- Play Rutter Gloria as welcome music[1] Note that the UTK Chamber Singers and FPC Chancel Choir did this in the Christmas Festival concert a couple of years ago.
Introduction
Today’s discussion will be about All Things Bright and Beautiful[2], particularly the version by John Rutter, as well as some discussion of Rutter and his perspectives. The text for the song is a hymn (7.6.7.6 with 7.6.7.6 refrain) from the mid 1800’s by Cecil Francis Humphreys Alexander and first published in a book of Children’s hymns, to the hymn tune Royal Oak.
The PCUSA blue hymnal has this hymn (#267). As an interesting aside, Go Tell It on the Mountain is also 7.6.7.6 with refrain, though the meter of the refrain is slightly different (7.8.7.6). I tried to sing All Things Bright and Beautiful to the tune of Go Tell It on the Mountain. It made my brain hurt.
All Things Bright and Beautiful hymn
- Read through the lyrics for ATBB (handout)
- What do you see in the lyrics?
- What are the key messages of the song?
- Where are there points of agreement with your views and where are there points of disagreement?
- What’s missing?
All Things Bright and Beautiful (as used in the version by John Rutter)
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.(refrain)
The purple-headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky.The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden -
He made them every one.(refrain)
He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.(refrain)
Rutter doesn’t use two other verses from the original hymn, the first of which is often omitted from hymnals, due to at least an apparent presentation of class separation as ordained by God.
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
To gather every day.
Wikipedia[3] also notes that the United Church of Canada includes an additional verse, which definitely seems rather Canadian.
The rocky mountain splendor,
the lone wolf’s haunting call,
the great lakes and the prairies,
the forest in the fall.
- Play Rutter Version of ATBB Note that the tune Rutter uses is somewhat different from the adaptation of Royal Oak that’s in the PCUSA hymnal, but I think both are recognizable variants of the same basic tune.
- Does the sung version add or change anything for you in this hymn?
About John Rutter
- What do people know about John Rutter and his works?
- Play interview with Rutter by C Music TV on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbMyPVZY34c
As it happens, my music library includes 47 songs that were written or arranged by John Rutter, including his Gloria and Te Deum. There are at least 100 different titles listed on the Wikipedia page for Rutter[4].
From the artist’s site[5], the Wikipedia page, the above interview, an interview with 60 Minutes[6], and a few other locations[7]:
- Born in London in 1945 and went to Highgate School, which apparently provided an excellent music education
- He did not come from a particularly musical family
- Studied at Clair College, Cambridge and wrote his first published composition while still a student (at age 19)
- Has published a lot of music, including choral works for large and small groups, orchestral works, a piano concerto, two children’s operas, and music for television.
- In 1980 he was made an honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, and in 1988 a Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians.
- In 1996 the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred a Lambeth Doctorate of Music upon him in recognition of his contribution to church music.
- He was honoured in the 2007 Queen’s New Year Honours List, being awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music.
- His arrangement of Psalm 150 was commissioned for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and he was commissioned to write “This is the Day the Lord Hath Made” for the royal wedding of Prince Williams and Kate Middleton[8]
- Rutter is criticized by some as writing music that’s “too sweet”, which is addressed in both the 60 minutes and C Music TV interviews – “tunes so sweet, as one critic said, that they were all but trail fairy dust.”
Personally, I love this passage from the interview with Rutter in the 60 Minutes interview:
Correspondent Vicki Mabrey found the maestro in a small church in Edinburgh, Scotland, giving singing lessons.
“You don’t realize how good it is until you’ve tried it,” says Rutter. “It is wonderful to go to a choral concert, to hear a choir sing. But I think the deepest joy of all is to actually sing.”
Rutter holds these singing days about 20 times a year. “When I agree to do these, I make just one condition, which is that anybody is welcome,” he says. “So long as they are willing to come and bring their voice, they’re welcome.”
The cost of admission: donation to charity. Singing lessons from the master: priceless.
- Discuss Rutter and the role of his works in worship and living
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“Gloria” Tracks 1–3 from Gloria: The Sacred Music of John Rutter (1984; The Cambridge Singers) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gloria-sacred-music-john-rutter/id444809046. ↩
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“All Things Bright and Beautiful” Track 4 from Gloria: The Sacred Music of John Rutter (1984; The Cambridge Singers) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gloria-sacred-music-john-rutter/id444809046. See http://www.johnrutter.com/ for the artist’s site. ↩
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Things_Bright_and_Beautiful ↩
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See http://www.johnrutter.com/ for the artist’s site and http://www.youtube.com/artist/john-rutter for a dedicated YouTube channel. ↩
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/60ii/main589173.shtml ↩
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I found at least 7 other interviews with John Rutter by searching on YouTube ↩
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There are multiple YouTube uploads of this piece from the wedding, with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UGxzEyop14 being a bit cleaner and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssnAMpYKsd8 being the one apparently from the BBC official album for the Royal Wedding. ↩
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