Sunday, April 20, 2025

A Handel Easter hymn

Happy Easter, dear readers! A few weeks ago I accidentally introduced a hymn we sang in church today, Thine Is the Glory (or Thine Be the Glory, I've seen both titles). To explain, the music for the hymn comes from George Frederic Handel's oratorio Joshua, from a chorus titled “See, the conqu'ring hero comes!”. We've been going through the book of Joshua in Sunday School, and I'd been taking turns teaching while our regular teacher was away for a few weeks. I listened to Joshua (the oratorio) due to being reminded of it, remembered the hymn derived from it, and, since it's a resurrection song and Easter was a month away, introduced it to the class. Which reminded our music leader about it, causing him to pick it for Easter (despite it not being in our usual rotation). I felt like this was as good an excuse as any to digitally engrave some music, and whipped up the score below this afternoon for fun:

In the process I learned the difference between the Early Modern English verb forms ‘hast’ (second-person singular present indicative) and ‘hath’ (third-person singular present indicative) while checking lyrics, since some versions (incorrectly) used the latter instead of the former in the phrase “Thou o’er death hast won.”

There's an interesting history behind this tune, which you may see categorized in hymnals as “Judas Maccabeus”. You see, in 1746 Handel composed an oratorio titled Judas Maccabeus, which became one of his more popular oratorios. The next year in 1747 he composed Joshua, along with this tune. Joshua falls into what I would describe as “solidly average” for Handel; it's not bad by any means, and has its share of high points (I'm particularly fond of “A solemn March during the circumvection[sic] of the Ark of the Covenant”), but mostly didn't achieve the same popularity.

Except for this chorus, which is sometimes rated as Handel's second-most-famous chorus after the “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah. Noting its popularity, Handel went back and added it into Judas Maccabeus (perhaps in 1751, it's generic enough in wording that it fits), and the combination took off. Then in 1884 the music was used by Swiss hymn writer Edmond Louis Budry as the basis for a new hymn, “À toi la gloire,” or Thine Is the Glory when translated into English.

And that's the story of how a tune composed for one oratorio got named after a different oratorio and ended up in a hymn. (It helps that it's a relatively simple chorus sung in unison without any polyphony, making it pretty easy to sing.) History is truly fascinating sometimes. A hui hou!

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Relaxing waves in Hilo bay

I'm starting my new job tomorrow, so I may be a bit preoccupied with that for a while as I settle into a new routine. I know some generalities about what I'll be doing, but the particulars remain to be discovered. (Though I'm expecting to be rather sore and tired for the next week or so.) I'll probably get some posts out of it in the future, at least!

Earlier this week, though, I took the opportunity of some high-surf days to get some drone footage of waves crashing over the breakwater in the bay and turned it into this video:


The observant may remember I did a similar video last year. While that one was taken in overcast, almost stormy conditions, the high surf days this week were on gorgeous, mostly-clear days, which made for a nice contrast. Where I went with some fast-paced music with that video, this one got some calmer music, slower editing, and some nice relaxing wave sounds. Anyway, hope you enjoy it! A hui hou!