abide with me

So pleased to finally find a recording that doesn’t drag.

This hymn came into our choir’s rotation in Ordinary Time, being a favourite of one of the priests. The first time I heard the tune was in relation to Parry’s wonderful chorale prelude, and I was in a stark moment disappointed to hear during rehearsal one of the choristers refer to it as “that funeral song”. If anything beautiful has ever been spoiled by overuse and misuse, perhaps this would be it.

This recording, while beautiful, omits my favourite part (I suppose so that I can’t listen to it ad nauseum and therefore wear it thin): change and decay in all around I see / O Thou Who changest not, abide with me. Perhaps words will fail me–oh, the experience of singing it in four-part harmony will help you understand–but here, I’ll try: there’s something in the closing of the vowels in “changest not” that, together with the harmonic progression, creates the most resolute and serious and dignified impression. And there the mystery shall remain.