Descant to the hymn tune ST CLEMENT. Audio: hymnal verse / descant verse (with the lower ending ). Free score. If your choir still has an A in the tank at the end of evensong, they - and the organ - can go up a step to a final A, or divisi F-A.)
-1 -
The day thou gavest Lord is ended,
the darkness falls at thy behest;
To thee our morning hymns ascended,
thy praise shall sanctify our rest
4 -(descant)
So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never,
like earth’s proud empires, pass away:
thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
till all thy creatures own thy sway.
– John Ellerton 1826-1893
The tune ST. CLEMENT was composed for this text by Clement Scholefield (1839-1904), a clergyman and self-taught musician. He wrote several hymn tunes, of which only one - this one - survives. It appeared in Arthur S. Sullivan's 1874 hymnal, Church Hymns with Tunes, and the tune was 'named' for its composer by the publisher. Scholefield was the curate of of the church where at the time Sullivan was the organist. The cathedral establishment of Scholefield's day were dismissive of this tune, though its singing public has a much higher opinion, as does the Royal Navy, which has listed this particular combination as its evening hymn. John Ellerton (1826-1893) wrote the evening text 'The day thou gavest Lord is ended' at the height of the Victorian missionary era, as pat of A Liturgy for Missionary Meetings (1870). It was published a year later in the text-only Church Hymns (SPCK, 1871), a missionary-themed hymnbook. This combination exists in German hymnals with the translation Du lässt den Tag, o Gott, nun enden.
Updated: July 2023
NOTE: This arrangement is in F. If your hymnal has this tune in another key and you wish it to be in F, too, you can download the hymn score in F from the CPDL website.
The following clip is an earlier version, recorded in 2006 at Church of the Advent, Boston, sung by the Choir of Christ Church (Hamilton Mass.), Daniel Jay McKinley, organist and choirmaster.
