"Will the Circle be Unbroken?"

Looking through some previous posts here I came across an article describing how the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? broadened the audience for bluegrass. Toward the end of that article its author noted the importance to bluegrass of another recording:

.... [T]he Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's expansive 1972 record Will the Circle Be Unbroken brought revered traditional artists like Doc Watson, the Carter Family, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, and Jimmy Martin back into the national spotlight. It remains an important crossover record that bridges revered old-school figureheads with a young, fresh audience.

"These albums really helped cross over into the mainstream, and I think remind people how powerful and important the music is," Lewis says. ....

There were eventually three collections of songs in a series of "Will the Circle be Unbroken" records/CDs. My favorite is Volume Two, the one that includes the remarkable gathering of musicians above (and more).


Fifteen Years Later, Bluegrass Is Still Reeling from O Brother, Where Art Thou? | Music Feature | Indy Week

"To lay aside His crown..."

A good Lenten hymn. The last two verses here were unfamiliar to me, but I like them.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
To lay aside his crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I AM;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Then friends shall meet again, who have loved, who have loved,
Then friends shall meet again, who have loved;
Then friends shall meet again, in Jesus' presence, when
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved, who have loved,
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved.

Ye winged seraphs, fly! Bear the news, bear the news.
Ye winged seraphs fly! bear the news;
Ye winged seraphs fly! Like comets through the sky,
Fill vast eternity with the news, with the news,
Fill vast eternity with the news!

Anonymous; composite; 19th cent.

Tune: WONDROUS LOVE (6.6.6.3.6.6.6.6.6.3.)

American folk tune; The Southern Harmony, 1840

Conjubilant with Song included this about the hymn, which first appeared in 1811:

The tune for this hymn, adapted from an earlier folk tune, was first printed in the second edition of William Walker's The Southern Harmony (1840), in three-part harmony (and with only one stanza of the text). There have been many different arrangements of the tune since then, not only in hymnals but also as choral anthems and instrumental pieces.

Conjubilant with Song: Like Comets Through the Sky

When will I ever learn?

Listening to Van Morrison this afternoon.

The sun was setting over Avalon The last time we stood in the west Suffering long time angels enraptured by Blake Burn out the dross innocence captured again Standing on the beach at sunset all the boats All the boats keep moving slow In the glory of the flashing light in the evenings glow When will I ever learn to live in God? When will I ever learn? He gives me everything I need and more When will I ever learn? You brought it to my attention everything that was made in God Down through centuries of great writings and paintings Everything lives in God Seen through architecture of great cathedrals Down through the history of time Is and was in the beginning and evermore shall be

When will I ever learn to live in God? When will I ever learn? He gives me everything I need and more When will I ever learn? Whatever it takes to fulfill his mission That is the way we must go But you've got to do it your own way Tear down the old, bring up the new And up on the hillside its quiet Where the shepherd is tending his sheep And over the mountains and the valleys The countryside is so green Standing on the highest hill with a sense of wonder You can see everything is made in God Head back down the roadside and give thanks for it all When will I ever learn to live in God? When will I ever learn? He gives me everything I need and more When will I ever learn?

"May I but safely reach my home"

Re-posted

From Conjubilant With Song: Safely Reach My Home:

.... A simple, four stanza text by Isaac Watts, first published in 1707, which appeared under the epigraph The hope of heaven our support under trials on earth.... It could be set to many different tunes in Common Meter (8.6.8.6.) such as ST. ANNE or WINCHESTER OLD, tunes which were known in Watts's time. However, it has become more familiar in this country with a folk tune from Scotland which was arranged in an early American tune collection titled Kentucky Harmony (1817).

When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes. And wipe my weeping eyes, And wipe my weeping eyes I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes.	Let cares, like a wild deluge come, And storms of sorrow fall! May I but safely reach my home, My God, my heav’n, my all. My God, my heav'n, my all, My God, my heav'n, my all, May I but safely reach my home, Ay God, my heav'n, my all.
Should earth against my soul engage, And fiery darts be hurled, Then I can smile at Satan’s rage, And face a frowning world. And face a frowning world, And face a frowning world, Then I can smile at Satan’s rage, And face a frowning world.	There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heav’nly rest, And not a wave of trouble roll, Across my peaceful breast. Across my peaceful breast, Across my peaceful breast, And not a wave of trouble roll, Across my peaceful breast.

Isaac Watts, 1707
Tune: PISGAH (8.6.8.6.6.6.8.6.)
Scottish tune, arr. Joseph C. Lowry, 1817
Conjubilant With Song: Safely Reach My Home

"A slayer of Communists"

John Podhoretz is not particularly fond of Bob Dylan but liked A Complete Unknown because of a theme Podhoretz isn't sure the director understood. Who knew that electrified guitars were anti-Communist? From the review of the film:

The hidden story of A Complete Unknown is that Bob Dylan is a slayer of Communists—maybe not because they’re Communists, but I’ll take what I can get.

His rebellion against the elders in the folk movement of the 1960s was a rebellion in part against the static conformity and dreary humorlessness of the far-left politics that had dominated that corner of the music world for a quarter-century.

That is the secret hidden text of A Complete Unknown, the biopic in question, even if co-writer and director James Mangold might not completely grasp it. The not-so-hidden general theme of the movie is that Dylan is the inceptor of the new American age of the 1960s because he rebels against and ultimately rejects the expectations of elders and authority figures. What Dylan’s mentors, users, financial exploiters, and groupies want is the voice of social justice inveighing as he does against "Masters of War"—but a social-justice warrior is not what he wants to be. And this guy simply will not be what other people want him to be. In a genuinely brilliant performance, Timothée Chalamet captures Dylan’s combination of insolence, petulance, self-assurance, and hunger for authenticity without ever once trying to make the man even remotely endearing. In an equally brilliant performance, Edward Norton plays Pete Seeger, seemingly kindly but deeply self-satisfied, the mentor from whom Dylan must break away to be free. Their dynamic is the beating heart of A Complete Unknown. ....

The Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, no conservative to put it mildly, lays it out authoritatively in his 2010 book, Bob Dylan in America: It was the political aesthetic of the American Communist Party and its fellow travelers, which had reached its entropic phase by the time Dylan stepped off the Greyhound. The world of folk music was, by then, led by a hidebound Establishment of its own that had emerged from the Popular Front—the effort, in the United States during the 1930s, to advance the interests of Stalin’s Soviet Union through the seizure of the high ground of culture.

It was led by an unreconstructed Stalinist named Alan Lomax, who worked out of the Library of Congress during the FDR era recording and storing and transcribing what he believed to be authentic working-class musical art unstained by bourgeois Kulak values in pursuit of revolutionary change. (He was assisted in these efforts by nepo daddy Charles Seeger, Pete’s paterfamilias.)

The key tunes of the time were the celebration of the radical Wobbly labor agitator Joe Hill and the anthemic "Which Side Are You On?" nominally about the Harlan County mining strike of 1931—but over time the "side" in question was the Soviet side in the battle between democracy and Stalinism.

A Complete Unknown concludes with Dylan’s betrayal of the aesthetic principles of the Popular Front through his embrace of electrified instruments—which an enraged Lomax and others considered a surrender to the capture of the youth vanguard that was supposed to save America from bourgeois conservatism by capitalist tools like the Beatles.

John Podhoretz, "REVIEW: ‘A Complete Unknown’," The Washington Free Beacon, Jan. 3, 2025.

In the bleak midwinter

In the bleak midwinter,      frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron,     water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow,     snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.	Angels and archangels may     have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim     thronged the air; But His mother only,     in her maiden bliss, Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him,     nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away     when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter     a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.	What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd,     I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man,     I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him:     give my heart.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim,     worship night and day, Breastful of milk,     and a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him,     whom angels fall before, The ox and ass and camel which adore.

 Christina Rossetti, 1872

The Truth sent from Above

Ralph Vaughan Williams, "Herefordshire Carol":

This is the truth sent from above, The truth of God, the God of love; Therefore don’t turn me from your door,    But hearken all both rich and poor.	And at that season of the year Our blest Redeemer did appear; He here did live, and here did preach, And may thousands he did teach.
The first thing which I do relate Is that God did man create; The next thing which to you I’ll tell Woman was made with man to dwell.	Thus He in love to us behaved, To show us how we must be saved; And if you want to know the way, Be pleased to hear what He did say.
And we were heirs to endless woes, Till God the Lord did interpose; And so a promise soon did run That He would redeem us by his Son.

There are more verses, including:

"Go preach the Gospel," now He said,
"To all the nations that are made!
And he that does believe on me,
From all his sins I'll set him free."

O seek! O seek of God above
That saving faith that works by love!
And, if He's pleased to grant thee this,
Thou'rt sure to have eternal bliss.

God grant to all within this place
True saving faith, that special grace
Which to His people doth belong:
And thus I close my Christmas song.

The great cloud of witnesses

October 31st is Reformation Day and the day following is All Saints' Day: 

Reformation Day is the anniversary of Martin Luther's challenge to debate his 95 theses—not the beginning of the Reformation but an important point in it. Halloween is All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints’ Day. Days were thought of as evening to evening so the eve was the beginning of the next day—think New Year’s Eve or Christmas Eve. Although today most approach it as a secular holiday that wasn’t its origin and for Protestants, all believers are “saints” and All Saints’ Day is when we acknowledge “the great cloud of witnesses” who have passed on. So on Halloween, we can celebrate both the Protestant Reformation and all those believers who have gone before.

Therefore being justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,
and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:1-2 [KJV]

"Be our strength..."

1 Father, hear the prayer we offer:     not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.	3 Not forever by still waters would we idly rest and stay; but would smite the living fountains from the rocks along our way.
2 Not forever in green pastures do we ask our way to be; but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly.	4 Be our strength in hours of weakness, in our wanderings be our guide; through endeavour, failure, danger, Father, be Thou at our side.

The sound of silence

"Confessions of a Music User" was linked today at a blog I visit often. I use music as background much less than I once did. From the essay:

.... I seemed to always need background music, something to offset discomfort, or to provide a rush of adrenaline. Some songs I listened to provided that ember of transcendence, yet they lost their flare when I put them on repeat, trying to squeeze the dopamine out of them. .... Music yielded instances of healing, grace, and beauty, but I also used it to manufacture emotions and escape the burden of silence. And I used it a lot. ....

Roger Scruton, the late British philosopher, believed much of modern music had devolved into a vacuum of senseless chatter: “For the most part, the prevailing music is of an astounding banality. It is there in order to not be really there.  .... AI has exacerbated this problem by divorcing music production from human expertise. “Music is no longer something you must make for yourself, nor is it something you sit down to listen to,” Scruton continues. “It follows you wherever you go, and you switch it on as a background. It is not so much listened to as overheard.” ....

...[L]etting music wash over every moment of life without cultivating places for quiet is like reading the classics and never pausing to reflect on their meaning. We become chronic skimmers, afloat in the ocean of noise with our eyes sleeplessly staring into space.

Beautiful music has tended to hit me at unexpected times. As I said earlier, those times can’t be controlled or manufactured. I’ve never been able to wrangle a transcendent experience like a cowboy ropes an elusive bull. Every time I’ve tried, I’ve ended up restless and in an emotional flux – focused on myself instead of on the divine. One thing any of us can do, perhaps, is to choose to listen not only to music but to the silence. .... (more)

Peter Biles, "Confessions of a Music User," Plough, August 7, 2024.

A peaceful interlude

He saw the Light

The Word & Song substack remembers a song each week. Recently it was "I Saw the Light" by Hank Williams:

.... The idea for our song this week came to Hank when his mother was driving him and the band home after one of their performances. The guys were all asleep. When she drew nearer to home, and the lights of the Montgomery airport came in view, Hank’s mother called out, “I saw the lights.” What Hank heard that night inspired him to write a timeless song of gratitude and praise. And if Hank’s heart was really in his music, which it must have been for him to get as far as he did in the short time allotted to him, we surely can hope that he hoped to see the Light of his heavenly home and to receive the ultimate healing of body and soul.

Debra Esolen, "I Saw the Light," Word & Song by Anthony Esolen, March 9, 2024.

And He shall reign for ever and ever!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The kingdom of this world is become

the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and of His Christ;

and He shall reign for ever and ever

King of Kings,

for ever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

and Lord of Lords,

for ever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

And He shall reign for ever and ever,

for ever and ever,

King of Kings,

and Lord of Lords,

King of Kings,

and Lord of Lords,

and He shall reign for ever and ever

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

O Saviour of the world, who by Thy cross and precious blood hast redeemed us, Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord. Amen.

Thomas Tallis, 1575

PDQ Bach, RIP

I grew up next to a college campus. The college had a serious music department and from an early age I was taken to both instrumental and vocal recitals and concerts. All of my closest friends in high school were serious about classical music. They also thought PDQ Bach was hilarious and introduced me to Schickele's albums. This obituary today reminded me of that less serious side of our enjoyment of music.

Peter Schickele who has died aged 88, was better known as the fictional composer PDQ Bach, whose Victor Borge-style parodies delighted and entertained audiences; he was equally inventive with instruments, coming up with a trombone-bassoon combination known as the tromboon and the left-handed sewer flute.

A grizzly-bearded, Brahms-like figure, Schickele looked like a refugee from a psychedelic Sixties rock band. He claimed to be head of musical pathology at the non-existent University of Southern North Dakota in Hoople, where he was engaged in excavating the work of PDQ Bach, “history’s most justifiably neglected composer”.

His creation took on a life of its own, with a back story that cast a wickedly irreverent eye over the more pretentious aspects of musical scholarship. PDQ Bach (born 1807, died 1742) was the “last and least talented” of Johann Sebastian’s 20 sons and credited with composing anything that traditional musicologists loved to unearth in dusty archives: oratorios, cantatas, motets and madrigals. ....

In the course of his “research” Schickele came upon such masterpieces as PDQ Bach’s Missa Hilarious, the dramatic oratorio Oedipus Tex and Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, in which Mozart’s famous serenade is overlaid with snatches from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Schickele fiercely denied having a hand in their creation, insisting that they had all been found in dustbins, attics and the like. ....

Opera made an appearance in the form of The Abduction of Figaro; The Civilian Barber and Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, described as “an opera in one unnatural act”. The Half-Nelson Mass was not easily forgotten by its victims, nor was the “Canine Cantata” Wachet Arf. ....

In PDQ Bach, Schickele created a character that was at once richly comic and brilliantly plausible. ...[M]uch of his humour relied on wrong notes and unusual juxtapositions. By remaining close to the truth, his ingeniously orchestrated hoaxes were both pointed and entertaining, with the music deriving its satirical edge from the creator’s comprehensive knowledge of the appropriate idioms. .... (more)

"Peter Schickele, composer, impish parodist and ‘discoverer’ of the works of PDQ Bach," The Telegraph, January 19, 2024.

"O to grace how great a debtor..."

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I’m come; And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

On the writer of the hymn:

Born at Swaffham in Norfolk, the son of poor parents, apprenticed as a boy to a London hairdresser, and a somewhat dissolute youth — such was the unpromising beginning to the life of Robert Robinson, the author of this hymn. But then the grace of God intervened. At the age of seventeen he came under the influence of George Whitefield, was converted, and dedicated himself to Christ's service. Six years later (1758) when in charge of a Methodist chapel in Mildenhall, Suffolk, he wrote this hymn, a hymn of providence and grace, as it has well been called.

Clearly it reflects something of the author's own spiritual history and is an outpouring of praise for what God had done for him:

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
    Wandering from the fold of God ...

And so he cries:

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
   Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter,
   Bind my wandering heart to thee.

Frank Colquhoun, A Hymn Companion, 1985.

"Herod the king, in his raging..."

The carol mourns the death of the baby boys of Bethlehem when King Herod, having caught wind that one of them was destined to take over his job as king of the Jews, ordered their murder. The song itself was crafted for a medieval mystery play, performed annually in the city of Coventry from the late 12^th century until Protestants shut down such rituals in the late 16^th century. ....

...[T]he massacre of the babies of Bethlehem is commemorated each year as the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The feast is held every Christmastide on December 28 — today. The Innocents are venerated as the first Christian martyrs, for, in the words of St. Augustine, “they are the first buds of the Church killed by the frost of persecution; they died not only for Christ, but in his stead.”

Kayla Bartsch, "The Bloody Tale behind the Coventry Carol," National Review, December 28, 2023.

"To lay aside his crown for my soul"

More:

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
To lay aside his crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I AM;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Then friends shall meet again, who have loved, who have loved,
Then friends shall meet again, who have loved;
Then friends shall meet again, in Jesus' presence, when
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved, who have loved,
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved.

Ye winged seraphs, fly! Bear the news, bear the news.
Ye winged seraphs fly! bear the news;
Ye winged seraphs fly! Like comets through the sky,
Fill vast eternity with the news, with the news,
Fill vast eternity with the news!

Anonymous; composite; 19th cent.
Tune: WONDROUS LOVE (6.6.6.3.6.6.6.6.6.3.)
American folk tune; The Southern Harmony, 1840

O that birth forever blessèd

Of the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!

O that birth forever blessèd, when the virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race;
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face, evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heaven adore Him; angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him, and extol our God and King!
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert ring, evermore and evermore!

Christ, to Thee with God the Father, and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving, and unwearied praises be:
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory, evermore and evermore!
(Prudentius, 5^th Century)

All Saints'

A hymn most appropriate for All Saints' Day sung to Ralph Vaughan Williams's SINE NOMINE ("without name"):

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to God, the Son, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!