Stirring arrangement of How Beautiful the Sight,
perfect for offertory or other special service
music
1. How beautiful the sight
Of brethren who agree
In friendship to unite,
And bonds of charity;
‘Tis like the precious ointment, shed
O’er all hi robes, from Aaron’s head.
2. ‘Tis like the dew that fills
The cups of Hermon’s flow’rs;
Or Zion’s fruitful hill,
Bright with the drops of show’rs,
When mingling odors breathe around,<...(+)
Stirring arrangement of How Beautiful the Sight,
perfect for offertory or other special service
music
1. How beautiful the sight
Of brethren who agree
In friendship to unite,
And bonds of charity;
‘Tis like the precious ointment, shed
O’er all hi robes, from Aaron’s head.
2. ‘Tis like the dew that fills
The cups of Hermon’s flow’rs;
Or Zion’s fruitful hill,
Bright with the drops of show’rs,
When mingling odors breathe around,
And glory rests on all the ground.
3. For there the Lord commands
Blessings, a boundless store,
From His unsparing hands,
Yea, life forevermore:
Thrice happy they who meet above
To spend eternity in love!
This sheet music is part of the collection of crosby3145 :
Often, the composer deserves
just as much credit as the
hymnwriter for producing a
great, inspiring hymn. Take
Holy, Holy, Holy, for
instance. Reginald Heber’s
words, taken from Isaiah 6,
certainly do an amazing job
describing the awesomeness of
God, but they’d have fallen
flat were it not for the
equally amazing tune composed
by John B. Dykes. Dykes was
not just a one-hit wonder,
though—he composed a number
of stirring hymn tunes, and it
is for this reason we now
present a John B. Dykes
collection.
John Bacchus Dykes was born
March 10, 1823, in Hull,
England—appropriately, the
son of a shipbuilder. He had
relatives in the clergy in the
Church of England, though, and
Dykes also pursued a
ministerial career. A
talented musician, he was an
assistant organist in his
uncle’s church by the age of
ten. He attended Cambridge,
where he was active in several
extracurricular musical
organizations—Thomas
Attwood’s Walmsley’s
musical organization and the
Peterhouse Musical Society
(now Cambridge University
Musical Society), the latter
of which he became president
of. Graduated in 1847, he was
ordained a deacon at York
Minister in 1848. In 1849, he
became a minor canon (priest)
at Durham Cathedral, an office
he would hold the rest of his
life. He was also appointed
as precentor (worship leader),
an office he held until 1862,
when he was appointed to the
living at St. Oswald’s,
another church located very
close to the Durham
Cathedral.
At this time, there was a
split in the Anglican Church
between the more
evangelical/Protestant wing
and the more Catholic-style
wing. Dykes aligned himself
with the Catholic position.
Interestingly enough, the
bishop who oversaw Dykes’s
parish, Charles Baring, was on
the evangelical side—this
led to controversy, with
Baring refusing to give Dykes
another curate to help him in
his work as his church
expanded. Dykes wound up
appearing before the Court of
Queen’s Bench to seek to
have the court force Baring to
appoint an assistant, but the
court declined to do so. In
ill health, Dykes passed away
in 1876 at the age of
52—scholars disagree over
the exact cause of death.
Interestingly, though Dykes
was Catholic-leaning in his
beliefs, his hymns (for which
he wrote the tunes only) are
not so. The reason for this
is probably that Dykes wrote
tunes for words by other
members of the Church of
England, and many of the
authors he wrote for (Reginald
Heber, Horatius Bonar) were
more evangelical in their
beliefs. Dykes had a great
gift for music, though. One
thing he did which few
composers have done was to
write tunes that started in
minor yet ended up in major,
changing to reflect the
changing character of the
words to which they were set.
This practice proves very
effective in “I Heard the
Voice of Jesus Say” and
“Christian, Dost Thou See
Them?” Dykes also wrote
very chromatically, much like
Chopin harmonically, typical
for the Romantic era but very
effective. The results are
hymn tunes with lyric melodies
and emotional harmonies—easy
tunes to sing.
Of the tunes contained herein,
“Holy, Holy, Holy” and
“I Heard the Voice of Jesus
Say” are probably the most
famous. There are several
other fine representations of
Dykes’s skill too, though.
He wrote a little-known
alternate tune to “Lo, He
Comes with Clouds
Descending,” which also
supports those words well.
The hymn “O Come and
Mourn” is in minor, but
unlike a lot of minor hymns,
this is appropriate, as the
hymn mourns Jesus’ death on
the cross. “Ten Thousand
Times Ten Thousand” is quite
similar in message and in
character to “Holy, Holy,
Holy.” Though this
collection contains ten
pieces, one of them,
“Offertory No. 5,” is a
compilation of four of
Dykes’s hymns which were a
little too short to have their
own arrangement. I hope these
hymns are a blessing to
you!