HOTC #13, LSB # 519, In His Temple Now Behold Him
Feast of the Presentation is not, as one might be led to believe, a PowerPoint with catering. It is one of the oldest celebrations in Christendom (first attested in the writings of pilgrims in Jerusalem in the 4th Century), and, as Candlemas, is one of the most widely-celebrated Christian holidays outside the United States. It is fitting, then, that this hymn - both text and tune - come to us from England, and that the tune in particular is an English classic.
Presentation of Christ in the Temple by Fra Bartolomeo, 1516
The Author
Henry John Pye came from a well-off family in Staffordshire, in central England, and upon finishing his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, became an Anglican priest. It was in his inaugural year as rector of the parish in Clifton Campville (also in Staffordshire) that Pye compiled a collection of hymns (appropriately enough titled simply Hymns) to which he himself made two contributions, one of which is our present subject. His wife was the daughter of the eminent Bishop of Winchester and prominent High Churchman Samuel Wilberforce; the couple would convert to Roman Catholicism in 1868. Pye died in 1903.
The Text
Pye’s text opens by invoking the ancient prophecies that foretold the Incarnation, stating unequivocally halfway through the first verse that “God has now fulfilled His word.” The rest of the text follows the account from St. Luke 2:22-40. The second verse’s opening vignette, of Christ in the arms of St. Mary, perhaps betrays Pye’s High Church Anglicanism, but otherwise the rest of that verse is a straightforward poetic retelling of St. Luke’s narrative. The hymn ends with a pining for our own cleansing and final presentation, not in a temple built by hands, but in the very courts of Heaven.
The Tune
Henry Purcell, a portrait by John Closterman, likely in the last year of Purcell’s life
WESTMINSTER ABBEY is, as the name of the tune probably gives away, one of the glories of Anglican church music in the same way that the abbey church it’s named for is one of the glories of Western architecture. It also comes to us from the pen of one of the glories of English music: Henry Purcell.
Purcell was unarguably the greatest English composer of the generation before Handel arrived on the Sceptered Isle. In much the same way as Pachelbel (and others, but Pachelbel in particular to my mind) presages Bach in the church music of central German Lutheranism, Purcell can be seen as a premonition of the creative explosion that Handel would bring when he arrived in England 15 years after Purcell’s death.
He was born in the slums of Westminster (in a weird coincidence for our blog post today, he was actually born on Old Pye Street) in 1659, in what appears to have been a musical family (his older brother Thomas was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and had sung at the coronation of Charles II in 1661). His fascinating life, and the sheer aural wealth of his compositions are a topic for another day (I have hopes of starting a series on the great organists and church composers once I’ve gotten far enough ahead on the HOTC series), but suffice it to say that he had been detailed to tune the organ at Westminster Abbey possibly as early as 1673, and by 1679 had been selected by his predecessor, John Blow, to replace him as organist at that institution. It was, presumably, while employed in that capacity that Purcell composed this tune. Purcell died tragically young, at the age of just 36, probably of tuberculosis. He was buried beneath the organ in Westminster Abbey (which has since been moved slightly, thus Purcell is now buried beside the organ, rather than under it).
The tune is very angular, as Baroque anthems tend to be, and this gives the tune a soaring gravitas that very few other tunes achieve. This can be enhanced by articulating the short notes between the long notes, i.e. leaving a bit of a space - just enough to let the short note land - in the long-short-long-short-long rhythmic pattern that starts each phrase.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY twice more in Lutheran Service Book: LSB #909 (by far the most famous text involving this tune [there is a stunning recording from Westminster Abbey available on YouTube]) and LSB #914.
The tune is not composed on terribly often, being as it is a fairly complex tune as it is. That said, I have provided a few useful compositions by modern church composers below.
Settings of this hymn and/or tune can be found in:
For organ:
Concordia Hymn Prelude Library, Vol. 12
Six Hymn Improvisations, Set 10