For the Beauty of the Earth

Introduction

If my schedule is correct, the anthem for this Sunday is Rutter’s version of For the Beauty of the Earth. If the schedule has changed from what I have, then the choir’s doing something different. Either way, though, we’re going to talk about this beautiful piece and look at a couple of different presentations (including the Rutter version with orchestra).

John Rutter

We’ve spoken a bit about John Rutter, back on November 11th, in a discussion about All Things Bright and Beautiful. We also discussed and played his composition of This is the Day the Lord Hath Made for the Royal Wedding[1].

Reposting a bit from that session: from the artist’s site[2], the Wikipedia page, the above interview, an interview with 60 Minutes[3], and a few other locations[4]:

• 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.

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.

For the Beauty of the Earth

This is hymn 473 in the Presbyterian Hymnal[5], and a copy of that page can be found on-line at hymnary.org.

The words to this hymn are by Folliott Sandford Pierpoint, written in 1864. The most commonly used tune is called Dix, which predates the words. Dix is credited to Conrad Kocher in 1838, though the arrangement we use is from William Henry Monk in 1861, as presented in the 1906 English Hymnal. The meter is 7.7.7.7.7.7, and the tune is in G major. Other common songs with this meter include Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skys and Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me. See the 7.7.7.7.7.7 page on hymnal.net for an interesting resource where we can listen to these different hymns with this particular meter.

According to the Wikipedia page on this hymn, Pierpoint was 29 when he wrote the hymn, and he was inspired by the (English) countryside around him. This is the only commonly used hymn by Pierpoint that survives to this day.

For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies:

Chorus
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our joyful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light:

Chorus

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild:

Chorus

For each perfect gift of thine
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heav’n.

Chorus

There are three presentations of this that I want to use today:

• The first is instrumental, using Douglas Court’s arrangement for tenor horn and piano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PVnjC8aJQ. Tenor horn is not an instrument we get to hear very often, and this is beautiful with just the horn and the piano. Personally, this arrangement would also be beautiful with the horn and harpsichord, and it sounds kind of Baroque to me.

• The second is a nice congregational singing of the traditional hymn posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQpYtUDRMpw. I like this presentation as the words are very clear, this is a nicely done recording, and there’s also an interesting instrumental accompaniement. While the congregation is singing, the instruments are nice decoration in the background. The congregation also does a nice job mixing things up with women singing part, men singing part, and some four part harmony.

• The last is the Rutter arrangement, with orchestra. The version I have is from Gloria - The Sacred Music of John Rutter[6]. This is a tough act for the choir to follow, given that it’s professional musicians in a studio environment and with Rutter himself conducting. Oh well….

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1. 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.  ↩

2. See http://www.johnrutter.com/ for the artist’s site and http://www.youtube.com/artist/john-rutter for a dedicated YouTube channel.  ↩

3. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/60ii/main589173.shtml  ↩

4. I found at least 7 other interviews with John Rutter by searching on YouTube  ↩

5. The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs. Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990.  ↩

6. Maestro Rutter’s site points to the collection on Collegium Records. It is also available through ITunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gloria-sacred-music-john-rutter/id444809046 and other typical outlets. For the Beauty of the Earth is track 13 from this CD.  ↩