657 Love Divine All Loves Excelling

The words for this hymn were written by one of the most prolific author of hymn texts in the English language, Charles Wesley.  Charles was the author of no less than 6,00 hymns.  As such, it would seem that he never made it out of his study.  However, for most of his life, he was actually a traveling preacher--traveling on horseback, that is.  He scribbled hymn texts in shorthand and kept them on small cards he carried in his pocket. When he arrived at the inn where he was spending the night, he would rush in, ask for pen and ink, and he wrote the hymns he had composed during the day's travels.

At one point after a horse had thrown him, he wrote in his journal, "My companion thought I had broken my neck; but my leg was only bruised, my hand sprained, and my head stunned, which spoiled my making hymns till the next day."

Even though Charles had been a classical scholar at Oxford, his hymn texts revealed no allusions to the classics.  This particular text follows the meter of John Dryden's "King Arthur" but between Charles and Samuel Wesley, they have bequeathed to us many great hymn tunes and texts.

In today's hymnals, this text is set to two different tunes:  Beecher written by John Zundel and to Hyfrydol written by the Welsh composer, Rowland Hugh Prichard. In England, this hymn text is also sung to the tune, Blaenwern.  This combination was used at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

In looking for an appropriate YouTube video, I was overwhelmed by the choices of settings of Hyfrydol including: a beautiful vocal solo arrangement sung by Katherine Jenkins.  There were also several organ soloists as well as organ-accompanied congregational singing.  There was also an amazing trumpet and piano duet by Masanz and Maketru.  There was an arrangement on small bagpipes played by a fellow named Piper Steven.  There are arrangements for hammered dulcimer, for classical guitar by Jeffry Teeler and a piano and violin duet by Duncan/Cummings. There was a six chime English tower bells at Marton, England,.  There were handbells and solo harp arrangements.  That comprised two pages of 7 pages of arrangements. This is an arrangement recorded in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC

The one I ultimately love the best is an arrangement of the Welsh tune, Blaenwern sung by the Wells Cathedral Choir.  Turn up the volume, enjoy it and allow the voices of the men and boys' choir wash over you.