St Paul's Cathedral Choir - O God our Help

Dir.: John Scott

O God, Our Help in Ages Past is a hymn by Isaac Watts and paraphrases Psalm 90. It originally consisted of nine stanzas. In present usage, however, the hymn is usually limited to stanzas one, two, three, five and nine. In 1738, John Wesley in his hymnal, Psalms and Hymns, changed the first line of the text from "Our God" to "O God."

The hymn was originally part of The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, published by Watts in 1719. In this book he paraphrased in Christian verse the entire psalter with the exception of twelve Psalms which he felt were unsuited for Christian usage.

The hymn is often sung at festive occasions in England.

The hymn tune "St. Anne" (common metre 86.86) to which the text is most often sung was composed by William Croft in 1708. It first appeared anonymously in the Supplement to the New Version of the Psalms, 6th edition in 1708. It was originally intended to be used with a version of Psalm 62. It was not until sometime later when set to Watt's text that the tune gained recognition.

Later composers subsequently incorporated the tune in their own works. For example, George Handel used the tune in an anthem entitled, "O Praise the Lord". J. S. Bach's Fugue in E-flat major BWV 552 is often called the "St. Anne", due to the similarity of its subject to the first line of the hymn tune, though there is some debate as to whether Bach used the actual tune after hearing it, or coincidentally created himself the very similar tune used as the fugual theme. The American composer Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) used the text in his last composition, "Exaltation" (for Brass, Chorus, and Organ) in 1958, in memory of his wife Charlotte who had died the previous year.(Wikipedia)

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• st
• paul
• cathedral
• choir
• boys
• trebles
• god
• our
• help
• hymn
• isaac
• watts
• william
• croft
• psalm

[sud60]

thank you for posting this beautiful hymn...God bless you...saw in the bbc tv today of how churches are fast emptying out in europe!! people preferring to reject faith to a life without religion...showed youngsters even laughing scorning the idea of God Almighty...what has gone wrong??who is to blame??

[treblechoir99]

@sud60 God bless you.

[jazz61021]

Thank you for posting this beautiful performance and detailed historical notes! :0)

[laureldreinking]

God--the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen! Beautifully sung. Thank you.

[cupjock]

Not only an outstanding performance and recording but outstanding «Liner Notes». Oh that everyone who posts would follow your SHINING example! However you omitted one small detail: to credit the ORGANIST! <8-Q

[GutpileCharlie]

OUT STAANDING! It doesn't get much better.

[Tidespring73]

Another beautiful version of a wonderful hymn!

[Lanlegend1]

One of my favourite hymns- thx 4 posting!

[march131958]

@alemelech , Beautiful and moving.

[bmd4rill]

Amen, Amen!

[someonespadre]

Another favorite our Rector doesn't seem to favor. We sang this a lot at St. Luke's, Bakersfield, California where I grew up.