O praise the Lord! Sing praises!

For this 3-part ‘liturgical hymn’ a text of mixed parentage is chosen. The Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Church in N America (1987) has Marie J Post’s Sing praise to our Creator at this point. David Preston started revising her text, but noted that ‘not much of the original wording has survived.’ He did not want to claim the credit; hence the rather puzzling ascription, since the CRC holds the copyright of the original version. But stz 5 is original to DGP, and his major rewriting was done originally for Reading’s Carey Praise (1989). Another recent rendering is Fill your hearts with joy and gladness, by Timothy Dudley-Smith in 1970; from many earlier versions, two deserving a mention are Christopher Smart’s 120 lines from 1765, too expansive for most purposes but with the striking opening, ‘HOSANNA—musick is divine/ When in the praise the psalmists join …’; and John Wesley’s adaptation of Isaac Watts in Praise ye the LORD! ’tis good to raise, the only text in the classic 1780 book to begin with the word ‘praise’. One which is less deserving has ‘His joy could never have its sources/ in warriors’ legs or strength of horses …’ ASCENSION, composed in 1938 by Henry H Bancroft for The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church in Canada, may be the latest but least known of tunes bearing this name; others are by Gauntlett and Monk. It is the composer’s only entry in The Book of Praise 1996–97 (from the Presbyterian Church in Canada), where it is marked as ‘Irregular’ and set to James L Millgan’s There’s a voice in the wilderness crying. Its name probably refers to The Church of the Ascension in Hamilton, Ontario, where Bancroft was organist 1936–37.

A collection from the Christian Reformed Ch in N America, edited by a group of 12 chaired by Emily R Brink, ‘including the psalms, Bible songs, hymns, ecumenical creeds, doctrinal standards and liturgical forms’ of that church. Its 641 items in generally hymn-mode include words and music by a widely representative group of contributors including much contemporary work. No.147.