The strife is past, the battle done

This 2nd of a batch of 5 further Easter classics takes us from Gk roots to Lat ones, but again in the hands of a 19th-c translator and versifier. The first known appearance of Alleluia … Finita iam sunt proelia was in 1695, in the Cologne Symphonia Sirenum Selectarum. It was J M Neale who published it in Hymni Ecclesiae and then (in English) in Medieval Hymns, both in 1851; he judged it to be from the 12th c. Also in the 1850s, Horatius Bonar and J W Hewitt are among others to write paraphrases. But Francis Pott’s version, more or less as published in his Hymns fitted to the Order of Common Prayer (1861), was the one chosen for A&M that year. Further changes were made in that century (including the introduction of 3.1), and different ones from the 1980s onwards. The first line ‘past’ replaced ‘o’er’ in HTC, while stz 4 is based on ‘He brake the age-bound chains of hell/ the bars from heaven’s high portals fell …’, and 5 on ‘Lord, by the stripes which wounded thee … that we may live, and sing to thee …’ It is now rare to find two hymnals with exactly the same text, but most of them retain what the Companion to Rejoice and Sing calls the ‘crisp, rough flavour of a characteristically medieval view of the Resurrection.’ We might add that its deeper foundations are in Scripture; an adapted stz 5, for example, links Isaiah 53:5 (and 1 Peter 2:24) with 1 Corinthians 15:54–57. And that the hymn’s vocabulary is permeated with praise, singing and glory.

Many congregations first sang this hymn to the majestic Palestrina-based tune VICTORY, which uses a threefold ‘Hallelujah’ as its opening, while the livelier VULPIUS (791) has been a more recent favourite, tripling the ‘Hallelujah’ at the end of each stz. Linda Mawson’s CROFTON (with even more ‘Hallelujahs’!) is first published here. The name comes from Crofton Baptist Church at Orpington, Kent, where she then belonged and co-ordinated the music. It was sung as an Easter musical item, one of the first of her compositions to be adopted by the choir there. The tune had been written earlier but not named.

b Southwark (Surrey/S London) 1832, d Speldhurst nr Tunbridge Wells, Kent 1909. His first home was near the site of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and of his father’s vinegar factory. Brasenose Coll Oxford; BA 1854, MA 1857. Ordained in 1856; curate at Bishopsworth nr Bristol; then of Ardingly and Ticehurst, both in Sussex. Rector of Northill, nr Biggleswade, Beds, from 1866 to 1891 when ill health including deafness induced him to resign, and retire to Speldhurst. He edited Hymns fitted to the Order of Common Prayer (translated from Lat and Syriac as well as new texts) in 1861, the year of the 1st edn of Hymns A&M of whose committee he was a Charter member. In retirement he concentrated on hymnody and liturgy, editing The Free Rhythm Psalter in 1898. Nos.169, 473.