While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 02:16 PM

This is the tune known as Pentonville in South Yorkshire.

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: Cats
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 05:53 PM

In Padstow we sing it to Lyngham, Cranbrook (sounds a biy like Ilkley Moor) and my favourite Zadoc which sounds a bit like New Jerusalem

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: Artful Codger
Date: 09 Dec 10 - 02:42 PM

Some notes on the list of settings I posted:

The Supply Belcher setting was titled "Carol".

"Flensburg" was written by Louis (Ludvig) Spohr (1784-1859) and harmonized by Joseph Barnby, 1867. You may hear it here: "My God I Love Thee"

"Lydia" was written by Thomas Phillips (1735-1807).

In the Hymnary.org list, "Shepherds" is Sir Arthur Sullivan's arrangement "Bethlehem" of the traditional "Gabriel". "Noel" is his arrangement originally for "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear". The tune is also known as "Eardisley" or "Gerard", probably a variant of "Dives and Lazarus".

"Hampton", written by McNeil Robinson II, b.1943, appears in The Hymnal 1982, #95.

"Hitchen Carol" is an English traditional melody, but I found no more about it.

"St. Magnus" is indeed Clarke's "Angel's Carol", first published in John Playford's Divine Companion, 1707; it was originally used for Psalm 117, and was first combined with the "While Shepherds" text in the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern.

"St. Martin's" was written by William Tans'ur, 1740, and is used for at least six other hymns.

"St. Ursula", by Frederick Westlake, Hymns and Sac­red Songs for the Year, Part I, 1863.

"Southwell", by Herbert Stephen Irons, 1861. May be the same as the Irons arrangment listed previously.

"Nottingham" = "St. Magnus"/"Angel's Carol" (Jeremiah Clarke)

"Christmas Bells", from "The old year's long campaign over", by Samuel John Stone (1839-1900).

"Northrup", by Abraham Northrop (1863-1939), by 1906.

"St. George" may be the one written by Henry J. Gauntlett, 1848.

"Lyngham [Desert]", by Thom­as Jar­man, cir­ca 1803.


Additions:

"Sweet Chiming Bells", the Tate text with an interpolated and unrelated chorus.

William Billings wrote two settings:
"Bethlehem", The Singing Master's Assistant, 1778.
"Charleston", 1770, titled "A Hymn for Christmas".
He also wrote another setting "Emanuel" to a text of his own, a fanciful revamping of Tate's text.

"New Bethlehem", by Edward French, The Stoughton Musical Society's Centennial Collection of Sacred Music, 1878.

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: GUEST,Captain Farrell
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 05:23 PM

Of course the favourite is going to be one you sing in your local village.Delph uses quite a few my particular one is Burnet.If any one knows of its use anywhere else I would love hear from you.

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: MG John
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 06:13 AM

The tune On Ilkley Moor Bah Tat was used for this hymn at our local Church last week (Middleton On The Wolds, East Yorkshire) The Organist particularly likes this version and it was mentioned that the tune was the original one for While Shepherds Watch Their flocks By Night.

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: MG John
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 06:15 AM

Sorry, I meant to say 'Carol'.

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 07:21 AM

Does anyone know for sure if the tune used in Watchet, Somerset is the same as the Dunster one?
I don't know if it has been sung officially in St Decuman's in Watchet since I last heard it in the 1960s. When my father was choirmaster there he quietly let it drop out of ciculation as he thought it was rather boring!

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 10 Nov 14 - 03:40 PM

From Wikipedia

Thomas Clark (1775–1859) was a Canterbury shoemaker (cordwainer) and a prolific composer of West Gallery music, especially for the Nonconformist churches of the South East of England. Sally Drage, writing in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, notes that he was 'particularly influential as the composer of early Sunday School collections'.

The best-known of his hymn tunes is Cranbrook: it was originally set to the words 'Grace 'tis a charming sound' written by Philip Doddridge, and published in Clark's first book A Sett of Psalm & Hymn Tunes [1805].

Two other tunes by Clark were included in the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book with Tunes: they are Crediton (tune 565), which was first published in Clark's Second Set of Psalm Tunes ... with symphonies and an instrumental bass, adapted to the use of country choirs [c1807], and Warsaw (tune 606), which was first published in his Third Set of Psalm & Hymn Tunes [1807].

He also wrote the tune Antioch for Joy to the World, the Saviour comes (Ps98 IW).

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: Artful Codger Date: 04 Dec 10 - 05:41 AM

Joe; If you'll notice, the Pentonville tune you linked (for the hymn "Like Sheep We Went Astray") was written by Frances Linley, while the Pentonville tune which the Boden entry linked to was written by William Marsh, late 18th C.

From Old and New London: Volume 2 by Walter Thornbury 1878

"Mr. Francis Linley, organist of Pentonville Chapel," says Caulfield, in his "Portraits," "was blind from his birth. His greatest amusement was to explore churchyards, and with his fingers trace out memorials of the dead from tombstones; indeed, the fineness of his touch would lead him to know a book from the lettering on the back of a volume; and he could, without a guide, make his way throughout the bustling streets of London."

From Roding Music

My soul and spirit, filled with joy; This metrical paraphrase of the Evensong Canticle Magnificat Anima mea Dominum was published in 1700 as a supplement to the New Version of the Metrical Psalms first issued by Tate and Brady in 1696.

It is set to the tune Pentonville by William Marsh (c1780-1805+) of Canterbury, a contemporary and associate of Thomas Clark. It was published in 1816.

The florid contrapuntal style of this tune is typical of the period. Unlike earlier 18th Century tunes, the air or main tune is now in the soprano part.

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: GUEST,Guest/Mike
Date: 25 Aug 15 - 12:00 PM

Fantastic amount of interesting information here, does anyone know of any other popular tunes (ref. above: Supercalifragilistic and House of rising sun)

Subject: RE: While Shepherds Watched/Ilkley Moor
From: Joe_F
Date: 25 Aug 15 - 03:13 PM

_Arise and Hail!_, collected by Bruce A. Randall, has it to a tune called Otford (as well as Cranbrook & Sherburne).

Does "While Shepherds Watch" hold the record for the number of tunes one hymn has attracted?