LASST UNS ERFREUEN - Vigiles et Sancti

Descant: Ye watchers and ye holy ones

00:00 / 05:41

This tune was the setting for the Easter hymn, Lasst uns erfreuen herzlich sehr, which celebrates the resurrection narrative from the perspective of Mary. It first appeared in the Jesuit hymnal Ausserlesene Catholische Geistliche Kirchengesänge (Cologne, 1623, ed. Friedrich Spee), and the setting quickly produced variants regarding the distribution of the alleluias. German literature usually attributes authorship of both the text and the tune to the collection's editor. As a poet and hymnologist, the attribution to him of the text is plausible; however there are no first-hand references to support an assertion of composition. Moreover, opening phrase comes from a 1525 hymn tune, GENEVAN 68 / OLD 113TH ^.[1]  Authoritative English language sources rarely cite the earlier provenance, although a thoroughly-researched discussion can be found on the  Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland website.

Ye watchers and ye holy ones is a text of particularly Anglo-Catholic gravitas by Athelstan Riley which first appeared in the English Hymnal (1906). It was based on the 3rd C.Te deum and 4th C. Axion estin,² a Greek hymn to Mary opening with familiar words to Anglican Book of Common Prayer, "It is truly meet..." The hymn All creatures of our God and King is a paraphrase of St. Francis' Cantico di frate sole, a 'laude' written not in Latin but in vernacular Italian; it is sometimes refered to as Canticle of the Sun.³ It was rendered into English verse by William Henry Draper (1855-1933) for a procession at a children’s festival prior to it's publication in The Public School Hymn Book (1919), and is one of the best loved hymn settings across many denominations. Despite erroneous attrubutions to others, the anonymous 9th C. Frankish office hymn, Aurora lucis rutilat became Light's glittering morn from John Mason Neale's prolific works of translation.⁴ It has been configured into three subsequent hymns, e.g., "That Easter day with joy was bright," and some thumb-puzzle reconfigurations into other versions.

A congregational arrangement for two trumpets, two trombones, horn and timpani is available,including a Paschal version with the text from the 9th C. hymn, 'Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky.' It can be prepared with any text, and produced in US or A4 format. Link to audio demo of the brass version.