O death, where is thy sting?
THE TUNE.
The old anthem, “The Dying Christian,” or “The Dying Christian to his Soul,” which first made this 581 / 517 lyric familiar in America as a musical piece, will never be sung again except at antique entertainments, but it had an importance in its day.
Beginning in quadruple time on four flats minor, it renders the first stanza in flowing concords largo affettuoso, and a single bass fugue, Then suddenly shifting to one flat, major, duple time, it executes the second stanza, “Hark! they whisper” ... “What is this, etc.,” in alternate pianissimo and forte phrases; and finally, changing to triple time, sings the third triumphant stanza, andante, through staccato and fortissimo. The shout in the last adagio, on the four final bars, “O Death! O Death!” softening with “where is thy sting?” is quite in the style of old orchestral magnificence.
Since “The Dying Christian” ceased to appear in church music, the poem, for some reason, seems not to have been recognized as a hymn. It is, however, a Christian poem, and a true lyric of hope and consolation, whatever the character of the author or however pagan the original that suggested it.
The most that is now known of Edward Harwood, the composer of the anthem, is that he was an English musician and psalmodist, born near Blackburn, Lancaster Co., 1707, and died about 1787.
“YOUR HARPS, YE TREMBLING SAINTS.”
This hymn of Toplady,—unlike “A Debtor to Mercy Alone,” and “Inspirer and Hearer of Prayer,” both now little used,—stirs no controversial 582 / 518 feeling by a single line of his aggressive Calvinism. It is simply a song of Christian gratitude and joy.
Your harps, ye trembling saints
Down from the willows take;