Not so bright and beautiful

[LMcD]

Sorry! I ought to have have written "All things B&B"!

A B&B air?

[oddoneout]

A B&B air?

Yes, that had crossed my mind as well. At least, however disliked, it comes without the undesirable baggage...

[vinteuil]

... from today's Times -

"Lord Lisvane's letter complaining about the popularity at weddings of the saccharine hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful struck a chord with many. Perhaps they could sing the Monty Python version, which ends: “All things scabbed and ulcerous, all pox both great and small. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made them all.”

.

[Roger Webb]

well I had Wacht Auf from Die Meistersinger , the March of the Mastersingers and Crown Imperial .

Whilst we signed the register at my (first) wedding a 'friend' played a medley of Wagner, managing to slip in Siegfried's Funeral March from Götterdämmerung!

[french frank]

... from today's Times -

"Lord Lisvane's letter complaining about the popularity at weddings of the saccharine hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful struck a chord with many. Perhaps they could sing the Monty Python version, which ends: “All things scabbed and ulcerous, all pox both great and small. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made them all.”

He could probably find more enjoyable pastimes than 'organising' little people's church wedding music if he chose to. ("Lord Lisvane's recreations are sailing, shooting, cricket, music (he is a church organist) and country pursuits.") But perhaps Baron Stoneybroke is glad of the £40 or so?

[Roger Webb]

... from today's Times -

........... Perhaps they could sing the Monty Python

.[/I]

My good friend Nick - French Frank knows him well! - had as his Sortie at his wedding, Cloche de Liberté by Jean-Phillipe So printed in the running order.....and yes it was that one!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Whilst we signed the register at my (first) wedding a 'friend' played a medley of Wagner, managing to slip in Siegfried's Funeral March from Götterdämmerung!

The funeral March ? Nice one ….

[AHR]

The latest parish magazine from my church has an article by the organist on wedding music. He says he is often asked for Widor's 'Staccato.'

[sturkel]

Sometime, somewhere in Liverpool in the late '60s, sitting in the pub after choir practice with most of the other ATB's, we were joined, as we often were, by the organist of the adjacent parish.
He was worried, he said. He was playing for a wedding the next day at short notice: the bride was marrying a sailor and wanted to walk out after the ceremony to the march 'Anchors Aweigh'!
But he he didn't know it and couldn't find the music. Could we help?

So we sang the tune to him several times, and he split a beermat and notated the music on the back of it. Next day the beermat went on the music stand and he improvised a successful performance.

[french frank]

So we sang the tune to him several times, and he split a beermat and notated the music on the back of it. Next day the beermat went on the music stand and he improvised a successful performance.

That's a pro.

[jonfan]

‘All things B&B’ is a listing of the glories of creation, that makes it appealing for weddings and funerals with nostalgia for supposed better times. Even the Revised English Hymnal offers Monk’s tune now as well Shaw’s. Ever popular.
Two examples from my time at the chalk face re the language of hymns: what does ‘Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb’ mean? A six year old’s favourite hymn was the one about a settee. Turned out to be ‘Lord of the Dance.’

[vinteuil]

A six year old’s favourite hymn was the one about a settee. Turned out to be ‘Lord of the Dance.’

... ah, shades of 'Gladly, my cross-eyed bear... "

.

[kernelbogey]

....Two examples from my time at the chalk face re the language of hymns: what does ‘Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb’ mean? A six year old’s favourite hymn was the one about a settee. Turned out to be ‘Lord of the Dance.’

An American friend had grown up thinking 'Gladly the cross I'd bear' was about a cross-eyed teddy.
[Vints beat me to it.]

[kernelbogey]

I think the iconography of hymns used to get introjected deep into one's consciousness by early exposure to it. I was always impressed, at my Junior school, by 'pavilioned in splendour and girded with praise'. Later, noticing how I remembered the line it struck me as redolent of Imperial trappings. On checking today, I found that Robert Grant, its author, had indeed been born in India and had been a Governor of Bombay.

[vinteuil]

.
.. of course the Monty Python lines are theologically significant. I think it was Coleridge in one of his more pantheistic outpourings who suddenly stopped on the thought that the divinity resided everywhere - yea, in the dung and piss (or equivalent words)...
.