Descant to the hymn tune LLEDROD. Free score with harmonized descant. Additional texts and bulletin inserts upon request. (This tune is also known as LLANGOLLEN.) Audio: Fiddle ad lib / Hymnal verse 2x / Descant Free score.
Sounding rather like a fiddle tune you might hear (and dance to) at a country fair, the tune more commonly known today as LLEDROD initially appeared in Wales bearing the name LANGOLLEN. The setting incorporates a lilting, dance-like rhythm that conceals the metric nature of the text underlay, possessing a hauntingly beautiful melodic element. Little is known of its origins, and it seemingly arrived full-born as LLANGOLLEN in 1839 and then as LLEDROD in 1859, in different hymnals by different editors with the same name, John Roberts. The latter of these was also known as the bard Ieuan Gwyllt, who traveled throughout Wales promoting congregational singing and is credited with creating a revival of the form.
A Long Meter (LM) tune, it adapts readily to a number of hymns such. To wit:
Kingly beyond all earthly kings
'Your kingdom come' in this our day: hear us, O Lord; make haste and bring
that reign of peace for which we pray, the righteous reign of Christ the King.
Timothy Dudley Smith
© Hope Publishing Company
Where cross the crowded ways
till all the world shall learn thy love, and follow where thy feet have trod;
till glorious from thy heaven above, shall come the city of our God.
On Jordan's bank the baptist's cry
All praise eternal Son, to thee, whose advent doth thy people free;
whom with the Father we adore, and Holy Ghost for evermore.
