Royal Wedding Hymns
Good morning! I trust this is a day full of blessings for you. Please come back tomorrow, for new reflections.
13 years ago today, some of us watched a Royal Wedding, broadcast from London – the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Why not check out the background of three traditional hymns that were used during the opulent wedding ceremony? The last, Jerusalem, is not strictly a hymn, but is an inspirational British song.
- Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
- Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling (second item – to William Rowlands’ tune Blaenwern)
- Jerusalem (second item)
27 May 2011 @ 8:09 am
i havejust about every hymnal in america – icannot find Blaenwern. The wedding was the first i have heard Love Devine played to that tune..can you advise where i might locate it. thank you
27 May 2011 @ 8:47 am
No problem at all. The Cyber Hymnal includes it as one of the alternate tunes for What a Friend We Have in Jesus (with which it works wonderfully). When you get to the Cyber Hymnal page, just click on the PDF for the tune Blaenwern, and you can print off a copy. It’s usually pitched quite high, but I notice the Cyber Hymnal editor, Dick Adams, has lowered it (key of F) to make the melody more singable by all. The tune is better known it Britain. It’s given as an alternate tune for Love Divine (#516, pp. 1094-1095, key of G) in Common Praise, the updated version of Hymns Ancient and Modern (published by Canterbury Press, in 2000). Hope that’s a help.