Lord Jesus, think on me

[FrGareth]

Apologies... ignore my comments about a lengthened Franconia.

The tune I know from seminary is definitely the Southwell published in Laudate, complete with minims, a tune which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the one called "Southwell" embedded in http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/l/l347a.html which has misled me!

Before I post a fraternal correction to Oremus, is their tune another one bearing the name of Southwell?

[Lakelark]

Thanks, St Wilfrid, for your entirely plausible explanation. It puts the question nicely to bed. I wonder, now, if the process of lining-out is not yet dead and buried. Not very long ago I was in a Methodist conventicle where the minister announced each hymn with its number, and then read out the whole of the first verse, and then the number again. This implied, to me, at any rate, that the congregation was assumed to be illiterate. Or was it a ploy to give those with arthritic fingers time to turn the pages? I suppose I shouldn't home in on these tiny little details, but I can't help it. And in the case of gathering notes I now have a less dogmatic attitude about what is musically "correct". So that is a gain.

[docmattc]

Before I post a fraternal correction to Oremus, is their tune another one bearing the name of Southwell?

Their tune is another one of the same name, but its CM not SM so it would be rather difficult to play OHTTTOA here!

The CM Southwell is attributed to HS Irons (1834-1905) in Hymns A&M Revised (282, Jerusalem my happy home)

[contrabordun]

and then read out the whole of the first verse

That is such an annoying habit. I've never understood why people do it. My considered best guess was that they thought they were setting the mood or some such. Maybe you're right and it's a kind of a hangover from the times before most people could read. People do it because that's how hymns have always been introduced.

[John Ainslie]

Has anyone checked how Benjamin Britten uses the tune Southwell in Noye's Fludde? I was deeply moved by its use in that work when I heard it - and that was shortly before my involvement with the revised edition of Praise the Lord. I have always used the tune in the version printed there and cannot see why anyone would prefer the long gathering notes.

[musicus]

Well, John, Britten preferred them. My miniature full score of Noye's Fludde (at one bar before figure 2) quotes the same version of the tune as is printed in Laudate:
m | c c c c | m, m | c c c c | m, m | c c c c | c c m, m | c c c c | sb | (except that Laudate gives a minim at the end)