Join our new Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com), in learning about and singing some of our favorite hymns in the first episode of our Lenten Hymn Sings!

These are the audio versions of the weekly videos available on YouTube.

This week, Tyrone discusses the hymns "Forty Days and Forty Nights" and "The Glory of These Forty Days" and plays them with which to sing along. These can be found in the Hymnal 1982 at 150 and 143 respectively.

A new episode will be released each Friday through Lent until Holy Week giving us all a chance to sing at home during this difficult time.

Please, do share this video with friends and family to help spread the joy of hymn singing!

Hymn Texts are found in the transcript below:

Transcript:

Welcome to the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia, and to our Lenten Hymn Sing.

On each Friday through the Lent and until Holy Week, I hope you will join us to discover our favorite Lent hymns as well as having the chance to sing along to the words on screen at home.

A new video will be released to our YouTube and Social Media pages each Friday morning.

Music plays an integral role in our worship and outreach here at St. Martin's, and during this global health crisis, we know that many of you have missed singing regularly.

Our young choristers, adult choir, congregational members and all walk through our doors give voice to our worship.

And for me, hymnody and psalm-singing are the backbone of any Episcopal church's music program.

We are delighted to be able to offer this short series of videos to enhance your journey through faith and music this Lent and Easter, and ask that you might help us spread the word, about St. Martin's and our music programs, by sharing these videos with your family, friends, colleagues, and strangers.

Now let us take a moment at the end of our busy weeks to pause, learn, and reflect on hymns, scripture, and history.

We know very little about the 19th Century clergyman, George Hunt Smyttan, who is author of the text used in the hymn Forty Days and Forty Nights first published in 1856.

He studied at Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1848.

Smyttan was Rector of Hawksworth near Newark-on-Trent, in the United Kingdom from 1850 until ill-health forced to him resign in 1859.

He is remembered chiefly as author of this well-known hymn and he published two works, Thoughts in Verse for the Afflicted, in 1849; and Mission Songs and Ballads, in 1860.

He died suddenly while traveling alone in Germany in 1870.

Attributed to the 17th century German Lutheran priest, Martin Herbst, the sombre tune Aus der Tiefe used for this hymn first appears in a Nuremberg publication of 1676 as a setting of Psalm 130 "Out of the depths I cry".

Herbst succumbed to the plague at the young age of 27.

1. Forty days and forty nights

thou wast fasting in the wild;

forty days and forty nights

tempted, and yet undefiled.

2. Should not we thy sorrow share

and from worldly joys abstain,

fasting with unceasing prayer,

strong with thee to suffer pain?

3. Then if Satan on us press,

Jesus, Savior, hear our call!

Victor in the wilderness,

grant we may not faint or fall!

4. So shall we have peace divine:

holier gladness ours shall be;

round us, too, shall angels shine,

such as ministered to thee.

5. Keep, O keep us, Savior dear,

ever constant by thy side;

that with thee we may appear

at th'eternal Eastertide.

Text for the hymn The Glory of these forty days is often attributed to Pope Gregory the First though this is somewhat contested today.

Despite its origins as a 6th Century Latin text, the translation we use today by Maurice Bell only surfaces in 1906 and is seen here reprinted in the 19th Century Magdeburg hymnal.

Bell, a vicar born in London in 1862 who contributed many translations to the 1906 English Hymnal.

For this hymn, the melody is taken from the Geistliche Lieder or Holy Songs of 1543 and has been used in compositions by notable composers such Pachelbel, Distler, and J. S. Bach.

Composed for the latter's 300th birthday in 1985, Mauricio Kagel quoted the hymn in an oratorio which tells the story of J. S. Bach's life.

1. The glory of these forty days

we celebrate with songs of praise;

for Christ, by whom all things were made,

himself has fasted and has prayed.

2. Alone and fasting Moses saw

the loving God who gave the law;

and to Elijah, fasting, came

the steeds and chariots of flame.

3. So Daniel trained his mystic sight,

delivered from the lions' might;

and John, the Bridegroom's friend, became

the herald of Messiah's name.

4. Then grant us, Lord, like them to be

full oft in fast and prayer with thee;

our spirits strengthen with thy grace,

and give us joy to see thy face.

5. O Father, Son, and Spirit blest,

to thee be every prayer addressed,

who art in three-fold Name adored,

from age to age, the only Lord.

Permission to podcast/stream this music is obtained from One License with license #A-701187. All rights reserved.

Production, music, and photography by Tyrone Whiting, Director of Music at Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.StMartinEC.org