alone, And left its heavenward portal Swung wide for all his own.

Nor need one terror seize us To face earth's final pain, For they who follow Jesus, But die to live again.