This is my favorite arrangement of John Newton’s “Amazing Grace.” The singer, of course, is Sissel. There are several videos of her doing this hymn on YouTube, but none of them have exactly this arrangement (Andrae Crouch wrote it, I believe), and not exactly in this quality.
Have a graceful weekend.
Tonight, like last night, I’m recycling old material. DON’T JUDGE ME! I’m coming down with a cold.
No, wait. Nowadays what we say is, “I’m coming down with a cold, I hope.”
Feels like a cold, anyway. First time I’ve gotten sick in quite a while. I think I got through the whole pandemic thing without a day in bed.
Anyway, I know I’ve posted this before – sometime. But this is Sissel Kyrkjebø just as she was becoming a celebrity in Norway. About the time she released her Christmas album, also called “Glade Jul,” (the Norwegian version of “Silent Night”). Pretty much everybody in the country bought a copy. Plus at least one lovestruck American guy living in Florida at the time.
This really is a gem of a performance.
Not having a book to review tonight, busy as I am with non-paying work, I post the video above. Sadly it’s not a live performance video (there doesn’t seem to be one), but I discovered it and thought it rather nice. This is a song I’ve posted before in its original Swedish version, but there seems to be this English version too. As an expert, I pronounce it a successful translation, since with songs, subjective impressions are more important than accuracy. I realize it’s the wrong time of year for a Christmas song, but who knows if I’ll need it at Christmas?
A day in the life of an obscure author:
In accordance with my recently adopted custom of getting up to write in the morning, instead of lying in bed trying to get back to sleep, I rose at 6:30 a.m. to work on The Baldur Game, my work in progress. What I’d done yesterday was to take a block of text I’d written, which I realized was out of historical sequence, and move it back into its proper year. So today I commenced a review of the whole text written thus far, to see if there were any anachronisms left that I need to fix. I think the work is good so far.
At lunch I went to The 50s Grill, one of my favorite local places, and tried something new — the grilled walleye. It was good, as expected, and I topped it off with a piece of their French Silk pie. They do pie extremely well.
This afternoon, I worked on my book narration. This is the cause of considerable fear and trembling for me right now. Friends have generously provided me equipment to begin doing narration on my own. My first project will be The Year of the Warrior. I am confident — nay, a little arrogant — about my ability to do narration with the best of ’em. But the technical aspects — the software and specifications, etc. — scare me to death. (Back in radio broadcast school, I was the best copy reader in my class and the worst engineer.) This delays my progress, but I press on heroically.
Tonight, after I post this, I propose to work on a PowerPoint presentation I’ll be doing later this month in Iowa for the Georg Sverdup Society. Not Vikings this time, but the background of the Lutheran Free Church movement in America.
These things matter in my world.
Oh yes. I’ve committed to attending the Midwest Viking Festival in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Oct. 6 and 7 (used to be in Moorhead, MN). An opportunity to sell books, and my experience is that venues where I have not yet flogged my wares are the most fruitful.
Ack. I’m only about 60% done with The Book That Never Ends (for review, not one I’m writing), and I’ve got lots of translating work to do, so what shall I post? Hm. It’s May now, which means that Syttende Mai (May 17), Norway’s Constitution Day, is coming up. Find some music about that. Anything from Sissel I haven’t seen?
Well, what do you know? Here’s Sissel singing Edvard Grieg’s “Våren,” (Last Spring). It seems to have been filmed 10 years ago for a Constitution Day celebration at Eidsvoll. That’s significant because Eidsvoll is a Norwegian national monument – the place where an assembly of delegates drafted and passed the country’s constitution in 1814. Which is what the holiday is all about.
Spring finally seems to have come to Minneapolis, and I’m enjoying it when I have time to pay attention. (I much prefer that to having no time because I’m out of work.) Spring’s been late in coming, but that makes it all the more enjoyable. I earned this spring, blast it!
Enjoy your weekend.
Shoveled snow today, because my neighbors who usually blow the stuff away are still on vacation. Nevertheless, I am unbowed. I’m reading Dean Koontz’ latest right now, so there’s no review. But it’s Friday, and that’s often a day for posting music.
Our beloved Sissel was just 15 when she sang this song on Norwegian TV. It’s a translation of a French number called ‘Hymne a l’amour,’ made popular by Edith Piaf. There is an English version, entitled, ‘If You Love Me,’ and it’s very good, but the video isn’t a live performance. So we’ll use this one. You can find the other on YouTube if you like.
A blessed Christmas to all you Brandywinians out there. My own plans are to celebrate Christmas in my usual madcap way — a traditional Scrooge Christmas with a lowered thermostat, dim lights, a cup of gruel by the fire, and a chair set out for any wandering ghosts who might appear to accuse me.
Above, a clip I’ve probably posted before — Sissel with the Pelagian Tabernacle Choir, doing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” my favorite Christmas hymn.
Another busy day. I have much translating to do. This situation would be more pleasant if it was all paying work, but I found out yesterday I’d fallen behind in my volunteer stuff. The volunteer stuff pays better, of course, but I’ll have to wait till I get to Heaven to collect.
Beautiful day today. Temperature in the 50s. It was a genuine pleasure to be outside, the short time I spent there. That hasn’t been true for some time.
I continue listening to Norwegian radio, both secular and sacred. Today one of the hymns I listened to was one that’s very popular among my tribe, though it comes originally from the hated Swedes. “Blott En Dag” means, essentially, “one day at a time.” Above, a young Sissel does it on Norwegian TV. The standard English translation is called “Day by Day” (not to be confused with the ditty from “Godspell”). Its first verse goes:
Day by day, and with each passing moment, Strength I find to meet my trials here. Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I’ve no cause for worry or for fear. He whose heart is kind beyond all measure Gives unto each day what He deems best. Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure, Mingling toil with peace and rest.
You can read the rest here, along with a short bio of the lyricist, Carolina Sandell, a really excellent Swedish hymn writer.
That mention can suffice to make this my obligatory Women’s History Month post, now I think of it. Don’t say I never threw a bone to the feminists.
Maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it…
The amazing number above was included on the album Sissel put out around the time of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway, where she sang the Olympic Hymn. This was a cassette album, and Molde Canticle was included as an “extra.” When I bought the album in CD form later on, it didn’t include this one. And I missed it a lot. But here it is. The composer is the Norwegian musician Jan Garbarek.
In some alternate universe, I would like to have The Year of the Warrior made into a major motion picture. And in the scene where Erling first meets King Olaf Trygvesson, in frost-covered ships on the sea, I’d like this to be the background music.
Another day in between reviews, and I’ve been at work translating. Also I didn’t leave the house today, except for my a.m. gym visit. So what shall I post?
I’ve had Norway on my mind lately (to the surprise of nobody, I know), so a hymn from Sissel is indicated (again to the surprise of… you know). I’m not sure if I’ve used this song here before. It’s an old hymn – Eg Veit i Himmerik ei Borg (I Know a Castle in Heaven). The text is German, from the 16th Century. But the music is traditional Norwegian – in fact it survived as a folk song rather than as a formal church hymn.
Translation, via Wikipedia:
I know of a heavenly stronghold
shining as bright as the sun;
there are neither sin nor sorrow
and never a tear is shed.I am a weary traveller;
may my path lead me
from here to the land of my father;
God, protect me on my way.We thank you for eternity
God the Father, one in three.
For you are gentle and mild to us
in Jesus Christ! Amen.
James Cameron heard a recording of Sissel doing this one, and decided to hire her for the backup vocals in Titanic.
It’s the most medieval-sounding Norwegian hymn I know, which makes me particularly fond of it. I may have news about myself and Norway coming up soon. I’ll keep you posted.
Another cold day, into which I did not venture out at all. This is one of the marks of prudence and maturity. (I’ve been prudent and mature on winter days since I was about nine years old). I had translation work to do, and that’s what I did. I’m not yet half-way through reading Nansen’s book (the thing is long, I tell you. Conveys the true polar night experience).
So what shall I post? I noodled around on YouTube and discovered the clip above. It’s Sissel, of course, with the Heretic Tabernacle Choir, doing the first verse of the original version of a hymn I expect you know – “How Great Thou Art.” It started out as “O Store Gud” (O Great God) in Swedish. The writer was Carl Boberg, a lay minister in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. He wrote it in 1885, after watching a storm and its aftermath. Later he sold the rights to his church body.
In 1930, Stuart K. Hine, a British Methodist missionary in the Ukraine, heard a Russian version (translated from a German version) of the hymn being sung. He started using it in his services, then began composing a free English paraphrase of this translation of a translation. He also began adding verses of his own, in response to needs he discerned among the people he worked with.
During the winter of 1932-33, the Hines were forced to leave Ukraine because of Stalin’s diabolical Holodomor forced famine (one hopes some of the millions of victims found comfort in his hymn as they died). In 1939, World War II forced the Hines to return to England, where they settled in Somerset and ministered to Polish refugees. It was at that stage that his final verse, “When Christ shall come….”, was added.
The song in his version (Swedish-Americans already had their own, less singable translation) was apparently first introduced to the United States at a conference in Stony Brook, New York, in 1951. But J. Edwin Orr of Fuller Seminary discovered it being sung by a choir in India. He introduced it at a conference in San Bernadino, California in 1953. Manna Music bought the rights, and George Beverly Shea started singing it at Billy Graham’s crusade in Harringay, England, in 1954. And the rest is hymnody.
What do I think of Hines’ translation? I’ve got to say, I do a fair amount of song translation in my script work. And I’ve learned to kiss literal sense goodbye. If you can transpose some of the original images and turns of phrase, you’re doing great. For the rest, always prefer rhyme, meter, and singability to literal faithfulness. What you need to try to do is convey the subjective experience. That’s the best you can do. More than that is madness.
I’ve sung more faithful translations of this hymn once or twice. I must confess, they did not move my heart.
Wikipedia has the whole story of “How Great Thou Art” here.