Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols

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Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols

01 Sep 01 - 07:01 PM (#539875)
Subject: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols
From: Haruo

I just posted the G K Chesterton Christmas song "The World's Desire" in my online hymnal (both in English and in Esperanto). The default tune (background music) is the German "In der Wiegen", but I am wondering about the alternative tune, which I have called "Van Pelt". This is the tune given in the OBC (1956-64 ed.), and while I know it's familiar, I can't think offhand what text I'm using to hearing sung to it. I would like to give it its proper title, since "Van Pelt" won't mean anything to anybody — it is the name of the Atlanta clergyman who recommended it to the OBC editors as a tune for the Chesterton text. The MIDI is my own arrangement (though the second half is mostly very similar to Martin Shaw's arrangement in OBC.

Liland

Online Christmas Carols in Esperanto

01 Sep 01 - 08:05 PM (#539915)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Jeri

Finding the song on the page wasn't easy - it's listed as The Christ-Child lay on Mary's Lap

Can't help much with the other hymn. It reminds me a bit of the tune that On One April Morning is sung to, but it's not the same.

02 Sep 01 - 02:30 AM (#540068)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: wysiwyg

Hardi will probably know-- if you don't get an answer sooner than I can grab him tomorrow, it being Sunday and all. Or Burke will know it. Could you PM me if I forget? And maybe a PM to Burke will help also. And maybe Mousethief.

~S~

02 Sep 01 - 07:36 PM (#540471)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

Sorry Jeri, "The World's Desire" appears to be the title of the song, or poem, by Chesterton, whose incipit or "first line" is "The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap". Like the difference between saying "Battle Hymn of the Republic" vs. "Mine eyes have seen the glory", or "Virgil's Aeneid" vs. "Arma virumque cano", or the difference between the names of the books in the Christian Old Testament vs. the Jewish TaNaKh. My apologies for not listing things both ways.

Looking forward to Hardi's diagnosis, Susan. Thanks, all,

Liland

02 Sep 01 - 08:19 PM (#540488)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: wysiwyg

Liland, I will grab him later this evening if I can.

I think I would set up that OBC melody and these words like this:

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.

O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.

CHO:
O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.
Tho weary, weary were the world,
Yet here is all aright!

It's such a pretty melody. I would do the chorus leader-response style, the people responding as indicated by the italics.

On a Saturday evening in Christmastide. *G*

By the third verse it would become all unison, with our people. They'll try anything new!

~Susan

02 Sep 01 - 09:31 PM (#540520)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: wysiwyg

Now it's made Hardiman nuts. *G* We'll have to mull it over with some others during the week unless inspiration hits. (Or Burke!)

~S~

04 Sep 01 - 07:46 PM (#541980)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

Thanks again, Susan, for the call-and-response idea; very good indeed. I'd still like to know what the (presumably secular) words are/were.

Liland

04 Sep 01 - 07:51 PM (#541987)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

Wait a minute! Inspiration just struck! Is it (or is it very close to) the original tune of Auld Lang Syne ("For old long Sine my Jo")?!? I'm at the library (Internet but no speakers) and won't be able to check till I get home (where I don't have Internet access but do have a mockup of my websites with all the MIDIs and speakers), but if anyone wants to check, the MIDI in question is accessible from my Auld Lang Syne page.

Liland

04 Sep 01 - 09:21 PM (#542048)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: wysiwyg

Some similarities... we were thinking that knowing the meter would help, and then discovered it fits Amazing Grace (and everything else that fits AG!!!).

~Susan

04 Sep 01 - 09:39 PM (#542065)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Jeri

Sorta sounds like Good King Wences...Wencis - Whatshisface, too. (Sorry - can't manage to spell it.)

05 Sep 01 - 12:34 AM (#542195)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: wysiwyg

Wenceslaus, schmenceslaus...

But now it's stuck in MY head too!

~S~

05 Sep 01 - 08:37 PM (#542978)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

Speaking of which, anybody know the last two verses of Good King Wenceslaus in Esperanto? (I'm just kidding, of course, but as long as the thread had drifted in that direction, I am indeed missing them, and it ain't half the fine moral lesson it's meant to be without them.) And incidentally, the tune in question (GKW, not AG or FOLSMJ much less the one I call Van Pelt from OBC) is properly Tempus Adest Floridum (there's an anonymous anglicization (title: "Flower Carol"; incipit "Spring has now unwrapped the flowers") in OBC that is also in The Cyber Hymnal along with the Latin original); it's actually a May Day carol, not a Christmas (or Boxing Day) carol at all...

FWIW

Liland
who felt pretty silly when he got home and listened to them side by side ;-(

05 Sep 01 - 08:50 PM (#542986)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

And quick before I get accused of misspelling, I'd better advert that I've determined that "Wenceslas" and "Wenceslaus" are in more or less free variation in English, and I've been unable to determine which spelling John Mason Neale actually used when he wrote the song. The historical ruler's actual name was Vaclav [the c is the sound of zz in pizza], variously styled Duke or Prince of Bohemia.

Liland

05 Sep 01 - 09:05 PM (#542994)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: wysiwyg

Lilhyeicoi,

Joiuh huio hyovy!

Is that right? *G* (Kid me and I gotta kid back.)

No, seriously, are you saying that what you called Van Pelt is Tempus Adest Floridum?

~S~

05 Sep 01 - 09:34 PM (#543018)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Burke

Sorry, I don't recognize the tune. CMD, but you've all figured that out already.

06 Sep 01 - 03:49 PM (#543665)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

Lilhyeicoi,

Joiuh huio hyovy!

L: It's all Welsh to me ;-)

Is that right? *G* (Kid me and I gotta kid back.)

No, seriously, are you saying that what you called Van Pelt is Tempus Adest Floridum?

~S~

No, seriously, what I called Van Pelt is the tune in OBC; Tempus Adest Floridum is the original incipit/tune name of what most of us think of nowadays as the tune of "Good King Wencesla[u]s".

the tune in question (Good King Wenceslas, not Amazing Grace [i.e. New Britain] [n]or For Old Long Sine My Jo much less the one I call Van Pelt from OBC) is properly Tempus Adest Floridum

Now, did I parse that adequately? ;-)

Liland

06 Sep 01 - 03:51 PM (#543667)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Car
From: Haruo

Lilhyeicoi,

Joiuh huio hyovy!

L: It's all Welsh to me ;-)

the tune in question (Good King Wenceslas, not Amazing Grace [i.e. New Britain] [n]or For Old Long Sine My Jo much less the one I call Van Pelt from OBC) is properly Tempus Adest Floridum

Now, did I parse that adequately? ;-)

Liland

24 Feb 02 - 04:32 AM (#656625)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols
From: Haruo

(refresh) — I heard or saw this tune with other, traditional words recently and I can't for the life of me think where it was. On the off chance that it was on a link from Mudcat, or something else someone here may also have seen/heard, I'm refreshing this. I'm really irritated at myself for not having jotted it down the moment I heard it. But then, maybe it was in a dream... odder things have happened.

Liland

24 Feb 02 - 04:38 AM (#656627)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols
From: Haruo

"Van Pelt", that is. Not "Tempus Adest Floridum". I'd forgotten the title tune wasn't the only one featured in the thread.

Liland

24 Feb 02 - 05:10 AM (#656638)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols
From: masato sakurai

Philip Riley set a new tune to the Chesterton words, "Carol of the Christ-Child." It is in The Novello Book of Carols, Part Two, edited by William Llewellyn (no. 73).

~Masato

24 Feb 02 - 09:14 AM (#656727)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Identify tune in Oxford Book of Carols
From: Jeri

For what it's worth, I'm still holding out for "On One April Morning."

The only song I can find with a search for "add:" for the past 30 days that would even scan to the tune is The Plains of Waterloo.