What Wondrous Love is This?

[HelenaZF]

What Wondrous Love Is This



Are you familiar with shape-note singing? There is a raw beauty to the nasal singing style and the rugged harmonies of these early American songs. What Wondrous Love Is This, from the 1844 Sacred Harp is a perfect example of the style. This is no syrupy love song. It is a full-blooded hymn that pulls together both the heavenly and the earthly. In a way, the song is very like our spiritual lives. We don't become more heavenly by disengaging from the world. Christ's incarnation teaches us that we take part in the heavenly through the simple things of earth: singing, loving, eating. May the hunger of Lent teach us to savor the Bread of Heaven!




version with words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP0tEceh8Bg


What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb Who is the great I AM;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on, I'll sing on;
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on.
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I'll sing on, I'll sing on;
And through eternity, I'll sing on.

lovely through-sung version (only 2 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_48iI1RBtnc


Shape-Note score

The shape-note system in The Sacred Harp uses a different shape to represent each of the four syllables in the musical scale: a triangle (fa), a circle (sol), a rectangle (la), and a diamond (mi). This musical phrase from the hymn Wondrous Love would be sung as

La la sol mi sol la sol mi la la sol.

The syllables would be sung first, and then the words. For an authentic rendering of this vocal style, click here:

LISTEN: http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/evere...us1293.mp3
(warning--this might be a painful musical experience...but try to look past the vocal technique to the plaintive emotion and heart of the hymn expressed.)