Hymn #347
Text: William C. Dix (1837-1898)
Music: Rowland Hugh Prichard (1811-1887)
Tune name: HYFRYDOL
THE TEXT
English hymn and carol writer William C. Dix wrote this text for use during Holy Communion at Ascension services. It was first published in Altar Songs, Verses on the Eucharist (1867).
THE TUNE
HYFRYDOL is Welsh for “tuneful” or “pleasant.” This confident and stirring melody was written by a nineteen-year-old amateur musician, Rowland Hugh Prichard. He wrote it in 1830, and first published it in 1844 in Cyfaill y Cantorion (The Singer’s Friend), a children’s hymnal that included forty or so other tunes he had composed. Prichard’s day job was as a textile worker; he was still working into his seventies as a tender’s assistant at the Welsh Flannel Manufacturing Company in Holywell.
“Alleluia, sing to Jesus” sung by
the All Saints Choir, Wallace Hornady, organ