Product Description
Sonata Hymnica
No. 5 has the subtitle
"Scenes of Calvary." Landscape paintings and printed illustrations of the Cross
of Calvary were ubiquitous in Christian literature in the late 19th century, so
it not surprising that allusions to such art are found in the texts of hymns.
The three hymns heard in Sonata Hymnica No. 5 all evoke some sense of
seeing, in a spiritual way, the scene of the Crucifixion.
Sonata Hymnica
No. 5 opens with a sturdy
and rugged statement of "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," written by Isaac
Watts in 1707. This poem continues:
On
which the Prince of Glory dyd,
.
. . See from His Head, his Hands, his Feet,
Sorrow
and Love flow mingled down!
In the United
States, music educator Lowell Mason (1792-1872) composed a tune in 1824 for
singing Watts hymn. Named HAMBURG tune, it was an adapted form of some
Gregorian chant in Church Mode I. This combination of poem and tune became very
popular; so much so, that by the 1880s, elaborations of it appeared in print.
The most enduring is the pairing of Watts poem and Masons tune with a simple
camp meeting song, "At the Cross," to be a refrain. It has the phrases, "At the
cross, where I first saw the light . . . It was there by faith I received my
sight."
The centerpiece of
Sonata Hymnica No. 5 is the tune TOPLADY, the usual tune for singing
"Rock of Ages." This tune was composed in 1830 by Thomas Hastings (1784-1872),
an associate of Lowell Mason in New York. He wrote hymns and hymn tunes, published
hymnals, and worked tirelessly to elevate choral singing in churches. Hastings
indicated that he intended his tune for singing "Rock of Ages" by naming it
after the author of the hymn-poem, the English pastor Augustus Toplady
(1740-1778). The Rev. A. B. Grosart wrote in a memorial that Toplady was "no
poet or inspired singer," but an "impulsive, rash-spoken, reckless" preacher
who could nonetheless picture "vanishing gleams of imaginative light" in his
hymnic verses. A better impression was gained by poet A. C. Benson (1862-1925),
who, upon hearing "Rock of Ages" sung at William Gladstones funeral at
Westminster Abbey in 1898 --- a rare State funeral attended by several members
of the British Royal family --- wrote, "To have written such words which should
come home to people in moments of high, deep, and passionate emotion . . . there can hardly be anything worth doing
better than that." This high compliment came from the poet who, a few years
later, would write the words of Elgars Coronation Ode for King Edward
VII and Queen Alexandra.
A
camp meeting song, a rash-spoken English pastor, two American music educators,
a State funeral at Westminster Abbey --- such is the wide world of influence
and inspiration of these three Scenes of Calvary.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.