My dear Gnudren,

As promised in late August, Old Gnu offers you another item from the service in the University Great Hall at Aberystwyth in 1986. It was also a hymn we sang regularly at Christ Church; but we did not sing it in Welsh in Clifton as we did in Aberystwyth.  (Few people realised that the 6.30pm choir could sing in tongues.)  The hymn in question is O The Deep Deep Love of Jesus sung to the tune Ebenezer.

Ebenezer is made up of two Hebrew words, one meaning rock or stone and the other meaning help. Together they are taken to mean Rock of Help. In 1 Samuel 7 the prophet Samuel raised a memorial stone in the presence of the nation and called it Ebenezer adding hitherto hath the Lord helped us. When this arrangement first appeared at Christ Church in 1986 one knowledgeable witty person remarked that, in light of what he had just experienced, the tune was very aptly named. He added that they needed all the help they could get from the Almighty to weather the onslaughts of this arrangement, because it was impossible to sing.

Well Old Gnu presents you with the evidence to the contrary. The Welsh speaking congregation at Aberystwyth didn’t know what was coming to them, but they sang with such alacrity that even the might of noble (but pilfered) Saint-Saëns couldn’t put them off their stride. One member said afterwards: Let’s sing it again boyo!  Back in Clifton another person said that he had never heard the hymn played like that, and added he didn’t want to hear it again. And what was more, he was going to complain to the vicar (who he didn’t know was tone deaf). But such folks were in the minority and this derangement appeared many times in our evening service and even on BBC Radio. Another displeased person asked what it was that drove Gnu to write such outrageous arrangements of hymns. Well let me explain how it occurred.

A younger Gnu was sitting in the bath one Sunday night in 1985 disgruntled. He was playing with his rubber duck to relieve the disgruntlement which had come upon him because of what a recent newcomer had said at the end of the service. He had found a lot of the worship songs about loving God and the love of God awfully effeminate and cast in a style he did not relate to. He said, No wonder the church is full of women! (Gnu personally did not see anything wrong with that.)  So this arrangement grew out of provocation. In the bath Gnu began to think of hymns and songs about God’s love that couldn’t be accused of being effeminate… O the deep deep love of Jesus was one. He also thought of music and styles that made him feel warm and noble. His mind temporarily lost consciousness of the rubber duck and wandered off to the wonderful warmth, grandeur and nobility of the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony.

And then in a blinding flash of dazzling clarity, in a split second, he saw how the two could be intertwined. And as they say, the rest is history.

The Welsh words, in Old Gnu’s very humbilious opinion, are grander in content than the English version. But you may judge for yourself; a translation of the Welsh words has been provided in the bonus tracks menu. The English version of the hymn, while it is roughly on the same subject is different in content.

Those of you who have followed Old Gnu’s categorisation of last verse arrangements (see blog 21st July) will at once realise that the whole of this hymn, but notably the last verse fall into The Surprise Attack category.

Dear M. Saint-Saëns, please forgive my pilfering of you marvellous Organ Symphony for my hymn arrangement. I meant well. After all you did, in jest, pilfer one of Mr.Offenbach’s wonderful hymn tunes (which has an equally wonderful dance associated with it). I was not jesting. But my psychiatrist is still worried.