Sacred Harp 47b Idumea (And Am I Born to Die?)

[waq33]

The Battle of the Crater of "Cold Mountain"

[waq33]

The battle of the Crater of "Cold Mountain"

[apententakel]

This is excellent singing!

[JudithMatta]

This chanting is America's version of Byzantine Chant - full voiced as we would hear in Orthodox monasteries..... Our Orthodox Mission is working on bringing these wonderful melodies with our Orthodox hymns from Scriptures - stay tuned, as they say!!

[ClaireConrad]

So far, this is the very best rendition of #47b Idumea that I have found on the Web.

[tisherbug27]

STUNNING

[fruitofspirit]

The Psalms also express these extreme poles of joy & anguish. Wonderful!

My friend just sent me 7 videos of praise to Christ in different nations & languages. It made me think of these prophecies:

His message is being sent to all nations--all peoples praise His name.

One decade after a movie star's death, young people don't know their name. This is quite a following for one little Carpenter from Nazareth.

"Heaven & earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away." -Yeshua

[PLBrayfield]

Thanks for your comment.

Many songs in this (Sacred Harp) tradition have words either paraphrased or directly taken from the Psalms or other scriptures common to the Christian and Jewish faiths.

[fruitofspirit]

THAT IS SO COOL!

[johnfinbarburke]

in this u can hear god ,, thats how he works

[cosmo071071]

i have three words for this : this is great

[bennydreadful]

Thank you for posting this. It truly raises me up.

[organica234]

This is a great version of Idumea.

I'm very struck by the similarities with traditional Georgian singing (i.e. Georgia Eastern Europe, not Georgia USA...)

I'm new to the Sacred Harp music, but the parallels between this & the Georgian tradition are really striking - the spiritual foundation, some of the chordal structures, the way the leader & the singers interact, even down to the hand movements.

I wonder if there is a common heritage here...

Wonderful stuff - thanks v much for posting it.

[PLBrayfield]

Thanks for an interesting comment! I'm not a music historian or scholar so don't know much about the history of the music prior to its early American roots. Its immediate ancestry was in the British Isles, including folk tunes and secular ballads as well as the West Gallery singing in rural churches. Perhaps way back in the Middle Ages, it has a common ancestor with Eastern European choral singing. As to the social aspects, perhaps that would be held in common with other folk traditions.

[JudithMatta]

@PLBrayfield The reason it's close to chants from Orthodox Christian Countries is that it is full-voiced and prayer cried out to the Lord...just as we would hear in the Orthodox monasteries and SHOULD hear in Orthodox parishes (Greek and Russian) here in America. Our Orthodox Christian Mission is working on a marriage of these wonderful melodies and Orthodox verses (Scriptural) celebrating the Lord's life, Passion AND Resurrection!!

[cipslim]

@JudithMatta amen to that, for too long have we Orthodox have relied on the blood of martyrs and bones of the hermits and anchorites and distanced ourself from the righteous path as a flock. The flock needs to return to it's stable and take up the old way again, the path that is steep and beautiful and maybe trough rejuvenating the old chants will make people participate rather than watch.

God with you.

[JudithMatta]

@cipslim "choir singing" needs to disappear, right?? The teaching hymns must be in all of our hearts to truly understand our Holy Faith! Amen to your thoughts!

[cipslim]

@JudithMatta the choir cannot disappear, as it is a tradition, but is should act as a lead instead of the only ones singing.

[goodlilmennonitekid]

@cipslim We have no choir in our church, its a tradition not to ;)

[faceofjesusinmysoup]

Georgian choral music is very rich and very intricate like this type of choral singing

[steinber]

Everything from the Sacred Harp sounds just earth shattering to me. The collected voices of the Almighty's children raised in adoration. What's more powerful? Even the non-believer is moved to tears...

[choir203]

i came to sacred harp from the fine film Cold Mountain, as a Catholic in Ireland it was new to me but it is beautifull and i am glad to know it is still very popular, i sing in the local catholic church choir and maybe we could learn some, to sing,enjoy,and praise God

thank you for posting it

con

[MarlanaS]

This gave me chills. Beautiful and haunting.

[Darkgravx12]

yes sir, truly.

[edratliff]

There's very few things that give me chills..But this song is one of them.

[2Durr]

@edratliff No i dont feel it all

[mackinzie09]

i would LOVE to sing this anyday

[titanicvictim]

This is Idumea, not Am I born to die

[PLBrayfield]

Of course! I included both the name of the tune (Idumea) and the first line of the words. For some people, the tune names of Sacred Harp songs (there are hundreds, not just this one, as you perhaps know) mean nothing, but they recognize (or feel attracted to) the words. As you also may know, most hymn books(including The Sacred Harp) index songs by title and by first line, if the two are not the same.

I hope you enjoyed listening to my recording, made at an actual Sacred Harp singing. :)

[AntiMusick]

@titanicvictim what is the difference? besides that Idumea is just a abridged version of Am I Born to Die hymn that Charles Wesley wrote in the 18th century.

en.wikisource org/wiki/And_Am_I_Born_to_Die%­3F

[PLBrayfield]

@AntiMusick The tune & harmony of Idumea was composed by Ananias Davisson in 1816. You are correct in that the words (only) were written by Charles Wesley in 1763. The Sacred Harp prints only 4 stanzas of Wesley's words. But Wesley, who died in 1788, had nothing to do with the tune, 'Idumea.' Other poetry has also been used with 'Idumea,' such as stanzas by Isaac Watts commonly sung to the tune 'Boylston' in Sacred Harp. Strictly speaking, the Sacred Harp titles name the tune, NOT the poetry.

[AntiMusick]

@PLBrayfield yes but now the two are married together and just as much credit should go to both the writer of the words and the person who set it to music.

[PLBrayfield]

@AntiMusick The two are not 'married' since, as I previously said, other words are used with the tune 'Idumea,' and probably, other tunes used with Wesley's words. But of course, in this version, both the composer and the poet deserve credit. 'Idumea' is in no sense 'just an abridged version of Am I Born to Die, as you originally stated. 'Idumea' is the name of the tune, not the words. 'Am I Born to Die' is the name of the a hymn poem by Charles Wesley.

[AntiMusick]

@PLBrayfield then sing some other words to the tune

[PLBrayfield]

@AntiMusick I have in fact sung other words to this tune, since it appears in The Missouri Harmony with these words by Isaac Watts: 'My God, my life, my love/ To thee, to thee I call, / I cannot live, if thou remove/ For thou art all in all. (and two more stanzas, which I will not quote here). This version is often sung at shape note singings that use The Missouri Harmony book. I do not have a video recording of this version so cannot demonstrate how well these words fit the tune 'Idumea.'

[PLBrayfield]

@AntiMusick I can also add that the tunebook, The Sacred Harp, lists two tunes that use the

Charles Wesley poem, 'And Am I Born To Die.' One of these tunes is #47, Idumea; the other is #428, World Unknown. The songs in Sacred Harp are named by the tune name, not the poetry, but both the composer/arranger of the music and the author of the words are, of course, identified on the page, if known.

[badarts]

moved to tears.

[RhondaJ1970]

What a beautiful yet mournful hymn...chilling.

[helmuthoorn]

Probably not.

We in the Restored Dutch Reformed Church are a traditional lot and we only sing Psalms isorythmicly. (on whole notes) The use of visual media (TV) is frowned upon.

Recently attemps have been made to revive the tradition of multivocal psalmsinging, which died out in the Netherlands at the beginning of the XXth century, and comes rather close to sacred harp. The big difference is that in the Netherlands people are very fond of organs and don't want to part with them.

[Truemusic]

beautiful..=)

[helmuthoorn]

If this doesn't send a shiver over your back you haven't got a clou what spirituality is truely about. Wish I could start something like this in my church as well.

[PLBrayfield]

Maybe you could! There are probably others in your church that feel the same way.

[carasdebelmez]

Estraordinaria música. Relamente hermosa y bien interpretada. Enhorabuena.

[hagrid3689]

I first heard this in Cold Mountain...

Sacred Heart singing is really pretty in a weird and chilling way!

[PLBrayfield]

Yes, I agree. It's Sacred HARP, by the way. The human voices ARE the 'sacred HARP.' And there's a lot more to it than Idumea and Cold Mountain! If you'd like to hear more, check out my channel! And thanks for your response!

[inanoctopussgarden]

LONG LIVE SACRED HARP SINGING!

[PLBrayfield]

Amen to that!

[shalomnahom]

hi. i love this video. i love to sing sacred harp. its nice to see a recent video.. keep it up. =]

god bless!