Ellacombe

Descant to the hymn tune ELLACOMBE. Free score with harmonized descant, choir part, and optional instrumental passage work. Score available with parts for brass quintet and timpani. Free score. 

Despite it's anglicized name, this is a German tune that appeared first in a Würtemburg songbook in 1784, with the text Ave Maria, klarer und lichter Morgenstern ("Hail Mary, clear and bright morning star"). It reappeared, with some accumulated changes, as ELLACOMBE in the 1868 supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern and applied to a children's hymn. The hymn 'The day of resurrection' is adapted from one of the eight Golden Canons for Easter, c. 750 and often attributed to St. John of Damascus, one of the great hymnographers church at Constantinople and considered by Rome to be the last of the Church Fathers. He is to Byzantine chant (kanon) what Pope Gregory was to Western chant a century and a half earlier - and three centuries before the schism of the western and eastern churches. This hymn was composed in kanon form for use at the Easter vigil, and the original is in Greek.

Further Reading:

Descant verse for the Choir of St. Peter's Peterston for services featuring the new Nicholson organ at Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales (see photos), Easter 2010. [Prologue and Bridge for John Merrill Russell, 2013.]

[Instrumental version for brass quintet and timpani, with organ prologue and bridge available. Use the contact form at right for link to an audio demo and more information.]

Updated: July 14 2015

Descant verse

So let the world be joyful, let earth her song begin;

the whole world keep high triumph, and all that is therein;

let all things seen and unseen their notes together blend,

for Christ the Lord has risen, our joy that hath no end.

– attr. St. John of Damascus, 8th C.


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