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The Guardian Angel (SONG 67)

Orlando Gibbons · J. H. Newman

Score

Read it and listen to it right here. It can't be downloaded — to sing it with your choir, use it in Cantico.

History

The Guardian Angel (SONG 67)

The melody SONG 67 is by Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625) and was published in 1623 in George Wither's “The Hymnes and Songs of the Church”. The text is by John Henry Newman (1801–1890), the English cardinal and poet, who wrote about the guardian angel.

About the piece

A hymn to the guardian angel on an English Renaissance melody. This edition carries the melody with its text, in just 9 measures.

How to prepare it

The melody spans exactly an octave, C4–C5 (an octave), and is very simple. The beauty of a Gibbons melody lies in its purity: sing it with a clear voice and without marked vibrato, with clean tuning of the leaps. It can be a good warm-up piece and a way to bring the voices together before rehearsing more complex music.

When to use it

A good option in Ordinary Time and especially for the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (October 2).