My little Gnudren, how oft I would have taken you under the shadow of my horns that I might instruct you in The Art of The Descant & Last Verse ! Let me make up for this sin of omission and make a start. For your edification, in the following Treatise, Kapellmeister Gnu would like to point out three categories. Armed with these you will be forewarned and ready to do battle withal. There are many more categories, but three will suffice for the present. You will find examples of these in the Scores & Arrangements Menu to accompany this blog.

O Worship the King [Hanover] is a good example of the first category, albeit it a watered down version.  Kapellmeister Gnu furnishes us with a challenging descant that tests not only the choir, but needs a determined congregation to fight off the occasional dissonance the choir throw in against the melody. It worked marvellously in Wales in the 1980s; but truly they know all about congregational singing in that blessed land. They could resist evil in the spirit of those famous Men of Harlech. Congregation members told me afterwards that they had won the contest, hands down.  It’s not likely to go down well with a congregation who “know what they like”. Nevertheless, it is spine-tinglingly good with a well-endowed organ and a loud congregation. I grant you that what causes one person’s spine to tingle may vary greatly from another’s. (I once worked in a church where the pews made one’s spine tingle; but that was through numbness after prolonged sitting in seats that didn’t seem designed for the human or any other posterior. Mercifully, the wise congregation of that church recently decided ‘enough was enough’ and assigned the pews to Gehenna. [For further elucidation on Gehenna please consult Mr. Waki Pedia who will fill you in big time.] Suffice it to say that it is ‘the destination of the wicked.’ i.e. worse than missing a connection on British Rail. But I digress. As to musical analysis of this piece, the following observations may help.

This last verse arrangement is of the sort where the harmonisation sounds like a deliberate attempt to to sabotage every chord of the normal verse. Such last verses were often tossed off like unpremeditated murder by the many glorious cathedral [and parish church] organists in the 1980s and 90s. Alas, they went out of fashion judging by what we heard on Choral Evensong [BBC Radio 3], but I may be wrong and perhaps didn’t listen enough. Since it comes about by unpremeditated brilliance of the organist, he/she can only be had up for manslaughter and not first-degree murder. Such magnificent evil gave me a thrill, especially when the organist veered dangerously away from the harmony and only had a a few notes of melody to recover and arrive back in the home key.  But then evil is like that; it always has an enticing quality, and invariably leads us astray until God steps in and points us back to the place where we should be.

This brings us to the second category.  It is the exact opposite of the first type and Kapellmeister Gnu demonstrates in an arrangement of  “O Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness” [Was Lebet]. Here, not one note of the normal harmony has been changed in the last verse, and the descant sings a glorious countermelody above it (at least Composer Gnu thinks so). We do not know who wrote this hymn tune; that is provided Mr. Weki Padia has not discovered the culprit in the last half hour. (Mr. P.W. updates things the moment your back is turned.)  God bless the composer!  She/He is most definitely an angel by now. Yes, a descant and last verse where not one note of mischief is introduced! Remarkable! And believe me, many of the tunes Old Gnu has had to arrange for instrumentalists deserved more that mischief done to them – the word Gehenna comes to mind (See note above on O Worship the King [Hanover]). Since this is an Epiphany hymn the introduction provided is a quotation from the instrumental part of the opening chorus of Bach’s Epiphany Cantata [BWV 65]. I know you all probably spotted that. Forgive me for patronizingly stating the blindingly obvious. At Christ Church Clifton in those wicked days of the 1970s 80s and 90s we used this and other short sections from the opening of Bach Cantata No.65 as interludes between some of the verses. Mercifully, I understand this unspiritual practice has rightly been stamped out in the afore mentioned church.  I hope to provide an old cassette recording (or a demo track of the full version) eventually to help you recall the sins of the past. I know you just can’t wait to be plunged back into sin once again. But that is human nature. Should you want these interludes in orchestrated form to use with your parish church symphony orchestra, please contact me and I will provide them. Don’t all rush at once. Sorry, but I don’t have parts for E flat Euphoniums or Wagner Tubas. (God being my helper I hope in time to provide you with the following Treatise: How to Create a Parish Church Symphony Orchestra – A Rough Guide. And believe you me, you need to be rough.)

On to category three – Speak Lord in the Stillness [Quietude] – which can be summed up in three words: continuous mystical transmogrification. Let me explain. The example furnished here can be a very atmospheric little ditty that is appropriate for use before a sermon, so that the Holy Spirit may open our hearts to receive the Word. Or, the same Spirit may use it to induce sleep [especially if sung sitting down] to block out the rantings and railings of an ill prepared preacher. I used this once with 3 different descants, each one changing and growing with each successive verse. By the end no one knew where they were;  but in the confused haze they did definitely sleep soundly though the sermon. Bear in mind that it is demoralising for a preacher to stand before a sleeping congregation. However after 40 years of attending meetings, committees, and services I perfected the art of learning to sleep with my eyes open. I can pass on tips if there is sufficient demand. But remember this is only a safe and effective tactic in sermons where there is no risk of having to answer questions. If you go to one of those modern churches where this sort of thing happens, you could be in trouble. It is also a risky tactic in committee meetings, for if you are unexpectedly asked a question and don’t register what the question actually was, you may come unstuck. Unless of course you are blessed with hearing aids. Then you can fiddle behind your ears and ask for the question to be repeated.  The demo track plays the printed version and then slightly changes it in the next verse to give you an idea of what I mean. ‘Make it up as you go along’ is the general principle here for the vocalists, or as my esteemed colleague, Simon Crawford*, would say to the bewildered  choir when he was leading a warship song: “Harmonize”. The organist must stick rigidly to the set harmony otherwise there will be total disaster. It really can sound most effective, just like speaking in tongues.

Jesus My Lord, My God, My All [St. Chrysostom] has a lovely tune, composed by Sir Joseph Barnby [1838-1896]. He came second to Arthur Sullivan in a competition to win the Mendelssohn Scholarship. He also became the Principal of the Guild Hall School of Music. He looked like this:

I don’t think this picture is from one of those famous W.D & H.O. Wills cigarette cards. But I can’t guarantee that Joseph Barnby was a non-smoker. However, Mr. Peki Waedia records this enlightening episode from Mr. Barnby’s life:

“A possibly apocryphal story about him got as far as New Zealand: A young contralto at the end of a Handel solo put in a high note instead of the less effective note usually sung. The conductor, Barnby, was shocked, and asked whether Miss – thought she was right to improve on Handel. “Well, Sir Joseph, said she, I’ve got an ‘E’ and I don’t see why I shouldn’t show it off”. “Miss –,” rejoined Barnby, “I believe you have two knees, but I hope you won’t show them off here”.

This is truly shocking! And I hope Old Gnu hasn’t upset the sensitivities of his two followers. I know, you thought that this wasn’t that sort of website. But it just goes to underline the integrity of Mr. Peki Wakia and that he doesn’t spare us, or protect us from the whole sordid truth.

In this arrangement you will observe that, up to the last line, this last verse and descant falls into category number two. Not a single note of the harmony is changed, but then when all is predictably peaceable, calamity comes upon us. The last line is harmonised in such a way as make it sound as if it is going to end in the wrong key, but a diminished chord comes to our rescue at the eleventh hour.

This category takes 1 Thessalonians 5:3 as its guiding principle:  “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” (KJAV). This arrangement is a preview, (once again, a watered down version), of the fourth category known as The Surprise Attack. Kapellmeister Gnu has much to say on this matter, but this is sufficient for the moment. In future days, God being his helper, he will produce arrangements where the whole hymn falls into this category.

Kapellmeister Gnu
Kantor und Prinzip-Tänzer
Den Schuppen
Lang Eschestadt 

Der Festtag des St. Barhadbesaba
Am 20. Juli 2017

* I have used a pseudonym here because I do not have my esteem colleague’s permission to quote him.