Hymns and Hearses

OMP172 Lance Eccles Hymns and Hearses.

In this delightful collection, Lance Eccles - a member of the Reluctant Consort (Sydney, Australia) and a recently retired senior lecturer in Chinese at Macquarie University - has arranged five hymns in interesting but very church-useable ways. The five hymn tunes are: Praise to the Living God to the tune Leoni/Yigdal (which many of us on this side of the pond sing to The God of Abraham Praise), Monksgate (traditional English), Lourdes (19th-century French), Dies Irae (Gregorian melody, modally altered - from the Latin Requiem mass), and Cwm Rhondda (the rousing Welsh tune to which many of us sing God of Grace and God of Glory).

While the arrangements are pretty straightforward, Monksgate has multiple meters (4/4 to 5/4 to 2/4 to 4/4), and all of them except Lourdes modulate in the middle and then return to the original key. They are accessible, but not necessarily sight-readable.

I plan for the Trinity Consort to play these in church services, especially the Leoni/Yigdal and Cwm Rhondda settings.

Valerie E. Hess, American Recorder, January 2009.