Darwall's 148th

Descant to the hymn tune DARWALL's 148th. Free score with: prologue | bridge | harmonized descant. Free score.

The author of "Ye holy angels bright", Richard Baxter (1615-1692), was a poet and cleric - serving Oliver Cromwell at one point as a regimental chaplain, and then upon the Restoration, was appointed chaplain to the throne; he was subsequently offered the bishopric of Hereford, which he declined. He finished his career as a "nonconformist minister," a kind of freelance lecturer or speaker, not in holy orders and without a parish. The text appeared in his work, Poetical Fragments, which was expanded three times, then followed by a supplement.

John Darwall (1731–1789) was an English clergyman and hymnodist best known for his setting of Psalm 148, known as Darwall's 148th, which was sung at the inauguration of a new organ at St. Matthew's Church in Walsall, England, UK, where he was curate, then vicar. This four-part arrangement was first published in Aaron Williams' New Universal Psalmodist (1770) with the tune in the tenor.

For James Higbe, 1995.

Updated: October 2019, 2020 (changes to organ part only )


Descant verse:

My soul, bear thou thy part, triumph in God above:

and with a well-tuned heart sing thou the songs of love!

let all thy days till life shall end,

whate'er he send,be filled with praise.

– Richard Baxter, 1681


Wesley text - Rejoice, the Lord is King.


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